Earth Angel... How to emulate that sound

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caseybasichis
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Earth Angel... How to emulate that sound

Post by caseybasichis » Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:48 am

Can someone give me some pointers as to how to get close the sound of Earth Angel by the penguins? What kind of gear were they using back then? Did they have compressors at that point. I'm using sample libraries for the drums and piano so I need to figure out a way to do it in post.

Thanks,
Casey

madtho
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Post by madtho » Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:44 am

The best of TOMB thread has tons of very useful info, including "how to sound like..." threads.

It's too bad that megathread is buried in the archives. I think a lot of folks here would benefit.

-mad
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joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:55 am

Just listen really closely to the original and make it happen.
I had to do some "sound-a - likes" and it was really fun! Three totally different era's and styles. I had to do the byrds, faith hill and tim mcgraw, and beyonce. !!!!

They came out incredibly exact, including the performances. A lot of times, the musical gestures are just aas important as the overall tone, so really, really listen to the thing you are trying to get, and make it happen! You will find yourself lowpassing things you never thought you would, and doing things differently overall... it is a GREAT way to learn what frequencies actually are making a mix "happen" and what about the song is great.

Remember to semantically keep the idea that you are not trying to make it sound "infereior" but that you are using "old gear" and trying to make it sound "modern." Even if you arent...
That helped my brain work...

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mingus2112
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Post by mingus2112 » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:58 am

kentothink and I were just talking about this the other day. I'm a little obsessed lately (again. . .this happened originally in the summer 1998) with the snare drum sounds on the original Bad Company record. We were listening to that and some guitar sounds on Bachman Turner Overdrive and we were just like "we should record some covers for practice."

It's a totally great exercise in technique.

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Post by jeddypoo » Sat Jan 27, 2007 3:49 pm

bounce those sampled tracks to a four-track and do the rest right on the four track. That's the best way to emulate anything pre 1964, in my mind.

Barring that, remember to MIX IT IN MONO. And try using really wet verbs, and tape saturation sounds. The key here is that you don't want to hear any one instrument too clearly, other than the vocals. A lot of that stuff was done with everyone in the same room.

and yeah, the musical gestures are even more important. Nobody plays drums anymore like they did in the fifties and sixties- also, keep it pretty diatonic, unless you do some flat 6 chords here in there (like, for example, iv, bVI, ii-dim,). But that stuff is super important.

also, ribbon mics.
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Re: k

Post by ludwig_van » Sun Jan 28, 2007 9:00 am

jeddypoo wrote:keep it pretty diatonic, unless you do some flat 6 chords here in there (like, for example, iv, bVI, ii-dim,).
A classic! (I like the ii-half-diminished, i.e. iim7b5. It's annoying to write though.)

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Post by Mix413 » Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:23 pm

When was that recorded, like 1958 or so? Live in the same room, a few baffles maybe. Could have been cut live to a 1/2" three track Ampex machine. Band on track one, lead vocal on track two, BG vocals on track three. Echo was probably a live chamber, some tape slap and room bleed. Drums probably one mic. I'd guess there was 5-6 mics on the whole session. In those days they usually cut three masters in a single 4 hour session due to union regulations.
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jeddypoo
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Re: k

Post by jeddypoo » Mon Jan 29, 2007 3:43 pm

ludwig_van wrote:
jeddypoo wrote:keep it pretty diatonic, unless you do some flat 6 chords here in there (like, for example, iv, bVI, ii-dim,).
A classic! (I like the ii-half-diminished, i.e. iim7b5. It's annoying to write though.)
oh, the half-dim two chord is nice, for sure. Another flat-6ish thing I like, although it's not exactly a flat-6 thing, is the VII over the tonic, usually voiced from the third up. It reminds me of the Nintendo game Kid Icarus.

I'm glad I didn't alienate EVERYONE with theory jargon.
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Post by jeddypoo » Mon Jan 29, 2007 3:45 pm

John Noll wrote:When was that recorded, like 1958 or so? Live in the same room, a few baffles maybe. Could have been cut live to a 1/2" three track Ampex machine. Band on track one, lead vocal on track two, BG vocals on track three. Echo was probably a live chamber, some tape slap and room bleed. Drums probably one mic. I'd guess there was 5-6 mics on the whole session. In those days they usually cut three masters in a single 4 hour session due to union regulations.
everything here is excellent advice. Also, seriously consider the four track thing. My band, well, my one-man-band, used to be very Brill Building-esque, and I used to record only four-track cassette for it, and it sounded a thousand times more authentic than any attempt I make for a similiar sound with "good" equipment. Seriously.
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Post by madtho » Sat Feb 10, 2007 5:30 pm

In an obsessive compulsive moment, I turned up these little nuggets about the Penguins recording 'earth angel' for Dootsie Williams of the Doo-Tone label...
The group recorded both songs at Brinson's studio strictly as a demo. As producer Dootsie Williams remembered, "We had a drummer whose name I can't remember [Cleve says it was Preston Epps], Curtis played piano, and Ted [Brinson] would turn on his [Ampex] recorder and then pick up his bass. He played in that steady, fundamental style from the big bands. We muffled the drums with pillows because we didn't want the lower register to drown out the voices. Every time the dog barked next door, I'd have to go out and shut him up and then we'd do another take. I was planning to put an electric guitar and saxophone on the song later on, but first I wanted to get the recordings down to John Dolphin and get his opinion on them"
So it must have been a multi-track, though earlier in the piece it says his 'very basic' studio. What $$ did Ampex 3 tracks go for?

and the same studio recording the Calvanes...
"Everybody was in the same room - one lead mic and one mic for the group. Jack Harris (the shortest) had to stand on a telephone book to reach the mic."
-mad,
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