Gillian Welch/David Rawlings article in #85

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dgrieser
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Gillian Welch/David Rawlings article in #85

Post by dgrieser » Sun Oct 02, 2011 8:31 am

Thanks for the article on these two stellar musicians/songwriters. I had no idea Rawlings was so involved in the recording aspect of their music. I love that picture of them seated across from each other playing and recording. I'll be listening to their music again with new ears.

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tonewoods
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Post by tonewoods » Sun Oct 02, 2011 8:36 am

Yeah, a big +1....

Wonderful article...

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EasyGo
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Post by EasyGo » Sun Oct 02, 2011 2:37 pm

Agreed. The article inspired me to check out more of their music.

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leigh
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Post by leigh » Tue Oct 04, 2011 12:26 am

Hey, there must be an echo in here!

Can anyone give more details on the analog-recall-with-voltmeter technique that Rawlings & John B. discuss in that interview?

Leigh

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joninc
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Post by joninc » Tue Oct 04, 2011 12:50 am

great article!

amazingly great sounding recordings. pretty high end gear too! m49s, neve 1084s etc...
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Post by mrmatta » Tue Oct 04, 2011 11:37 pm

The voltmeter recall is a way to document the aux sends and returns. Faders are pretty easy to mark with a pencil, but small Neve rotary pots are nearly impossible to document. "2 and a half dots" is a pretty wide window, as is "10 o'clock".

Set the oscillator to a known zero (such as .775V, or 0VU) and verify it with a voltmeter. Then patch the oscillator into each channel input, and read the output of the aux master with the voltmeter. Each channel gets a number.

If you need to recall a mix, you can get your reverb sends back exactly as they were. Returns work in a similar way - oscillator into the aux return, voltmeter on the mix buss out (L and R)

It's a great system when your mix consists of 4 channels and an EMT plate. It could get pretty cumbersome pretty quickly with much more going on.

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leigh
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Post by leigh » Wed Oct 05, 2011 1:28 am

mrmatta wrote:The voltmeter recall is a way to document the aux sends and returns. Faders are pretty easy to mark with a pencil, but small Neve rotary pots are nearly impossible to document. "2 and a half dots" is a pretty wide window, as is "10 o'clock".
Well, in the article, Rawlings is talking about using it to recall faders - though I can see how it would work on auxes as well.

And, re-reading that bit, he says they used this system of recall when they had to move their project from one room to another. I'm not clear whether they were moving the board with them - but the cool part is, it doesn't matter, if you're using this voltmeter system. The fader markings could be off on one board, or the channels' line amp gains could vary by a few dB, but if you're measuring the resulting AC voltage, those variances between boards don't matter. Of course there still could be differences in tone, but just for getting the levels right it would seem to work very well.

Leigh

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Post by Marwood Williams » Wed Oct 05, 2011 1:00 pm

Another big +1!

I always loved the those records. It's great to hear about how they achieve that sound!

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Post by mjau » Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:47 pm

Yeah, great article. The picture of them in the studio is inspiration enough to record something.

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Post by dgrieser » Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:15 am

mjau wrote:The picture of them in the studio is inspiration enough to record something.
+ 1

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Post by Producer/Engineer » Sat Nov 26, 2011 5:41 pm

Wonderful article 4 sure!! Man, I love my Tape Op magazine! :D

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tonewoods
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Post by tonewoods » Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:21 am

Listened to "Revelator" again with fresh ears...
Great listen...

With I wouldn't have read about razor blades and tape-cutting though...
Lot's of 'em in there... :wink:
"You see, the whole thing about recording is the attempt at verisimilitude--not truth, but the appearance of truth."
Jerry Wexler

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