Seventies Songwriters/Pop-Rock bands: What Gear & Rec. Techniques Spring to Mind?

[u b k]

other huge components of the 70's sound that haven't been mentioned, or haven't been stressed enough (imo).

1) the tape machines, and -- maybe more importantly -- the tape formula and calibration practices.

2) the acoustics of the recording space

3) the instruments themselves, and the playing techniques that were popular then (everything seemed a bit more laid back)

4) the monitors they mixed thru


someone asked about the dark vocals, and in addition to the low-mid boost of being in a deadened booth, there's a significant darkening that occurs after dozens of passes on the older formulas of tape.

and, if you listen close, those sounds are light on typical presence freqs, but they all have plenty of air. this is part of why things are perceived as dull (compared to modern hyped tones) but they're not muddy.


gregoire
del
ubk

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by vernier

I think everything has been answered already, but having been in studios 60's, 70's, and 80's, I might be able to add a bit more.

First off, rooms weren't dead. Most all studios had hard floors and both hard and soft surfaces on walls and ceilings, same as 60's and 50's really, as many were built in those decades. Vocal booths were dead though. Was when 24 track came on the scene, mid seventies, that more and more mics were being put on the drums. At this point, it was trendy to close-mic and go for more separation, which caused music to get clinical sounding. Eagles got the clinical sound, Steely Dan too ..and some others that you mentioned. But a few, like Gerry Rafferty, didn't sound clinical, and his recordings hold up today extremely well.

So, early seventies sounded different largely because of having fewer tracks. Many studios were still switching from eight-track to sixteen. Wasn't until mid seventies that it started getting ridiculous, with a mic on every drum. Of course, a few, like Jimmy Page, didn't go for that trend, and his productions hold up extremely well these days.

Bass strings was either what the player had, or if it was a large budget, rent, buy, and borrow basses and try different ones. Roundwounds were common. Fifties and sixties was flats though.

As for Neve and API, no, they didn't dominate. Crosby & Nash, Grateful Dead, and Seals and Crofts ..that is API. But by the later seventies, Trident was all the rage, and many studios got 'em. Some engineer's, when they could, might track on Neve and mix on Trident ..stuff like that. Outboard pre's were starting to happen as well, but not common. And a few years later, SSL became the rage, with built-in compression on ever track, and built-in buss limiters.


Because of analog tape and good mics ..not from pre's or limiters of the seventies.

I'm sorry but "clinical" isn't a good way to describe Steely recordings from the 70's, more like AMAZING!!! THE BEST SOUNING RECORDING OF VOCALS I'VE EVER HEARD!!!

bcgood

[Open Sky]

Tell me about it. Those recordings set the bar so friggin' high. It doesn't even seem possible to record this well, but they did it, so I guess it can be done.

The other day I made a CD mix of a bunch of stuff made around the same time (late 70s) and really listened closely to the sounds. Of course I'd heard all the songs a thousand times, but I wanted to really analyze the stuff after reading all the posts on this thread. When Hey Nineteen came on, it immediately stood out. It wasn't exactly as warm and thick as some other stuff, but it was so clear and deliberate.

It's also very interesting to see how Steely Dan changed and progressed from album to album. They really evolved as songwriters in a big way.

Here's a good thread about them:
How the hell did Steely Dan get "Gaslighting Abbie" to sound so good?

[TonyBelmont]

Did anybody mention drugs? That was the most commonly used gear..

[vernier]

I'm sorry but "clinical" isn't a good way to describe Steely recordings from the 70's, more like AMAZING!!! THE BEST SOUNING RECORDING OF VOCALS I'VE EVER HEARD!!!

Those vocals sound distant to me, and problems with pitch. For amazing vocals, that'd be Byrds and CSN&Y.

[timmygrimm]

I'm not really a deadhead... but I really like the sound of Jerry Garcia Band's Cats Under The Stars album (1977). Did they start using noise reduction by that time? Everything sounds kind of expanded (vs. compressed). So tight and precise, and dark sounding. Sounds like a lot of DI was used on guitars, bass and keys. But everything sounds fat presumably due to the old gear and tape.

