Tips to get a vintage sound on a mix

The whole band recorded everything at once really was a myth by the early 60's. Abbey Road, which was notorious for being way behind the times technology wise, got a 4 track recorder in 1963. That's when overdubs started happening.

Now granted, a lot of times a large portion of the band did play all at once, at least the rhythm section. And then they'd overdub vocals and guitar solos and other instruments. So really, its a combination of both. Or a lot of times, the band would play live, but have those be scratch tracks, and then the band would redo most if not all the tracks based on the scratch performance.

My approach would be do rhythm section live. At least drums and bass, if not also rhythm guitars. Then from that foundation, do your overdubs for everything else. That way you get the best of both worlds.
 
Well to get that vintage sound, you should use vintage gear. By that I mean a tape machine and an old analog board.

But thats getting ahead of ourselves.

Go in to your "live" room, whatever that may be. Pick a reference point in the room and mark it with tape. Then set up your drum kit in different places and have someone play it with you standing at said reference point until youre satisfied with the sound. After you do that repeat the process with bass, then guitars, then whatever else.

IF you do live tracking with the full band, have them play in the fixed positions youve found, let them get the "sound" theyre after and then go around and tweak their amps/have them adjust their dynamics until it all sounds good to your EAR (cover one to simulate a single cardiod mic) at your point of reference.

Now that youve mixed them in the room, try different mics put in that reference point you were standing at until youve found a mic that does it justice. I would recommend a tube condensor set in cardoid or a good ribbon mic. After you do that, if anything needs a little extra something, sparingly mic it and mesh it with the room mic. Room, Kick, OH, Snare, Guitar, Bass, Guide vocal, or you could swap out the guide vocal with the lead guitar player/keys. Thats 8 tracks, one of which should be giving you a near perfect sound as is (not to mention its already panned in the room!)

Now for me, using a Tascam M30 to an 80-8 (Analog/Tape), thats a pretty simple and cost-effective procedure to get a good recording and the single room mic is about as vintage sounding as it gets, and I run it through vintage/vintage sounding gear.

EDIT: Putting flatwounds on your bass (I use Labella Deep Talkin on my J-Bass) and try pure nickel rounds OR flats on your guitars. You can do the same for almost any instrument, they basically all have interchangeable things that can be switched out in favor of more classic styled products.
 
Seafroggys said:
The whole band recorded everything at once really was a myth by the early 60's. Abbey Road, which was notorious for being way behind the times technology wise, got a 4 track recorder in 1963. That's when overdubs started happening.
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Thanx you Seafroggy. I'm glad someone mentioned that. The whole "band playing all at once for a vintage sound" is so not true, yet it's one of those urban legends that too many people repeat without knowing what they're talking about.

The Beatles, like Seafroggy mentioned, didn't record like that by the time they got to Abbey Road, and nobody's going to to tell me that an album recorded 40 + years ago isn't "vintage". Even on "Revolver", there are so many overdubs and doubled vocals.

I think the whole "band playing all at once to get a live feel" is just an excuse for people that can't play to a click or a a scratch drum track because they don't have the talent and experience.
 
Roozter said:
Well to get that vintage sound, you should use vintage gear. By that I mean a tape machine and an old analog board.
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This is false to be honest. Read my first response to the thread.

Plenty of 'modern' records are done on vintage gear.

I think the whole "band playing all at once to get a live feel" is just an excuse for people that can't play to a click or a a scratch drum track because they don't have the talent and experience.
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Eh, I think its the opposite to be honest. It takes a good band to pull that off.

Going off of Rami's Beatles example, take Sgt Peppers (the song). The 'backing track' was George and Paul on guitars, and Ringo on drums. They did that live. Then George later overdubbed the lead guitar, Paul overdubbed the bass, and then Paul, John and George overdubbed their vocals. They overdubbed quite a bit on what is a pretty straight ahead rocker. Not sure if John plays an instrument on that song.
 
