Getting *that* sound?

P

PrettyMonster

New member
Ok, here's my deal...

I'm getting ready to record my band. Our style is dirty rocknroll influenced mainly by bands from the late 60s to mid 70s. I've recorded some demos for the band in the past in my small basement "studio". The recordings have come out passable for demos but wont nearly be good enough for a finished record. I guess I could describe them as sterile, thin, flat, lifeless, etc.

We recently recorded a couple songs in a local basement studio and the tones on the recordings came out sounding much better (for our style of music) than any results I had previously achieved. The room setup was similar, the mics were similar (with the exception of a nicer sounding mic used on the vocals) and the gear setup/mic'ing techniques similar to what I had done previously.

The difference being that he had an old Teac or Tascam mixer - not sure of the exact model - and a couple of nice(r) preamps and compressors - UA comes to mind. The sound beat the crap out of that generic mackie/presonus sound I was getting.

So I'd like some advice on some reasonably priced mixers, preamps and mics that will help me get that sound I'm looking for. I'm selling off some gear plus I'm expecting a bonus at the end of the month so I'll probably have about $1500 to $2000 to play with.

Thanks!
 
the real question is was it the gear or was it the other engineers experience in audio engineering that made the diffrence?

the next question was his room treated and is your room treated? How the room sounds makes a huge diffrence in the quality of your recordings
 
gear vs engineer

After watching him work I'm pretty sure it was the gear that made the biggest difference. He wasn't really doing anything different than what I would have done.

The room was not treated. It was basically just a semi finished basement - all the concrete was covered with carpet or foam.

It was a very simple setup.
 
PrettyMonster said:
After watching him work I'm pretty sure it was the gear that made the biggest difference. He wasn't really doing anything different than what I would have done.

The room was not treated. It was basically just a semi finished basement - all the concrete was covered with carpet or foam.

It was a very simple setup.
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Who was actually doing the work of guitar amp settings, Mic placement, Mic selection, eq, effects and mix decisions, you or him?

Cheers! :)
 
One thing I want to add is that it's possible that some gear might overdrive/distort differently than others. My guess is that "prosumer" gear like 1980s Tascam mixers might have a dirtier sound when pushed into the red, compared to contemporary, high-end equipment.

This is all speculation, but I'm posting this because you mentioned that your band is a dirty rocknroll band... friends of mine in similar bands intentionally and carefully recorded drums and guitar in the red. Did you see the levels when you were recording?
 
Aargh! I just typed out a big 'ol response and then lost it.

Here are the key points:

Ghost- we did amp settings and the engineer did everything else which I observed closely.

Lo.fi- seems like me and your friends think alike. We asked for the recordings to be pushed pretty hard. Not super distorted but definitely on the edge.
 
PrettyMonster said:
I guess you could say that. The modern sounds coming out of my modern equipment just don't seem to suit the band.
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I would suggest something like a 1980s Teac or Tascam mixer, and ride the gain pretty high on the preamps to get the full color out of them with some added distortion. Tube pres for the mics - especiall the vocals - dynamic mics like Shure SM-57s for instruments (guitar cabs, snare and hihat). You could also try one overhead mic for the drums for that true 1960s garage sound.

I'm thinking of 1960s recordings of bands like the Sonics, the Stooges, MC-5. I think the idea is to affect as much tube compression as possible and to misuse the solid state pres on the mixer to kind of top it all off.

I mean, by conventional, contemporary standards, you're going to get a really, REALLY distorted and dirty sound out of it, but if that's what you're going for, then more power to you.

Specifically, I have these recordings in mind:
Sonics cover of "Have Love Will Travel"
Wailers (Washington state, 1960s) "Out of Our Tree"
Stooges - Shake Appeal

If you really want to know more, I can email a friend of mine who played guitar in the Real Pills in Portland, Ore. in the 1990s-2000s.

Good luck!
 
I believe your biggest problem is the presonas/mackie mixer-preamps your running through.

I use a sebatron VMP-2000 mic pre

http://www.soundpure.com/showProduct.do?id=670

and an UA LA-610 mic pre/compressor

I also use a few RNC compressors. great bang for the buck.

I picked up my mint TASCAM m-30 mixer locally for $100 off of craigslist and its a million times warmer than the mackie 1402-VLZ3 i originally tried.

i dont like using any digital reverbs as well.
 
I thought about this a bit more after I posted my last comment. Why don't you just come to Oakland and I'll record you for the cost of tape? ;)

I'm kidding, but I really want to do a record like this. Someday.
 
Lo.fi - I live in portland. Who's your friend? The band is going to coming through the bay area in late June but won't have time to do any recording. :(

I've been trying to find a tascam m-30. I was outbid on one on ebay just a couple weeks ago. I've also heard good things about soundcraft 200 series mixers.