[allencollins]

Originally Posted by max cooper

10cc!

that is the best name ever. Great band too.....

[vernier]

Also no one mentioned SWEET man what guitar sounds.

Yep, Sweet ..the sound of Queen before Queen ...stacked harmonies on vocals and guitars .."Live For Today" and "Hell Raiser" ..analog at its best.

[fuzzjunkie]

Did anybody mention drugs? That was the most commonly used gear..

We sell Gear!


...so what exactly are you selling again, Tony?

[Drumsound]

Let's not forget arrangements! The bands and producers were making a conserted effort to make the recording interesting. When does the percussion come in? How about piano in the verse and Hammond in th chorus?

Personal was also a big deal... Let's get Jackson Browne, Jennifer Warrens, Timothy B Schmidt, JT and Linda Ronstdat to sing harmony. Is Russ Kunkle ot Jim Keltner on this? What days does Lee Sklar have open?

[chrisj]

Oh man- Timothy B Schmidt just slays me. 'I Can't Tell You Why'... wow. And all those high Eagles harmonies...

The Seventies sound (I'm thinking the Yacht Rock sound!) is something very special. It's like a precursor to disco, and sometimes it got very rocking, but in a way that's always really contained. Here's how it goes...

Bass and drums are crucial. Bass might easily be DI flatwounds, but you can also do a chimier tone provided it stays dry. If you're Walter Becker, you might be rolling off all the tone on the bass too, or doing a massive impedance mismatch to make the bass totally dull. Or you might do something more like an API hi-z in tone that has lots of mids, but you won't be processing it, control your dynamics with your fingers so the tone still has its organic solidness. You have to play the heck out of the bass, your timing has to be terrific. No sloppiness or roughness. None. You'll be sitting behind the beat but you're still right where you're supposed to be with eyeblink speed, even though that is behind the beat. Must have been all the coke. ;)

Drums are NOT clean in the digital sense. But they ARE clean in the sense of pretty close miked or very close miked, no big reverbs, no big compression unless you are Jimmy Page. The thing with the yacht rock drums and 70's pop is that you might not make the room totally dead, but you're going to make the drums sound right while sitting behind them. This was a kind of mistake- drums are designed to sound right filling a room or hall, if you're two feet from them you'll be needing to suppress the ring too much, but that's what they did. Go psycho killing all rattles, hardware buzzes, spring rings etc, then get some Moongels and cut them up into little pieces. Stick the pieces all over everything- if you can hit a drumhead, or cymbal, and produce an unpleasant resonance right at that spot, put a tiny piece of moongel on it. Eventually you'll get to where there is still air in the sound but all the funny overtones are extremely suppressed- that's the goal. Get a lot of mileage out of the overheads and the kickdrum mic, you're not trying to construct a kit out of 1000 multimikes, you'll be doing a lot of the work with the overheads. You can run the kick and snare mic hot into the board/pre, or you can fuzz it very slightly with some plugin (I make a lot that will work for this, including my free Channel), kick and snare ought to be slightly more overloaded than the overheads because that is what will make the 'point' on the over-damped drum hits blunter and more solid. Straight digital capture of this stuff will sound demo-ey. (actually, Iron Oxide will do this job very well too)

For other stuff like guitars and keyboards, think DRY. Mic a guitar amp very close, use a smaller amp than you might normally do, a combo, put it up in the mix with no verb or EQ or anything. Find tones that are already boxy and bandlimited- your Marshall Stack need not apply, but your Pignose might be just the thing! Electric instruments like Rhodes might be DI (don't be shy about faintly overdriving them with a plugin or hitting the pre hard, though), B3 is surely going to be using a Rhodes. Many things, including guitar amps, might be getting a LDC for miking, instead of the generic SM57- this isn't necessarily a heavy rock sound, so you might let the vocals occupy the mids that the 57 guitars normally would, and let the guitars be miked with something that's going to have a lot more presence so they can be quieter in the mix and still be heard.

