why is an eq less then perfect for bass?

[davedotco]

That is pure nonsense, studio recordings have been artificial constructs since George Martin created the first multi track recorders for the Beatles in the late 60's.

They have simply become more complex over the years, 24 and 32 track recorders were comonplace by 1975. If you are refering to the kind of digitally recorded electronic music that has become commonplace in the last 20 years then there is no 'acoustic' reference whatsoever.

The musicians/production crew will still mix the final product to sound as they want it, if that is what you want to hear then, using suitable equipment, no eq should be necessary unless the room is particularly poor.

If you wish to modify this sound to something like, for example, a club situation, that is absolutely fine, but it isn't hi-fi by any rational definition.

Right so when an orchestra gets recorded the engineer will not put the mic's such as they capture the best sound from the instruments. So that when the guy mixing the final recording, he doesn't have to do much to have a trumpet sounding like a trumpet and so on. but you are saying they just change that sound to how it suits them?

That means if we go and listen to a live Ensamble in an aditoruim that doesn't require a PA set up. No one will recognise the instrument because they don't sound like they do on the record.

Of course a recording is a artificial thing but if you want a recording os a nice Strat to be instantly recognisable you mix to sound as close to real life as possible not make it sound how you want.

When the Beatles were first heard by a talent scout it wasn't some demo they cut in a studio polished up to make them sound nice. It was in a live situation and what they were playing sounded good. But then you are saying when they recorded anything that natural sound they created with their instruments and voices was ignored and the producer gets it mixed to sound completely different? Yeah for sure they messed around with funny sounds but that wold be a mixture of the band being able to mess around with things and the producer telling them to try this and that.

I know what sort of tricks have been done over the years and I'm well aware of cool FX that have been used to create a spesific sound nothing like the original. But the core of all acoustic music is the instruments and how they sound when they are plpayed my curtain musicians. Why do people buy Les Paul's or Stienway Piano or a Rickenbacker Bass for a specific sound if it's just going to be changed at the mixing stage?

Unfortunately I agree. Most producers do make a band sound the way they want. Then when the band goes out live the front of house engineer has to try and recreat that same kind of sound.

There are bands/artists who are trying to get producers to capturing and mix their music as close to the insruments sound as possible rather than just recording a signal then plastering it with all kinds of rubbish to make it sound completely different.

The fact that compression and noise gates are used is where they start to lose that original natural sound.

Don't take me so literally with my comments. I gave my opinion on the OP's original question. Maybe I worded it as if telling him what it should be like instead of making it more of a suggestion. But you guys just go nuts telling people they are just wrong.

I know what I hear. I know what I know, I know what I want to hear. I take onboard what other people say and try to hold my hands up when I've been proven wrong. You are obviousley well informed and know what you are talking about. I just think people could explain things without saying things like "That's total nonsense" and just "Well actually....." people might not get so agressive on here and listen instead of fighting.

Once again you are badly misinformed.

I am not trying to be aggresive but it is quite clear that you have no idea what goes on in a recording studio.

Even talking about 'acoustic' music do you genuinely think that an orchestra is set up as it is on stage and recorded in that manner..........?

Or that an acoustic instrument miked at a distance of about a foot sounds remotely like the same instrument twenty rows back in an auditorium......?

There are examples of 'natural' recordings but mainstream recordings are not made that way and have not been for decades. Sure you can get recordings of an orchestra that are 'live' but if you think that is just a couple of microphones recorded in stereo then you very much mistaken.

Generally speaking the recording environment, simply does not produce 'natural' sounds, the whole mixing and 'post production' process is, in many cases, an attempt to make the instruments sound more real, not less.

Electric instruments are even more complex, to take your example, what does a Rickenbacker bass sound like, DI'ed into a console? An Ampeg 8 by 10? A custom built 2 by 15 folded horn? As I said earlier, most popular recordings are entirely fictional constructs, the fiction might be an attempt to portray the band in a lifelike manner or it might not, it's a choice.

BTW.

Early Beatles recordings were often single takes, with the drums and instruments individually miked and mixed to one channel, vocals to the second. simple stuff, some supposedly stereo recordings were actually released like that. Later it became common to record the backing track separately and then mix the vocals into a 'stereo' track. This is all historical stuff which started to change with the use of extra channels on tape machines, George Martin got one of the engineers at Abbey Rd to fit an extra head to a 2 track recorder to record a third track in the center gap, a real lash up but this was the first multi track recorder, around '66. Barely ten years later I was in Abbey Road when they were taking delivery of their first 32 track Studer A80s.

 

[Glacialpath]

Once again you are badly misinformed.

I am not trying to be aggresive but it is quite clear that you have no idea what goes on in a recording studio.

Even talking about 'acoustic' music do you genuinely think that an orchestra is set up as it is on stage and recorded in that manner..........?

Or that an acoustic instrument miked at a distance of about a foot sounds remotely like the same instrument twenty rows back in an auditorium......?

There are examples of 'natural' recordings but mainstream recordings are not made that way and have not been for decades. Sure you can get recordings of an orchestra that are 'live' but if you think that is just a couple of microphones recorded in stereo then you very much mistaken.

