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#1
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Early 70's preamps
What sort of preamps were used on early 70's albums (Paul McCartney,
Elton John, for example)? It seems the sound in the 70's really changed around 1975 or 1976. Listening to Paul McCartney's early albums, I notice that albums like Ram or Band On The Run have a certain sound (don't really know how to describe it...analogue, organic, warm), but then the album Speed Of Sound is much different. Cleaner, more modern sounding (not necessarily better, though). Thanks for any info. |
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#2
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pete wrote:
What sort of preamps were used on early 70's albums (Paul McCartney, Elton John, for example)? Whatever happened to be on the console. That was back before they started making so many cheap consoles with crappy preamps in them, before people were really driven to outboard preamplification. It seems the sound in the 70's really changed around 1975 or 1976. There were a lot of stylistic changes going on then. Some of these had to do with that era's obsession with dead studios and absolute isolation between tracks. Some of it had to do with influences from the dance music movement. Then there was the Aural Exciter craze. Listening to Paul McCartney's early albums, I notice that albums like Ram or Band On The Run have a certain sound (don't really know how to describe it...analogue, organic, warm), but then the album Speed Of Sound is much different. Cleaner, more modern sounding (not necessarily better, though). That's a McCartney issue, not a general recording issue, though. He was also changing a whole lot in that era, trying to figure out who he was in a post-Beatles world. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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#3
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#6
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pete wrote:
On 7 Oct 2004 08:59:57 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote: pete wrote: Listening to Paul McCartney's early albums, I notice that albums like Ram or Band On The Run have a certain sound (don't really know how to describe it...analogue, organic, warm), but then the album Speed Of Sound is much different. Cleaner, more modern sounding (not necessarily better, though). That's a McCartney issue, not a general recording issue, though. He was also changing a whole lot in that era, trying to figure out who he was in a post-Beatles world. So the gear was the same? The gear was a little different. The rooms were a little different. The philosophy was a lot different. The performer was a whole lot different. Is the thought then that McCartney could have recorded on a Neve or an API or whatever, and the console wouldn't have made a difference on the sound, that it was just McCartney changing his style or approach? The console is one of the last things contributing to the overall sound. Listen to Let it Be. Then listen to the new sparse remixes. They create a totally different album. And that's with the same performance. His albums definitely sound different through the years...would the console (preamps) play into that at all? Or is the idea that the preamp makes any sort of difference a misnomer? The preamp makes a little difference, but much less than the microphones, much much less than the rooms, and much much much less than the instruments and performers. And much much much much much less than the production philosophy. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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#7
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#8
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Mike Rivers wrote:
In article writes: What sort of preamps were used on early 70's albums (Paul McCartney, Elton John, for example)? Whatever happened to be in the console. A better question is "what console was used . . . ?" And that would usualy be Neve, API, or something custom built at EMI. A Mix magazine article mentions some of the consoles and mics used by A&R in New York during the making of Ram. You might have to type in an email address: PAUL McCARTNEY'S “UNCLE ALBERT/ADMIRAL HALSEY” http://www.keepmedia.com/Register.do?oliID=225 For backing tracks that were done at CBS studio B: “We had a 3M MM-1000 16-track recorder and a homemade console at CBS. Studio B was a big room, about 40 or 50 feet long and 50 feet wide with a 40-foot-high ceiling. We didn't worry about bleeding at all. The setup was real tight and everyone had headsets.” Some vocals and orchestral overdubs were done at A&R's A1 studio: "A&R had four studios in Manhattan; A1 was located in the penthouse at 799 7th Ave. “A1 was one of those magical New York rooms — arguably the best of them all,” Van Winkle says. “Originally a CBS studio, it was large enough to handle a full orchestra and it sounded great. We had a warm, fat vacuum tube Altec console that had been custom-built with handmade sidecars and four Altec 604E speakers across the front room, each powered by a 75-watt McIntosh tube amplifier." "We used a combination of U87s — if we were working on something smooth — and Shure SM57s for the rockier stuff throughout the album. Paul didn't care what mic you put on him, although he did like the U87. He's such a great singer. I know that the vocals they cut over at CBS are Paul singing live right off the floor with the rhythm section into an Electro-Voice RE20, which was a relatively new mic at the time." |
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#9
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pete wrote:
So why is there the obsession with preamps? I see all the time the comparisons... this vs. that, the supposed classic Neve 1073 sound, this one is best on vocals, that one is best on drums, all the overwhelming preamp choices, the "vintage" sound, the "tube" sound, preamps better suited to rock, preamps better suited to folk...is it all just overblown hype? It's not all hype, and it is sort of nice to have a few different colors to work with. And the truth is that most cheap gear today has really awful built-in preamp sections, so there is a need for outboard gear. But most of it is marketing, yes. It's easy to sell someone a preamp and hard to sell them a new room. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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#10
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The hype is pretty overblown, that's for sure.