A lot of times a key element might be percussion (tamb, shaker) played by a GOOD percussionist.

And yeah, you won't necessarily be making the live room totally dead, but it's going to be a good room, so you'll be doing things like bass trapping, diffusion, in a primitive way, just to get the room sound really excellent. Once you have it excellent, you won't be recording it directly, but it'll be in the bleed of everything. I personally am going for brighter early reflections and a pretty quick die-off with longer reverb tails not bright anymore. For me, since I'm working out of a house (more like, getting it ready to work in!) that means a pretty live live room with some glass surfaces but not a big empty box shape, more subdued connected acoustic spaces, and I have an upstairs area that I have to get really damped. And again, having done this, close-mike things and don't worry about recording the verb directly, it will be subliminal and stay out of the way but it does have to be right.

Or maybe I've just lost my mind and have no idea what I'm talking about.

Nah ;) I love that 70s sound too much. Some of my notions are legit ;)

[dbbubba]

You guys are all talking about the aspects of Eagles' records...

Most all of their classic hits were recorded at Criteria... in Miami, FL which is close to Ft. Lauderdale, Fl... hint hint

The console most of the studios all had? That'd be a MCI 500 series. If you read up, it is astounding how many '70s records were cut through a 500 series MCI. A HUGE percent.

Dead rooms, shag carpet, drum booths, FET condensers on vocals (tube mics would have been VERY rare) 1176s, Gain Brains, dBx compressors, dead drums, no bottom head on toms, not "tea towels" but cloth taped to the heads, a wallet on the snare, D.I. bass, EMTs, Lexicon 224 in later '70s

DOLBY A on record.... DOLBY A on the mixdown
Maybe dBx noise reduction here and there

15 ips 8 and 16 track
30 ips 24 track

mix to 1/4" @ 15 ips / +3 over 185nwbr

In fact, until 456 or the 3M equivelent was introduced in the later '70s
+3 dbv over 185 nwbr recordings were the normal thing
(elevated levels was more of a Brit/ early '80s idea)
RIAA curve in US... IEC in England/Europe

Most multitrack decks were Ampex and 3Ms and a few Scullys here and there.

Things mentioned that were not used on many "American" records in the '70s

Neves
Helios
Tridents
SSLs (not invented yet)
tube mics
live rooms
tube consoles after the early '70s
in fact.... tube ANYTHING!

Mostly it was a way of working and recording.
Once digital's pristine "in your face" sound came along everything in a recording has gone towards crisp and present.
That wasn't the way we thought back then.

People didn't do more drugs back then.
Drugs just make you SUCK, period.... end of story.

This post has some of the most off based replies I have seen in a while!

[themaidsroom]

Originally Posted by Open Sky

Hey there folks. Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but I think the recorded sound of the pop music from the seventies sounds pretty perfect. I'm curious what gear and recording techniques come to mind when you think of those recordings.

At the risk of being majorly flamed, I'll mention some artists/groups whose general sound I'd like to understand better: The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Gerry Rafferty, Joni Mitchell, Al Stewart, James Taylor, Seals and Crofts, Bread, America, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Player, Ambrosia etc.

So aside from the great arrangements, performances and songwriting involved, what contributes to this warm, spacious and uncluttered sound?

Thanks much. You guys rock.

real players
real singers


tape


mixing desks
zero digital





be well



- jack


p.s. music in schools

[sonicdefault]

Best thread ever. All I've been trying to achieve lately, is to re-capture some of the 70s sound.





-SD

[dbbubba]

No, the Criteria stuff wasn't only or always a 500, but Criteria was pretty much Jeep Harned's proving ground.

That original MCI at Criteria that so much of the Eagle's stuff was recorded on is intact and still working. I was recently reading about it. It was quite a cool looking (and sounding) sonsole.

