How to Emulate a 1950s Recording (A Tutorial)

[evilash1996]

Hello all,

I recently just uploaded a educational/how-to type of video on YouTube on how to make a recording on the Style of the 1950s. Lot of discussion and application with tape, tubes, splicing, approach and more. I hope some of you may find it interesting.

I would love to also start a discussion about some of things I didn't glance upon in the video, as I tried to condense the information as much as possible.

How do you guys emulate a certain time period? Do you try to alter the sound with plugins or do you take a similar approach to me in the video where you limit your tools available when recording and mixing?

Cheers,
Mario

 

[PorterhouseMusic]

I think it's an interesting subject - which I admittedly know nothing about.

Spectating.

 

[rob aylestone]

Hi - I just watched the video and to be very honest, I think you've completely missed the point in that recording. That is not a 50's recording - it hasn't been recorded like they did it in the 50's, and key features are that the actual style of music does not lend itself to the 50's technique at all. The thing you forgot to mention was that the absolutely vital thing was that in the room, it sounded balanced (not mixed, as you used the term) but all the components blended. Throughout the 50's and then the 60s, track counts were limited and overdubs not very common. The 60's rolled in the concept of overdubbing for popular music. So we're talking Beatles and Beach Boys really pushing the technology as it was developed, or in some cases, invented. In the 50's, your research is quite correct - the room balance just had to be captured, and as long as the room sounded good, then there was no massive need for lots of mics. Remember that ribbons of the STC/Coles/RCA's at that time were NOT lacking in extended HF, because the record players of the time, plus medium wave/long wave radio had very limited bandwidth - so there was no need to use the basic EQ of the time, based on quite simple R/C Baxendale circuits (at least here in the UK), to add anything. You didn't mention that they used the ribbons because you can have two working sides - so two people on each face is easy capture of 4 people, and a little but of people and mic movement sorts the balance. However - if you are making a video on how to recreate the 50's sound, you just cannot do this with only you as a sound source - you said in the video, you cannot play more than one thing at a time, so how can you recreate the sound - it had to be a multitrack, can it be anything else? You appear to have done some research, and drawn some conclusions that are a bit shaky. There are some buddy Holly recordings, from the original master and the audio quality is equal to anything we hear today. It was not a sound that dated it between 50 and 59 at all. It was well recorded and well balanced and all the hiss, distortion and added noise, we heard on the original records was NOT in the actual recording.

If you want to recreate the 50s sound, you need their technique, their method of working and a 50's sounding room. I don't really think your modern music you recorded sounded remotely like the 50's sound - in fact, probably the 70s is more similar to what I heard.

It's not bad - but some of those pictures were way out of period - the Jacksons, for example - that's not 50's.Keep in mind that multi-mic recording DID happen in the 50's - the live musicians and singers, direct to the mixer and recorded

 

[Cosmic]

It would have been more persuasive if the style of song actually was 'of' the 50s; instead it sounds vaguely like late 60s.
The point of so much 50s music was the 'group in a room' approach, and if you want to replicate that, you have to have...a group in a room to demonstrate it, for the acoustics, for the interaction. I was hoping this is what you were going to show at the end, the band in the room, proving some of the things you were talking about.

 

[Cosmic]

C.

 

[rob aylestone]

I hope we don't come over as critical, when the intention is to kind of, explain that the 50's recording techniques matched the genre of the music. Like in the early 70's when ordinary studios were recording 'stereo' and getting excited because they missed the point, and were recording two channels - a left one and a right one, and deciding which things were on the left, OR the right, and the few that would be on both. Anyone, me included, at that time assumed this was the correct thing, while the Germans and the BBC pushed hard for realism and that feeling of being there. Gradually the hard panning got done much better - but this 50s 'sound' or 'technique' was just the day to day recording technique for the singers and musicians. You've taken your understanding of modern recording and produce a sort of conclusion of the 50's version, but sort of missed the important bit. Everyone had bands/small ensembles - small ones to big ones, so if you had one recording track or 4 (wow) the object was to record what was going on and balance it for either transmission or recording in1 or 2 track format. The overdubbing, bouncing, even sound on sound were late 60's and early 70's techniques. In your video you mentioned Les Paul, who with Mary Ford DID start the multitrack and layering techniques in 1949! He was so ahead of the times really, and was attaching extra heads to the Apex machines he got hold of. everyone talks about 'How High the Moon' - recorded in 51, with a single ribbon mic for her voice, everything else DI'd, using modern terminology. So he had tracks recording, being delayed, added back in, voices doubled and repeated amazing stuff, but he was pioneer. I often wonder if Les Paul guitars would have looked like they do if he had not needed a big space for tape remotes!

