Time to ask questions about how and why it was recorded that way.

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Jump to Latest
bOTL

bOTL

Member
Joined 2010
botlaudio.com
BasicHIFI1 said:
What is new is what I have learned since I got into this thing about a year ago when my existing stereo was found unrepairable.

I am noticing more and more things - which can be a sort of a curse. Just yesterday I was listening to a live band and I found myself criticizing the mixing - where are the drums? Why are the voices so loud? That guy has such a good voice but we need to bring up the lower end, get some more bass, more fullness into that voice. Then a little red light flashes on the speaker in front of me and I realize it's distorting on the voice input. I wanted a mixed ( I would have to learn to use it) and an equalizer and fix the whole thing!

Every real world sound I hear, from footsteps to doors to traffic - I have one thought - how in the world would I ever get that sound reproduced from a HiFi system - the sharpness, the power, the wide stage, the total lack of noise, distortion, the utter smoothness of it all.

Anyone think this?
Click to expand...
Constantly and it is all within your grasp. Purchase some gear and start tweaking the knobs and record as much as you can. Develop you skills and critical listening.

Good Luck
 
E

Enzo

Member
Joined 2004
I am glad you have had a long and storied career. In the late 60s we were doing multitrack recording, even in smaller studios. Granted they were only four tracks, but multi they were. I have studio time in my resume as well. yes, I spent more time as a touring sound man for live work.

You mentioned "until the late 60s", well, I have to think Basic probably listens to a lot more post 60s than pre 60s recordings. I might be wrong. Even from that era, Sgt Pepper was multitracked, and as I mentioned before, Jimi Hendrix said he could never play the recorded Watchtower arrangement in a live setting. That was in your up to era. Nowdays we have a zillion tracks available.

There are recording sessions where the band gathers and jams, and there are many where the parts are recorded individually. I am not sure what research I must do to determine whether a boatload of processing goes into most recordings I hear on the radio/commercial scene.
 
bOTL

bOTL

Member
Joined 2010
botlaudio.com
Enzo said:
I am glad you have had a long and storied career. In the late 60s we were doing multitrack recording, even in smaller studios. Granted they were only four tracks, but multi they were. I have studio time in my resume as well. yes, I spent more time as a touring sound man for live work.

You mentioned "until the late 60s", well, I have to think Basic probably listens to a lot more post 60s than pre 60s recordings. I might be wrong. Even from that era, Sgt Pepper was multitracked, and as I mentioned before, Jimi Hendrix said he could never play the recorded Watchtower arrangement in a live setting. That was in your up to era. Nowdays we have a zillion tracks available.

There are recording sessions where the band gathers and jams, and there are many where the parts are recorded individually. I am not sure what research I must do to determine whether a boatload of processing goes into most recordings I hear on the radio/commercial scene.
Click to expand...
I was speaking to 24 track plus recording as I mentioned in my statement yes there were 3 track ,4 track, 8 track , 16 track. But a lot of bouncing and live tracking while bouncing and overdubbing was happening with these formats, the room and the quality of the player and the mics and mic pres were very important to have a superior sound in record production in the early days or multi tracking.
 
E

Enzo

Member
Joined 2004
yes, of course good gear is important, and related stuff. But then I am not sure what we are arguing about. I THOUGHT you were maintaining that recordings are sessions of entire bands recorded in live gig fashion in the studio. I was suggesting that music is often if not usually "put together" in the studio. Certainly bouncing and overdubbing does not occur when recording a group playing. I cannot sing and overdub myself at the same time - unless you count vocal doubling, or harmony generators.

The Rolling Stones can afford all the studio time they want, and can have the entire group and sidemen gathered and recorded as live. But even so, would there not be gobos and vocal booths involved for the sake of the recording? In other words, the liveness is removed for sake of recording. We really don't want a cracking snare drum in our vocal track. I think most bands, especially those without record company money, can't afford that approach.

If I fatten the sound of a guitar with hints of delay,pitch shift, panning and filtering, we are no longer going for a live sound, but are pursuing some tonal goal.
 
B

BasicHIFI1

Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
bOTL said:
Constantly and it is all within your grasp. Purchase some gear and start tweaking the knobs and record as much as you can. Develop you skills and critical listening.

Good Luck
Click to expand...

There is a small recording studio down the road, plan on paying a visit.

Of course I used to home (casette) tape vinyl (one or two really) in my earlier days: interesting that I had to manage the input so the casette tape would not get saturated and distorted, and I had a choice of using eq in the recording, which I did, but now I think it would have been better to get as much audio into the tape and then equalize on playback.