Referring to another post in the thread, 3M didn't do Master Muncher 1000's, that was Ampex, the 3M would've been a 56 series maybe. Artist, production, room, mic, type of toilet paper, drugs, mic pre, something like that maybe in order of importance. But good tools are always handy, and as Scott said, a lot of the low end stuff really is iffy, and in the '70's no serious studio would've been caught dead with something like the commonly used low end stuff of today. The closest stuff to that then would've been a Valley People TransAmp or an MCI 600 style input, which was even a little later. Dan Kennedy Great River Electronics Scott Dorsey wrote: pete wrote: So why is there the obsession with preamps? I see all the time the comparisons... this vs. that, the supposed classic Neve 1073 sound, this one is best on vocals, that one is best on drums, all the overwhelming preamp choices, the "vintage" sound, the "tube" sound, preamps better suited to rock, preamps better suited to folk...is it all just overblown hype? It's not all hype, and it is sort of nice to have a few different colors to work with. And the truth is that most cheap gear today has really awful built-in preamp sections, so there is a need for outboard gear. But most of it is marketing, yes. It's easy to sell someone a preamp and hard to sell them a new room. --scott |
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#11
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#12
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Thanks, great article!
On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 18:31:59 -0400, "bluesrock03" wrote: Mike Rivers wrote: In article writes: What sort of preamps were used on early 70's albums (Paul McCartney, Elton John, for example)? Whatever happened to be in the console. A better question is "what console was used . . . ?" And that would usualy be Neve, API, or something custom built at EMI. A Mix magazine article mentions some of the consoles and mics used by A&R in New York during the making of Ram. You might have to type in an email address: PAUL McCARTNEY'S “UNCLE ALBERT/ADMIRAL HALSEY” http://www.keepmedia.com/Register.do?oliID=225 For backing tracks that were done at CBS studio B: “We had a 3M MM-1000 16-track recorder and a homemade console at CBS. Studio B was a big room, about 40 or 50 feet long and 50 feet wide with a 40-foot-high ceiling. We didn't worry about bleeding at all. The setup was real tight and everyone had headsets.” Some vocals and orchestral overdubs were done at A&R's A1 studio: "A&R had four studios in Manhattan; A1 was located in the penthouse at 799 7th Ave. “A1 was one of those magical New York rooms — arguably the best of them all,” Van Winkle says. “Originally a CBS studio, it was large enough to handle a full orchestra and it sounded great. We had a warm, fat vacuum tube Altec console that had been custom-built with handmade sidecars and four Altec 604E speakers across the front room, each powered by a 75-watt McIntosh tube amplifier." "We used a combination of U87s — if we were working on something smooth — and Shure SM57s for the rockier stuff throughout the album. Paul didn't care what mic you put on him, although he did like the U87. He's such a great singer. I know that the vocals they cut over at CBS are Paul singing live right off the floor with the rhythm section into an Electro-Voice RE20, which was a relatively new mic at the time." |
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#13
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pete wrote:
So in other words, if all other things are exactly the same (the mics, the room, the performance, the stylistic choices, and so on....) it would really make no difference whether you used vintage API 312s, or Great River ME-1NVs or A Designs MP-1s, etc. The final product would sound the same, right? Not the same, but not all that different. Compare Paul McCartney with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra worked for a long time and lived through at least two total revolutions in audio production and technique. But listen to his early recordings and the stuff he did late in life... and in spite of sixty-year difference in technology, they sound a lot more like one another than McCartney in 1972 did from McCartney in 1976. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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#14
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#15
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JP Gerard wrote: Wasn't he plugging his instruments straight into the tape machine in the early 70's??? I could swear I heard him say that in an interview about the early Wings sessions. He claimed it was "such a pure sound" or something. DI heaven... those bass lines certainly sound pretty "direct" to me. I remember it was a big deal that he bypassed the console when he made "McCartney II" in 1980. As good as it may have sounded technically, many (including me) were not that impressed with the songs. Most of John's material sounded kind of muddy, and sometimes out of tune, until "Double Fantasy", which was very punchy, and very good, I thought. |
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#16
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On 7 Oct 2004 17:17:55 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
