What Makes INXS Recordings So Damn Sparkly?

[lightandmind]

The preamps? The mastering, perhaps? The board? I just listened to video from a crummy smartphone cam shot inside of a moving vehicle playing some INXS background and it's STILL sparkly as hell. How'd they do that?

[Nick Sevilla]

Good production and a great mixer.

Lots of proper midrange and top end management.

Cheers

[MoreSpaceEcho]

aural exciters and cocaine.

[lightandmind]

aural exciters and cocaine.

Really!?! Aural Exciters do that? I just always wrote them off after having put them in the same category as Sonic Maximeisers, maybe I'll take another look at them. Don't the thin the sound out to some degree?

[ott0bot]

the first 3 INXS albums are not to sparkly. they sound like like typical stuff of that era...dry-ish, dbx noise reduced, bit of rolled off highs. there are some great tracks in there early catalog.

so I'm guess you are talking about Kick or X, cause those mothers sparkle like a British dude in a terrible vampire movie. but yeah, they are pretty darm good. I absolutely love the little clinky funk guitar parts and the fricken sax sounds killer. they're almost bit too sparkly, but the bass and drum mix is full of rich low-end.

They were my second concert ever as a kid, during the kick tour with Steel Pulse. saw my first real life set of boobies when some broads flashes the stage. good times.

[lightandmind]

the first 3 INXS albums are not to sparkly. they sound like like typical stuff of that era...dry-ish, dbx noise reduced, bit of rolled off highs. there are some great tracks in there early catalog.

so I'm guess you are talking about Kick or X, cause those mothers sparkle like a British dude in a terrible vampire movie. but yeah, they are pretty darm good. I absolutely love the little clinky funk guitar parts and the fricken sax sounds killer. they're almost bit too sparkly, but the bass and drum mix is full of rich low-end.

They were my second concert ever as a kid, during the kick tour with Steel Pulse. saw my first real life set of boobies when some broads flashes the stage. good times.

This post makes me wish that I could "Like" posts.
Yeah, THOSE records, I mean, how in the hell!?! It almost makes me want to run something supper fuzz-out and crappy through whatever the hell they were using. The sparkle seems to be on everything to some degree, right? Which would leave me to believe that it had to do with either the board or the mastering, and most likely the mastering? I can't think of any pre's, outboard or inboard, that was doing that during that era.

[Bjornson]

aural exciters and cocaine.

Really!?! Aural Exciters do that? I just always wrote them off after having put them in the same category as Sonic Maximeisers, maybe I'll take another look at them. Don't the thin the sound out to some degree?

Back in my 2" days I'd occasionally use it on an aux.

[lightandmind]

Back in my 2" days I'd occasionally use it on an aux.

If it turns out that "THAT" sound was just an AE on the master buss, I will totally flip my $hit.

[drumsound]

aural exciters and cocaine.

I opened this thread to say cocaine. Great minds, my friend...

[MoreSpaceEcho]

'cocaine' is my answer for pretty much anything that happened in the 80s.

Really!?!

no. sorry. i've no idea what they used. or what an aural exciter even sounds like. i bet some heavy handed high shelving would get you most of the way there though.

[Ron Obvious]

Ah you young kids! Please check out the audio masters that recorded and mixed these records. Chris Thomas and Bob Clearmountain. In the world of sonic perfection it doesn't/didn't get much better than that.

I have been lucky enough to have worked with both these "audio masters". Also the band themselves recorded their last album at a studio I built.

KICK - Recorded to 46 track analog, with drum machine click tracks. 95% sure mixed to Sony-1610 digital, as at The Power Station, Bob was already mixing to 2Trk Digital. This album however was mixed at Air Studios. My favourite song and still a reference for me - Devil Inside. Lead Vocal dry & echo at times. All the many 'melody' instruments placed properly in a full wide stereo soundstage. Low floor tom fill at 4:51 in the extro to make sure the 18" subs are working.

I do know that the Fairchild 670 was used on the 2Buss - Chris Thomas request.

Production wise, Chris Thomas knows how to fill the full audio spectrum with "sounds". The Pretenders, Pete Townshend, The Sex Pistols, etc, etc, etc! Back in his engineering days, he did some minor bands like The Beatles.

Just to step back in here one last time.

