Sixties Records

[Rob Christensen]

If you, or your client, were trying to make a project sound like it was recorded in the sixties - say 1965-68 - what you do? What kind of steps would you take to emulate those sounds? Sounds like the Beatles, Kinks, Stones, Beach Boys, Byrds, and Dylan made during those years.

I ask because I'm working on just such a project using a Tascam 788 digital workstation. So I'm not really looking for "buy X vintage board, Y vintage deck, and Z vintage mics" type answers. Perhaps I'm fighting a losing battle, but so far it's been fun. I'm doing things like recording mono drums and panning them over to one side, printing my reverbs, and adding subtle distortion to things to dirty them up a bit. I like the raggedness of records from that era.

Has anybody got any ideas or insights as to what makes those records so special?

[mrdazobee]

Ask the White Stripes!!

[AstroDan]

The panning idea is good. Maybe avoid the close micing (like having the AKG D112, 'in your face' kick drum), and have the main and background vocals take precedence over the instrumentation.

My suggestion would be have the band or individual play live, and tracked live, all at once. I know overdubs were feasable in that era, but if you truly wanted to capture that sound, go live even if it means multiple takes for the entire band.

[joel hamilton]

I have mixed to cassette to get that soound. Print as hot as you can get away with on a good cassette, with a good cassette deck. The limited bandwith sounds really good in a vintage way. The engineers that recorded "that thing you do" for that stupid tom hanks one hit wonders movie mixed to cassette for an "authentic" sound, and they had a huge budget, so they could have used anything. The cassette master was the one used on the soundtrack and in the movie.

I guess it depends on whether you are going for garage band 60's or motown, or beatles, or whatever. I would just listen really closely to the stuff you are trying to emulate, and A/B with your mix, and adjust accordingly. Your ears will be your most valuable tool in this endeavor, not some "60's" box or some such nonsense.

[DUC]

Good stuff, Joel. That's neat about "That Thing You DO".

[kaliyuga]

Can I just say that the Kinks made some of the greatest, most underrated records of the era? Guess I just did. And they sound amazing as well. Too bad another favorite, Love, suffered from some subpar production on occasion.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

[Rodgre]

I agree that you should avoid close micing. Use more "room" sounds. Also use more distinct sounding effects, if you're using any. I will often use spring reverbs with weird EQs to make them a little more nasally. I will do the same with slap echo.

I don't rely on using authentic and antique gear specifically. The gear I use, is the gear I use.... I just try to shape the sounds to be more in the vibe of whatever I'm going for. I've done the "Pet Sounds" thing. I've done the "White Album" thing (Please reference Sloan's middle period: One Chord to Another in particular, for great examples of how to rip off classic 60's Beatly sounds) it's more about setting the vibe, than specifically using certain gear.

Roger

[stevemoss]

Astrodan makes some really good suggestions.

Extreme stereo separation, with drums/bass hard-panned to one side and guitars/vocals hard-panned to the other side (or, for the really good singers: everything except the vocals to one side, and vocals/hand percussion to the other) is instant nostalgia.

Vice-versa, you could mix to mono.

Band-in-a-room recording will definitely give you an edge, but only if you record it certain ways... maximum of two microphones on drums, for example. On 'Louie Louie', they used a single overhead microphone for the entire band (which was how the vocals ended up sounding like the screamed-yet-unintelligible mush that famously got Congress after the Kingsmen's asses for perceived profane lyrics). Your choice in microphones and positioning will make a huge difference. Here's a couple pictures of The Beatles at work, do give you an idea what I mean:

http://www.tip.net.au/~jhenry/pics/abbeyrec.gif
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/ ... /89150.jpg

[DUC]

Interesting how they stuck the Vox amps in front of Ringo, but facing away. That's a neat pic!

[cgarges]

I would totally agree with what everyone here has said so far about the vibe being more inportant than the gear, but face it, the gear has ALOT to do with it. And I mean that in both sides of the glass.

A good point was brought up about what 60s music you're talking about. The Beatles references get thrown around alot in this regard, especially when talking about rock music. But, the differences in sonics on "With The Beatles" vs. "Revolver" vs. "Abbey Road" is huge. Alot of the Beatles sounds were due to them trying to emulate Motown and Stax records, albiet in a MUCH bigger room with very different equipment.

