McCartney 3,2,1

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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by Nick Sevilla » Thu Oct 28, 2021 2:46 am

There's a lower mid range thickness/richness/density to things like a solo'd vocal stem or bass track - where they are clear but not bright or harsh in anyway. They just feel velvety, rubbery and massively big.
Several factors. To my best recollection, from working with people of that generation:

1. Technically. Using U67 and U47 microphones, which are amazing tube microphones. The signal then went through handmade mic preamps, those TG things that only exist at Abbey Road. Again, really great custom made circuitry, mated properly (impedance wise) to those microphones. then processed with equaalization and or compression before hitting analog tape. Engineers were trained in how to capture sound a certain way. This was adjsuted by the requirements of the beatles and George Martin, who had a particular sonic vision for these records. Sometrhing more than just the technology.

2. Musically. their arrangements indicated only certain numbers of instruments and voices. Today's productions, where you have people constantly recording TOO MANY THINGS believing this is the way to a "huge sound" is the main issue today. In ANY audio format, be it digital, analogue, whatever, you HAVE to know this fact: You can only put so much into a format before it is full. Think of your digital audio file as a CUP. One that can only ever hold so much quantity of sound. the trick here is to know how much of EACH sound has to go into the cup, in order to get to the best result sonically. THAT is the hardest part, and believe me, the arrangement is 90% of the solution to this problem, not anything technical or mathematical.

In the Beatles recordings, for example, when you hear backing vocals, how many do you hear? FOUR MAXIMUM for the most part, because that was how many members you had in the band singing the backing vocals. Later on, sure they invited friends to sing along on some of the productions, but what you notice on those, is that the backing vocals are less loud than when it was only 4 or less singers. Same with guitars: One for lead, one for rhythm. Not fucking 16 tracks of guitars or vocals. That never can get you that sort of MASSIVELLY BIG types of sounds that you like. Again, the CUP can only hold so much sound before it is full.

One guitar or voal will absolutely sound bigger than 16. Because it can occupy more of the cup space than 16. Those 16 have to be reduced in volume until they occupy the same space as that one big guitar.

Try this as an experiment: Record one rhythm guitar. Mix it down by itself so it fills your digital audio file. Do the same, but record 16 guitars, and try to fill the same level in your final audio file mixdown. You'll hear the difference quite clearly.
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by drumsound » Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:46 am

Nick Sevilla wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 2:46 am
There's a lower mid range thickness/richness/density to things like a solo'd vocal stem or bass track - where they are clear but not bright or harsh in anyway. They just feel velvety, rubbery and massively big.
Several factors. To my best recollection, from working with people of that generation:

1. Technically. Using U67 and U47 microphones, which are amazing tube microphones. The signal then went through handmade mic preamps, those TG things that only exist at Abbey Road. Again, really great custom made circuitry, mated properly (impedance wise) to those microphones. then processed with equaalization and or compression before hitting analog tape. Engineers were trained in how to capture sound a certain way. This was adjsuted by the requirements of the beatles and George Martin, who had a particular sonic vision for these records. Sometrhing more than just the technology.

2. Musically. their arrangements indicated only certain numbers of instruments and voices. Today's productions, where you have people constantly recording TOO MANY THINGS believing this is the way to a "huge sound" is the main issue today. In ANY audio format, be it digital, analogue, whatever, you HAVE to know this fact: You can only put so much into a format before it is full. Think of your digital audio file as a CUP. One that can only ever hold so much quantity of sound. the trick here is to know how much of EACH sound has to go into the cup, in order to get to the best result sonically. THAT is the hardest part, and believe me, the arrangement is 90% of the solution to this problem, not anything technical or mathematical.

In the Beatles recordings, for example, when you hear backing vocals, how many do you hear? FOUR MAXIMUM for the most part, because that was how many members you had in the band singing the backing vocals. Later on, sure they invited friends to sing along on some of the productions, but what you notice on those, is that the backing vocals are less loud than when it was only 4 or less singers. Same with guitars: One for lead, one for rhythm. Not fucking 16 tracks of guitars or vocals. That never can get you that sort of MASSIVELLY BIG types of sounds that you like. Again, the CUP can only hold so much sound before it is full.

One guitar or voal will absolutely sound bigger than 16. Because it can occupy more of the cup space than 16. Those 16 have to be reduced in volume until they occupy the same space as that one big guitar.

Try this as an experiment: Record one rhythm guitar. Mix it down by itself so it fills your digital audio file. Do the same, but record 16 guitars, and try to fill the same level in your final audio file mixdown. You'll hear the difference quite clearly.
ALL OF THIS>

And up until the White Album, the console AND tape machines were tube, the 8-track 3M machine showed up for that record, but those are not tins sounding at all. The REDD desks were still in play, full of tube circuitry. The TG desks (which Geoff Emmerick and others were said to dislike) were only around on Abbey Road AFAIK, but are still considered one of the greatest sounding pieces ever made. And the same U48s, U67s, C12s, and Fairchild and Altec compressors were still being employed. Plus there's the recording space and it's sound.

