Old School recordings

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dumby
  • Start date Start date
TragikRemix said:
yes thats what i meant. i think maybe its because my ears are biased one way and yours are another way... i dont know... i better stop posting about this topic before i anger people.
Click to expand...

No, please don't stop posting and let me apologize for responding rather harshly to you.
 
dont worry its ok, your just an analog guy at heart... :)

i agree with not touching a tape recorder with a 10ft pole... theres actually skill involved with that to make anything sound good.

i wonder whats beyond digital recording... maybe a frequency sucking vacuum that makes your room sound perfectly flat, like somebody suggested regarded bass traps. recording onto tiny credit card size gas chambers or something...

and i definitly agree with the beatles's producers having extreme skill. i cant make anything sound good with a computer and plugins, never mind tape and a razor blade...
 
j-boy said:
Are we talking about "Please Please Me" or "Abbey Road"?
Click to expand...
Excellent point. If one ignores the names on the sleeves, takes off the rose-colored glasses of nostalga, and just listens to the productions objectively, most of the early Beatles stuff really does not sound very good, even if one compesates for the type of technology they had to deal with back then.

There are a ton of recordings from the early 60s and even the 50s that can show just how good recording technology and production could actually sound back then, and you compare those to the hack "make it sound good on AM rado" jobs they did on the Beatles records, the Beatles stuff just sounds horrible.

G.
 
SouthsideGlen- are you the same SouthSide studio thats on Digidesign's ICON page??
 
TragikRemix said:
SouthsideGlen- are you the same SouthSide studio thats on Digidesign's ICON page??
Click to expand...
Not that I know of :eek: :rolleyes: .

Look at my signature line for the full name of my studio. If those bozos at Digi are using my name, tell them they owe me a Tascam DM3200 w/meter bridge instead of that ugly-ass ICON, as I am not only a non-Digi shop, but I used to work for one of their competitors (well, Avid's competitor, anyway.)

:)

G.
 
Ah ha.. its not Digi, its just a studio that uses the ICON called SouthSide Studios.

i see you're SouthSIDE multimedia... gotcha.
 
TragikRemix said:
Ah ha.. its not Digi, its just a studio that uses the ICON called SouthSide Studios.

i see you're SouthSIDE multimedia... gotcha.
Click to expand...
I just checked that page out. While I respect Jermaine Dupri's work, and he's put some good product out of that rig that's much larger than anything I can afford at this time, one look at an ICON console with NS10s sitting on top of it just sends shudders down my spine ;).

Just personal preferences is all. No need for Digi or Yammie lovers to flame me. Just not my cup of tea. :)

G.
 
i have the ns10's, that was nothing, but i tried to get a quote for an ICON and apparently my dads credit wasnt good enough to even get a quote from a dealer...

mind you im 16, using my dads credit...
 
TragikRemix said:
i have the ns10's, that was nothing, but i tried to get a quote for an ICON and apparently my dads credit wasnt good enough to even get a quote from a dealer...
Click to expand...
Oh son, you'd better get yourself a few more fathers if you want one of those...

A standard config 16 channel ICON/D-Control with master and monitor sections has a list price of $59,995. There is no "street price" per se, it all depends on how good you can bargain and how serious the sales rep really believes you are (i.e. how much cash or credit you can wave under his nose.) You might be able to get one for the price of two Ford Mustang GTs if you're lucky :rolleyes: .

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
If one ignores the names on the sleeves, takes off the rose-colored glasses of nostalga, and just listens to the productions objectively, most of the early Beatles stuff really does not sound very good,
Click to expand...

Agreed. I was talkin' more their later stuff like "Abbey Road".
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Oh son, you'd better get yourself a few more fathers if you want one of those...

A standard config 16 channel ICON/D-Control with master and monitor sections has a list price of $59,995. There is no "street price" per se, it all depends on how good you can bargain and how serious the sales rep really believes you are (i.e. how much cash or credit you can wave under his nose.) You might be able to get one for the price of two Ford Mustang GTs if you're lucky :rolleyes: .