I have done 60s-sounding stuff with good results in a number of studios, with access to U47s and Pultecs in some, and modern mics and a D8B in others. I've found that the sound of the instruments out in the room have more to do with it than anything else. Work with that. Lots!

Beyond that, try to get a hold of cheap old equipment, even if you have to borrow it. Old garage-band dynamic mics like the EV 666, EV 635A, and Altec 633A will get you a long way towards those sounds right off the bat.

Keep in mind basic reasons why those records sound like they did. What do those records have in common? Alot of it is the fact that that studio gear wasn't necessarily prepared for the volume associated with recording rock music. Hence the massive amounts of harmonic distortion generated from mics, mic preamps, outboard gear, consoles, and tape itself. What else? Compression, BY THE TON! Compressors were put in line to keep this stuff from overloading and alot of the time, the compressors themselves wound up overloading.

Think about the effects all this old gear has on the sound. Compressors used back then weren't nearly as fast as the VCA stuff that came after, so most of your attack and release times are going to need to be LONG. As a matter of fact, the Beatles used the Altec compressors on bass because the attack time of the Fairchild 660 was too fast! Then think about the ratios. Most of these units were designed as limiters, albiet program dependent units. So try careful use of high ratios.

Next, think about the effect of high-ratio limiters in rooms with everyone playing at the same time with little isolation. What happens then? When the drums aren't playing, there's more guitar in the drum mics. If the vocal track was cut with the band, there's more band when the vocalist isn't singing, and this isn't just a volume thing, it's more of an ambience thing. You can emulate this sort of thing by using room mics on the instruments ducked by the vocals.

Bleed of previous solo tracks or alternate takes probably isn't what you're looking for on your project, but I think it gives character to those older recordings. Check out the guitar solo in "Can't But Me Love" and you'll clearly hear George's alternate take in the background. Or the same thing with the vocal at the end of "Crazy" by Patsy Cline.

Effects are a big part, too. A bit of slap delay is cool (80ms-150ms, no feedback), but wasn't prevalent on ALL thise recordings. There was much more live reverb there or chamber stuff, usually applied in the tracking. And none of these effects had crystal clear highs or lows.

Most important, use your ears. Listen to some of those albums in your monitoring environment when the client isn't there. Listen lots. Turn the lights down and listen. Really get inside of a few tunes. But remember, even though it's good to know where this stuff came from and knowing that can help you achieve specific results, don't over-analyze. Take your time and trust yourself.

Feel free to ask more questions about specific things. I love that music and I've had a great time re-creating lots of it myself. Best of luck. Let us know how it's going!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[cgarges]

Oh, yeah, about the stereo thing. Mix in mono. Spend most of your mix time getting it to sound good in mono. Print the mono mix (to casette- how brilliant!), then spend 15 minutes doing a stero mix. That's how it was usually done back then. That's why there's such drastic difference in say, guitar tones. They were mixing for radio, which was still a mono format. The stereo mixes were done for fun.

And don't forget to use mono reverbs.


Chris

[@?,*???&?]

Why not force yourself to utilize only 4 tracks in your digital recorder and bounce as need be as you go? That's what those guys had to do back then. It'll force you make some extreme decisions like George Martin and Geoff Emerick had to while they worked.

[Jay]

Rodgre!
That's the first non-me-Sloan-mention I've seen here. I thought noone had heard of 'em. Anyhoo I talked to Pat a looong time ago about that album and he said the drums are two 58s overhead in their practice space. I think they overdubbed the rest on 2" 16-track.

[saag paneer]

neat thread. most mock-'60s recordings are contemporary-sounding recordings with some '60s tricks or effects on them. (i'm not putting that down; that's what they're going for.) i like the idea of trying to actually get the whole sound, including the blurriness.

one thing no one's mentioned: double-track vocals on all the ballads.

definitely track all the instruments live. i was in a taxi this evening, and the driver was playing Blonde on Blonde, which is the kind of thing that should happen more often, and i was so impressed with how obvious it was that people were all in the same room playing together. it had a completely different feel than any music i've heard recently, except maybe the Broken Social Scene record. (which by the way is worth checking out [sorry OT])

hell, why not do the whole thing in mono? that would instantly sound different and old-fashioned, even to people who don't listen to records very closely. i know you said 1965-68, but still....

[bedbug]

For guitar solos, plug into a mixer a turn the gain all the way up.

Also, keep the snare drum rediculously loud.