Sinatra's Vocal Chain

[RichGreen]

Originally Posted by cschuby

Just found this! Outtakes of "I got plenty of nuttin'"....cool stuff

http://www.bigozine.com/TRKSA1/FSstudio/FSstudio05.mp3

love that vintage sound! nice clip

[Aeolian]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I can't recommend eliminating headphones and playing to an acoustic balance highly enough. Headphones screw up both the dynamics and pitch of even the best session players because they are playing to an artificial balance. It just means not being able to go back and punch in mistakes by individual performers.

The benefit is little or no need for compression or eq. to make things balance and incredible mix translation between different listening enviornments.

Thank you. This is so great to hear coming from an audio professional. As someone who has been more of a live performer than studio rat, headphones in the studio always bothered me. It wasn't until the fad of IEMs in live situations caught up with me that I realized why. People who are used to ensemble playing in an acoustic space unwittingly use the "cocktail party" effect to scan around the ensemble at will. Listening to the drummer one moment, catching a chord inversion someone threw out the next, checking in with the bass to lock a rhythmic part and so on. Constantly shifting attention, sometimes several times within a single beat. You don't realize you're doing it, but the mind can only really focus on one thing at once and musicians with "big ears" are just really skilled at this sort of rapid polling around the stage and keeping up with everybody. When you take away spatial location and just give someone level and maybe a fixed pan to discriminate between things going on, they (and their playing) will suffer.

Sorry for the swerve, but you hit a raw nerve. I'll go put on Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie now and listen to Ella do her thing without all the junk in the way.

[walth]

U-47, Elam 251/251E, RCA 44BX, maybe a RCA 77DX, Unidyne III. (U-67 and M-49 mics were popular as well)


UA 610 maybe WE or altec tube pres too.

[cathode]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I understand the console was a Western Electric so RCA must have taken their gear with them when they sold the studio to Radio Recorders. Radio Recorders supposedly had the first Ampex 200 in Hollywood because this was where Bing Crosby worked. I understand that machine ended up with custom electronics at the Mastering Lab as their 15/30 1/4" playback deck. Talk about gear with a serious vibe!

I've had to piece what little I know about Radio Recorders Annex together from a lot of different sources so this may not be entirely accurate. The studio was located at 1016 North Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.

Completely true that Radio Recorder's Ampex 200 ended up at Mastering Lab. Retired when 1/2" became popular in the early 1980's.

RCA's studio in Hollywood was at Sunset and Vine, along with NBC. That complex was built in 1938 and lasted until the demands of color tv lighting forced NBC to build their new facility in Burbank. Victor went down the street in 1964 to the new building at Sunset and Ivar. Never heard that RCA had anything to do with Radio Recorders other than Elvis recording some songs there.
Radio City Hollywood
It is my understanding that there is a museum inside the Washington Mutual Bank at Sunset and Vine pertaining to the RCA/NBC facility.

[manuke]

Originally Posted by CJ1973

Well said. Back then people knew how to play instruments and did not waste time playing games on an iPad....

Can never work out if people are joking when they write shit like this.

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by cathode

... Never heard that RCA had anything to do with Radio Recorders other than Elvis recording some songs there.
...

1016 North Sycamore Avenue was part of RCA's warehouse. Sunset and Vine was NBC.

My understanding from several RCA engineers I've met is that they continued to record at 1016 North Sycamore Avenue after selling it until they built their new studio in '64. That doesn't mean they didn't also record some at Sunset and Vine but as far as I know all of the big orchestral dates such as the Henry Mancini albums were done in the old studio.

[soundbarnfool]

They are not joking.

Inglewood SoundBarn

Originally Posted by manuke

Can never work out if people are joking when they write shit like this.

[manuke]

Rock 'n' roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written, for the most part, by cretinous goons.
Frank Sinatra.

People today can't play their instruments/sing/engineer/write songs.......
10,000 out of touch old farts on gearslutz.

Both a bit sad really.

[sage691]

People can say what they want, but IMO there are "magical" U47s out there that have a sound that is the best I have ever heard. I've been lucky enough to sing on one and that mic can really handle singers that project smoothly, yet powerfully -- whereas alot of other mics will fall apart.

It has a huge, yet focused sound that is even somewhat dark but totally crystal clear where you can hear every intimate detail of the voice, with NO sibilance and no need for any EQ if it suits your voice. It's as if the sweetest sounding compressor was somehow built into the mic.

Absolutely SICK mic, and after singing thru one I can easily hear the imprint of it all over the Sinatra recordings. That is DEFINITELY a magical U47 sound, no doubt about !!!

It's a mic that can make a decent singer sound incredible, and an incredible singer sound like a God

[tyedie]

Originally Posted by Audi Uh Oh

+1

I think we can all agree we've had enough of the "The Beatles are the Beatles" type answers... the talent is the best instrument, it's the room, yesterday was better, when musicians could play, yada yada yada... we get it!

Yep! I've only joined recently but I have surprised by the amount of responses to questions relating solely to gear that say "talent is more important". I think we all know that.

If someone says "why does Frank Sinatra's voice sound so good?" then fair enough, that's because he was a great singer. If someone asks "what was his vocal chain?" then that's a separate issue, surely?

[88fingerz]

Originally Posted by John Willett

He also was a professional who knew how to use a microphone - a skill very rare among modern vocalists.

He also had a great singing voice, also a skill very rare among modern vocalists.

[Wagnerian]

Originally Posted by Steve G

Here's what I know after working at Capitol Studios for 15 years. Frank usually sang into a U47, although I have seen some pictures with a U67 and an M49. We still own and use these very same mics on a daily basis. The pre would have been whatever was in the custom Capitol desks with no compression or EQ, just fader rides by talented staff engineers (names escape me at the moment, but I can look it up later). The tape machines were all 1/2" 3 track. Every now and then we pull out the old tapes for reissues, and they sound like they were recorded yesterday, stunning.

Steve

You RULE!