G.
Click to expand...
holy crap..

and the d control is the "cheesy" one too right??

holy crap again.
i paid $160 for my behringer BCF2000 and that does the same frickin thing...

thanks, i just wanted to have an idea what the base prices were, i would have settled for a list price.

my dad has great credit but i guess just not good enough... hey musiciansfriend likes me... he gave me his card and they raise my limit every few months, i think because i send a check the day after i get the bill for the month...

my grandpappy says thats what makes men and women different, men pay there bills and get it over with, and women play with money and wait until the last minute ;)
 
I find it strange that we aften stop at the 60's...or maybe the 50's (but rarely) when talking about "old recordings"...What about stuff from the 40's or 30's??? I listen to some Tony Bennett or Sinatra, with a 3 million piece orchestra and 57,000 back up singers and am amazed at the sound quality of those recordings too. Don't get me wrong, it's not my type of music. But what exactly were they working with back then?

EDIT: I may be getting my eras mixed up. I don't think Tony Bennett was around in the 30's and 40's...but you get my drift, I hope.
 
RAMI said:
I find it strange that we aften stop at the 60's...or maybe the 50's (but rarely) when talking about "old recordings"...What about stuff from the 40's or 30's??? I listen to some Tony Bennett or Sinatra, with a 3 million piece orchestra and 57,000 back up singers and am amazed at the sound quality of those recordings too. Don't get me wrong, it's not my type of music. But what exactly were they working with back then?

EDIT: I may be getting my eras mixed up. I don't think Tony Bennett was around in the 30's and 40's...but you get my drift, I hope.
Click to expand...

i love sinatra, totally tolerable compared to the beatles... hes older and i find his recordings to be a better quality...

but my ears are biased!!!!!

and i come from an old italian family (me being the rebel :p ) and i have listened to vinyls cut in the 30's of italian opera singers and that music is ART and beauty... my italian is weak, and i often translate them incorrectly because i think they are saying that my mother makes a shitty meat sauce but whatever, its still beautiful music. and those recordings are A+!!!

like i said, biased ears...
 
RAMI said:
I find it strange that we aften stop at the 60's...or maybe the 50's (but rarely) when talking about "old recordings"...What about stuff from the 40's or 30's??? I listen to some Tony Bennett or Sinatra, with a 3 million piece orchestra and 57,000 back up singers and am amazed at the sound quality of those recordings too. Don't get me wrong, it's not my type of music. But what exactly were they working with back then?
Click to expand...
It gets hard to go earlier than the post-WWII fto find a whole bunch so recordings that even the most generous ear would say "sound good" (though there are some.) But after WWII calmed down and especially from the early '50s on, there are a lot of great-sounding pop recordings, many of which sound a lot better than much of the pop stuff put out in the 60s and 70s.

I know I sound like there's a huge skip in my own mental vinyl because I have given this example a few times before, but not quite in this context. I have on a few occasions mentioned one of my favorite albums both in sonic character and in musical content is one called "Back To Back" with Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges. This album was released in 1962, with the recording sessions dating to 1961. Except for a little tape hiss (not much), the recording really sounds wonderful on all points. The upright bass is rich and smooth, the brass sounds great, and the piano is clean and clear. It really makes most of the stuff that came out in the following decade sound downright prehistoric.

There are a few reasons for this, I think, but mush of it boils down to a difference in genre and a difference in purpose behind the production, both of which are really tied together.

First, those musicians playing for Ellington and Basie and Armstrong and playing behind Sinatra and Bennett were almost without exception A-list jazz musicians with decades of experience (since the 20s or 30s) playing some of the most sophisticated lines written in Western music in arrangements where passing showcase solos from instrument to instrument was commonplace. These were't just a bunch of punk teenagers with a few years of experience playing rhythm guitars and a few simple blues riffs in small clubs, they were seasoned pros with plenty of experience both live and in the studio. That experience and craftmanship in music alone makes all the difference in quality of tracking. Especially since there was a lot of direct-to-disc going on back then.

Second is the fact that we are talking classic band jazz music, even with Sinatra and Bennett. The audience for that stuff was a much wider demographic, from swing dance teens to the 50s version of the older audiophile/affecionado, and the arrangements and the instruments used called for a more "audiophile-ish" documentarian tracking. Half of their audience was more discriminating in what they wanted in sonic quality, and both the vocals and the instruments demanded sonic clarity to get the best. Conversly, when Jerry Lee Lewis and his gang blew the doors open on rock n' roll with their pounding on upright pianos instead of tickling the ivories of a grand and vey basic riffs on a Rickenacker guitar played at 11 through a Vox amp instead of sophisticated bends and arpeggios played on a trumpet, the attention to detail on sonic quality just is not the pressing issue it had been before.

Third, in the 60s there was more of a concentration on making productions that sounded good on the AM car radio rather than on record. It wasn't a whole lot different than the "volume wars" of today and the desire to make things sound competitive in lo-fi formats like ClearChannel radio and MP3.

