Echo and the Bunnymen: "The Killing Moon" intro in

[goose42]

So I finally picked up Echo and The Bunnymen's Ocean Rain. My favorite track is definitely "The Killing Moon." I love that intro, and I'm trying to figure out what instrument it is and how it was recorded.

Sounds like coursed strings, hollow body, light (if any) EQ, and moderate to heavy compression by a transparent dynamics unit. The trill sounds more like a pitch bend you get from a koto or an oud - something without frets. The tone is too bright for an oud, I think. It's pretty carefully matched to the electric 12-string that plays during the bridge.

Guessing mando or octave mando. Next guesses would be koto or shamisen. Or... is it just the 12-string with a Digitech Whammy?

Can anyone shed some light? Been digging around but haven't turned anything up yet.

[vvv]

Love that song, love that band - saw 'em about '82 - great show, with 'shrooms.

Mostly listen to 'em live lately, but as I recall, the video showed a cello ...

Live recordings, I seem to recall a e-bow and keys.

I'll try and listen to the studio track later.

[goose42]

Sorry to take so long to get back to this. Thanks for your help!

I should have looked a little further... in this live performance, it's on a 12-string: http://youtu.be/qo2iFRwYcNo

Any insights on how to make a 12-string sound like the record? My first guess is tracking with tape at half-speed, and playing the part an octave down.

It's a change in the formant that makes sped-up live instruments sound a little off-kilter, correct?

[goose42]

Slightly off topic, I've been comparing this record to The Stone Roses; what a difference in just five years! They're both great and have a lot of stylistic influences in common, but they sound so very different. Different rooms, different gear, different mix aesthetic, different mastering.

About four years before Ocean Rain, there was The Soft Boys' Underwater Moonlight, which I've also had on repeat. It's vastly different, too, but the differences are a lot smaller between it and Ocean Rain than between Ocean Rain and The Stone Roses. Did something crazy happen that I missed between 1984 and 1989?

[goose42]

Hm, one huge thing that happened in that time period was The Joshua Tree.

[Gregg Juke]

Also, it's important to note socio-culturally, that the "edge years" of each decade are closer to the end of the last one (or the beginning of the next one). Meaning, cultural/stylistic shifts (including art, film, music, and music production techniques) do not always fit into neat "decade packages." Time-Life collections and others of that ilk use decade-packaging to herald "The Fabulous Fifties" or "The Edgy 80's," but 1962 has a lot more to do with 1959 than it does 1967, culturally speaking. Same thing with the 80's (or any era). '81/'82 was still the 70's, really. '89 was closer to '91 than '81. Just watch early episodes of "Seinfeld" (which weren't shot until the early 90's), and you'll think "Oh my gosh, the 80's!" Because they were still wearing late-80's clothes and hairstyles.

GJ

[Gregg Juke]

Boy, that was cumbersome.

What I'm trying to say in relation to your point/question is-- "The early 80's were still the 70's, and the late 80's were really like the early 90's."

Sorry,

GJ

[vvv]

Yep, we're still, in so many ways, in the oughts.

[Gregg Juke]

No, as far as "retro" is concerned, we're in the early 90's, according to the 20-Year Rule (tm). But thez an en-tire-lee differnt conversayshun.

GJ

[vvv]

When the music of my yout' is retro, I know I'm One of the Old Boys.

[Gregg Juke]

You and me both, Vuv.

Gregg "What's that, Sonny? I couldn't hear you, dagnabbit!" Juke

[goose42]

I definitely feel the 20-year-rule has strong pull! I'm not sure I can see me and my peers looking back fondly on Limp Bizkit and Korn, who were the big deal my freshman year of high school. Almost all of the stuff I still like from my teens has some kind of throwback element to it. But like you said, a whole other conversation!

I definitely didn't mean to suggest that because all three records I mentioned were recorded between 1979 and 1990 that they should all sound the same. I'm coming at the highly subjective audiophile term "fidelity."

I hurt my own feelings by playing Pet Sounds and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road back to back. Pet Sounds in mono is amazing on its own, but you stack it up next to a stereo mix from a 16-or-more-track machine with better noise reduction, and suddenly Dorothy's not in Kansas anymore. It's not that anything about one production is "better" than the other; it's simply huge leaps in studio technology between 1966 and 1972 making the two records almost apples and oranges.

Each of these '80s English records I mentioned also sounds great on its own, but there's a clear chronological progression in terms of fidelity. However, there weren't ENORMOUS leaps in technology like parametric EQ and a quadrupling of tape tracks between 1979 and 1989. Why is The Stone Roses (and hell, The Joshua Tree while we're at it) so much subjectively "bigger" and "clearer" sounding than Underwater Moonlight or Ocean Rain, even though the two later records are slathered in effects?

I'm sure part of the answer lies in all of these places... how initial tracks were recorded, arrangements, size of desk and outboard gear available at mix time, and the mastering process. Come to think of it, even Murmur, which predates Ocean Rain by a year, sounds both "bigger" and "more intimate."

Well, there goes my thesis. This is turning into a very disorganized essay! Thanks for sharing your insight.

[goose42]

And I guess the bottom line is "what details or techniques can I learn from the production of these records so that I can make new records that sound this good?"

I'm a detail-oriented dude, and I am getting carried away with all the minutiae... "oh look, Robyn Hitchcock plays Stratocasters! I think I hear a Blue Box somewhere in the middle of 'I Wanna Be Adored'. Or is it a Digitech Whammy? Do I hear an H3000 detuning the drums at the end of 'Elephant Stone'? Ok, now I know the intro to 'The Killing Moon' is played a 12-string Vox guitar. And they recorded that song in a castle in France? And the drums on 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' were recorded in the lobby of Windmill Lane because it was lined with stone. Stone is good, where can I get a stone room..."

Of course, none of those elements alone, or even all of those elements together, make a good record. Got to focus on the big picture: have good songs and get people to play together. I've heard it time and time again - there's a reason the verb you do to music is "play."

[jgimbel]

goose, I think you and I think VERY similarly. SO much to consider, yet at the same time a constant search for the more simple pith of what remains constant. I feel like I could have written your posts myself.

Also, I went through Murfreesboro on a road trip to Nashville (the furthest west I've been at this point, with the exception of a few trips to China I've taken). I really loved Tennessee and would love to go back soon).

But I digress, great thread, carry on!

[vvv]

... the more simple pith ....

I think I smoked summa that, once.

I always thought Echo was kinda goin' for wall-of-sound, while Stone Roses were goin' for more of a funk thing, both within their particular psychodelia.

By what I mean, I thought those remarked-upon differences were the result of aesthetic choice.

Or mebbe the smoking of more different simple kinds of pith ...