The thing to remember though is that this kind of recording was NOT normal. We think of the 80s as the era of the synths and synth bands, but in 73 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road had a huge synth part starting an album - and without multi-track it couldn't have happened, but synths were available before that time - they existed in the late 60's - as in Wendy Carlos's Switched on Bach. I never touched a synth until 1976 - none in the music shop and no friends had one. By 1979, I'd got my own.

If you listen to popular music from each decade, there is a sound. 40's did sound kind of war time somehow, 50s would be mum and dad easy listening music with a few RnR starting to creep in, then the 60s with the beat bands, then modern pop in the 70s - the sound created by the music. I've been listening to some music from the 30s, and it sounded really clean and clear and then I discovered it was recorded recently, by a small dance orchestra playing with a singer in a ballroom. It sounded authentic period, it wasn't at all, it just captured the band playing the right music in the right style.

God - this turned into a history lesson - sorry about that - but I think it really is important. Lots of folk buy a Shure 55 mic and assume they will sound like the 50s, because of the mic - they don't!

 

[grimtraveller]

Perhaps the most significant thing about the way records were made in the 50s is that by the end of the 60s, most records weren't made that way !
Separation, experimentation, increased track counts, overdubbing, recordings on a tape made in different studios and in some cases, different parts of the country and in other cases, other parts of the world, etc.
Recording has been a progressive thing and the good thing is that one is free to apply any of the methods that have been utilized, along the way.
For some of us that record at home in small rooms, doing things the 50s way is something we read about, watch videos about and enjoy them, not something that can feasibly be done.
That said, mentally, I carry pretty much every technique from every period of the recording era around in my head. Where it can practically apply, it practically applies, if that's what I choose for that moment.

 

[evilash1996]

Hi - I just watched the video and to be very honest, I think you've completely missed the point in that recording. That is not a 50's recording - it hasn't been recorded like they did it in the 50's, and key features are that the actual style of music does not lend itself to the 50's technique at all. The thing you forgot to mention was that the absolutely vital thing was that in the room, it sounded balanced (not mixed, as you used the term) but all the components blended. Throughout the 50's and then the 60s, track counts were limited and overdubs not very common. The 60's rolled in the concept of overdubbing for popular music. So we're talking Beatles and Beach Boys really pushing the technology as it was developed, or in some cases, invented. In the 50's, your research is quite correct - the room balance just had to be captured, and as long as the room sounded good, then there was no massive need for lots of mics. Remember that ribbons of the STC/Coles/RCA's at that time were NOT lacking in extended HF, because the record players of the time, plus medium wave/long wave radio had very limited bandwidth - so there was no need to use the basic EQ of the time, based on quite simple R/C Baxendale circuits (at least here in the UK), to add anything. You didn't mention that they used the ribbons because you can have two working sides - so two people on each face is easy capture of 4 people, and a little but of people and mic movement sorts the balance. However - if you are making a video on how to recreate the 50's sound, you just cannot do this with only you as a sound source - you said in the video, you cannot play more than one thing at a time, so how can you recreate the sound - it had to be a multitrack, can it be anything else? You appear to have done some research, and drawn some conclusions that are a bit shaky. There are some buddy Holly recordings, from the original master and the audio quality is equal to anything we hear today. It was not a sound that dated it between 50 and 59 at all. It was well recorded and well balanced and all the hiss, distortion and added noise, we heard on the original records was NOT in the actual recording.