And, something people do not consider enough when citing the sounds, arrangements, and performances on classic records. There was TIME and BUDGET to get things just so... Most of us here in the trenches are LUCKY if we have the budget to make a whole record that bands like the Beatles for to do backing vocals.

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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by losthighway » Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:52 am

drumsound wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:46 am

And up until the White Album, the console AND tape machines were tube, the 8-track 3M machine showed up for that record, but those are not tins sounding at all. The REDD desks were still in play, full of tube circuitry. The TG desks (which Geoff Emmerick and others were said to dislike) were only around on Abbey Road AFAIK, but are still considered one of the greatest sounding pieces ever made. And the same U48s, U67s, C12s, and Fairchild and Altec compressors were still being employed. Plus there's the recording space and it's sound.
For my money the Abbey Road stuff sounds sonically better than most of the things they recorded, yet somehow slightly less of a Beatles record in sound. There is plenty of grainy, washy, stuff in the back catalog that we don't gripe about because the songs are amazing, but I remind myself that if I somehow accomplished a "Ringo" drum sound it would be relatively buried by the tonality of what guitars and basses are in one of my more modern sounding mixes.

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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by joninc » Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:59 am

i completely get what you guys are saying about track counts and arrangements - but i am actually addressing something different.

It's about how I can record a single guitar or voice with a high end tube mic and chander tg2 preamp through a fancy tube compressor and it will sound good - but against the aforementioned tracks it still feels smaller and brighter. I think there's some sort of HF limiting happening through either the tube preamps, tape or some kind of EQ that is rounding the Beatles tracks in a way that feels super creamy and smooth.
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by Nick Sevilla » Fri Oct 29, 2021 2:11 am

joninc wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:59 am
i completely get what you guys are saying about track counts and arrangements - but i am actually addressing something different.

It's about how I can record a single guitar or voice with a high end tube mic and chander tg2 preamp through a fancy tube compressor and it will sound good - but against the aforementioned tracks it still feels smaller and brighter. I think there's some sort of HF limiting happening through either the tube preamps, tape or some kind of EQ that is rounding the Beatles tracks in a way that feels super creamy and smooth.
For that, you need to take into account the following:

1. The acoustic space that your guitar amplifier will be recorded in. Place the amp where it sounds good at the volume you will be playing it at. Place the singer where he or she sounds best and fills the room with the best reflections. Use more than one mic to capture the sound. Route those mics into a mono group to record a Mono signal. COMMIT to it. Some of David Bowie vocals were done with three mics, look at that Tony Visconti plug in that uses three mics to affect the sound. On the Beatles, mostly they used either a U67 or a U47 microphone, but no more. You can find budget mics that get close to that sound, but you'll need to EQ a bit as well on the way in. Compression? Never overuse it. 1-3 dB max of compression on the way in, more during mixing if needed. Do not saturate the input of any of the equipment. Clean and loud is what you are going for. Have the singer sing AS LOUD as possible, set your gain levels to handle that with no distortion.
2. The placement of the microphone(s). Look at pictures of where they were in those Beatles recordings: NOT CLOSE TO THE AMP. They recorded the amp and some of the room reflections as well. find the best sounding proportion of those two elements.
3. Filter out some of the brightness. Take it out. If the sound is still not low end-y enough, add some. They sure did on those records. Brits love getting the final sound on the way in, on the recording side. I've worked with several Brits, they all work like that. It is a European thing. Here in America, the style is more about capturing "A sound" and then tinkering with it afterwards. Mostly due to time and budget constraints. Get in the habit of getting the sound BEFORE pressing record. That includes the recording chain, mic, EQ compression. COMMIT to the sound before pressing that red button.

Part of the issue, is that you want to know, as much as you can, what the final song will sound like, as much as possible. Get the sounds together. Get the arrangements together too.

It might seem like a lot of work, and it is, especially if you are used to slapping a mic in front of things and pressing record WITHOUT bothering to find the best placement for the instrument, mic, and the best processing before recording. Believe me, doing this first saves time later on down the process. Less tinkering in the mix time, more creativity time available to play with the mix instead of fighting shitty recordings done too quickly and with no care as to how they were done.

Personally, I have worked with several awesome Brit singers. When getting their sound for the album, it would sometimes take a day or two of experimenting with different signal chains, until we found "the one" combination that was best for that individual. On one album, Exciter (Depeche Mode), I sat facing the Teletronix La2a compressor, and would change the settings between a VERSE and a CHORUS one, in order to always have the right amount of compression for Dave Gahan's vocal the entire way through the song. Same thing with Jon Anderson of Yes. Your job as engineer is to do these things to get exactly what they want recorded. When they are warming up, run the track, record a pass, move knobs, find the best setting for each part of the song if you need to. don't think you can get this accomplished later, because you will get a vocal part smashed too much and you'll be screwed. Get it right during the recording phase. Dave Gahan thought it was funny I was doing this. But since he had complained that the vocal got too smashed at a previous recording studio, I did it. Because that was the only way to get it right. Since he only would sing 5 takes maximum in any given day, it was just a 30-45 minute job. But the whole band and the producer loved this method. Because once we had "the take", that was it. Dave could go hang with his family, and also contribute to musical ideas out in the main recording room with the rest of the band. And not have to do shit tons of takes because things had to be changed over too often. Jon Anderson liked the idea, as he felt it was more organic. He would only do up to three takes, and then punch in for certain phrases that he wanted to perfect, when needed. I had notes written for all the recording settings for each song part, so if he wanted to re sing a phrase even days later, we could set it up quickly.