I'm also thinking about picking up an RNP & RNC.

any suggestions for vocal mic's?

Thanks for the suggestions!
 
Hi,

I'm behind that sound as well (50s raw r&r, 60s garage bands...).
I was really disappointed with the sound I got with my modern/digital DAW.
It didn't suit my garagey stuff http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=75652301
so I got a tape recorder and an analog console and that was the sound I was after! TApe compression+ hot analog pres.

But you can achieve it just with an analog mixer.
I recently recorded a rehearsal in digital using the analog console pres to my DAW and it didn't sound sterile at all!

I've a got SuPRE tube pre which is cool but honestly, instead of getting a mixer and a bunch of pres, I'd get a good mixer.
I'm using now an old Studer 169. Ok, they are not cheap but for the price of two expensive pres you get 12 GREAT studer pres (they sound brilliant clean and they a lot of gain if you need it).
RNC is cool as well.
I Think Sm-57 are just great for raw vocals.
Good Luck.
 
got a mixer

So I picked up a Tascam M312b and after playing around with it for a bit I'm now reconsidering a preamp purchase since the preamps in the Tascam sound better than I expected and I doubt that with my budget I'd be able to get a significantly better sounding preamp.

So I'm looking at mics instead. I need a quality vocal mic that will sound good with the style. My friend said he'll let me borrow his beyerdynamic m500 ribbon mic. Any opinions on using this as a vocal mic for dirty r'n'r?

For guitars I'm probably just going to go with 57s. For drums I've got two MXL 604s for overheads, a Shure Beta 52 for kick and 57s on the snare (top and bottom). Any suggestions for mics that could get me significantly closer to the dirty r'n'r sound for guitars or drums?

Also, my plan for recording is to go through the Tascam into an Emu-1820 to Cubase where I'll do the mixing. Then once the mixing is done bounce it out to a 2 track reel to reel. Any suggestions for a good r2r for this?
 
Try the ribbon, why not. Beyer make great mikes and we've got a couple. No ribbons but (yet). Nothing wrong with an SM58 for raw rock vocals though, or you can go with the expert pick dynamic - a Shure SM7. We've used 58's on vocals a lot and they do just fine and we've had great results from SM7's. Even a 57 can cut it too. Usually the Neuman U87 and AKG C414 don't get a run on rock vocals when were tracking the whole band at once.

We have a Revox PR99 two track and an Otari 5050 two track. We like the Revox better for recording. The Otari is now just used for mastering playback. Otari's are a lot more common than Revox's. And there's a lot of good Tascam's out there too.

My advice would be that if you're going to master to tape then keep the tracking sample rates high, 24 bit 48khz min, or 96kHz if you can. I don't think there's any benefit in mastering a 16 bit 44.1kHz source to tape but others may have a different opinion.

Stick to 15ips tape speed for mastering.

Try slamming the mastering tape into the red and see what it sounds like but we usually master to 0db max. Because we track to tape, we hit it hard at tracking time so there's no need to do it again at mastering time. RMGI SM911 distorts 1% at +9db at 1kHz, 3% at +12.5db / 1khz and saturates at +7.5db to +10db depending on what frequency you measure it at. That saturation and distortion may be what you're looking for. Then again, it might not. For us it's important - it's 'the tape thing'...

Try it and see I guess. If you're going to master to tape, I wouldn't bother with a machine that can only go 7 1/2ips but again, others may disagree.

Jed
 
Not all analog tape distortion sounds good. It's not too hard to get a downright awful sound out of tape that is hit too hard, even just a little bit in the red.

The nature of analog tape is the non-linear input-to-tape-level curve. Imagine a graph that seems to go up, and to the right in a straight line, but then tapers off near the top, and gets less and less steep, until it flattens out. (kinda like a bell curve chopped in half.) That's a graphical way of comparing input signal level, to tape fluxitivity level when you record analog. As the tape level approaches maximum, the level of that sound incident gets a bit squished, and may not actually peak, like happens on digital gear. But if it's pushed too hard, it can still peak, and clip the sound making it sound just like digital clipping.

Finding that sweet spot is key, somewhere in between sterile quiet even levels, and crazy awful clipping. I'll quit ranting. I hope I made sense. My brain's all a swash today.
 
PrettyMonster said:
Lo.fi - I live in portland. Who's your friend? The band is going to coming through the bay area in late June but won't have time to do any recording. :(

I've been trying to find a tascam m-30. I was outbid on one on ebay just a couple weeks ago. I've also heard good things about soundcraft 200 series mixers.

I'm also thinking about picking up an RNP & RNC.

any suggestions for vocal mic's?

Thanks for the suggestions!
Click to expand...


You want a m312B? I have one in Vancouver - work in Beaverton. Local is better.

Regards, Ethan

Oops late as usual....
 
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