Generally speaking the recording environment, simply does not produce 'natural' sounds, the whole mixing and 'post production' process is, in many cases, an attempt to make the instruments sound more real, not less.

Electric instruments are even more complex, to take your example, what does a Rickenbacker bass sound like, DI'ed into a console? An Ampeg 8 by 10? A custom built 2 by 15 folded horn? As I said earlier, most popular recordings are entirely fictional constructs, the fiction might be an attempt to portray the band in a lifelike manner or it might not, it's a choice.

BTW.

Early Beatles recordings were often single takes, with the drums and instruments individually miked and mixed to one channel, vocals to the second. simple stuff, some supposedly stereo recordings were actually released like that. Later it became common to record the backing track separately and then mix the vocals into a 'stereo' track. This is all historical stuff which started to change with the use of extra channels on tape machines, George Martin got one of the engineers at Abbey Rd to fit an extra head to a 2 track recorder to record a third track in the center gap, a real lash up but this was the first multi track recorder, around '66. Barely ten years later I was in Abbey Road when they were taking delivery of their first 32 track Studer A80s.

Hi Dave I know you're not being aggressive.

You've done it again though "but it is quite clear that you have no idea what goes on in a recording studio"

Not that you have to but it appears you scan my posts and it looks like I don't know what i'm sayinng. Where did I mention how an orchestra is set up. Some of the time the are glass deviders between the different sections to help with isolation. Some instruments will have ambiant mic's like the precussion and others cloes miced depending on what's required by the composer. And yes some times the orchestra will be set out like a live situation why wouldn't you?

You be hard pushed to capture a 40 piece orchestra with just 2 mic's. The musicians would have to be very precise with the volume they play at. I recorded my 8 piece drum kit with two D112 infront of the kit level with the Toms and got a 3D stereo image. They are in a single car garage though.

Although i have been to Abby Road studios I've never worked there or been in there at a key moment but I have worked and recorded in studios. I record my own music and have recorded other bands demos. Not many as I'm mostly a player not producer.

Of course an instument sounds different depending on where you are situated but unless you are doing a live concert recording where you might decide to put a couple of mic's 20 rows back for a surrond sound mix all mic's will be there or there abouts round the instruments.

No one knows exactly how an instrument sounds because we all hear things differently and the set up of say a guitar, the pickups used, the amp, the cones in the cab, the mic/mic's used to record it and even the strings all facter in to it. different Drumheads on the same drum can make a huge difference. As I'm sure you know a Les Paul has a tone a lot of other guitars don't due to the construction and the Gibson pickups but you put a 60 gauge set of strings on it and tune it to standard G and you got a whole different sound but you put a 60 gauge set of strings on another guitar and tune it to standard G and it will sound completely different again.

To me it's all about interpertation and aproximates of the sound any give instrument produces. Yes each producer will hear it differently so mix it differenly but the core sound should still be audible and you can go yeah that's a Les Paul.

My wife has some Beatles albums. They have mad some stereo mixes of some of them. The drums are on one side, the guitar's on another and I imagine the Bass and Vox in the middle. Yes I know how early reording used to be done. It's amazing how far things have come. In some way not for the better in my opinion.

Ok it seems we are mixing up the words Natural and Real "Generally speaking the recording environment, simply does not produce 'natural' sounds, the whole mixing and 'post production' process is, in many cases, an attempt to make the instruments sound more real, not less." To me that's a contradiction in terms I said this "Of course a recording is an artificial thing but if you want a recording of a nice Strat to be instantly recognisable you mix to sound as close to real life as possible not make it sound how you want."

To me Real and Natural are the same. Real world sounding, Natural sounding and not like it's been mixed.

Anyway Sounds like you've done some very cool things. Whats your background and what have you worked on or been a part of? Enough of this trying to prove ourselves to each other. I'm on this forum to make friends and hopefully help people.

 

[MajorFubar]

It's not often I have to correct Dave on anything (in fact I'm sure he doesn't need correcting he was just being flippant), but to add clarity for others, muti-track recording predates the Beatles by a very long way, at least as far back as the recorder designed by Bing Crosby and Les Paul in the 50s, and famously used by Les and his wife Mary Ford to ceate songs with multi-layered ensembles of Mary's voice, long before more recent exponents of the technique such as Queen crawled out their cots (well maybe not literally).

What is debatably true is that on this side of the Pond, George Martin is the first producer (certainly who I can think of) who really played the studio as an instrument, using what we'd now class as unbelievably-primative tools and techniques to create sounds on tape that were not possible live.

 

[davedotco]

It's not often I have to correct Dave on anything (in fact I'm sure he doesn't need correcting he was just being flippant), but to add clarity for others, muti-track recording predates the Beatles by a very long way, at least as far back as the recorder designed by Bing Crosby and Les Paul in the 50s, and famously used by Les and his wife Mary Ford to ceate songs with multi-layered ensembles of Mary's voice, long before more recent exponents of the technique such as Queen crawled out their cots (well maybe not literally). What is debatably true is that on this side of the Pond, George Martin is the first producer (certainly who I can think of) who really played the studio as an instrument, using what we'd now class as unbelievably-primative tools and techniques to create sounds on tape that were not possible live.

