It got worse in the seventies with quad. Four channels to surround you in sound. Several engineers recorded instruments with a joystick, guitars or horns circled the room around you. Nothing exceeds like excess!Well, it WAS 1968...
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Unusual Rock Trivia?
- Thread starter Aberdumbie
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- rock
I thought Punks defining characteristics were aggression and minimal instrument facility. Certainly a quality of some early R&R.
Obviously you've never recorded on a four-track tape machine. In order to bounce 2-3 tracks down to one, you have to pan them hard to the side to which they are being bounced. Otherwise you lose part of the signal. On those machines, the tape head would record tracks 1 & 2 with the left side, and 3 & 4 with the right side. Yes, it sucked in terms of the stereo mix, but that's just the way it worked.
I still have my TASCAM 234 4-track cassette…but after bouncing (In exactly the way you describe—one had to fully pan the tracks-to-be-bounced) a simple turn of the balance control would allow you to then place the combined overdubs in the exact center or pan it slightly of full to the left or right. All 4 tracks had that control. And importantly you could have everything in the dead center without even using a mixer (!) because it was such a cool machine.
Perhaps the early consoles in recording studios did not have that ability?? But i think they did and that the hard panning that was so popular in the early days of stereo were done purposefully and willfully.
But what do i know!!?? LOL
Actually, I thought it was pretty cool about the separation. I loved to pan back and forth. But my technological expertise is not that sophisticated. I still think the mellotron was the apex of electronic keyboards. Seriously.
I have a Tascam 234 Syncassette 4-track, does that count? What you’re describing sounds like a home unit, not a one-inch machine in a pro studio(of the times), where each track was independently controlled.
Yes, I know all about bouncing down. Aside from the 234, I had to do it once on even a Teac 80-8 to appease a drummer who didn’t want me to do just a stereo mix of the kit. Sure, I could have done a Bonham style 3-mic/3-track set up, but I wouldn’t have gained much, he still wouldn’t have been satisfied, but I still submixed the five tracks down to stereo, as there was a lot of other stuff going on.
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IMMusicRulz
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Though the rock band Boston, is, well--from Boston, and their name is Boston, the only original member of the band who was not born in Boston, was their guitarist and only constant member, Tom Scholz! Born Donald Thomas Scholz in Dayton, Ohio, he moved to Boston to study MIT, and after graudating, went on to work at Polaroid before recording and playing every instrument on the demo tapes that would become Boston's debut album.
The thing about panning is that you can control the amount of it. Judiciously panning some instruments and vocals two or three notches to the left or right is one thing; panning all instruments and vocals full left or right is another.
I thought rock and roll in its purest form was Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis et al. Those guys could play. I admire the attitude of a lot of punk, but the playing skills? Not so much. Unless you’re just talking about the instrumental line ups (though pianos don’t seem to be well represented in punk...), in your face attitude and raw production aesthetics.
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^This.
It would have been a real drag if they had no choice but to keep the final mix panned hard left or right because of the recording equipment's limitations back then.
I'm still in the process of learning about mixing, etc., but the prevalent thought (these days) seems to be: make full use of the stereo width.
Ex.: Record two rhythm guitar tracks (as exactly duplicate as possible) and hard pan them. Mix them down and go about 40% left or right.
Do the same with acoustic guitars.
Drums, bass, instrumental and keyboards will usually be right around the middle.
The reason for doubling the rhythm guitar lines is even if the guitarist is really good, there's going to be some minor differences, even if only in certain (almost) inaudible qualities. By recording/panning both of those guitars, you're "filling up" the complete stereo width, but not OVER-filling it.
By all of my teachers, I have been taught that panning helps to avoid "muddying" specific frequencies (you know the ones).
"My Guy" (1964) and "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" (1968). Varying degrees of panning, so apparently there was the ability to do that back then.
Yes, and the singing. Those early R+R guys had some pretty strong vocals, to put it mildly. I mean, Little Richard fer-cryin'-out-loud!
Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash with his distnctive gravelly low notes, Jerry Lee with his country flavored offerings. Whole lotta shakin' goin' on! Not to mention all the various blues/R+B folks. Some major league voices for sure.
Watch the first season of Vinyl to get a (tailored) view of early punk in the USA. And other naughty bits…
I don't need to watch that. Living through the "punk era" as a budding musician was all I'll ever need of "The History of Punk".
I read a recording article how Bohemian Rhapsody pushed the limits of 24 track tape technology.
The rich sound of the harmonies was created by Mercury, May, and Taylor, each singing every note in the chord and stacking the performances; there were as many as 180 overdubs. For this to work and stay intelligible the timing of each vocal delivery had to be exact regarding rhythm, pitch, and vocal inflection. As they were working with 24-track analog tape, the three needed to overdub themselves many times over and bounce these down to successive sub-mixes. Also no Auto-tune!
The rich sound of the harmonies was created by Mercury, May, and Taylor, each singing every note in the chord and stacking the performances; there were as many as 180 overdubs. For this to work and stay intelligible the timing of each vocal delivery had to be exact regarding rhythm, pitch, and vocal inflection. As they were working with 24-track analog tape, the three needed to overdub themselves many times over and bounce these down to successive sub-mixes. Also no Auto-tune!
Joe Porcaro: “I remember being asked to play percussion on a track from Madonna’s successful album Like A Prayer. I played marimba on this song called Spanish Eyes. At the end of my performance I remember Madonna was in the booth at the time and I asked the engineer “who is the drummer on this song, he’s really good.” Madonna laughed and said, “it’s your son.” (interview Ken Biedzynski)
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