how to get that quentin tarantino soundtrack sound?

[mattianlaseppia]

sorry for this stupid way to explain what i'm looking for, but i think get the idea..

i would like something that makes my loops, bass, tracks in general, OLD.. with a cool sound like in these '60/'70 songs like the quentin tarantino sound tracks...

could you help me? every kind of box that can helps me to get that sound..

[donsolo]

Start with Izotope Vinyl.

It's free last I checked.

[mattianlaseppia]

i already use it.. but i'm talking more about tone.. ti add the vinyl noise.. or you think change also the sound tone.. sometimes i've think about that, but i don't know if it really changes the tone...

[BLUElightCory]

You can usually get close by experimenting with different combinations of subtle distortion and high-pass/low-pass filters.

Another option is to send your tracks/samples out to different guitar amps and re-mic them; this give you a more lo-fi sound and if you pull the mics back you can add a bit of room to the sound - this is a big part of the sound of older recordings, many of which were tracked live with minimal microphones.

[donsolo]

well you have to remember the era in which those tracks were recorded and the equipment they used.

So if you have access, a cheap reel-to-reel would do a lot. High-cut filtering helps too (make sure it's not very resonant though)

Also, those were all played with real instruments and that's super-hard to redo if you're trying to do it with softsynths/samplers.

But more midrange is kinda par for the course if you compare 60s/70s to modern recording.

Also, back your mics off. Back in the day, noone did much close-miking because they'd use for example a single omni to record an entire drum set.

So I'd start with like triangle mic technique on the drums rather than close mic the whole thing.

Put an LDC about 2' back away from a guitar amp and crank it up (use tube, not solid state) there's a lot more air in those recordings.

Also, you have to remember that songwriting and arrangement has a LOT to do with the vibe. If you're playing your guitar like an 80s cockrocker, it's not going to sound like a staxx track very easily.

And go back and get those soundtracks. I mean, if you listen to those on a really high fidelity system, maybe put up a spectral analyzer to watch how the EQ looks, you can get a really good feel.

But remember, no SM57s right on the grille cloth.

[mattianlaseppia]

thanks men!

great hint for tracking and reamping..
there is any one here that makes, i don't know, "sperimental electronic" and like to make the soft things/loops/samples, sound older?

i like the quentin tarantino soundtracks.. i like the mood and the sound, and i would like to make sound older things that sounds new..

maybe i don't know what i want to do really, but i think that experimenting with some technique, trick, used in past or used by who want to makes things sound older.. well maybe can be a beautiful contamination..

about reel to reel.. here they costs a lot.. the only i can find at a good price are the fostex 8 tracks.. are they good? i've heard they are colored in a ugly way..

[gearaddict]

Originally Posted by mattianlaseppia

thanks men!

great hint for tracking and reamping..
there is any one here that makes, i don't know, "sperimental electronic" and like to make the soft things/loops/samples, sound older?

i like the quentin tarantino soundtracks.. i like the mood and the sound, and i would like to make sound older things that sounds new..

maybe i don't know what i want to do really, but i think that experimenting with some technique, trick, used in past or used by who want to makes things sound older.. well maybe can be a beautiful contamination..

about reel to reel.. here they costs a lot.. the only i can find at a good price are the fostex 8 tracks.. are they good? i've heard they are colored in a ugly way..

I used to have a fostex 16 track...I think it was ok..that was a long time ago!!

[Rooster21]

You might want to try this plugin:

Color tone pro. TriTone Digital - For The Love of Tone!

Pretty interesting results on emulations of analog gear, there are some frequency curves in this plugin that you would not be able to recreate with any EQ. With some abuse and experimenting you may be able to achieve what your looking for. I also think there is a demo somewhere on the site.

[BLUElightCory]

Also, check out Speakerphone by AudioEase - They have a video on their site that you should watch that will take you through the paces of what the plug can do, it's pretty amazing.

[Reptil]

old mixers & mics. (doesn't have to be top of the line, just.. old)
good rooms.
seventies recording and mixing.
Bob Ohlsson wrote a good post about his work with Motown.
do a search or ask him.

