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A "how did they do that" question


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The first slap back echo unit I know of was the Echoplex. Tape loop unit. In the old days they used echo chambers or spring reverb. I remember playing tambourine in an echo chamber in 1965 and then we did all our backing vocals in there. It was just a big square concrete room.

Mark G.

"A man may fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame others" -- John Burroughs

 

"I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man." -- Thomas Jefferson

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I think/read that they were also using tape decks to create this famous "slap back" type of echo made famous on the Elvis Presley Sun period records (Mystery train, for instance). The guitar was played, and went through the mixing table, which was connected to a tape deck. This sound was recorded in real time on the tape deck whose main outs returned to the mixer, but of course with a very short delay , creating this "return " effect. I think it is Sam Philips who used this technique, but correct me guys if I am wrong. All the tape delays and Roland stuff (which is used by Brian Setzer for his sound a la Scotty Moore) appeared after, to emulate this technique in a simpler way. Hoping my explanation makes sense........ Alex [ 01-30-2002: Message edited by: AliAlexandre ]
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Yes, tape delay. Tape delay times are a function of the tape speed and distance between the record and playback heads. Slower tape speed and / or greater distance between the two heads = longer delay times. The sound is routed (via an aux send) out of your board and into the input of the tape deck. Sound hits the record head and is printed to tape... tape travels from record to playback head, where sound is played back. Output from the tape deck is routed back to an input channel of the board and voila! True Tape delay. Make usre you use a 3 head deck, and have it set to monitor the Repro / Playback headstack and NOT set for "Simul Sync". You can REALLY get wacky and make loops, put cardboard over (or electrically disengage) the erase head (for regenerated slaps), play with tape speed (REAL "flanging anyone?) etc. etc. A 3 head analog tape deck can be a lot of fun, and I really feel a bit sorry for some of these kids (says the old man! ;) ) who have grown up using nothing but digital delay units - you've missed out on some serious fun! Now, on to echo / reverb chambers. Yes, they're incredibly cool, but most people don't have one in their home studios because of space considerations. A good chamber takes a bit of room... Yes, you can perform inside a chamber, but that's not usually how they're utilized. Normally, a chamber is a reasonably large, highly reflective room or space, with a microphone (or two, or several) located at one end and a speaker (or two, or several...) at the other end. You can easily simulate this one at home too, with a little creativity. Got a garage? Simply place a power amp / speaker at one end, and a mic at the other. Route an aux send from your board over to the power amp, and bring the mic back into an input channel. Turn up the aux send (post fader usually works best, but you can experiment with pre-fader auxes too) on the instrument(s) / vocal(s) you want the "chamber reverb" on, and enjoy. Get creative and try different rooms around the house for different tones. Stairways work very well. Bathrooms can be fun too. Experiment and be creative! Chambers and tape delays were the "norm" for ambient effects in the early days of recording, and while they are used far less frequently in these days of "effects in a box", they can still be very cool and a lot of fun. Echoplexes, spring reverbs and plate reverbs are also older devices, but definitely came later than chambers and tape delay. [img]http://www.freakygamers.com/smilies/s2/contrib/navigator/usa.gif[/img] Phil O'Keefe Sound Sanctuary Recording Riverside CA http://www.ssrstudio.com pokeefe777@ssrstudio.com
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Slightly OT but does anyone still play around with big tape loops (quite a few feet of tape wrapped around mic stands, etc.) Those were the days (and I'm only 27!) :)
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." - Banky Edwards.
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Yes rog, I used to play around with tape loops. But doing it on a computer is just so much easier. With analog you were putting 'sound on sound', so if you botched it you had to start all over again. -then, for edits you got out the razor and tape-tape, etc. -working w/analog is not always a 'romantic' memory.
In two days, it won't matter.
