What was it like 20 years ago.

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tjohnston

tjohnston

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ok veterans tell us what it was like years ago before adat and cheap condensors. I interested in knowing what it was like with out pro tool and such. How much has changed as far as recording techniques.
 
Wow... twenty years ago I was recording with a Teac 3340 four track. In 1985 I stepped up to a Fostex R8 and the Fostex 450 mixer. I had no reverbs so I used an empty 12x12 room with vinyl flooring for "reverb". I had a DBX compressor. I used SM57s for everything. I didn't know what a large condensor mic was at the time... Still, I had a lot of fun.
 
Well, let's see. Parachute pants. Yea, I remember parachute pants were pretty big. And designer jeans with a comb in the back pocket -- skin-tight. Jordache. Then there was break dancing. Rollerskating was all the rage, for a while, there. Michael Jackson was the shit. Star Wars action figures. Dallas was the greatest TV show. Can't remember what night it was on, though, but definitely Love Boat and Fantasty Island every Friday night.
 
Dukes Of Hazzard
Van Halen
He Man


I recorded with a Radio Shack mic and a Kalamazoo amp into a Boom Box..
 
everything was way more expensive except for SM57's and digital recording.

oh yeah, the biggest difference was musicians really had to be able to play!
 
20 years ago I was in the first grade.

Livin' large and leavin' it all behind me,

H2H
 
I was recording into a 2 track reel to reel...Voice of Music brand. I played electric violin.

I drove a 66 corvair, and then a postal jeep.

I got my first felony arrest 20 years ago.
 
The recording techniques were pretty much the same, except you could saturate the tape a bit for a nice warm sound. Most of the mics I used then are still being used today. SM57, Sennheiser 421, AKG 451, & 414. The big difference today are the low cost LD condensers. Everything is cheaper today. We would pay $200/hour for a 24 track studio using 2" tape. Tape was very expensive, too, especially running at 30ips. Editing is much easier now, and more accurate.
 
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64 channel neve console, 8-track scully, and 2-track scully. LA-2s, plate reverb in ceiling. a variety of U87s, senn 421s, beyers, akg SD condensers, sm57s, etc. sorry to say, i've gone way downhill gear-wise since then...but now i own a house :-)
 
Well, 35 years ago I was recording psychedelic rock and Jefferson Airplane covers on a Revox 4 tracker, monitoring with Jensen triaxials, which were considered cutting edge. I wore my bell bottoms, took my acid, and got laid a lot. I owned a Gidson SJ acoustic and a ES220 w/ one P90. And you know, my SM57 is still the same, and mostly, so is my music. I just have better technique to compensate for my hair loss.-Richie
 
20 years ago I was playing drums in highschool! What was recording?


SoMm
 
20 years ago I couldn't even play the guitar. Heck, I didn't even own a guitar! And as for recording...
 
Teac 2-track RTR and Simul-Sync cassette. Peavey board. Shure dynamics. Huge backyard keg parties. Lotsa bud.

Crazy times....
 
20 years ago I was recording on an Akai reel to reel with "sound on sound". Those are some fun tapes to listen to.

Then went to fostex 4 track. Some radio shackish mics.

Hmmm... I still use the same guitar amp. 63 Blackface Fender Bandmaster. Considering every piece of equipment I use now... that amp and two of my mic stands are the only things that are the same.
 
Teac Model 3 mixing console (no phantom on most boards) Pioneer RT2044 4 track 10 inch reel to reels (man I got tired of bouncing tracks). Fender reverb unit for effects. Compressors for guitars were all the rage. The RAT distortion unit came out. SM57s were still poplular for live music, I still have one left. The last year of the Silverface Fender Vibrolux original amps (Actually had a black face but the silver innards. I still have one)

The Bee Gees and Donna Summers had devistated live music with Disco, Bozz Scaggs was in, the Police had just broken up, Mount St. Helens blew, the Berlin Wall came down. The IBM PC was still fairly new @ $2500 for 2 floppies and 64K RAM, The first hardrives in computers had come out. Lotus 123 was the rave spreadsheet, Microsoft came out with the Mouse which only worked in the DOS version of Word.

Old Neumann mics went on average around $300-500, tube gear was still everywhere and cheap. No one had heard of AIDS yet. John Belushi died, the original cast of SNL was still around.

MTV was still fairly new, regular gas was still mostly used and unleaded was just coming in. The CARS and Blondie were hot. European music "AUTOBAHN" was on the raido.

Wow, I'm in a time warp here, help me back to 2003.
 
Ah,the early 1980's. I still had a hairline back then.

Let's see,my partner and I had matresses all over the garage walls. the utility room became the control room with a snake running from the garage to the house. There was a tascam m308 mixer and a 3340 teac 4-track at first,then when we got a teac 80-8 8 track and another m308 to go along with it,we thought we were hot shit. A couple of Roland space echoes and an audiovox analog delay. Mix down to a teac 3300 2 track. Monitoring was with a pair of e.q'd(back before we knew any better) bose 901's with a Fisher tube amp and a pair of little Radio Snack minimus speakers. Scrounging for anything we could use was standard practice,and we never thought of scoffing at something we could get our hands on and fix up to use. sm-57's and 58's and a pair of sennheiser 421's made up the mic locker..."Headphone distribution" was with some old stereo recievers we had chained together.........those were the days. In spite of it all,we worked and sweated it out and made some pretty damn good music.

Damn,look at us now,we're spoiled!
 
Ahh.. 1983. The good ole days..

I actually don't remember much from back then, but I was emerging as a performance artist.

I've been told I would climb to the top of my parent's dresser and play some type of monophonic synthesizer with a handset. I think it was a Cincinnati Bell model.. Sucked though.. I'd rock out on a riff and seven notes into it the damn thing would start to pick up strange voices saying "Hello"!?!

So then while carelessly hanging from the top with one hand I'd chuck the whole thing down the hall.. That seemed to make the voices stop.. but then my mom would be scared... So I'd wait a little bit and try to play another song..

It may have not been able to hold many notes before it started acting weird, but it always worked after my mom put it back up on the dresser.

I guess it was back before MIDI hit it big, so things were a little different back then. :)

I was barely 2 years old...

Pat
 
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