[Stevil]

pick up some old gear & use old production tecniques.
he usees existing songs from many genres/eras & doesnt really have music made for his films so yer talking about looking up the bands from those eras & emulating that sound.

[mattianlaseppia]

about old techniques?

which old gear do you use?

(i know that aren't songs made for quentin's movies)

[BOWIE]

Here's a few things I use when I'm going for those sounds:
Fender amps
Roland Space Echo RE-201
UA 610 preamps
Pickups that have the period-correct sound
Tape saturation

[mattianlaseppia]

what means period-correct sound?

what do you use for tape saturation? i mean which reel to reel..

[BOWIE]

Originally Posted by mattianlaseppia

what means period-correct sound?

what do you use for tape saturation? i mean which reel to reel..

Period-correct means that you won't get that tone using a Dimarzio Evolution Humbucker or any type of modern pickup.

It doesn't really matter what kind of tape device you use. Whatever you can get your hands on. I currently don't have the luxury of running tape in my studio but I have a lot of nice tube-transformer gear that adds enough saturation and color to be convincing.
I should also mention that the Chandler Germ sounds seriously old-school.

[elan]

which tube gear?

[Mark Kaufman]

Man, you're getting lucky with good specific responses. My first thoughts were that Tarantino uses a wide variety of different songs, from Dick Dale to Steeler's Wheel to the Statler Brothers.

But one word helps sum it all up: vintage. Lots of in-the-box products will use that word to help you get what you're after. Listen to those songs, maybe pull a track into your DAW as a reference. Listen for the style of reverb, listen to what is close-miked and prominent in the mix. Some stuff in his style might benefit from that Chandler Abbey Road 1969 Compressor plug-in. A nice old single-coil Strat will work for a lot of it...my Reissue '57 Strat seems to gravitate toward Tarantino's tastes.

Good luck...in the end it will probably be more about your engineering decisions than software.

[007]

re-amping: by far the best suggestion.

Adding things like iZotope Vinyl is not the answer, imo, to what you're after, as I was in the same predicament about 9 years ago when I started working in digital with nothing but a Kurzweil K2000 and Cakewalk.

I was living in LA back then and really was into that Portishead sound and I asked my friend, "man, I programmed a drum pattern from the Kurzweil but I just can't get it to sound even close to that, trying to distort it and all, what gives....!?"

He replies: "well, do you have any idea how Portishead and Massive Attack and all those guys get that retro sound on their drums and samples? It's simple, they just lifted it off vinyl...."

To which I replied:

But, lo and behold, he was right.
I remember we listened to an old Isaac Hayes record and I was dumbfounded to hear that Mezzanine was filled with samples from that very record, I mean huge chunks of the Isaac songs were the foundation for a lot of the Mezzanine tracks, they just added little textures over the top, had some great vocalists sing over it, and called it their own. I say this with all due respect to MA, I love them, but it was an incredible discovery to see how much thievery was going on in that genre. I eventually adopted that approach, a hybrid of vinyl samples and recorded tracks of mine, and found it to be a great combination and it added a lot of depth to the recordings. Again, it's just one approach of music creation, when done right, it can sound absolutely incredible (ie: Amon Tobin), otherwise, well, like most things, it can turn into a train wreck rather quickly.

You can add an element of retro-ness to the otherwise plastic like sounds from synths, or samples you wish you had more grit to. Heed some of the suggestions above, there are some good ones. Shave off some high frequency on a lot of stuff, work with the mids intelligibly, add saturation and amp sim plugs judiciously and you're slowly on your way. If you can actually reamp and add some nice room sound, even better.

Then, when you can, get a turntable and start diggin', cut up some break, horn riffs, change pitches around, make it all work together, then add stuff of your own on top and done.

[DannyMac]

Plate reverb

[kosi]

Spring Reverb !

[Stitch333]

print to a cassette deck

[donsolo]

UGH.

Cassette you're almost better getting software emulating like PSP VintageWarmer (good tape sim)

Cassette has it's own sort of 80s sound to it.

