"Wall of Sound"

[jakeao]

Im sure there is a post on this somewhere, but I'll be damn if I could find it. Anyway, how does one achieve the "Wall of sound" effect. I'm wanting to do this on guitars .Thanks for any info.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

lots of tracks. different tones and/or parts so they're not all stepping on each other...

[aeonrevolution]

does adding in a quarter second delay or something like that do the trick?

i dont have some cables to plug in my mixer with me or else i would just try it myself

[lichthaus-media]

lots of tracks. 5ths and octaves...different eq settings (no low, all mid, etc....). Start in rounds (like row, row, row your boat).



-james

[soundguy]

first you need more reverb than anyone should anyone have, for any reason.

Next you need a beatle doing a solo record so you can thoroughly fuck it up and ruin it forever. If no solo beatle project is available for misguidance, in place of that you can substitute an entire beatles mix which you can even more thoroughly fuck up with some drippy string arrangements.

30 years later, invite a female back to your place and then shoot her (with a gun). Woops.

Once you complete that trifecta, you will have achieved a rightous wall of sound.

Apparently this is easier to accomplish if you wear big avaitor sunglasses indoors.

dave

[black mariah]

Okay, there's the "wall of sound" which is just a big sounding recording, then there's the "Wall of Sound" which is a technique invented by Phil Spector.

The way that the "Wall of Sound" was done was by jamming as many musicians with different instruments as possible into a tiny-ass room and shoving an omni mic in the middle of the whole mess, and adding enough reverb to choke Nancy Sinatra and Annette Funicello. It's basically the exact opposite of the way most orchestral parts are recorded (large room, drier than the Sahara).

A "wall of sound" like those favored by metal bands starts with three tracks of the same part panned left, center, and right. Not panned too hard though, that will kill the effect. If you want you can also come back with a slightly different part and pan them hard left and right. It isn't neccesary to have everything played in fifths or octaves, but run with it if it sounds good. If this doesn't give you an impenetrable force field of waves, I don't know what will.

[markpar]

first you need more reverb than anyone should anyone have, for any reason.

Next you need a beatle doing a solo record so you can thoroughly fuck it up and ruin it forever. If no solo beatle project is available for misguidance, in place of that you can substitute an entire beatles mix which you can even more thoroughly fuck up with some drippy string arrangements.

30 years later, invite a female back to your place and then shoot her (with a gun). Woops.

Once you complete that trifecta, you will have achieved a rightous wall of sound.

Apparently this is easier to accomplish if you wear big avaitor sunglasses indoors.

dave

That is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. My fiancee just looked at me and asked what was so funny. I told her I would be glad to explain it to her, but that there was no way she would think it was as funny as I did.

-mark

[optionshift3]

LOVE it. And the Spector of Death.

on a vaguely more serious note, I just got a tip that is working in spades.

For severe and viscious crunch, vis-a-vis guitars, less gain seems to be better.
Assuming you are stacking. You know, the whole "compression killing dynamics, crunching the hell out of an amp equaling huge (and thus compressed) distortion" thing...
Seriously, try it. If it doesn't work, flame me until you feel better.

For what it's worth....

[JASIII]

first you need more reverb than anyone should anyone have, for any reason.

Next you need a beatle doing a solo record so you can thoroughly fuck it up and ruin it forever. If no solo beatle project is available for misguidance, in place of that you can substitute an entire beatles mix which you can even more thoroughly fuck up with some drippy string arrangements.

30 years later, invite a female back to your place and then shoot her (with a gun). Woops.

Once you complete that trifecta, you will have achieved a rightous wall of sound.

Apparently this is easier to accomplish if you wear big avaitor sunglasses indoors.

dave

You left out "copious amounts of cocaine"

[red cross]

first you need more reverb than anyone should anyone have, for any reason.

Next you need a beatle doing a solo record so you can thoroughly fuck it up and ruin it forever. If no solo beatle project is available for misguidance, in place of that you can substitute an entire beatles mix which you can even more thoroughly fuck up with some drippy string arrangements.