Cheers.
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by digitaldrummer » Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:16 am

and don't forget the players... when Paul plays, he sounds like Paul. By the later albums, all of the Beatles were pretty accomplished players and that sound is in them. Everyone tries to sound like Ringo and very few actually do (except, well, Ringo). it's not just the gear they played or recorded with or the room. That's why they are the Beatles, and you are not. :lol:
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by drumsound » Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:10 am

losthighway wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:52 am
drumsound wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:46 am

And up until the White Album, the console AND tape machines were tube, the 8-track 3M machine showed up for that record, but those are not tins sounding at all. The REDD desks were still in play, full of tube circuitry. The TG desks (which Geoff Emmerick and others were said to dislike) were only around on Abbey Road AFAIK, but are still considered one of the greatest sounding pieces ever made. And the same U48s, U67s, C12s, and Fairchild and Altec compressors were still being employed. Plus there's the recording space and it's sound.
For my money the Abbey Road stuff sounds sonically better than most of the things they recorded, yet somehow slightly less of a Beatles record in sound. There is plenty of grainy, washy, stuff in the back catalog that we don't gripe about because the songs are amazing, but I remind myself that if I somehow accomplished a "Ringo" drum sound it would be relatively buried by the tonality of what guitars and basses are in one of my more modern sounding mixes.
It's really funny, because the TG12345 console becomes as much of a classic as the REDD desk, but the engineers who were there when the changeover happened were NOT happy about the TG. I love the sound, and the presentation of Abbey Road. I fluctuate between it and Revolver as my personal favorites Beatles records.

As to getting a sound and mix that work like those... economy is part of it. The space you record in is part of it. Tape is part of it. The personnel is part of it. This list could go on and on...
joninc wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:59 am
i completely get what you guys are saying about track counts and arrangements - but i am actually addressing something different.

It's about how I can record a single guitar or voice with a high end tube mic and chander tg2 preamp through a fancy tube compressor and it will sound good - but against the aforementioned tracks it still feels smaller and brighter. I think there's some sort of HF limiting happening through either the tube preamps, tape or some kind of EQ that is rounding the Beatles tracks in a way that feels super creamy and smooth.
Image
digitaldrummer wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:16 am
and don't forget the players... when Paul plays, he sounds like Paul. By the later albums, all of the Beatles were pretty accomplished players and that sound is in them. Everyone tries to sound like Ringo and very few actually do (except, well, Ringo). it's not just the gear they played or recorded with or the room. That's why they are the Beatles, and you are not. :lol:
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by vernier » Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:17 pm

Been watching parts of 3, 2, 1 and liking the sounds. Tubes, tape, and analog gear .. there's something about it all.

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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by Jarvis » Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:42 pm

digitaldrummer wrote:
Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:07 am
Emerick also wrote about how Paul would come in and redo bass parts - punching in sections to make sure ever line was articulated correctly. I dare say very few do that these days and instead some engineer will "fix" a wonky note here and there instead...
This is the reason for those sweet basslines.
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by vvv » Mon Nov 01, 2021 5:37 pm

One obviously cannot argue with the results - that shit is canonical.

But ... I won't do that.

Probably why I suck, mebbe, but that is just not my aesthetic.

FWIW. :high:
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by markjazzbassist » Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:11 am

not a beatles fan but enjoying it nonetheless. paul's enthusiasm for life and convivial personality are really cool to see at a person of his age. goes to show age is just a number.

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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by vvv » Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:50 pm

I have seen the trailers for the up-coming Netflix by Peter Jackson doc (60 Minutes even did a thing onnit - google for it), and it looks and sounds most excellent.

I think it comes out T-day.
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by digitaldrummer » Wed Nov 17, 2021 6:47 am

vvv wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:50 pm
I have seen the trailers for the up-coming Netflix
unfortunately I think it is on Disney+ :cry:
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by emrr » Wed Nov 17, 2021 7:39 am

Dig the material, but had a hard time with the short attention span overly pumped up nature of the presentation. Didn't cover a lot in one episode, wasn't long, but still I felt exhausted. Probably just me! Actually sounds like the definition of a properly presented meal. Will try again.....
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Re: McCartney 3,2,1

Post by markjazzbassist » Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:15 am

just finished last night. the thing i realized is that Paul's passion is not being a musican, it is being a songwriter. i will re-iterate i'm not a beatles fan so if this is common knowledge i'm sorry for being captain obvious. it was striking to me though because whenever Rick would say "what a bassline" or "listen to that piano" paul would just shrug it off, but not in an arrogant way, just that's not what moves him, it's just part of the song. the way he was able to play and sing the first song he ever wrote was where i realized it is all about songwriting for him. as a musician first myself, it was an interesting perspective that i enjoyed watching.

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