If you want to recreate the 50s sound, you need their technique, their method of working and a 50's sounding room. I don't really think your modern music you recorded sounded remotely like the 50's sound - in fact, probably the 70s is more similar to what I heard.

It's not bad - but some of those pictures were way out of period - the Jacksons, for example - that's not 50's.Keep in mind that multi-mic recording DID happen in the 50's - the live musicians and singers, direct to the mixer and recorded

It would have been more persuasive if the style of song actually was 'of' the 50s; instead it sounds vaguely like late 60s.
The point of so much 50s music was the 'group in a room' approach, and if you want to replicate that, you have to have...a group in a room to demonstrate it, for the acoustics, for the interaction. I was hoping this is what you were going to show at the end, the band in the room, proving some of the things you were talking about.

Perhaps the most significant thing about the way records were made in the 50s is that by the end of the 60s, most records weren't made that way !
Separation, experimentation, increased track counts, overdubbing, recordings on a tape made in different studios and in some cases, different parts of the country and in other cases, other parts of the world, etc.
Recording has been a progressive thing and the good thing is that one is free to apply any of the methods that have been utilized, along the way.
For some of us that record at home in small rooms, doing things the 50s way is something we read about, watch videos about and enjoy them, not something that can feasibly be done.
That said, mentally, I carry pretty much every technique from every period of the recording era around in my head. Where it can practically apply, it practically applies, if that's what I choose for that moment.

Well to be honest I am a sad at the reception of the video; I was expecting a little more warmth but I understand where the criticism is coming from. I think a lot of the criticism could have been avoided if I had a more accurate title of what I was trying to go for. If character length for the title wasn't a consideration I would have titled the video something like "A Sonic Experiment to See If I can Replicate the Live Room Sound Setup Popularized in the 1950s with One Musician Playing Instead of a Full Ensemble". For obvious reasons I had to condense the title and I think because of that most of you missed the point of what I was trying to do. Which isn't a jab at you guys, it's more of a self reflection of my ability to present my topics clearly. I completely understand why you guys would look at my video and see me doing multiple overdubs instead of getting other musicians and think I "missed the point of the 50s". I didn't miss the point, just didn't relay my intentions as well as I should have.

The demographic of people I was imagining when putting this video together would have been someone my age, only has recorded digitally, makes amble use plugins, amble use of copy and pasting, someone who is a slave to all the modern tools of a computer when making music. To someone like that I would have this video would give them some ideas that were new to them. Hopefully would force them to limit themselves and push themselves as performers and engineers. Judging by the replies I am going to assume most of the users on this thread are of ages of 50 or older. Which if that's the case, most of the information I presented is elementary to you experienced folk who grew up with tape. But for a moment try to imagine someone in their early 20s who is green in the recording world, someone who has only ever known unlimited track quantity or overdubbing. The idea of only having 2 or 4 tracks is a novelty to them. So that's kind of what I was going for. In the future if I try to make this type of video again I am going to have to consider their being to types of audiences I suppose.

I also had to do considerable cutting down of the information I was presenting in the video. If I would have included all of the information about the 1950s I was originally intending, the video length would have been somewhere around two hours long. So with that in consideration I had to dumb down a lot of the information. I mentioned in the video that I was generalizing drastically. To say there was one way to record a song in the 50s is obviously impossible, this was the very early days of multitrack recording so of course there was experimentation happening all over. There were a couple inconsistencies in the video as mentioned (most glaringly the Jackson Five...definitely not the 50s.), next time I would do a better job of finalizing the video (I shot the entirety of the video and editing everything within the span of a few hours so give me a little bf a break).

Anyway, I hope someone out there can benefit somehow or at least learn one thing from that video, now it feels slightly like an embarrassment to having posting it.

