Sh*tty is Pretty - Dap Kings

[bionic brown]

http://www.phobospeepl.dk/documents/shitty2.pdf

So how do the "gearslutz" feel about this?

[centurymantra]

I have read this article and think it's pretty great. There really is a bit of an art to creating and designing with a 'lo-fi' "trashy" aesthetic. There is a big difference between good-sounding lo-fi recordings with great vibe and lo-fi that just sounds like s#*t. I have a few of the Daptone records and they sound very cool to my hears and are thick 'n' heavy with vibe. The new Budos Band record is outstanding.

To tell you the truth, I think the Daptone guy is a gearslut as well...just with a different attitude and approach compared to a lot of the crew on this forum.

[Wiggum, Ralph]

Great Articlethumbsup

[bionic brown]

Originally Posted by centurymantra

I have read this article and think it's pretty great. There really is a bit of an art to creating and designing with a 'lo-fi' "trashy" aesthetic. There is a big difference between good-sounding lo-fi recordings with great vibe and lo-fi that just sounds like s#*t. I have a few of the Daptone records and they sound very cool to my hears and are thick 'n' heavy with vibe. The new Budos Band record is outstanding.

To tell you the truth, I think the Daptone guy is a gearslut as well...just with a different attitude and approach compared to a lot of the crew on this forum.

agreed.

He's getting the sound that a lot of 'slutz' aspire to get by simply going back to the source - the tape machine. His compression game plan is solely the tape itself. Dynamics rather than condensers, mic placement and technique, old fashioned plates and spring reverbs. Tubes are a non-issue. Very ironic.

[zarembo]

love the Daptone label!

that's a great article too. thanks for the link.

it's nice to learn again not everyone is caught up in the gear bullsh*t!

I, however, am not one of them

[big country]

i didn't read the article but I like the fact that when you left click it turns blue

[six_wax]

if you check out the gear list for that studio, it ain't 'shitty'.

[Paul_G]

Sounds massively insecure in a rebellious fashion. Great reading and recordings none the less. We used to be this aggressive when we had no budget for gear. The irony is that the people that love it are using cubase.

P

[deve]

That's an sm7b on a G&H boom stand in the photo. How's that shitty?

[Jack P]

Yep these are the band on the Amy winehouse & Mark ronson lp's - tight band !

I own a few of their records from the mid 90's on Desco - Really great...

[Wiggum, Ralph]

bionic brown,

do you perhaps have the other articles to this guide?

[sasha222]

part 1:

http://www.phobospeepl.dk/documents/shitty1.pdf

[MickeySmid]

We should have a "shitty" section here on this forum, for all the gear and recording technics for engeneers/producers that like it dirty, vintage, and raw.

Very important I think!!

We can discuss not how to do it proper....

Things like this, belong there:

About producer Willie Mitchell:
I spent a lot of time over at Hi in the later Al Green years. Willie's studio was an old theater (Royal) with big sagging reams of burlap hanging from the ceiling stuffed with fiberglass batting, carpet over the floors, dead as a door-nail. I cant remember what was on the kick or snare as far as mics go, but he had a bunch of U67's and there was usually one as an over-head, maybe centered about 3 ft. over the rack toms. The kick was probably an old EV that had the nick-name "Donkey Dick" as thats's kinda what it looked like. Console/pre's were a custom Bell Lab's job built in the easrly 60's, tape machine was a 1" Ampex 8-track with 351 tube electronics, tape machine ran at 14.5 ips (no shit, we found this out later moving some tapes to another studio) and monitoring was done on Altec A7's. I don't think Wiliie ever used any EQ and what he had was a simple shelving bass/treble, simple mic setups/placement was what he understood. Mixing was through a panel that had level, left/right/center switch and output was so low from from this panel that it had to go into the mic inputs of the Ampex 2-track.

-

My dad was Willie's mastering engineer for all the Al Green stuff and until "Let's Stay together" there was no EQ on any of the masters. "Let's stay to Together" had +2 db @ 5k from a Spectrasonics 2-band EQ, soft-limiting from a strapped pair of 1176LN's, a couple of db @ 4:1 and a Pultec hi/lo pass filter @ 70hz and 12k for the 45 and a vertical cross-over @ 250 hz. The low/hi pass and the x-over were always in the chain to protect the cutterhead/limit lateral excursion. All masters cut on a Scully/Westrex system, Neumann could'nt handle the heat

Found somewhere on this forum!