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Wow, does this question bring back memories! Back in (to some this will sound old) 1970 we were in the studio and the cat engineering hit us with the idea of big-time tape echo. So he laced up 2 two tracks feeding from the left to the right unit running the tape across both machines (taping up the left's rocker arm). We worked with the phyical spacing between the two machine to get the timing to fall right! It was way cool back then. Today's rack toys give so much for the buck. I just can't picturing anyone today trying to strap one harddrive across two workstations to get "a sound"! :D :cool: ;)
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analog? whats that :p im a child of digital even though im "OLD" in computer land (so im told... and im only 21!!!) i remember being excited at getting this NEW device for the families POWERFUL IBM compatible PC this thing was called a SOUNDCARD, and it actually played real convincing music type stuff! of course we had to fiddle with jumpers and irq/dma but boy was it great this new stuff called MULTIMEDIA came too, and we got this cdrom drive! far out man you might guess i was just talking about this today. i remember WOLFENSTIEN was one of the first computer games to amaze me as a kid, with 3d and cool sounds when you shot the evil nazi's anyway, whats a spring plate? is at as the name implies? some kind of very sensitive plate that 'bounced' sound around? maybe some kind of mic in/on/near it? i really hope someones archiving all this stuff... id hate to see our technical pedagogy (so to speak) go the way of the Aztecs
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I'm pretty sure slap echo originated in radio. The "classic" slap effect is an Ampex 351 fed back into its self while running at 15 with the record eq. set to 7.5. It's very distinctive and was used a great deal prior to around 1970 when 351s started disappearing from most studios. Another method was to mix in a bit off the playback head from the machine you were mixing to. I suspect this may be what Sam Phillips was doing at Sun. In 1965 there were only live chambers, EMTs, echoplexes, and Hammond spring-based reverb units available along with what we called "tape echo."
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[quote]Originally posted by blas: [b]Wow, does this question bring back memories! Back in (to some this will sound old) 1970 we were in the studio and the cat engineering hit us with the idea of big-time tape echo. So he laced up 2 two tracks feeding from the left to the right unit running the tape across both machines (taping up the left's rocker arm). We worked with the phyical spacing between the two machine to get the timing to fall right! It was way cool back then.[/b][/quote] Cool indeed! Sounds like he was doing the same thing that it took Fripp & Eno three or four more years to discover ...
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I have a Sony TC650 that's a dandy delay unit. Nothing gives you that tape sound better than, duh, TAPE! The erase head's tired, or the voltage isn't set right, so it's got it's own built in regeneration...heh. Dan Roth Otitis Media
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The problem with the old tape delay was that you only had 3 3/4 , 7 1/2 and 15 ips. At the studio I worked at in 68 they had built a 300watt power amp that delivered 240 volts with a variable frequency so it drove the 240 volt capstan motor and as you varied the frequency the tape speed changed - Varispeed!! This openned up full tape phasing. cheers John
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I have a 20+ year old Multivox MPX-201(?)...tape-loop echo unit. I think it has a lot of similarities to the Roland Space Echo. I has Dual Capstans, 1 Erase Head, 1 Record Head, 4 Playback Heads. The Playback Heads are all spaced apart...of course. It lets you do all kinds of tape echo stuff...via front panel selector switches that let you pick the combination of Playback Heads. Also, you can vari-speed the tape loop quite dramatically. Included are Sound-on-Sound options...it will do either a Single S-on-S pass or Multiple S-on-S passes. Really cool...you just keep adding sounds and when you are happy with the "noise"...you turn off the S-on-S and now that "noise" will just keep going around-and-around…until you record something new over it. I've had fun with that...letting the "noise" become just a "blur"...and then using it as a background to other tracks. There a other buttons and knobs...but I'm not near the unit right now to fully describe them. It uses ¼ inch tape, and I just make my own loops when the tape gets worn…16 foot loops was the original and I've not tried anything longer because I don't want to jam up the transport/loading tray…the tape kind of just "folds" in there and it would get too tightly packed if I made longer loops. I wouldn't sell this baby for any amount of money...even it is isn't considered "high-end". It surely is unique…I've not seen too many of these...maybe it's even a bit of a collector's item...???

miroslav - miroslavmusic.com

 

"Just because it happened to you, it doesn't mean it's important."

