the 'Joe Meek sound' ?

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notCardio

I walk the line
I've often read about the 'Joe Meek sound', that you either love it or hate it. I've also read that it has more to do with the compressor than the preamp part. Does this mean that if you buy a Joe Meek pre that doesn't have a compressor, or you don't use the compressor part of the unit, you won't get the 'Joe Meek sound'? And what IS the 'Joe Meek sound'? Can anyone point me to a posted sample of something that you would characterize as prime example of this sound? Can you describe what distinguishes it? Are there any commercially available examples, or well-known acts whose vocals typify that sound? I really wanna know, so I know whether or not that's the sound I'm after.

Thanks
 
cardiod, the easiest place to check for commercial releases using
Joe Meek stuff is oddly enough www.joemeek.com
Groups like the Black Crowes, artists such as John Mellencamp,
etc., are produced with the "Meek" sound...
Our own Alan Hyatt helped with John's most recent CD, where
I was successful in guessing the "secret square" of the usage
of Meek equipment through one of his recent singles on the radio.

While the compressor accounts for the majority of the Meek
tonality, the "MEQ" (EQ) of a Meek unit is very nice and warm
indeed. As you may detect this is coming from a big fan of all
this! (much cheaper than buying a Neve or a SSL board)
 
Cardioidpotent said:
Does this mean that if you buy a Joe Meek pre that doesn't have a compressor, or you don't use the compressor part of the unit, you won't get the 'Joe Meek sound'? And what IS the 'Joe Meek sound'?

Thanks
Click to expand...

The Joemeek sound is really the offshoot of the photo-optical compressor. The Joemeek unit uses a photo-op circuit which is just another way for a compressor to do gain reduction. The other method is VCA's. The photo-op is done by light, and its offshoot is that the light produces a 2nd order harmonic distortion, so it sounds very tube like. In addition, the compressor lets the mid and high frequency transients through the threshold, so unlike VCA's, it does not sound squashed or dull on certian applications.

Somehow, this ended up relating to the Joemeek sound. You can adjust the compressor to be very light, or turn it off. The mic pres are quite good, considering the price. As a total channel strip the Joemeek is a very competitive unit and will hang with the best of them out there.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

Alan Hyatt
PMI Audio Group
 
One thing I've noticed about the supposed Meek sound is that it has a way of "pulling a track forward" and making it sound more aggressive or present. For what it's worth, if you check out this link, I think it's about the third song down. On "INVITATION," both the vocals and guitar were meek'ed. I think it's a pretty good example, because the voice and guitar both sound very close to your ears and intimate, particularly the guitar.

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/5/1298/singles.shtml

Here's a few things I got from their web site that I think do a fairly decent job of describing the effect:

"The JOEMEEK compressor is the first device commercially available to have been designed purely as an effects compressor. Its purpose is to change the way the ear perceives the sound; its action changes the clarity, balance and even rhythmic feel of music."

"The JOEMEEK compressor mimics this effect and instead of the listener's ear and brain doing the compression, the Joemeek pulls down the sound at precisely the right moment and amount to fool the ear into thinking that the sound is louder than it actually is."
 
Re: "love or hate it"

The "love or hate" of the Meek sound seems to be much more
prevalent among non-professionals than pros from what's
posted on the internet at least. Most of the professional users
seem positive regarding the usefulness of this compression.
I wonder if that has more to do with the need to "earball"
the amount of compression, rather than relying upon a more
linear reliance of using set ratios/attacks/releases, etc.,
as in a typical VCA unit. It takes some time getting used to
trusting your ears to get effective use of it!
 
"Invitation" recorded by Chessrock

Really liked the sound of this tune.

Thanks for posting it as an example of the "meek" sound. This is very helpful for me in understanding what people mean when they talk about the joemeek sound.

Which Joemeek equipment was used? Was only compression used on these tracks or were they "mequalized" (ala VCQ3 or MQ3) as well?

Thanks,

mbradley
 
The VC6Q was used on both the voice and guitar. If you really want to hear the meek sound in action, you gotta' hear the electric guitar on one of my other tunes I failed to mention. It's on the same page as the other one, I believe it's the second one.