30 years later, invite a female back to your place and then shoot her (with a gun). Woops.

Once you complete that trifecta, you will have achieved a rightous wall of sound.

Apparently this is easier to accomplish if you wear big avaitor sunglasses indoors.

dave

Come on, the guy might be a megalomaniac and a fucking asshole, but he made some right fucking brilliant records. River Deep Mountain High, Be My Baby, Then He Kissed Me, Black Pearl, Lovin Feelin', the whole Plastic Ono Band record, My Sweet Lord, Imagine, the fucking list is endless. He contribution to rock'n'roll history can't be disputed. And if nothing else, he at least inspired Brian Wilson to take his "sound" and turn it into something even more beautiful than was imaginable. No Spector = possibly no Pet Sounds, and that is one horrifying fucking thought!

As for the whole Let It Be issue, I still maintain he did a good job in making it sound presentable. The Glyn Johns cut was utter sloppy dogshit IMO and George Martin couldn't be arsed to go through all the crap either. Neither could any of the Beatles. People talk as if he stole into the vaults without anybody's permission and pissed all over the master tapes for a laugh. John and George HIRED him for Chrissake, to do a job nobody else was willing to take any fucking responsibility for. In the circumstances, I think he did some pretty good work. Without his "fiddling", Across the Universe would just be a forgotten track on some Wildlife charity LP with one heckuva awful sounding fucking mix (it surely ranks as George Martin's greatest failure as Beatles' producer). Alright, the Mantovani bullshit on LAWR was a bit much, but I don't the orchestrations on the other tracks were over the top. The LIBN reissue certainly doesn't sound any better, to my ears at least. Alot of the "vibe" is missing.

People kinda miss the point railing at his "muddy" mixes and instrumentation IMO. I mean. it's like taking the Impressionists to task for not painting photo-realistic landscapes, or having someone like Boulez talk about "burning the mist off Debussy" when he conducts. Totally missing the point, man.

Long rant I know, but as you might be able to tell....I'm a fan! Let the shelling begin! *ducks for cover*

[red cross]

Er, and to answer the original poster's question: What you need is a shitload of excellent musicians in a small room playing the backing track live onto tape. Multiples of instruments. Tape echo. And a badass echo chamber or two! The "bleed" between the microphones was the key to the "Wall" really, according to Larry Levine...

[logancircle]

Is there a book all of you read to get so well-versed in Beatle production? This is a not a sarcastic question--I really want to know if there is a seminal book(s) about their sessions and all the Beatle drama. I've seen some in movies, but there are like 10,000 books written on this subject.

I really liked the recommendation someone here gave me to read the book, "Kind of Blue." It was a very good read! Thanks.

casey

[soundguy]

you arent gonna get lessons on how to kill your girlriend, but George Martin's "All you need is ears" is just a really fabulous book about recording music and being a musician. After reading that book, I had really serious reservations about calling myself a musician. Its sad to think that for my generation we walk around in reverence of someone like george martin but in his time the dude was completely the standard model of what you had to do to work in a studio. Simple basic knowledge. It is so positively sad to see not so much how low the standard has become but how few people have any real interest in living up to yesterdays standards. Anyway, that book is not the beatle factoid spoonfeeding session, but its really worth reading nonetheless.

dave

[joeysimms]

thanks for that, votemiles! you summed it up nicely!

[JGriffin]

Is there a book all of you read to get so well-versed in Beatle production? This is a not a sarcastic question--I really want to know if there is a seminal book(s) about their sessions and all the Beatle drama. I've seen some in movies, but there are like 10,000 books written on this subject.

I really liked the recommendation someone here gave me to read the book, "Kind of Blue." It was a very good read! Thanks.

casey

Mark Lewisohn's "Beatles Recording Sessions" is very good. Not much on the personal stuff, but good for recording-and-song-development process stuff.