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[quote]Originally posted by DRiLoad: [b] i just use MAGNETO plug in :p heh heh heh[/b][/quote] You have my sympathies.
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." - Banky Edwards.
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Yes, a digital delay can give you much cleaner results than tape delay, but there are times where I *WANT* a low S/N on my delay and I *WANT* to lose S/N as I go with the 33/4ips "long" delay. A good echo chamber for me is the stairway in my home's front hall. The mix room's upstairs, so I just play the mix back and set up a mic at the bottom of the stairs, kind of a tight echo that doesn't work on everything but it's great for claps & snaps! I actually just tracked claps out there today with an omni. Yaknow, I've been a digital guy for my entire time in this field (besides shooting production audio on Nagra and Beta SP), but I really really love analog gear. I'm 24 and some of my favorite music is Hendrix, Cream, all that great 60's stuff. If us youngins don't embrace and learn about how it USED to be done without computers, it'll be lost. That'd be a shame. Hell, I was a film major and one of my favorite things was cutting a film by hand on a flatbed, even though we had 7 Avids. Besides, what if "Danger Kitty" wants you to engineer their new album with Mutt Lange producing and they wanna use 2"? and like everyone else they _hate_ Pro Tools? Dan Roth Otitis Media ps-> I love PT, I've built 2 PT rooms thus far, both have since been dismantled due to corporate atrophies.
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Oh yeah, let's not forget the old Echoplex!! The Chambers Brothers with "Time Has Come Today". Tape loop with heads on shifters - now what did I do with that old Kalimazoo amp & National guitar? Probably in the same place my old rolled and pleated Kustom amp...gone forever! :rolleyes:
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perhaps this isn't the right place to ask but it is "how did they do that?" I am hearing a very distinct distotion on alot of recent recordings. It's on vocals, guitars drums, everthing. It sounds like it is an effect. I hear it plain as day. It is all over the new Garbage CD, the new No Doubt, the new Watchmen. It is not soft but is is not brittle, and it brings out the presence in around 6-12k depending on what it is on. Does anyone know what i'm talking about. What creates it?
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Still have an Echoplex, still use it on occasion when I want to harken back to an early Andy Summers-type sound, a sort of 'ether-with-a-sinus-infection' quality. and blas: I still have my Kalamzoo Model 2 amp. My parents got it for me in '74, along with a Harmony Silvertone (yep, still got it too, although it's in pieces in the storage unit). That amp sounded horrible to me through the '80's, now it kicks butt.
I've upped my standards; now, up yours.
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Halljams, That distortion you hear is the sound of a Pro Tools rig stuffed to the gills with more plugins than a sex shop, every track compressed to within a millimeter of its life. It's called a bad case of "DAW abuse". I agree, it's everywhere. It sucks. And lots of people try to deny it exists. But we know better. blas and all: I have a vintage Echoplex that I've used for years, and it kicks ass. And now they even make new tape cartridges for them again. For a long time no one made them so you used to have to re-spool the stock one with a new piece of 1/4" tape, which was a major pain. Yessir, nothing like tape echo. --Lee
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Yep, Lee, I've re-spooled, too. Imagine my ecstacy when I re-spooled an old Echoplex cartridge with brand-new Ampex 456 (this was in '90); gave it a tune-up, and...and... (insert Homer drooling here)....I was GOD for that session, I tell you...GOD!!!
I've upped my standards; now, up yours.
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[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]I have a vintage Echoplex that I've used for years, and it kicks ass. And now they even make new tape cartridges for them again.[/b][/quote] THANK YOU JIM DUNLOP!!! (from another happy Echoplex owner)
