He also did some live recordings with The Funk Brothers, ( see the Earl VanDyke cd's ), where he is pictured using a B15N. Not exactly studio stuff, but a recording, nevertheless.
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The Real James Jamerson Amp
- Thread starter -=DanAtkinson=-
- Start date
He also did some live recordings with The Funk Brothers, ( see the Earl VanDyke cd's ), where he is pictured using a B15N. Not exactly studio stuff, but a recording, nevertheless.
So what DI/Pre would get the closest approximation of JJ's/Babbits "breakup" in a live context? I've been looking at the Reddi, and the Avalon U5 but it would be strictly for live work. I've used the VTBass and while I love that pedal, I think it's just a touch more aggressive in the top end than I would like for that kind of sound. I'd be running them through 15's with a Markbass Compressore through a 700RBii power amp (I know...it's a stretch), which begs the question: Which EQ?
I often wonder about people's approach to using these excellent DI/mic pre's and what the best EQ stage would be to use in this type of setup. I know the Reddi is more for DI purposes but what EQ device would complement it, or the Avalon most naturally if I chose to just use them as a preamp? Sorry for the slight hijack.
I often wonder about people's approach to using these excellent DI/mic pre's and what the best EQ stage would be to use in this type of setup. I know the Reddi is more for DI purposes but what EQ device would complement it, or the Avalon most naturally if I chose to just use them as a preamp? Sorry for the slight hijack.
bongomania
Commercial User
For stage EQ, I'd think about these things:
--notch filter for cutting "boom", around 120 Hz (depends on room).
--low cut filter for cutting subharmonic rumbles and thumps, around 30-50 Hz and below.
--gentle high cut for taking the edge off things, and getting a "vintage" tone, around 3-5 KHz and up.
--sweepable mids cut or boost, for finding the right tone. Could be replaced with a James/Bax EQ like on a B15.
Not that you need all those things--just that those are some useful considerations when looking at different EQ's to buy.
--notch filter for cutting "boom", around 120 Hz (depends on room).
--low cut filter for cutting subharmonic rumbles and thumps, around 30-50 Hz and below.
--gentle high cut for taking the edge off things, and getting a "vintage" tone, around 3-5 KHz and up.
--sweepable mids cut or boost, for finding the right tone. Could be replaced with a James/Bax EQ like on a B15.
Not that you need all those things--just that those are some useful considerations when looking at different EQ's to buy.
Every once in awhile a B15 type preamp pops up in the classifieds. I'm always tempted to buy one just to see if I could get that tone with more volume, but I think the cab is part of the mojo.
I really dig the Barber Linden EQ for my Baxandall EQ needs. Works great for DI recording, though I find I still need a low pass filter set to cut off stuff above where a speaker would normally cut off, or fuzz tones get nasty. My DI chain right now is the Barber into a TW 4001 DI, and to my ear, it sounds great.
Me too, and I think I may have to spring for a Palmer eventually.
Too bad the Linden got discontinued. Super and simple EQ pedal.
Dunno if this has been brought up earlier in this thread, but on another forum, Bob Ohlsson describes his mixing technique. Particularly an aggressive HPF at 70 Hz.
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Motown, especially in the early days, had a low end presence that put other companies such as EMI to shame. The disk cutting machines that made the masters were operated conservatively. They were afraid of the needle skipping on the records if there was too much low end. They broke the rules at Motown and figured out how to have low end presence and not make the needle skip.
The bass tracks were recorded on the edges of the tape (rack 1 or 8) because the fidelity was not as good on those tracks, high frequencies were lost. That's one example of where the tape machine played a role in the sound. The 70Hz HPF is interesting in that it eliminated 60 Hz hum issues that were present on those outer tracks during recording. Bob didn't say if the HPF was just used on tracks 1 and 8.
The bass tracks were recorded on the edges of the tape (rack 1 or 8) because the fidelity was not as good on those tracks, high frequencies were lost. That's one example of where the tape machine played a role in the sound. The 70Hz HPF is interesting in that it eliminated 60 Hz hum issues that were present on those outer tracks during recording. Bob didn't say if the HPF was just used on tracks 1 and 8.
Without reading the whole thread, this is an interesting piece of gear. It isn't really a DI, it's a preamp, or you could look at it as a combination of the two depending on what the front end was like. It would be serving a line level signal to the board or a channel on the multitrack recorder, possibly going through a passive EQ with a tube line amp, and/or compression, and/or a 600 ohm attenuator along the way.
So called fixed gain preamps were standard in US studios during that time, with few exceptions. ( I say so called, because practically all preamps are actually fixed gain amplifiers with either input or output attenuation.)
I haven't seen a circuit or tube complement listed for this unit, but it's probably very similar to a vintage RCA, Langevin, Altec, or UA tube pre module. In that era typically these were all purpose, used as mic or line preamps, makeup gain stages, or line drivers, with negative feedback resistors applied to vary the net amount of gain as needed for the application. If it was a contemporary mid/late 60s circuit it would have been a clean, high headroom design; but it could have been built with an older, low negative feedback circuit (just going by the sonic results that wouldn't surprise me, but it's hard to say for sure since other gear was involved).
There probably would not have been much need for any of the guitarists or bassists to turn down their instrument volume controls. The quote at the beginning makes perfect sense; using an unbalanced pot would mess with the impedance and add noise and a point of failure (above and beyond the ones in the guitars and basses), and adding a linear attenuator would work but would not be necessary. Less is more. But I wonder if there was a special input transformer to step up the impedance, or a mod to the circuit (maybe just taking out the input transformer altogether ?) to allow for higher input impedance than this type of pre would normally have.
IIRC there was a kind of similar instrument pickup interface gadget built by Tom Dowd (or someone that worked with him) for Atlantic around the same time. I think it was cool that the bigger studio operations (including those in the UK, I've seen EMI, Pye, BBC, and Rank Organization stuff) were building their own unique gear in that time frame. That's when being an engineer really meant you knew the technical side intimately.
So called fixed gain preamps were standard in US studios during that time, with few exceptions. ( I say so called, because practically all preamps are actually fixed gain amplifiers with either input or output attenuation.)
I haven't seen a circuit or tube complement listed for this unit, but it's probably very similar to a vintage RCA, Langevin, Altec, or UA tube pre module. In that era typically these were all purpose, used as mic or line preamps, makeup gain stages, or line drivers, with negative feedback resistors applied to vary the net amount of gain as needed for the application. If it was a contemporary mid/late 60s circuit it would have been a clean, high headroom design; but it could have been built with an older, low negative feedback circuit (just going by the sonic results that wouldn't surprise me, but it's hard to say for sure since other gear was involved).
There probably would not have been much need for any of the guitarists or bassists to turn down their instrument volume controls. The quote at the beginning makes perfect sense; using an unbalanced pot would mess with the impedance and add noise and a point of failure (above and beyond the ones in the guitars and basses), and adding a linear attenuator would work but would not be necessary. Less is more. But I wonder if there was a special input transformer to step up the impedance, or a mod to the circuit (maybe just taking out the input transformer altogether ?) to allow for higher input impedance than this type of pre would normally have.
IIRC there was a kind of similar instrument pickup interface gadget built by Tom Dowd (or someone that worked with him) for Atlantic around the same time. I think it was cool that the bigger studio operations (including those in the UK, I've seen EMI, Pye, BBC, and Rank Organization stuff) were building their own unique gear in that time frame. That's when being an engineer really meant you knew the technical side intimately.