I myself was HEAVILY biased against MCI consoles because for many years all of the studios I competed against seemed to have them! It was combination of a bit of jealousy if they got ANY band that I didn't get and the fact that quite a few were not very good.

Well, now I have a 538c that I am restoring (I'm about 90% finished.)
I have had to steep myself in MCI minutia.
There was a lot that I didn't know about MCIs.... A LOT!

So, yeah... you are very correct when you say that the average Gearslutz poster is going to start talking about Neve, SSL and API.
Most guys here have not worked on THAT many consoles.
Many will never afford to own or be able to work on ANY quality analog console.
Most don't know that there are crappy Neves out there.
There are SSLs that are old and have never been re-capped.

I was just marveling at how the Eagles were mentioned so much, but the console that they recorded on wasn't ever identified!

An ex-intern of mine has been tracking their stuff lately.
I wonder what insight he could add?

Another thing that wasn't common until the mid to late '80s.... using outboard mic pres.

Hey... if you want to hear how good '70s recording and production can sound then listen to almost ANY Zappa record from the mid to late '70s.
He did some pretty baddass records mixing through a Sound Workshop console and using an AMpex MM1100.

[vernier]

As for dead rooms, I saw a couple but most large rooms were live. As for Dolby: the rockers avoided it. For mixdown, 1/2 was there too, startin' in 1970. The bad thing was 24 trk and super large consoles ..it got the corporate rock sound going, which doesn't hold up today.

[u b k]

CANNOT ignore the monitors in this equation. they define what you hear and how you hear it. more importantly, people heard differently back then, their brains processed sound in a completely different manner. music was all vinyl and 8-tracks, hi-fi gear sounded different, speakers sounded very different, headphones sounded different, the world sounded different, air vibrated different.

ever notice that nobody has anything coming out that sounds remotely like hotel california or back in black? why is that? you'd think if it were possible at least *some* guys would be doing it once in a while. i gotta say, i'm not hearing it.

the world has changed too much, and us with it. when they say 'you can't go back,' they're not joking.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

[uncle duncan]

Originally Posted by u b k

when they say 'you can't go back,' they're not joking.

John Mayer kind of went back with Continuum, or at least he emulated going back, but with more definition.

(I'm sure someone will point out how this analogy is wrong, but that record does have a nice vintage vibe.)

[recky]

For a year or so (off and on) I've been trying to recreate that early 70s drum sound that you can hear on records by John Lennon, Bill Withers, Harry Chapin, etc., for my own recordings, and I'm nearly there.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to that sound. This is what I've done so far: I've got a vintage Tama Superstar with vintage cymbals (an Avedis Ride/Crash and a no-name 1960s crash) set up in a fairly dead corner of the studio.

Micing: U87 mono overhead, just above the drummer's forehead, pointing somewhere between the snare and the kick. SM57 on the Ludwig Supraphonic snare (going to try something else instead, it's a bit too boxy), but not super-close. EV RE15 on the kick drum, just a quarter of the way in. EV RE16s on 14" and 16" toms.
Preamps: API, DAV and vintage Soundcraft desk.

Heads: Remo Emperor, toms damped to get rid of any long ringing, snare damped with stuffed cigarette packet, kick damped with blankets (no front head).

Tried to get a good rock drummer to play this drum kit - wasn't right. Modern drummers hit far too hard. So I tried playing it myself - I'm not a drummer, but I can play some basics - fairly softly and balanced, and this was it! Not that it sounded very good in the room (if you're used to a more 'conventional' drum sound), but on playback with a touch of EQ it was all there, even on a DAW!

I "gated" the toms in Logic and mixed the drum tracks so that the main body of the sounds came from the close mics and the air came from the overhead. That's probably why an SM57 doesn't really work on the snare - I'd love to try another RE15. In EQing, the "secret" is not to mess too much with the original signals, i.e. there used to be a lot more low-mids in early 70s recordings and the arrangements used to work around that: Kick and bass guitar were pretty much untouched in the mids, with just some bottom added. At the same time, acoustic and electric guitars were severly high-passed to make room for the bottom segment of the arrangement. There was very little air added and the vocals occupied a far greater space than in modern rock/pop arrangements.