The preamp makes a little difference, but much less than the microphones, much much less than the rooms, and much much much less than the instruments and performers. And much much much much much less than the production philosophy. --scott In article writes: So why is there the obsession with preamps? It's something that today's manufacturers have given us that's easy to change for a different sound, something that they didn't have in the '70s. You dind't go to a different studio for the sound of the preamps in the conosole, you went to a different studio for sound (or size) of the room, the location, and occasionally what the producer wanted. It's just one more thing today that you can buy, so people do. It's also an excuse for console manufacturers to build mediocre mic preamps into their consoles because they expect people to substitute something else. It's not overblown hype, but it's a choice that we had available 35 years ago. It's like microphones - a well equipped studio in the late '60s and '70s had some U47s, RCA 44s, and some utility dynamics, generally Shure or EV in the US, AKG in Europe, plugged into the console's mic preamps. The only reason why someone would use an AKG D19 today is because he things it will make his recordings sound like the Beatles. -- I'm really Mike Rivers ) However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over, lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo |
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#17
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#18
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Dan Kennedy wrote in :
The hype is pretty overblown, that's for sure. Referring to another post in the thread, 3M didn't do Master Muncher 1000's, that was Ampex, the 3M would've been a 56 series maybe. Artist, production, room, mic, type of toilet paper, drugs, mic pre, something like that maybe in order of importance. And this is from a man who makes his living selling micpres. |
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#19
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Carey Carlan wrote:
Dan Kennedy wrote in : The hype is pretty overblown, that's for sure. Referring to another post in the thread, 3M didn't do Master Muncher 1000's, that was Ampex, the 3M would've been a 56 series maybe. Artist, production, room, mic, type of toilet paper, drugs, mic pre, something like that maybe in order of importance. And this is from a man who makes his living selling micpres. Yeah, but he actually makes good ones and doesn't need the hype. If only the rest of the industry did the same. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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#20
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pete wrote in message . ..
What sort of preamps were used on early 70's albums (Paul McCartney, Elton John, for example)? It seems the sound in the 70's really changed around 1975 or 1976. Listening to Paul McCartney's early albums, I notice that albums like Ram or Band On The Run have a certain sound (don't really know how to describe it...analogue, organic, warm), but then the album Speed Of Sound is much different. Cleaner, more modern sounding (not necessarily better, though). Thanks for any info. Less is more, and older studios were more hi-fi. less amps in the signal chain, no automation, no compressors on each channel, no miniaturization (try making a 24 input tube console with eq and compression on each channel). the big changes were the jump from the tube modular mixers that had not many inputs not too many amp stages and few active components to transistor desks (more of each), bigger transistor desks with lots of preamps and gadgets and finally the modern op-amp based mixers with VCA's etc (SSL and the like) which characterized the sound of the '80's. The only 'good' thing about modern SSL type consoles from a producer's standpoint is that the tracks eventually can be made to sound like most of the other records that were made on that same console, since it has such an ability to alter sound and make it aesthetically 'correct' because of the various sonic imprints that it leaves behind. Another issue is that of transient reproduction. I find that the 'feeling' in music comes through in the reproduction of the transients. modern consoles use op-amps and have thousands of dB's of negative feedback globally. Negative feedback will distort transients in 99% of the amps used in consoles. Just think about how the 80's sound was on the high frequencies. the older equipment had a higher measurable distortion but less 'musical distortion' -- this coupled with less microphones (therefore another decrease in transient distortion) created a feeling of being closer to the artist who was singing or playing. also multitrack recording did not really exist as it does now. people used to play mostly live with bleed from one instrument to another, big ambient microphones etc. the more tracks, the more inputs needed -- therefore the bigger miniaturized desks etc. |
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#21
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"Carey Carlan" wrote in message
. 191 Dan Kennedy wrote in : The hype is pretty overblown, that's for sure. Referring to another post in the thread, 3M didn't do Master Muncher 1000's, that was Ampex, the 3M would've been a 56 series maybe. Artist, production, room, mic, type of toilet paper, drugs, mic pre, something like that maybe in order of importance. And this is from a man who makes his living selling micpres. He's in obvious danger of being considered to be a man with integrity. ;-) |
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#22
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maxdm wrote:
created a feeling of being closer to the artist who was singing or playing. also multitrack recording did not really exist as it does now. I would argue that the artist were more part and parcel to their writing and songs than now, albeit more connected to their muse. And I also would substitute *nit picking obsessive pro tools behavior* for *multitrack*. -- Nathan "Imagine if there were no Hypothetical Situations" |
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#23
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pete wrote:
And so now I'm thinking that I prefer that big fat vacuum tube sound over what seems to me the much "cleaner" sound of the Neve... Unless, as you're saying, the preamp is not really the factor that makes the difference. There's a whole console after that preamp thing, and it is subject to use by humans who can drive it various ways. Gain staging and routing comes to mind as points of operation where sound can be changed. Maybe you should just go where there are lots of different preamps and drive soem of them until you appreciate what they do or do not do for you. You can put the same rig in different hands and wind up with completely different sounding records. -- ha |
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#24
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Dan Kennedy wrote:
But good tools are always handy, and as Scott said, a lot of the low end stuff really is iffy, and in the '70's no serious studio would've been caught dead with something like the commonly used low end stuff of today. The closest stuff to that then would've been a Valley People TransAmp or an MCI 600 style input, which was even a little later. I'd have killed for a Great River pre after I sold the board full of API's, but that was so long ago I didn't know who to aim for. -- ha |
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#25
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Everytime I use my GR pres (which is everytime I record anything) I'm
thankful I had enought sense to buy them & grateful to Dan for making such a fine product. Al On 8 Oct 2004 09:10:16 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote: Carey Carlan wrote: Dan Kennedy wrote in : The hype is pretty overblown, that's for sure. Referring to another post in the thread, 3M didn't do Master Muncher 1000's, that was Ampex, the 3M would've been a 56 series maybe. Artist, production, room, mic, type of toilet paper, drugs, mic pre, something like that maybe in order of importance. And this is from a man who makes his living selling micpres. Yeah, but he actually makes good ones and doesn't need the hype. If only the rest of the industry did the same. --scott |
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#26
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"maxdm" wrote in message
om... dB's of negative feedback globally. Negative feedback will distort transients in 99% of the amps used in consoles. Just think about how the 80's sound was on the high frequencies. the older equipment had a higher measurable distortion but less 'musical distortion' Makes you realize that the ability to measure things with stuff other than your ears can sometimes be a bad thing; building for "specs" versus what sounds "good". |
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#27
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"Ricky W. Hunt" wrote in message news:bvC9d.212939$D%.127344@attbi_s51... Makes you realize that the ability to measure things with stuff other than your ears can sometimes be a bad thing; building for "specs" versus what sounds "good". The trouble with "what sounds good", is that everyone has a different opinion. TonyP. |
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#28
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TonyP wrote: The trouble with "what sounds good", is that everyone has a different opinion. Once you know that, you know the secret to great audio. -- Nathan "Imagine if there were no Hypothetical Situations" |
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#29
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On 7 Oct 2004 19:59:29 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Compare Paul McCartney with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra worked for a long time and lived through at least two total revolutions in audio production and technique. But listen to his early recordings and the stuff he did late in life... and in spite of sixty-year difference in technology, they sound a lot more like one another than McCartney in 1972 did from McCartney in 1976. Sinatra perfected performance in an established style. McCartney was a figurehead for a lot of musical innovations (OK- synthesis of existing styles if you like, but that's how innovation works:-) by a lot of people. If he had a personal style I guess it was as a guitar-strumming crooner - not a particularly ground-breaking concept, though he did it well. CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm "Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect |
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#30
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Laurence Payne wrote: If he had a personal style I guess it was as a guitar-strumming crooner - not a particularly ground-breaking concept, though he did it well. Except that he wrote some songs that did break some ground. And that he can actually perform the songs he writes is breaking something...somewhere. -- Nathan "Imagine if there were no Hypothetical Situations" |
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#31
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#32
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(Mike Rivers) wrote in message news:znr1097330482k@trad...