Reading up on multi-track for the first time here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitrack_recording

I listen to mainly 70s and 80s music - BeeGees, Elton John, David Gates, James Taylor... Bad Company sometimes. Looking to expand my music horizons by reading the thread "What is the last full album..." and then seeing if is on YouTube. Just the other day someone sent me a link to a band called "April Wine" . Good 70s rock.
 
Last edited:
B

BasicHIFI1

Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
Same article:

Prior to the development of multitrack recording, all of the singers, band instrumentalists, and/or orchestra accompanists had to sing and play together. Multitracking allowed the engineer to adjust the levels and tone of each individual track, and if necessary, redo certain tracks or overdub parts of the track to correct errors or get a better "take." As well, different electronic effects such as reverb could be applied to specific tracks, such as the lead vocals, while not being applied to other tracks where this effect would not be desirable (e.g., on the electric bass).
Click to expand...

How on earth did you achieve perfect synchronizing of the tracks with each other without precise electronics? By hand? By Ear?

Edit: its here:

With the introduction of SMPTE timecode in the early 1970s, engineers began to use computers to perfectly synchronize separate audio and video playback, and or multiple audio tape machines
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
B

BasicHIFI1

Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
B

BasicHIFI1

Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
E

Enzo

Member
Joined 2004
On a tape deck, there was an erase head, a record head, and a playback head. The playback head was of course a moment behind the record head. When just playing back a tape, this didn;t matter, but to play back a tape and record a new track then that timing was a problem. SO what they could do was for this process, they would play back the tape through the record head, that way the new track and the old were in perfect sync.

Some very popular TEAC decks had switches on the head cover for doing that, they called it Simul-Sync.

The record and playback heads were optimized for their functions. The record head wasn't best for playback but was good enough for monitoring while tracking. Later, improvements in circuitry as well as the technology of tape heads developed so you could have a quality deck with a single record/playback head. Sync problems thus disappeared.

Now with ProTools and other recording software, there is no moving tape, so sync is not an issue.
 
bOTL

bOTL

Member
Joined 2010
botlaudio.com
BasicHIFI1 said:
It's on YouTube, and I really like the recording - it sounds like a live recording (maybe my imagination) - loud, clear, and all equal reverb on all instruments and vocals like they are playing in the same room (maybe my imagination).

Thanks for expanding my horizons.
Click to expand...

This is my point you do not have to have to be in seperate rooms to attain a great recording. All you need is great players a good sounding room an engineer who knows what he is doing and when to stay out of the way.
 
Last edited:
bOTL

bOTL

Member
Joined 2010
botlaudio.com
Enzo said:
yes, of course good gear is important, and related stuff. But then I am not sure what we are arguing about. I THOUGHT you were maintaining that recordings are sessions of entire bands recorded in live gig fashion in the studio. I was suggesting that music is often if not usually "put together" in the studio. Certainly bouncing and overdubbing does not occur when recording a group playing. In the days before true multi tracks (24 track with a Sync Head) it was done all the time I cannot sing and overdub myself at the same time - unless you count vocal doubling, or harmony generators. I was not speaking to one player at a time

The Rolling Stones can afford all the studio time they want, and can have the entire group and sidemen gathered and recorded as live. But even so, would there not be gobos and vocal booths involved for the sake of the recording? In other words, the liveness is removed for sake of recording. We really don't want a cracking snare drum in our vocal track. I think most bands, especially those without record company money, can't afford that approach.
Its call a rough vocal which can have the vocalist in the control room with a mic or in an iso so the vocal will not bleed into the bands tracking space
If I fatten the sound of a guitar with hints of delay,pitch shift, panning and filtering, we are no longer going for a live sound, but are pursuing some tonal goal.
Click to expand...
Yes which can be achieved if you overdub to the original band tracking session
 
bOTL

bOTL

Member
Joined 2010
botlaudio.com
BasicHIFI1 said:
Same article:



How on earth did you achieve perfect synchronizing of the tracks with each other without precise electronics? By hand? By Ear?

Edit: its here:
Click to expand...

Before Smpte The Beatles managed to sync 2 tape machines together by using the 50hz ferq. in the power as a reference. Before Smpte in the USA we used the same process (60hz) to sync 3 and 4 track machines to mix movies. The tape machines were 3 and 4 stripe 35mm film recorders.
 
billshurv

billshurv

Member
Joined 2014
Paid Member
Also the beatles were happy to give George martin impossible tasks. If you have ever wondered why the beginning of 'strawberry fields forever' sounds odd its because they were combining two takes that were done in different keys. In particular the word 'down' in the first line.
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Top Bottom