If you want to get a good impression of what an early 70s recording would sound like today, get your hands on the John Lennon Anthology. It's full of remixed originals - a great listen.

Cheers,

Recky

[monkeyt]

Hey....
The sound of the 70's
MCI 500 series desk
I've got one sitting right next to me!!!!

Just started cleaning up modules. Gonna be a long process but its gonna come back to life and record more cool sounding records... with some help from my Studer A80 Mk2
:)

[u b k]

Originally Posted by uncle duncan

John Mayer kind of went back with Continuum, or at least he emulated going back, but with more definition.

(I'm sure someone will point out how this analogy is wrong, but that record does have a nice vintage vibe.)

it does have a great vibe, especially the drums. and still, nobody would ever think it was actually recorded in the 70's.

has anyone heard anything recorded in the past, say, 15 years that actually sounds so much like a 70's record you wouldn't know unless told?


gregoire
del
ubk
.

[monkeyt]

Originally Posted by recky

For a year or so (off and on) I've been trying to recreate that early 70s drum sound that you can hear on records by John Lennon, Bill Withers, Harry Chapin, etc., for my own recordings, and I'm nearly there.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to that sound. This is what I've done so far: I've got a vintage Tama Superstar with vintage cymbals (an Avedis Ride/Crash and a no-name 1960s crash) set up in a fairly dead corner of the studio.

Micing: U87 mono overhead, just above the drummer's forehead, pointing somewhere between the snare and the kick. SM57 on the Ludwig Supraphonic snare (going to try something else instead, it's a bit too boxy), but not super-close. EV RE15 on the kick drum, just a quarter of the way in. EV RE16s on 14" and 16" toms.
Preamps: API, DAV and vintage Soundcraft desk.

Heads: Remo Emperor, toms damped to get rid of any long ringing, snare damped with stuffed cigarette packet, kick damped with blankets (no front head).

Tried to get a good rock drummer to play this drum kit - wasn't right. Modern drummers hit far too hard. So I tried playing it myself - I'm not a drummer, but I can play some basics - fairly softly and balanced, and this was it! Not that it sounded very good in the room (if you're used to a more 'conventional' drum sound), but on playback with a touch of EQ it was all there, even on a DAW!

I "gated" the toms in Logic and mixed the drum tracks so that the main body of the sounds came from the close mics and the air came from the overhead. That's probably why an SM57 doesn't really work on the snare - I'd love to try another RE15. In EQing, the "secret" is not to mess too much with the original signals, i.e. there used to be a lot more low-mids in early 70s recordings and the arrangements used to work around that: Kick and bass guitar were pretty much untouched in the mids, with just some bottom added. At the same time, acoustic and electric guitars were severly high-passed to make room for the bottom segment of the arrangement. There was very little air added and the vocals occupied a far greater space than in modern rock/pop arrangements.

If you want to get a good impression of what an early 70s recording would sound like today, get your hands on the John Lennon Anthology. It's full of remixed originals - a great listen.

Cheers,

Recky

Thats funny about the John Lennon anth... we were just listening to it in the studio a couple weeks ago and my partner says "man, if I was getting drum sounds like that, I wouldn't be working"

I think the track in particular was "cold turkey", does it make it any less of a GREAT TRACK??? nope, it kicks ass.

[miqer]

Joni Mitchell and James Taylor play the big Martin guitars.

[Tony Montana]

ABBA: fantastic production.

[monkeyt]

I have to say, I really like the idea of having a database or repository or listing or spreadsheet or ANYTHING that puts studio/consoles in one place.

It could cut down a lot of redundant posting.

Youze guys that actually did the recordings in the 60-80's are a wealth of knowledge, lets put it to use! A little information goes a long way, a little mis-information goes to the freakin moon and back again!!!!

Then maybe, just maybe, clients would stop telling me they just recorded on this old Neve that The Beatles used....