Cheers,
Mario

 

[rob aylestone]

Forgive me, but I think the presentation of the video is totally fine in terms of style, but we were expecting (not just from the title) an emulation of a 50's recording and we got a modern sound, recorded in a typical modern circumstance with modern music - so we were left thinking what component of the 50s was meant to be there? You showed lots of older pictures, some old mics and mentioned some 50's artists - but where was the emulation. We're not all old here, we have plenty of younger people, but consider if people you get than you took the video at face value? Would they believe they had authentic 50s sound if they followed the video? Many perhaps would - people take YouTube instructional videos as 100% fact.

We meant no harm, but I'm not sure what you expected people to actually comment on. To those who were not about in the 50s (I was born in 58, so my music started perhaps in 69 or so?) it's a history topic, but as it's well presented in an authoritative way, people will believe it's about the 50s - but it's more modern than that in almost every way? A video on recording a drum kit with one overhead mic would be very 50s - but once you start to play music that needs a kick drum mic, you're into the next decade? There's no embarrassment in the video, apart from us older folk scratching our heads and thinking 'eh? that's no 50s?'

Oh - and you didn't;t dumb down the info - you included some perfectly valid info out of the beginner category, but you got a bit carried away with the timeline. The idea of direct to stereo recording is a really good one to explore - but you couldn't do it yourself because you were a solo recordist. You could have done a Les Paul and emulated a recording where you record a track, then play to it and record them both, then add to that, and so on - that would have been valid for experimental stuff from the 40's and 50s for those lucky enough to have multitrack, as in 2 or more. Indeed, I was doing that in the 70s, as my first reel to reel didn't arrive till 79 I think.

As for missing the point? Was the entire point not recording with lots of tracks, because they were not generally available in the 50s - then you did? Up to the point when the video stopped, and we got the caption and the sound in the background, it was going well - we just assumed we'd be hearing the "A Sonic Experiment to See If I can Replicate the Live Room Sound Setup Popularized in the 1950s" - without the cheating with multitrack which sort of shot it all in the foot.

I'd really love to hear a simple direct to stereo recording using a single mic in the right place, like you talked about.

 

[TalismanRich]

Mario,

It might have been better to limit the scope of your analysis. There was a bit difference between recording Frank Sinatra, Perry Como or Brenda Lee compared to the recordings of Roy Orbison, Elvis, Howling Wolf or Carl Perkins done at places like Sun Studios. Companies like Decca, RCA and Columbia had state of the art studios in the US. Places like Sun Studios and later Motown, were basically storefronts or houses that were converted to include rooms to record. The sound you got from a major studio wouldn't be the same thing you got from a small studio that might have the ability to do sound on sound, or bouncing from one machine to another, or even (gasp) multitracking.

For those of us who have lived through the changes and watched the progress in recording technology over the past 60-70 years, it can be somewhat amusing to see the impressions of many of the younger generation, a lot of whom have never touched a reel of tape or a cassette. It's understandable, of course. It would be akin to doing a video series using black and white with NTSC 480 line resolution and watching on a 12" black and white TV as would be seen in the mid 50s.

 

[rob aylestone]

Actually, this happens very often when one group of people did things for one reason but history remembers it differently and I remember one with immense amusement. When PA systems were evolving in the 70s, moving away from line arrays of 3” speakers fitted in all kinds of venues, when PA was public address rather than performer assistance, My school bought a WEM PA. The choice was 10” or 12” drivers, 4 in a vertical cab. Choice was 100 or 40 Watts, this one was the 40W version. I lost the mains cable for ours and bodged it with the wire coming out of the unused line jack. 40 years later it appears on ebay with the two 4X 10” cabs as four 2X10”. The blurb explained they had been told that it was common at that time in history to modify the cabinets to shorten them so that they could cover wider areas, and have a tighter and more controlled frequency response. The truth was the music teacher cut them in half in the woodwork workshop so they fitted in his car! Nobody thought about sound, just a very long shape that was awkward. A real bodge, but positives invented every time it was sold!