Interesting Major.

The recording industry as a whole is a big hobby of mine but clearly very UK centric, and really starts from my first interest in recorded music and then live music in the mid '60s. I have seen the original 3 track 'Beatles' recorder, it used to be in Abbey Road along with some early purpose built 4 and 8 track machines. I had no real idea that the US recording industry had such technology back in the late 50s early 60s, I thought most of the recording involved 'sound on sound' (track bouncing techniques). I knew Ampex build some very early multi track machines but had no idea that they did so as early as 1959.

My interest in the American way of recording did not really start until I started working with JBL in '74-ish. I met some seriously talented people then, my boss was John Curl, among many other things, consultant to the Grateful Dead on the 'Wall of Sound' project. He was good friends with John Storyk who was doing some updates to Electric Lady in New York and I got to look around.

There I met, very briefly, legendary engineer Eddie Kramer, if you really want to know how to mike a drum kit, he is the man. The pace of change in those days was phenominal, very interesting times.

 

[MajorFubar]

The difference between technology over here and over there was a sore point. In the Beatles, Lennon and Harrison especially were EDITED off with the fact that they were using four-tracks as late as Pepper, having to bounce down and work from second-gen copies, while for example Brian Wilson had the luxury of an 8-track machine for Pet Sounds (maybe before).

Apparently in 1968 Harrison found an 8-track lurking in one of the cupboards waiting for EMI technicians to 'approve its use' and demanded Ken Scott to rig it up for the White Album sessions. This subsequently became the first Beatles album recorded that way, with the single Hey Jude being the first individual song.

I'm not sure what other UK studios were like such as Decca, but technological progress was slow at Abbey Road. The equipment they used was good quality but it was ancient. It's easy to forget that until 1965 the Beatles were recording on BTR twin-tracks. The stereo mixes of their early albums were little more than an edit of the twin-track mults with the pans set three-quarters L&R or thereabouts and a bit of reverb on the vocal track panned o the centre to fill the void.

 

[andyjm]

It seems reasonable that a well balanced orchestra, recorded using a single crossed stereo pair in the middle of the auditorium should sound lifelike and well balanced when the recording is played back.

In my experience it sounds dreadful. I am not sure what it is - technically you can make the mics and playback chain work pretty well. I have read articles about the brain's ability to cope and adjust for reverberation and how the necessary cues are not present in a simple stereo pair playback, but I am not sure that I understand that.

Whatever it is, it does seem that the recordings of all types need a certain amount of mangling before they sound anything like the original.

 

[davedotco]

The difference between technology over here and over there was a sore point. In the Beatles, Lennon and Harrison especially were EDITED off with the fact that they were using four-tracks as late as Pepper, having to bounce down and work from second-gen copies, while for example Brian Wilson had the luxury of an 8-track machine for Pet Sounds (maybe before).

Apparently in 1968 Harrison found an 8-track lurking in one of the cupboards waiting for EMI technicians to 'approve its use' and demanded Ken Scott to rig it up for the White Album sessions. This subsequently became the first Beatles album recorded that way, with the single Hey Jude being the first individual song.

I'm not sure what other UK studios were like such as Decca, but technological progress was slow at Abbey Road. The equipment they used was good quality but it was ancient. It's easy to forget that until 1965 the Beatles were recording on BTR twin-tracks. The stereo mixes of their early albums were little more than an edit of the twin-track mults with the pans set three-quarters L&R or thereabouts and a bit of reverb on the vocal track panned o the centre to fill the void.

Excellent stuff Major, if you have any references to this period I would love to see them, an era I know little about.

While I was with JBL I spent a fair amount of time out at EMI's technical department, on the same site as their record pressing plant at Hayes in west London. They measured everything, even deconstructing monitors assembled in Calfornia to test individual drive units. They did not like the 4350, prefering instead the 4343, lots of fafing about but we eventually got to sell them some 84 pieces worldwide.

I actually got to install a pair in EMI studios Lagos, a whole different story.

 

[MajorFubar]

I've just been sad enough to research it over years both on the net and in books (I know, remember those? ) Like you it's something that really interests me, though unlike you I've never been lucky enough to be involved professionally (unless you count a short period in the 80s as 15 y/o teenager working at a local studio), and now I'm far too old to change career.

About ten years ago I managed to borrow a copy of Mark Lewisohn's book "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions", which is a fantastic book, obviously Beatle-centric but even with that aside it's a superb insight into techniques of the era. Sadly there doesn't seem to be any equivalent for many other bands. I know Brian Wilson's technique was to record the Wrecking Crew's backings to 4-track which he then mixed in mono to one track of an 8-track. The rest of the tracks were used to record the vocals, with each singer given their own track to make mixing easier. Because Brian was deaf in one ear he only ever mixed to mono so this suited him fine.

 

[MajorFubar]

Forgot to mention that my info on the White Album recording sessions is based on an excellent BBC R2 documentary from 2008 celebrating 40 years of the White Album. Narrated by Guy Garvey from Elbow it included interesting tales an anecdotes from luminaries such as Ken Scott, Geoff Emerick and Richard Lush.