M.

[MickeySmid]

Or just use this thread...

[Bob Olhsson]

Compared to the sound of the band live, their recordings have been a big disappointment to me.

[Cellotron]

A really fun video to check out is MTV's recent visit to the Daptone studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn:
Take The Daptone Records Tour | Video | Dap-Kings Reign Over Amy Winehouse, Kanye | MTV

Anyway - I think Gabe wrote those articles about 7 (or maybe more) years ago and I think in some ways he's mellowed out his stance a little bit as he's gained more access to better equipment and more experience as an engineer.

Still - he still places a great deal of emphasis on all analog recording and has absolutely no interest in high track counts - in fact stopped using a 16 track 1" machine in favor of an 8track 1". He uses minimal outboard gear - and very little of it anything that would make a Gearslut drool. I think he might have a single 1176 in his racks, and he bought my racked pair of Filtek MK3 eq's about a year ago, but one of the things he still uses a lot is a couple Orban Parasound spring reverb units that he usually pushes a little to distortion. I'm not sure but I believe he did in fact upgrade their console to an older Trident though. While he has a borrowed RCA 77 in his studio he's still not afraid to use junky Radio Shack condensers. The big thing that they've emphasized in their new space is getting the tracking rooms sounding good which is critical in that pretty much everything (except sometimes horns, strings and vox) is tracked at once.

I've been doing a good bit of Daptone's mastering for the past year or so - (i.e. the Budos Band's latest CD/LP, the Bob & Gene reissues, premastering for a bunch of 7" 45's from Sharon Jones, Binky Griptite, Charles Bradley) and can confirm that Gabe & Neal are seriously cool people to both work and hang with.

Gabe always brings in the mixes on 1/4" 2-track at 15ips NAB - usually on 456 but sometimes on NOS Emtec 900 (which sounds really great to my ear). He usually slams things so that they are peaking at +3dBVU - I usually have to attenuate a few dB at the outputs of my JH110M so that it doesn't overload the analog process chain. He's definitely very technically savvy to the point where we'll discuss specific freq areas and compressor settings during the mastering session. He's been into doing gigantically wide mixes recently where things like bass are completely on one side and drums are completely on the opposite side so sometimes we'll eq the sides radically different. fwiw - while he really stays away from anything digital in his own studio he's not afraid for me to add in a touch of digital eq or limiting if it serves the track so he's not in fact a luddite - but very luckily he has no interest in the "loudness war" and likes to keep the tracks really dynamic.

The Budos Band II album was really fun to work on - pretty much the sound was already on the tape - just a little bit of eq with the Medici and maybe a band or 2 from the API5500, and a touch of OCL-2. Maybe we could have gone a touch brighter, but Gabe was deliberately going for a slightly darker sound for this release.

I just put together a compilation of a the Sharon Jones releases for them for a limited edition release and it's really interesting to hear how much the recording quality has improved since the first one ("Dap-Dippin") - a lot due to them getting out of a low ceiling basement tracking room and into their new place.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Compared to the sound of the band live, their recordings have been a big disappointment to me.

Bob - have you heard their latest "100 Days, 100 Nights" ? - I think it's definitely a step up in sound quality and really features some great performances.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[big country]

I wonder if this guy knows his shit?
sounds like an interesting fuker

I would explain but Jules got pissed one time when I was explaining some good ass tecnecs

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by Cellotron

Bob - have you heard their latest "100 Days, 100 Nights" ?

No but I'll definitely check it out.

[NowWhat]

Definitely inspiring...
It's good to see people like that getting their music heard and getting some money... from Kanye.
They're a couple blocks from me too... I have knocked on some doors, but I haven't gotten the balls to go say whats up to them... ironically because of this article...

[nlc201]

Love the sound. Click this link and then preview the song called "Day and Night". Norah Jones singing on a cheap ass Rode mic. Sounds freakin' awesome.....the band kicks ass too.....