Yes this album was recorded/mixed on an SSL. Bob Clearmountain was/is the king of the SSL 4k. Because of his success on this console and the other minor thing he basically discovered, the NS-10, music mixing entered it's GOLDEN AGE. Before the devolution of the loudness wars and trying to make things sound 'cheap' retro, DYI. Can you imagine, Jimmy Page going, No I don't want this modern (1972) crap. Give me some of that really old 1950's Elvis stuff to work with! I want ZEP to sound like there is no bottom end, and distorted, etc, etc.

lightandmind - Brothers in Arms - was recorded at Air Studio's Montserrat. Neve > Sony digital 3324. mixed to Sony 1610 digital. Again by another Power Station engineer, Neil Dorfsman. For many, many, many years, this WAS THE REFERENCE DISK at all stereo HI-FI stores.

Now my "Sparkle" theory, which belongs to me, that is mine by Miss Anne Elk (you old timers will know the reference).

Most engineers had spent 15 - 25+ years recording to 8-16-24-48 track ANALOG. These machines were not very flat. You sent nice sounds into them and what you got back was a bit flubby/boomy and lacking a bit of sparkle. Even worse, after you played the tape 1,000(+)times, the top end all started to go. What about when you had to transfer the whole drum track to a second 24 track to make edits - more loss of clarity:(

So what was the modern knowledgeable engineer to do!

He would boost lots of 10K on almost everything. Also in the bottom end not add any lows because, the tape machine would do that for you (tapehead-repro wobble bump).

THE DAWN OF DIGITAL Sparkle time!

Now with only one thing changed in the chain, the digital multi-track, engineers basically kept EQ'ing and compressing to "tape" as they had done for decades. Even when mixing to the 2 track - 1/2" analog - which further clouded the mix a bit compared to what you sent to it from the mixing console. Then we also had more degradation of the sound when it went to vinyl! Resulting in an even more tubby bottom end, loss of top end, bass collapsed to mono, grainy mid range distortion and surface noise.

Lastly, not totally digital however, the transition from those "cloudy" Neve consoles + Analog tape, to SSL 4K consoles, with a much better transient response, lower noise floor and cleaner summing buss'es. At Little Mountain Sound - we couldn't wait to get rid of the Neve's for nice SSL's.

Slowly however engineers started to learn that they didn't need to add the (standard amount) of top end they had been use to adding, to 'over come' the analog tape 'problem'. Also they could spend more time working on the bottom end, which now went down flat to ~ 5hz, instead of rolling off steeply around 45 hz, with all kinds of bumps and valleys for a few octave up from there.

This was another compliant about those early digital albums - the lack of a big thick bottom end, even though these digital tape machines had a much flatter & low frequency cutoff. Engineers were so used to being very cautious about adding bass to analog tape due to the low end 'hump'. It took awhile for them to get much more creative with low end eq, in the land of digital recording.

This was a main reason some of the early 1980's recordings maybe had a bit too much 'sparkle' and a 'thin' bottom end. Yes those early A/D - D/A converters may not have been stunning, however believe me this was miniscule, compared to the 'damage' that 10,000+ plays of your analog multi-track would do.

Later wiser audio engineers learned you don't throw out ALL THE OLD stuff. I.E. Tube Mic's, Neve 1081 modules, Tube comps. All have there place in documenting an audio performance.

Now if we can just get back to mixes at -12dBFS=0VU.

The End.

[dfuruta]

RS eq

[Spark]

RS eq

...and cocaine.

[lightandmind]

Ah you young kids! Please check out the audio masters that recorded and mixed these records. Chris Thomas and Bob Clearmountain. In the world of sonic perfection it doesn't/didn't get much better than that.

I have been lucky enough to have worked with both these "audio masters". Also the band themselves recorded their last album at a studio I built.

KICK - Recorded to 46 track analog, with drum machine click tracks. 95% sure mixed to Sony-1610 digital, as at The Power Station, Bob was already mixing to 2Trk Digital. This album however was mixed at Air Studios. My favourite song and still a reference for me - Devil Inside. Lead Vocal dry & echo at times. All the many 'melody' instruments placed properly in a full wide stereo soundstage. Low floor tom fill at 4:51 in the extro to make sure the 18" subs are working.

I do know that the Fairchild 670 was used on the 2Buss - Chris Thomas request.

Production wise, Chris Thomas knows how to fill the full audio spectrum with "sounds". The Pretenders, Pete Townshend, The Sex Pistols, etc, etc, etc! Back in his engineering days, he did some minor bands like The Beatles.

Freaking SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reason number 4,643,243 that I friggin' love this place.
(aside from the lack of a "Like" button)

[The Scum]

Have you seen this:

http://mixonline.com/classic-tracks/cla ... u_tonight/

It hints at what another part of the secret sauce might be: 32-track digital reel-to-reel. Do Brothers In Arms or Nothingface have the same sparkle to you?