fascinating documentary...

[AL P]

could`nt sleep last night, so...
I started surfing the channels, and ran across "the making of simon and garfunkle bridge over troubled waters"..and I gotta tell ya.....WOW....

It talks ALOT about recording and the technics they used...

even if you don`t perticularly like simon and garfunkle, I think you`ll still be fascinated by this documentary..

I`m not going to try and type out all the fascinating stuff in the show, but generally, it includes everything from how the drummer would walk around various buildings/studio`s clapping his hands..then when he finally heard the exact echoe/sound he liked so to speak, that`s where he`d set up his drums..the bass player used an 8 (EIGHT) string bass on some songs..LOL..WTF..
and the list goes on and on and on..from "use of a room" (a chappel for parts of "the boxer"), to recording all the lyrics to "the only living boy in new york" in a dedicated/built "echoe chamber", etc..
the engineer would insist that both of them would first sing their harmony`s together into a single mic..then he`d have them each sing their parts seperatly, then mix all three together..

Now here`s a question for ya....check out this video, which was also in the documentary..note that both simon and garfunkle have a sort of X/Y mic setup on thier VOCALS, but the X/Y is two completly different mics????
what gives wth that do ya think?..if ya skip towards the end of the video, they show both of them using the same X/Y setup on thier vocals, and the same X/Y on paul simons guitar..
Simon & Garfunkel: Songs For America | TV Special ''Highlights'' (Part 1/4) - YouTube

theirs lots of talk by the engineer etc in the documentary..

it really is an absolutly fascinating documentary..so if ya ever see it on TV, I`d highley recomend checking it out...

 

[Lt. Bob]

I'm just marking this thread for later consumption.

Thanks for the cool link!

 

[AL P]

no problem..hope you like it...the link in my ost above is just a short clip from the documentary, but it does show the X/Y mic`ing technic they used...it`s not until the very end of the video that it shows paul simon also using what looks to be the exact same mics and technic on his guitar..

here`s one more video..this is`nt in the documentary that I remember?, (it was already about 15 minutes into it when I started watching) but anyway, it again shows the same mics and technic on vocals and paul simons guitar..I thought it was pretty interesting..
Simon & Garfunkel: For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her | Live 1969 - YouTube

 

[grimtraveller]

I saw it on telly here about 5 or 6 weeks ago, purely by chance. I'd just taped CSI Miami and was making sure the video had got it when I noticed three channels away was the documentary so I taped it. Here, it was under the banner of a series called "Imagine". There was a really good one a while back about Joan Baez which again I caught by chance after taping CSI Miami !!
When I eventually got around to watching it, I was pretty rivetted. One of the things that initially struck me as interesting was the warmth of both Paul and Artie's recollections, both towards each other and for the album and the making of it. It struck me because that's not how they were at the time ! The underlying tensions between them rose to the surface in this period and particularly during the making of the album and it was their last and they broke up soon after. The Beatles did a similar thing during their anthology, that revising history to make it all retrospectively sweet. In that regard, the Who were always so much more honest. No sweetening there !
But that aside, there were some brilliant moments in the documentary. I like S&G and the various musics of that period and I particularly like reading up or watching interviews about how the albums and singles were made. I find often that there was a seemingly scant disregard for the kind of search for near perfectionism that paralleled the technological breakthroughs of the 60s and early 70s and which are very much part of todays home recording scene. Even a relatively calm album like "Bridge" was steeped in experimentation. My eyes boinged when I saw Joe Osbourne and his 8 string bass !
Like a number of programmes of this ilk, I'd recommend it, even if one doesn't particularly like their music.