 

[evilash1996]

Yes, I completely understand the head scratching. Perhaps if I gave a little bit of background to the video it would help explain why I recorded the song the way I did.

So I had actually recorded the "Pretty Girl" demo months ago. I was never intending it to be recorded for a video/lesson. I had wanted to expirment purely for my own sake whether or not I could replicate a 50s live room sound by doing a mock setup. I wasn't trying to write a "50s era song", or mimic any musical style popular at the time (I guess I'd call my musical style somewhat 60s...but more on that later). It was strictly an exercize to see what type of sound I could get with a very limited mic setup reminiscent of a 1950s setup. Of course as I mentioned a bunch of times it's just me in my little studio so the idea of doing an actual live room recording was not possible. Hence my overdubbing to compensate for this limitation (which seems to be the major reason for the head scratching). Fast forward to about a week ago I'd figured I'd make a video out of the experiment as I have been recently wanting to get myself into making educational/tutorial type of musical videos. In my head when filming the video I had a target demographic of someone with the same limitations as me who wanted to try something similar. I know I am rehashing my first response comment, but the feedback I am getting from this forum is valid and a direct result of my inability to portray my goal of the video.

Anyway...this whole conversation brings up an interesting topic. Is replication/emulation ever possible? To my ears whenever an artist has a particular "era sound" I can never hear it. Piggy-backing on what Rob Aylestone talked about, the sound of an era is a lot more than just the result of the equipment used. You can find countless examples on these forums about people asking what pre-amp to use to sound like the Beatles, what microphone to use to sound like the Stones, how to compress your drums to sound like Keith Moon, etc etc. In my opinion it's never possible. You can't replicate the sound of someone else. Hell, I can't even replicate my own self when I am trying to record a song I made a demo for, and I write down how I record every track (mic used, compression used, placement, etc). There's a lot more going on than initially meets the eye. I would argue the room has the biggest influence on sound (only behind the musicians role of course). With all that in consideration, I don't think I can replicate a 1950s sound. Even if I was doing a 1:1 replica of how a recording engineer would have done it in the 50s with all the right equipment, it would never sound period correct to my ears. People tell me all the time that my music sounds like the 60s or 70s and I guess technically I use all equipment from around that era (kinda stretching the timeline from 50s-90s). In the end though I just don't hear it. Sounds exactly like a recording made in the 21st century to me.

Cheers,
Mario

 

[TalismanRich]

This question was posed by the folks at Reverb.com a while back. In this case, they wanted to try to recreate the sound of a Motown recording. It was documented here:

 

[evilash1996]

I think for my next video we need to crowdfund some money for a better budget so I can compete with Reverb's production value haha! Reverb always puts out top notch stuff.

Cheers,
Mario

 

[evilash1996]

Alright Folks. I revisited the topic and made a second part to the video. This time showing true "SOUND-ON-SOUND" technique! Hope this remedies the mistakes I made with the first attempt.

Regards,
Mario

 

[rob aylestone]

Watched the new video - you missed the rise and eventual fall of the 'Radiogram' - a piece of home furniture that had radio and record capability. Some of these were really big, and often had quite large, elliptical speakers - as in they had one speaker (for mono) but then some started to have ..... tweeters - and one single capacitor to block the LF. These were actually quite bassy, AND had decent treble. Pickups were still ceramic so not the most smooth - crystal was the common term, but tracking weight was very heavy - typically heavy enough to allow people to dance on the floor and not have the stylus pop out of the groove!

If you'd not mentioned the era, I'd have gone for 1962-65. The second track was typical of the beat boom era - electric guitars, thrashier Ringo style drumming. The first one had electric instruments very much obvious like the arpeggiated piano?

I found this clip - which is a modern version of Buddy Holly - from a movie and this, to me sounds like rock and roll from the 50s. I think you've got a bit older in the production but the EQ, compression, processing etc is still very modern. Keep going - an interesting video. Just a bit of more real, less processed.

