[mwagener]

Originally posted by Hysteria
Hi Michael

Many thanks for responding.

Specifically, what reverbs did you use for lead and backing vocals?

Well, let’s see. In the mid 80s (early Bonfire, White Lion etc.) I mixed at Amigo Studios in North Hollywood (now sadly bulldozed to the ground). For the longer reverbs, I used mainly the Lexicon 224 smooth hall programs. For the shorter Rooms I used the Klark Teknik DN780. The longer verbs were around 1.7 – 2.2 seconds with less early reflections and more attention on the actual reverb and the rooms were always under 1 second with more emphasis on the early reflections. For lead vocals (and snare) I normally use a longer pre-delay, around 15 – 35 ms, and for backings a shorter, if any pre-delay. That way the backings appear behind the lead vocal. For the guitar I also would occasionally use a spring reverb, forgot which model, but I think it was an Orban 19” box.

Did you find blends of reverbs were needed?

Yes. To the day I use a basic setup of two reverbs, long and short. The reverb times and algos for the early reflections and rooms are dependent on the songs structure.

Were the vox or bvox verbs typically the biggest (longest) used on the production (I guess the snare might be a contender for this in some cases) and did you find that you added some of this long verb to most other components of the mix to create a cohesive sound?

I try to stick to the two kinds of verbs described above and put the whole band into a space. Nowadays I use quite a bit less “effect” reverb than in the 80s and try to create more of a real environment. There are of course the occasional “effect” reverbs (reverb going into flange/phaser, reverb with all the low end below 2K filtered out etc.)

Any other information about the vocal production would be appreciated such as use of delays, typically EQ treatment (esp. on bvox) and typical level of compression. Also, how much use did you have for exciters.

I always use a single 1/8 note delay on the lead vocals, to create a “back wall” behind the singer. It makes the vocals sit in the track a bit better. I try to avoid the now so popular doubling and tripling of lead vocals for sound reasons (and maybe to hide any shortcomings of the singer), especially in verses. To me it kills the inflections of a single voice and takes away from the feeling of the lead vocal. I like to have one vocal to focus on.
Eqs differ from voice to voice and from mic to mic. I try to track with the least amount of EQ I can get away with and rather put an EQ across the stereo bus when mixing. That way I only get the phase smear of analog EQ only once. Of course I love to use stuff like the GreatRiver EQ-2NV with it’s input sensitivity knobs to give some balls to a snare track, but in general I try to get the sound with mic choice, mic positioning and choice of mic pre. That said, on the backing vocals I used and old trick, Roy Thomas Baker (Queen, Journey, Cheap Trick, Cars etc) told me. Scoop out the midrange on the backing vocal tracks about -4 to -6 dB at around 1kHz, shelf up the high end above 4 kHz by about 4-6 dB until you almost can’t stand it anymore, then use a single delay around 120-150ms on the tracks to fill in the middle again, instant Queen backing vocals, well almost

I had very bad experiences with exciters very early on and avoided them until BBE came out with their version. I used the BBE 202, 802 etc. extensively on guitars, backing vocals, but never on the stereo mix.

What would have been done at the mastering stages (when these albums were ported to CD) in terms of enhancement (e.g. widening?). Were you happy with CD releases of albums that were originally released to vinyl (in those days) or did you find they suffered from the record companies grabbing any old nth generation master and transferring it as quickly as possible?

Well, those records initially came out on vinyl only and then were re-released on CD later. The early CD releases were quite horrible, probably more based on the low quality of the early A/D converters and the cheap D/A converters in CD players, rather than 3rd generation masters. So, originally the mastering was done for vinyl only, just some smart EQ and minimal compression to get more level on the vinyl disc. As far as I know, there were no wideners involved in re-mastering, and at that time the race for “loud, louder, loudest” wasn’t on yet. Can we please go back to that!!!, I just heard a re-master of Ozzy’s “No More Tears” album (which I consider one of my best sounding mixes of the time) and I was absolutely shocked how bad that guy at Sterling mangled up the sound, the CD is pretty much unlistenable now. I thought there was a problem with my CD player when I first heard it, awful, absolutely awful. Sorry for the rant

I hope there's not too much here, please just answer what you have time for, the verb stuff is my primary interest though overall production techniques used back then is fascinating to me.

Many thanks

anytime