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."