 

[stingspunk]

Hello all,

I recently just uploaded a educational/how-to type of video on YouTube on how to make a recording on the Style of the 1950s. Lot of discussion and application with tape, tubes, splicing, approach and more. I hope some of you may find it interesting.

I would love to also start a discussion about some of things I didn't glance upon in the video, as I tried to condense the information as much as possible.

How do you guys emulate a certain time period? Do you try to alter the sound with plugins or do you take a similar approach to me in the video where you limit your tools available when recording and mixing?

Cheers,
Mario

I liked the video.

Because others reacted with history lessons, I think the title should have been more descriptive, such as "Creating a Certain 1950s Sound." I thought it succeeded at that nicely. I knew what you meant by "50's." I knew you didn't mean Peggy Lee or Frank Sinatra. I got it. At the same time, history buffs will come forward and clarify what 1950s at a point in time was like.

 

[rob aylestone]

The idea behind the video was fine, but 60-70 year old music is now so old that it’s really easy to get it a bit wrong when describing the ‘sound’ of the era. In the UK we had long running radio station programmes called “sounds of the sixties” so 1960 through to 1969, and my opinion is that the video it’s that decade more than the 50s. I suspect all it is, is a ‘sound’ of a new, but early sixties recording being considered a late 50’s one. I was born in 58, so the period is quite familiar and the fifties sound, was old to me growing up in the 60s and 70s, something mum and dad liked. The fifties IS a history lesson. The music in the video is clearly, at least to me, not an emulation of the fifties, but the sixties. If people watch the video and think that is what the fifties sounded like, where would buddy holly, Peggy lee and Sinatra fit in. The beat boom started in the sixties. dont rewrite history, like the woke people are starting to do. UK football grounds in wales have been banned from singing tom jones songs now here because after 60 years the lyrics are unacceptable, yet rap lyrics are ok - as long as you don’t reprint the lyrics on social media. History is history, let’s get it right?

 

[Papanate]

How do you guys emulate a certain time period? Do you try to alter the sound with plugins or do you take a similar approach to me in the video where you limit your tools available when recording and mixing?

Emulate a 50s recording? No close Microphones and certainly not multiple mics on each instrument - Run the Tracks as a band while adding the vocals on top - Limit yourself to r 3 Tracks and Mono everything - no mastering to speak of (although English recordings were Mastered) - and pretty much a mix is the mix you get when recording. There were many styles of rooms - but keep in mind that many of the 'Studios'of time were very primitive - Motown had dirt floors for example - and while the acoustics were okay - they weren't great - the rooms had a sound - it was what it was.

Also you have to get Great Writers and Arrangers - to achieve the 50s sound - most of the 'Production' was done before someone stepped into the studio - The Recording People just recorded what was there instead of creating a recording.

Lastly you have the 50s mindset - from what you are going to playback the material on - AM Car Radios - Mono Record Players etc... - simpler life and so forth.

 

[TalismanRich]

One thing about the 50s is that the decade actually could be split into two parts. Early 50s was still the era of big bands, crooners, orchestras and jazz. Smaller studios would probably be doing stuff like the country bands and R&B . Clearly he's going for the second half of the decade.

Starting around the mid 50, you have the rise of rock and roll and doo-wop, and rhythm & blues became more mainstream. We're talking low budget studios, with basic equipment. Put a bunch of players in a room, set up a few microphones and capture the song in one take. That's going to be hard for a single person to do. In the wrap up, he talks about having to boost the high end because of the loss on successive generations. That probably wasn't going to happen in '55. You lived with the loss, it was part of the sound. It wasn't a big deal since most radios and record players had a limited range.

For a 50s rock & roll or R&B record, Papanate is right about recording stuff in mono. The big studios had stereo with big rooms for the various musicians. Sun, Chess, Flip and VeeJay were relatively small labels compared to RCA, Columbia and Decca. As they made more money, they either were bought by a larger label, or grew and built up their recording chain.

As he said at the end, it's been a learning process. All 50s recordings sound different. I'm sure if you listened to all the records made in the 50s you would find something close to what he's putting together.