As for specific gear, that's really rough, Unidyne mics, Trident boards, hard things to come by!

But what might be a good starting point is a cheap ribbon mic, they've got that darkness...

Reverb chambers were more common for things like vocals.

Do you have a kitchen? What about a bathroom? Take a good SDC and put it in the room, stick a speaker about 12" away from a wall facing the wall, pump whatever you want to verb through the speaker and record.

Go listen to like old school Beach Boys records, they have a similar sonic quality to like Dick Dale or the Ventures but with vocals which if you're making vocal music, is a must.

Spring reverb is for guitars.

Upright bass instead of electric (remember, pre motown, noone used an electric bass)

But the way you play the instrument is going to affect the sound the most (like I previously said). You can't be bangin out Neal Pert (sp? I don't care) drum grooves if you're trying to make surf rock.

Vinyl is really good for getting the vinyl frequency curve applied to a sound, I avoid all the scratches (not the dust, I love the dust), warp, mechanical noise etc.

But throw an omni over the drummer's head and just use a kick mic (maybe add a snare and use it sparingly in the mix) and you've got a good vintage drum sound. Don't do it in a completely dead room though. For guitars, standard fare back in the day was to put a ribbon mic about 12" back or a U87 a few feet back (best era guitar tone is mahavishnu orchestra)

Like basically pull all the mics back, that's what's really changed in music over time is how close we mic things.

And someone pointed out with the pickups and I'll elaborate. Don't be using a Mesa Boogie amp when you really need a fender twin.

But those recordings were also made with less "expertise" (don't flame) the study of audio engineering was way underdevloped when most of those records were made (old sun records come to mind). Those guys were flying by the seat of their pants with whatever they had (which usually sucked), maybe they had a nice RCA ribbon for vocals. But there was no "industry" for pro audio gear then. People were building consoles from scratch, they were all learning.

Back then mics couldn't handle the SPLs that we give them now.

start throwing a sock over mics that are bright (t shirt if the sock is too much). Clarity was elusive to those engineers. Remember the concept of High Fidelity? It all came from people really trying to capture the sound with the entire spectrum, it was a challenge.

Record the band in the room together. Read that twice, now, once more. Noone was multitracking before the beatles. The bleed will help the sound.

[BOWIE]

Low end section was not the right place to ask this....
There's a few good answers but a lot of guys are just throwing wild guesses from limited experience. Quinton did not write any of this music, so I don't know why he is brought up, and the music in his films is from many different eras. So, I would advise the thread starter to research the individual songs that he likes. I can tell you how they got the guitar tone on Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang" but it's not going to sound anything like the tone on "Jeepster" by T-Rex. Just because they are in his movies does not mean they have anything to do with with eachother.

[Stevil]

Originally Posted by mattianlaseppia

could you help me? every kind of box that can helps me to get that sound..

Originally Posted by BOWIE

the music in his films is from many different eras. So, I would advise the thread starter to research the individual songs that he likes...

exactly. you could spend a lifetime & a fortune tracking down & collecting the gear that was used on the many records he pulls from for his soundtracks. so pick a track & research the studio it was recorded @, the band that recorded it, work from there. @ the root of the gear is some good musicians, so that would probably be the best place to start.

[elan]

thanks for all the reply, i'm reading very interested

[Stitch333]

Originally Posted by donsolo

UGH.

Cassette you're almost better getting software emulating like PSP

No way. If you haven't used a Tascam 122 or a Nakamichi cassette deck, you don't know how good they can really sound...
The other cheap tape sound alternative is to print to a very nice 4head VHS deck.

[elan]

great post, is useful know which cheap things works for you to achieve this..

[Star Ark]

Write in A minor and think of the desert

booyah!

Instant Tarantino

[elan]

is true.. i've done a song in A minor thinking about desert.. and is a tarantino song..

men i know there are a lot of band in quentin OST, obviously... but i think you can understand what i mean if i say quentin tarantino songs..

seems that all songs selected by quentin come from the same period, same attitude, even if one is from '60 and another from '80..

[Beyersound]

Run everything through a tall can of Old English 800!