Seafroggys said:
Eh, I think its the opposite to be honest. It takes a good band to pull that off.
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It takes a good band to pull anything off properly, so that's besides the point. But most bands DO play together most of the time., so I don't see what's so hard about "pulling it off".
But I've seen people with little talent and experience use the "we want the live feel" excuse over and over when it's suggested that they record one instrument at a time to a click. Any band can play together. Not everyone has the talent to record their part alone to a click, hence the "live feel" excuse.
 
No, I understand your point. But if a band is very good and tight, live might be better and faster for them. Imagine laying down the rhythm section at once in 3-5 takes, whereas recording the drums, bass, and rhythm instruments separately will take 3 times as long.

But I totally see where you are coming from.
 
Seafroggys said:
No, I understand your point. But if a band is very good and tight, live might be better and faster for them. Imagine laying down the rhythm section at once in 3-5 takes, whereas recording the drums, bass, and rhythm instruments separately will take 3 times as long.

But I totally see where you are coming from.
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Ah, I see. My fault, we sort of talked past each other there, while totally agreeing. Now I get what you're saying. :cool:
 
But I think that this playing together thing - considering the band is doin´it flawlessly - also involves a great deal of mic placements knowledge. And that demands a really great deal of time as well, specially the leakeges stuff to avoid and a specific type of mixing as well, right?

All methods have their pros and cons. But thanx for laying all sorts of points of view.
 
Not really. Leakage isn't usually a big deal. Proper use of gobos and angling the directional mics correctly isn't really *that* hard. Where it might be an issue is if you're recording a quieter acoustic instrument in the same room as something loud, like a drum.
 
Hire some old guy who struggles with the morality of even using a computer.

Make sure his favorite band is The Beatles.

Make sure his eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the band.

Profit?
 
I agree that composition/arrangement DO play a huge part in the vintage sound. I know because the way I compose and arrange is in the 60's style.

But at the end of the day, I think what people are generally refering to regarding the "vintage" is the warmth of tape, and/or, tape distortion. You can buy all the emulators you want, but nothing is going to replace the sound of tape through a genuine ampex machine.

And I would think of it like this. If you sit there and wonder what something will sound like recorded, for instance a shure SM57 with a cardboard box put over it and then sung in to, will most likely sound as if you recorded your vocals with a cardboard box over the 57. Call it what you want, but thats what it sounds like. If you record a track and run it through a tape emulator its going to sound like that. If you run it through the authentic equipment, you will indeed get an authentic "vintage" sound, sonically speaking.

If you want to make something sound like the real deal, you better go out and get the real deal. Theres no way around it. Most of the pro-sumer stuff out there is just a gimmick, and made to seem like you need it. Im a vintage junkie, and I was able to achieve vintage sounds on an interface/DAW, but I switched over to a fully analog studio with the idea in mind of doing my entire process truly vintage in every way I can. You could make a virtually identical "60's" mix of the one I make, on digital equipment, and I would say what makes mine better is simply the authenticity of the process, and thats not even taking in to account that I can achieve true tape distortion, which the digital guys cant.
 
Roozter said:
You could make a virtually identical "60's" mix of the one I make, on digital equipment, and I would say what makes mine better is simply the authenticity of the process
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And who honestly would care? Sorry to be blunt but its a legitimate question though. If it makes you feel better, great, but if I can do the same thing for $10,000 less....to me, the end result matters. The hobby is audio engineering. If the hobby was vintage audio engineering device collection, then your argument is valid.
 
Roozter said:
If you want to make something sound like the real deal, you better go out and get the real deal. Theres no way around it. Most of the pro-sumer stuff out there is just a gimmick, and made to seem like you need it. Im a vintage junkie, and I was able to achieve vintage sounds on an interface/DAW, but I switched over to a fully analog studio with the idea in mind of doing my entire process truly vintage in every way I can. You could make a virtually identical "60's" mix of the one I make, on digital equipment, and I would say what makes mine better is simply the authenticity of the process, and thats not even taking in to account that I can achieve true tape distortion, which the digital guys cant.
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I also have to disagree, studies have shown that the best engineers cant consistently tell the difference between the hardware versions over software plugins of the same.

Digital has caught up.
 
What does "authenticity of the process" even mean? Who decides what's "authentic" and why does it matter anyway?
 
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