G.
 
TragikRemix said:
yes thats what i meant. i think maybe its because my ears are biased one way and yours are another way... i dont know... i better stop posting about this topic before i anger people.
Click to expand...
No, don't. I actually agree with you for the most part. I guess I'm ignorant and misinformed too.
 
Two other great books on Beatles recordings.

"All You Need Is Ears" by George Martin. He alternates chapters between his own biography and the recording techniques.

Also, I believe that Geoff Emereck (Beatles engineer) just came out with his memoires (or coming out soon). I've read some excerpts from magazines, but I'm sure it's got amazing stuff.

An engineer that I work toured as the FOH guy with the Kinks for a while (and just worked on a live album they released, I think). When I talk to him again, I'll see if he has any Kinks insight.

Tragik, no matter what you think about the music or if it holds up today, remember The Beatles (along with Martin & Emerick) pretty much invented the recording techniques and gear we all take for granted today, such as Emerick being the first person to close mic drums (at least he gets the credit). In the Martin book, he talks about going to L.A. and discovering they had a 6 track (or was it 8) and how Abbey Road was behind donig everything on a 3 track.

Coincidentally I also just got done re-reading "Lennon in America" about the last decade of his life, and there's a short part in their about how when he went back and listened to some of the albums (Sgt. Pepper's I think,) he also thought the production wasn't all that great by the current standards.

Also, have you listened to Sgt. Pepper's or Abbey Road on headphones?
Take some time with that one day. But I'm certainly not offended if you don't dig the music, everyone has different tastes (you're just wrong....j/k)
 
RAMI said:
I find it strange that we aften stop at the 60's...or maybe the 50's (but rarely) when talking about "old recordings"...What about stuff from the 40's or 30's??? I listen to some Tony Bennett or Sinatra, with a 3 million piece orchestra and 57,000 back up singers and am amazed at the sound quality of those recordings too. Don't get me wrong, it's not my type of music. But what exactly were they working with back then?

EDIT: I may be getting my eras mixed up. I don't think Tony Bennett was around in the 30's and 40's...but you get my drift, I hope.
Click to expand...


There are great stories about recording sessions with Louis Armstrong (in the days before electrical recording) when he played so loud they had to move him into the hallway away from the band, as a result the intonation of louis versus the group is somewhat "loose" we'll say.

Also, I would recommend doing some searching about Bing Crosby. As I understand it, he is sort of credited with being the first one to really get into making recordings and get the public into it too.

In generel there's lots of good information about the beginning the recording process, and frankly understanding the evolution from acoustical-->electrical-->analog tape->digital is a good thing to do.
 
Last edited:
Southside and RAK...thanx alot for that. I just got a pretty good education into what I should be listening to for better examples of music from another era.
 
I am just curious as to what critique one could offer of Abbey Road. Even Revolver. I can't imagine what flaw "biased ears" can uncover that my tin ones don't.

Digital recordings are harsh and stark and it takes alot of ketchup to make music out of them in my opinion. It's advantage over analog is that you can record 128 tracks and redo each one of them infinitely and bounce everything down with no loss of quality.

That said, beatles recording on a "four track" doesn't mean some shitty tascam cassette deck. Those 4 tracks are probably recorded to 1" tape and have gobs of analog treatments to optimize the signal. Also, the equipment is piloted by an engineer whose only gig is figuring out how to set the 4 knobs that control the ancient machines.

But, to get that old school recorded sound, I just use a sonus tube pre and a 57 through my berringer mixer into my soundblaster and stand on one foot when I track the guitars. Works every time. :D
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
It gets hard to go earlier than the post-WWII fto find a whole bunch so recordings that even the most generous ear would say "sound good" (though there are some.) ... (much omitted)

G.
Click to expand...

I get a kick out of the guy on this BBS (sorry, can't recall who right now) who has the tag line about how if you can't make a hit record on a Tascam or Fostex, you're not going to make one on a Studer or Otari. One CD I have that is wonderful to listen to is a collection of solo guitar recordings by Andres Segovia when he was a young man, from 1927 to 1939. I'm assuming they were recorded to vinyl or whatever they used on discs back then. They've been processed to treat the noise a bit and the undefeatable musicianship shines through. Admittedly, solo classical guitar isn't particularly challenging on the frequency range or dynamic range, but it's a case where the musicianship carries the day and the technology was just good enough to capture the essence.

Otto
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top