"Sister of the Moon" was recorded from a band that played in my living room for a halloween party. Originally, the guitar was recorded uncompressed using the pres on a cheap multi-track recorder. When I mixed the whole thing together, I thought the guitar tracks sounded kinda' dull and lifeless. So I re-recorded them through the meek, and it really seemed to add some aggressiveness and edge. In short, it really shines on the electric guitar if you drive it hard. Gives it some serious attitude.
 
Invitation.......

That's a really neat tune! I like the vocal delivery as well as the tone...nice stuff!! :)

TP
 
I'll pass that along to my friend, Adam. I recorded that for a buddy of mine who was doing some pre-production work for his CD. He just got done working in the studio, and all I can say is wow. That guy's got some talent. He got one of the best Jazz drummers in Chicago to work with him on it. Some good Hammond organ on a lot of the tunes . . . even a 5-piece horn section on a couple of them. He kinda' went all-out with it.

This would probably be an interesting topic for another section of the bbs, but I should post his studio version of that tune, and compare it to the one I produced. I wasn't all that impressed with his expensive studio version, but that's probably because I think some tunes sound better with just voice and guitar minus all the extras.
 
Chess.........

Tell your friend "GREAT SONG!!" for me, please!

Very much reminds me of late era Replacements/Paul Westerberg, which I LOVE!



heylow
 
Adam says "Thanks!" for all the positive input on his tune. I expect his latest CD to make quite a splash when it hits the street. He really is talented and has some good material. "Invitation" is just a very rough demo and not really even close to being his best song.

Cheers!
 
Re: Re: the 'Joe Meek sound' ?

alanhyatt said:
The photo-op is done by light, and its offshoot is that the light produces a 2nd order harmonic distortion, so it sounds very tube like.
Click to expand...


How exactly does this work? I don't doubt that harmonics are being produced somewhere, but the optical circuit should in effect be nothing more than a variable resistor...right?

:confused:
 
Also

Alan,

I've used 2 different VC3Q's. On one, the mic pre and output gain controls were detented, while the other's gain controls were smooth.

Is this indicative of a revision of sorts, and if so, are there any other differences in the hardware and should there be any audible differences?
 
Ahh....the Meek sound.

I've posted this before...
This tune has Meek all over it.
It was just remixed tonight.
All vocals, acoustic guitars, electric guitars & bass went through
a Joemeek VC1Q studio channel when tracked.
The drums went through a Joemeek SC2.2 compressor I just got.
It has a "Dark" button for that 1176 squash....
LOVE that Meek sound!

Mixed to be played LOUD...

http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/...tefn=RootSite.xml&aff=consumer&cty=US&lang=en

Peace.
Carmen

__________________
"Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck."
-The Dalai Lama
 
Re: Re: Re: the 'Joe Meek sound' ?

Dolemite said:

How exactly does this work? I don't doubt that harmonics are being produced somewhere, but the optical circuit should in effect be nothing more than a variable resistor...right?

:confused:
Click to expand...

Well I know nothing of the Meeks in particular. But in all compressors the amplification is dependent on the signal itself, and it just so happens that if that feedback is on the form of - sort of - the signal driving a lamp that shines on a opto-resistor that controls the amplification, the unlinearity seems to be particularly pleasant! :)
 
Ok two weeks ago I purchased a shiny new joemeek vcq6 british channel. Its basically the same as the smaller 1/2 urack version but has an extra knob on the compressor called slope which is actually ratio. It also has a sweepable mid on the meequiliser. There are two outputs on the back so that you can send (and I do ) to a separate headphone mix if you want as well.
Now as far as the sound goes heres what I heard.
Before I was using the 4 preamps on the front of my echo mona. and another 6 mic pre's on my mackie 1402 vlz. After comparing these mic pre's to my new british channel I can now officially say that the mona pre' suck. The mackies are still good (for drums, expecially toms) and the joe meek shits on them all as far as mic pre's are concerned. I just could not beleave the sound of my voice in the headphones going through the joemeek. Just stunned I was. And on top of that you get a reaaly good compressor and great eq.

One happy customer
Scott...
 
Hey fellow Aussie, I purchased the joemeek british channel at Turraramurra music. I paid $895.00 aus. Thats probly about $400.00 US. Had $1299.00 on the box but at Turramurra music you can always bargain down. Their clearly the cheapest and the best for instruments and recording gear in Sydney.
 
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