Strangest Studio Techniques U Ever Used?

[Lostboy]

to get my bloody valentine's sound on loveless, simply spend half a million dollars on a single album and put your record company out of business.

but oh, was it worth it.

no but seriously, i haven't read the tapeop article on loveless and would be interested ... i heard a while back that they actually manipulated the tape they recorded on. what'd they do? i have an image of them sitting around and smearing nail polish and peanut butter on some tape, decorating it and shit. but that just shows my ignorance about analog recording

[I'm Painting Again]

It makes $ents about the tape manipulation..it think it explains the long asymmetric layers that i think give the ultra-organic quality to the album..

[trash180]

I remember reading that MBV while working on the follow up to Loveless were experimenting with sleep deprivation. They'd stay up a couple days in a row and write and record or something.

They should have taken promo pics of themselves smearing peanut butter on tape.

"in the making of Loveless did Kevin Shield use crunchy or creamy peanut butter?"

[bedbug]

I remember reading that MBV while working on the follow up to Loveless were experimenting with sleep deprivation. They'd stay up a couple days in a row and write and record or something.
"

I read somewhere that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Naomi" was written after staying awake for 3 days or something like that. Sounds insane to me!

[soundguy]

Isnt a phrase like "tape manipulation" some bonehead line that non tech music journalists use to sound sophisticated? Perhaps the word they were trying to use was "mix" but it was just too plain for the shoegazers to read about...

There are INSANE sounds on that record, but testament to what an amazing recording it is, if you listen, you can actually hear the sounds that were recorded.

worth mentioning also, is how LOUD that record is. And its loud because it was mixed to sound that way, not loud because some ass mastering it that way. You can totally crank that record to deafening volumes. I would guess, based on its content, if that was mastered today, that record would be exactly 100 times less interesting. The magic on that record comes from the depth it has, which by modern masterng standards, would be %100 removed. That record, for now, is totally the last of the Mohicans.

dave

[I'm Painting Again]

Sorry if i'm not technical enough for you.

I think it is an ok way to describe what the other person was talking about..the actual physical manipulation of the tape, i.e., smearing peanut b utter and nail polish on it..i don't see that as being a mixing technique in any way..i think you right about the mastering now-a-days though..

plain is a relative term..like Burber said jargen isolates man..



i would like to see the tape heads after that peanut butter session.

[soundguy]

you might have fun "physically manipulating" it as described, but you might find incredible difficulty playing the tape after you were done.

dave

[swillhite]

I put a mike inside and next to a shoe box and played it with brushes, got a great mellow, jazzy snare sound.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

worth mentioning also, is how LOUD that record is.

dave

and relative volume-wise, loveless and at action park are amongst the quietest cds i own. actually all the shellac records are quiet. and they sound so good when you crank 'em. would be nice if having the quietest record became the new cool thing. "dude, you have to crank my bands cd up to 7 before it really starts to rock!" "ppppffffttt. obviously you've never heard of crest factor. my bands cd doesn't start rocking until it's on 9!"

since that will never happen, i'll try and get back on topic. i followed my cat around with a 57 once, recording her purring and meowing and doing cat things. dropped it onto some silly track and had her "trading licks" (ha) with my guitar. it was fairly amusing. awhile back i "mastered" a track for a friend, he'd recorded his cat too...different cat, different mic, different room....it sounded EXACTLY like mine. so much for novelty.

cheers,
-scott

[Arman]

I put my old drummer down in a 60 foot ravine and recorded him with an omni mic about 20 feet above his head suspended from a bridge. Stuck a second mic by a birds nest in an alcove right under the bridge and panned them out a little bit. The hard part was getting him the friggin' headphones and having him play slightly ahead of the beat. It all worked out beautifully.
We also recorded in my old high school gymnasium that has steel walls and rubber floors. I think it had about 17 seconds of natural reverb. Stereo close mics and gated stereo distant mics created some great syncopation.

[shoehorn]

I Mic'd myself up with a kazoo through a few different amps but my favorite sound was through a POD and I had the whole thing cranked enough to get some cool feedback as I move on and off the mic. I also used my hands to get a pretty cool vibrato as well. No one can figure out what I'm doing to get that sound.

[jajjguy]

Dropped a radioshack tie-clip mic inside the soundhole of an acoustic guitar, combined it with the direct signal from the piezo pickup. the mic was low and woofy sounding, the piezo was really bright and pokey... it was a good combination.

[NewYorkDave]

This isn't particularly strange or wacky, but... I recorded a track recently and wanted a Phil Spector-ish "CHINK!" accenting the snare beats. I didn't have a tambourine, so I put up a LD condenser and dropped my car keys on an Altoid can on the upbeats; then, at mixdown, slammed the signal hard into the input of a spring reverb. I panned the dry and (distorted) reverb signal to opposite sides. It sounded pretty cool.

[cbcmusic]

I posted this a while ago, but it may be interesting to one or two people.

Between takes I went to the baffrume while the guitar player was practicing his part. His guitar sounded great in there, so I grabbed a mic and placed it where I thought it sounded best after moving my head around and ended up placing it next to the commode.

Anyway, I blended that with the close mic and it was only ok. It sounded pretty good on it's own, but not so blended, but of course the band wanted to have the toilet mic on there, it worked none-the-less.

I heard about and want to try wrapping a mic in plastic (water tight) and putting it in a body of water (glass, tub, washing machine, etc) and see what I could record with it and how good if at all. I just don't know if I could trust myself putting a mic in water, it seems like you would be asking for trouble. Kinda like giving an emoticon a hammer to play with.

[I'm Painting Again]

haha i luv this thread!!