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[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]Halljams, That distortion you hear is the sound of a Pro Tools rig stuffed to the gills with more plugins than a sex shop, every track compressed to within a millimeter of its life. It's called a bad case of "DAW abuse". I agree, it's everywhere. It sucks. And lots of people try to deny it exists. But we know better. blas and all: I have a vintage Echoplex that I've used for years, and it kicks ass. And now they even make new tape cartridges for them again. For a long time no one made them so you used to have to re-spool the stock one with a new piece of 1/4" tape, which was a major pain. Yessir, nothing like tape echo. --Lee[/b][/quote] Lee, thanks for the honest and quick reply. Unfortunatley the sound i was looking to nail down is quite an attractive one in my opinion, and it is only on certain tracks of certain tunes.It really brings them out to the front. I have heard it in varying degrees also, some smeared others justed finley sprinkled. Mick's voice would have sounded wonderful with a bit of this on it.LOL ;)
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[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]Halljams, That distortion you hear is the sound of a Pro Tools rig stuffed to the gills with more plugins than a sex shop, every track compressed to within a millimeter of its life. It's called a bad case of "DAW abuse". I agree, it's everywhere. It sucks. And lots of people try to deny it exists. But we know better. blas and all: I have a vintage Echoplex that I've used for years, and it kicks ass. And now they even make new tape cartridges for them again. For a long time no one made them so you used to have to re-spool the stock one with a new piece of 1/4" tape, which was a major pain. Yessir, nothing like tape echo. --Lee[/b][/quote] Lee, thanks for the honest and quick reply. Unfortunatley the sound i was looking to nail down is quite an attractive one in my opinion, and it is only on certain tracks of certain tunes.It really brings them out to the front. I have heard it in varying degrees also, some smeared others justed finley sprinkled. Mick's voice would have sounded wonderful with a bit of this on it.LOL ;)
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I dunno if you folks at the BBS have figured out this double posting problem yet, but when i submitted that last one i got the following error message..... Sorry, UBB has encountered an unexpected, fatal error. This error is extremely abnormal. Please contact the board administration. The error text is: /home/DocumentRoots/Default/ubb/cache-UHVBCNQ7/ubb_files/forum_page/Forum1/forum1-5.cgi: Expected to write out 66274 bytes, but file on disk is only !] Here is the backtrace: Backtrace: ubb_lib_filehandle.cgi:185 -> sub UBB::FileHandle::tracer Backtrace: ubb_lib_filehandler.cgi:132 -> sub UBB::FileHandle::close Backtrace: ubb_lib_files.cgi:522 -> sub UBB::FileHandler::close Backtrace: ubb_forum.cgi:429 -> sub main::WriteFileAsString Backtrace: ultimatebb.cgi:537 -> sub main::get_forum » Please use your browser's back button to return.
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[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]Halljams, That distortion you hear is the sound of a Pro Tools rig stuffed to the gills with more plugins than a sex shop. --Lee[/b][/quote] LMFAO!!!! :D
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." - Banky Edwards.
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[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]Halljams, That distortion you hear is the sound of a Pro Tools rig stuffed to the gills with more plugins than a sex shop, every track compressed to within a millimeter of its life. It's called a bad case of "DAW abuse". I agree, it's everywhere. It sucks. And lots of people try to deny it exists. But we know better. --Lee[/b][/quote] Though I agree with your observation, I think the sound Halljams was thinking of is probably AmpFarm/Pod abuse. This seemed to be everybody's "secret weapon" for 2000. I can't tell you how many times I've heard (otherwise reasonable) producers and engineers brag about how clever they are for running vocals and drums through a guitar amp plug-in. The joke's on them when every song on the radio (all 10 of them :) ) have the same clever vocal sound.
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Yeah. Now the whole plugin world has turned into: "Prefabbed, spontaneous creativity in a Box!" Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. We're getting closer and closer to a no kidding "Producer" plugin. Scary, for more than one reason. Brian T
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