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hank alrich hank alrich is offline
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Default How did they create that sound on "Mercy Mercy Me"?

Steve King wrote:

"philicorda" wrote in message
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On Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:28:45 -0500, Steve King wrote:

snip
The 'ping' sound was made by heavily eqing the reverb return. Put a
band pass after the reverb, preferably a steep synth filter type. It
doesn't really matter too much what the played sound source is.

Did you have in mind any analogue EQs of the time that are capable of
what you describe?


Things like the Moog 914 filter bank were around by that time.

What was more common is a passive high/low pass. I have seen in pictures
of old studios a passive high/low pass filter, in a rack with two big
knobs on the front. I can't remember which companies made them, but I
think they date back to the 50's. I don't think it was Pultec, but rather
folk like Eckmiller, Neumann or Siemens.


Pultec did make a high-low pass filter. Very popular through the 70s. So
did a few others.

Steve King


There are modern recreations of those, too.

For example: http://www.retroinstruments.com/2a3.html

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Default How did they create that sound on "Mercy Mercy Me"?

Scott Dorsey wrote:

philicorda wrote:

What was more common is a passive high/low pass. I have seen in pictures
of old studios a passive high/low pass filter, in a rack with two big
knobs on the front. I can't remember which companies made them, but I
think they date back to the 50's. I don't think it was Pultec, but rather
folk like Eckmiller, Neumann or Siemens.


Everybody made them. Pultec made them, Cinema Engineering made them,
White made them, studios made their one one-offs using surplus magnetics
and vertical sweep coils from TV sets. Most of them were at most second
order filters but of course you could chain them if you were insane.


And whip them if they misbehaved.

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Brent Barkley Brent Barkley is offline
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Default How did they create that sound on "Mercy Mercy Me"?

I just found this thread. I've been infatuated with the "reverb hit" from Mercy Mercy Me since I was a teenager and they used the song for a Maxell commercial (I believe) touting the fidelity of relatively new CD technology at the time. (I'm guessing this was 1989-90 era or so.)

I can't believe I'm going to say this--I've always been on team woodblock. But I was just listening to Mercy Mercy Me and let the rest of the album keep playing afterwards, and I believe we are given a hell of a hint with the track, Inner City Blues.

You can hear it in the intro and particularly in the last 25 seconds during the outro of Inner City Blues. Congas panned left, 100% wet verb panned right. Not nearly as much decay/gate as Mercy Mercy me, but the pitch is the exact same pitch of the sound in Mercy Mercy Me.

For me this settles it. Whatever that drum is (sounds conga to me but could be bongos), that's what makes the sound in Mercy Mercy Me, and for me no question they recorded a separate track post mixdown (since it's not in the original 16 according to posters on here) and added that gated verb to perfection a single hit on that drum on the 2 and 4.

Sadly, I believe I've read elsewhere that nobody is still alive from those sessions, and honestly it might have been done so post that even the original musicians there wouldn't have been present for it. Thank god it's there though. Whoever's idea it was, it makes the track for me.
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Default How did they create that sound on "Mercy Mercy Me"?

Gon Bops quinto. EMT 140 plate.
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