CD Baby: BROOKLYN BOOGALOO BLOWOUT: Who Burnt The Bacon?

[Paul_G]

Originally Posted by Cellotron

A really fun video to check out is MTV's recent visit to the Daptone studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn:
Take The Daptone Records Tour | Video | Dap-Kings Reign Over Amy Winehouse, Kanye | MTV

Anyway - I think Gabe wrote those articles about 7 (or maybe more) years ago and I think in some ways he's mellowed out his stance a little bit as he's gained more access to better equipment and more experience as an engineer.

Yes the video is great and some of the gear is definitely old school high end.
It's great to see someone take a genre so apparently niche and make a huge success from it.
Reminds me a bit of Tom Dowd talking about Atlantic in The language of Music DVD.
There's a lot to be said for people power and we are slowly losing that with today's budgets and set ups.
PG

[macc]

Hehe, I posted those articles here a week or two ago - love it.

FWIW even as a generally 'electronic' musician I incorporate several old 'rubbish' bits of equipment into Cubase. I'm an absolute spring reverb addict, have been since my teens. It's true that it ain't the same
as all-analogue recording, but with the right stuff, right approach and the right principles you can bring some of that shit into the digital realm.

@ Cellotron, I have to take a minute just to say that I love your work man! I am a big big fan of all this stuff and stuff that comes through the ears of Mr. Roth and yourself never fails to put a big fat grin on my face. Absolutely enormous respect to you lot from a musician, drummer and funk addict.

I hear what you're syaing about the recordings too - '100 Days...' is seriously big, wide and sounds really really good. Personally I prefer the sound of their first album though tbh. And the music too actually... Next time you see Mr Roth tell him we want more FUNK to go with the soul :D


Next time I see em live, I'll shout it myself


Cheers!

[Acoustic Cloud]

WOW that stuff sounds good!! Can someone tell me what era she is really from?? (Sharon Jones) She never seems to get any older!

[macc]

I think she is in her mid to late forties.

She is an absolute fountain of energy that just explodes all over the stage, I'll tell you that! She's absolutely brilliant. She sang a ballad directly to my mate in the front row, it was hilarious. He was ready to curl up and die of embarrassment

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by macc

I think she is in her mid to late forties.

She is an absolute fountain of energy that just explodes all over the stage, I'll tell you that! She's absolutely brilliant. She sang a ballad directly to my mate in the front row, it was hilarious. He was ready to curl up and die of embarrassment

Sharon's 51 - she just wears it really well and looks (and dances) like she's younger.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Acoustic Cloud]

YouTube - Sharon Jones

Ok thanks! This vid explains pretty well. She has a perfect soul voice, not too much acrobatics, but just enough

[Kris]

Originally Posted by nlc201

Love the sound. Click this link and then preview the song called "Day and Night". Norah Jones singing on a cheap ass Rode mic. Sounds freakin' awesome.....the band kicks ass too.....


CD Baby: BROOKLYN BOOGALOO BLOWOUT: Who Burnt The Bacon?

thanks nlc201. Got me a new cd on the way!

[Vari-Mu]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Compared to the sound of the band live, their recordings have been a big disappointment to me.

Totally agree. Check out Sharon King and the Dap-Tones live and then check out the records....the lo-fi thing then sounds like a misconceived gimmick that obscures how great the band and the songs sound IMO

I have to state that I love those guys anyway....and Antibalas ( whose last three records are much more hi-fi ... particularly Security, the John McEntire one). That whole community is a bright spot in a generally bleak musical landscape .


Best,

Vari-Mu

Edit: I too have not heard their latest stuff and obviously I need to go and check it out.

[lozion]

st8 up!

Originally Posted by Vari-Mu

Totally agree. Check out Sharon King and the Dap-Tones live and then check out the records....the lo-fi thing then sounds like a misconceived gimmick that obscures how great the band and the songs sound IMO

I have to state that I love those guys anyway....and Antibalas ( whose last three records are much more hi-fi ... particularly Security, the John McEntire one). That whole community is a bright spot in a generally bleak musical landscape .


Best,

Vari-Mu

Edit: I too have not heard their latest stuff and obviously I need to go and check it out.