In article writes: The trouble with "what sounds good", is that everyone has a different opinion. Once you know that, you know the secret to great audio. There is something to be said for an audio path that makes the listener feel as if he is in the personal company of the artist/s. this of course implies that the musicians at hand are artists in the true sense and can move hearts and illuminate minds. Not many around today, but.. In this case the best audio path is big ribbon/condenser mikes with simple low feedback extra-high quality tube based audio with analog tape recorders (big tape / few tracks) wasn't it about 1975 that 24 track 2" machines began to outweigh 16 track 2" machines number-wise in studios? |
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#33
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#34
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Mike Rivers wrote:
Even when working with 8 and 16 tracks, a lot of the bands played live in the studio, and the multitrack just allowed mixing in post-time without a lot of overdubbing. I don't know if it was a matter of having more tracks or just that it was time, but when 24-track became the standard, you had more recordings that weren't played by all the musicians at the same time. It makes recording accurately easier, but with no surprises, it's not quite like live music. Witness the straight-ahead sound of Los Loney Boys debut CD. They played the music, and it shows. -- ha |
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#35
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"hank alrich" wrote in message .. . Witness the straight-ahead sound of Los Loney Boys debut CD. They played the music, and it shows. That does sounds pretty good.. at least the one cut I heard from it the other day. Neil Henderson |
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#36
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"TonyP" wrote in message
u "Ricky W. Hunt" wrote in message news:bvC9d.212939$D%.127344@attbi_s51... Makes you realize that the ability to measure things with stuff other than your ears can sometimes be a bad thing; building for "specs" versus what sounds "good". The trouble with "what sounds good", is that everyone has a different opinion. Another problem is that a lot of "sounds better" related to electronics disappears under any kind of serious subjective testing scrutiny. |
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#37
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"maxdm" wrote in message
om... (Mike Rivers) wrote in message news:znr1097330482k@trad... In article writes: The trouble with "what sounds good", is that everyone has a different opinion. Once you know that, you know the secret to great audio. There is something to be said for an audio path that makes the listener feel as if he is in the personal company of the artist/s. this of course implies that the musicians at hand are artists in the true sense and can move hearts and illuminate minds. Not many around today, but.. In this case the best audio path is big ribbon/condenser mikes with simple low feedback extra-high quality tube based audio with analog tape recorders (big tape / few tracks) wasn't it about 1975 that 24 track 2" machines began to outweigh 16 track 2" machines number-wise in studios? I think your timing is a bit off. 16 track was king in the early-mid-70's. The 24 trackers came in the late '70's and were King by 1980. But your perception that some of the best pop and jazz music came out of that era is correct...engineers still had to know enough to be able to record a group playing live in the studio, and the group itself had to be acomplished enough to record together. |
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#38
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pete wrote in message . ..
What sort of preamps were used on early 70's albums (Paul McCartney, Elton John, for example)? It seems the sound in the 70's really changed around 1975 or 1976. Listening to Paul McCartney's early albums, I notice that albums like Ram or Band On The Run have a certain sound (don't really know how to describe it...analogue, organic, warm), but then the album Speed Of Sound is much different. Cleaner, more modern sounding (not necessarily better, though). Thanks for any info. I was working with a band a long time ago and they brought in a bunch of 70's recordings that they wanted to sound like and I coulnd't do it. I assumed that it was Neve gear. Then I got my Neve pres and it was better. but it still wasn't that sound. Then Tony Visconti came by and we were talking about tape and he made one little comment "15ips is the sound of the 70's and 30ips is the sound of the 80's." As soon as he left I realgine my machine for 15ips and there was the sound. The best pres have stayed in use since they were made. Differneces in recording eras a probably not going to be in the pres or the mics. You'll probably find differences in the room design, drum tuning, effects processors and recording formats are the mechanical things responsible for sonic trends. If you want to attribute the change to just on thing, my vote is for tape speed. |
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