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Old Songs with cool effects


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How about "Money money money money.....money" How did they get that last "money' sounding soooo cool? Fame Fame Fame Fame Fame Fame Fame Fame Fame Fame........... another goodie. Bowie drops a few octaves. How? Time-Pink Floyd. Are the backup singers singing through a Leslie cabinet on the chorus? One more. How did Tom Sholze get the mod wheel effect on the "Smokin" B-3 solo? This message has been edited by Cereal on 10-06-2001 at 08:18 PM
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Yeah Bridge of Sighs era Robin Trower, all that swirling overdriven stuff....and to me Queen's guitar orchestrations were absolutely incredible. Twenty First Century Schitzoid Man definitely blew my mind when it came out. But my all time fave tones is the Sun studio's simple slapback and reverb.
Down like a dollar comin up against a yen, doin pretty good for the shape I'm in
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The backwards reverb on the guitar solo in the Joe Walsh song "County Fair", from the album "So What?"...it made me completely aware of the neat things you could do in 'reverse'... ------------------ Fletcher Mercenary Audio http://www.mercenary.com

Fletcher

Mercenary Audio

 

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Cereal, are those rhetorical questions? I would like to draw attention to the brilliant second recording by the upstart Motown Records, back in the olden days of yore. To whit: "Lonely Teardrops" by Jackie Wilson. That whole record is one crazy ambient effect. John Whynot
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I always really liked those flanged cymbals on the break in the Doobie's "Listen to the Music." And whatever the hell was going on all through 'Pictures of Matchstickmen' by Status Quo I think. Maybe the hole was off center on my 45? Of course Johnney L and his tape snippets spliced forward and backward and looped. And his insistance that George Martin put a rock arrangement and an orchestral arrangement of the same song 'together' (recorded at different tempos and keys) and coming up with 'Strawberry Fields.' Man, that's cool.
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[quote]Originally posted by John Whynot: [b]Cereal, are those rhetorical questions? I would like to draw attention to the brilliant second recording by the upstart Motown Records, back in the olden days of yore. To whit: "Lonely Teardrops" by Jackie Wilson. That whole record is one crazy ambient effect. John Whynot[/b][/quote] I'm actually curious how some of these old tricks were done. Honorable mention to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Great magic to make Dave and the chippers come off so perfectly.
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[quote]Originally posted by Cereal: [b]One more. How did Tom Sholze get the mod wheel effect on the "Smokin" B-3 solo? [/b][/quote] Turn the start motor on while the B-3 is already on. The pitch rises like a pitch bend wheel. When you let go, you may have unpredictable results. Pitch may be flat, might be A 440.

Steve

 

www.seagullphotodesign.com

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[quote]Originally posted by SteveRB: [b] I think a lot of the sound effects in Zeppelins' "Whole Lotta Love" were made with an Echoplex tape delay unit. Pretty amazing sounds for the time.[/b][/quote] Also Jimmy Page working a Theremin.

Steve

 

www.seagullphotodesign.com

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[quote]Originally posted by Tedster: [b]How about the first time I heard a guitar run through a Leslie...before phase shifters and chorus boxes became popular... Could have been "Badge"...but I'm not sure.[/b][/quote] I think it was. We were talking about about guitars in Leslies at a gig the other night. It was the earliest I could remember & the rest of the guys. I wonder if George Harrison might of did it first. The Beatles did do a lot of firsts.

Steve

 

www.seagullphotodesign.com

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I don't know whatever happened to R-E-P magazine but I always thought it was the absolute best technical source of how records were being made during it's lifespan. It was such a great mag. Tiny details on micing, recorder, console techniques for bunches of great pop recordings. All spoken by the engineers who were doing the work at the time it was happening (while it could all still be remembered) Anyhoo...here's what I know as I learned from that mag- For the Love of Money- multitrack back vocals of "money..money..money" were submixed to a stereo recoreder, tape then turned upside down to play backwards. Then the part was hand flown back onto empty tracks of the multitrack at points just before the forward singing words. And they had to hand fly it by punching the backwards words in one at a time at correct points to correspond with the pitch of each forward word. Otherwise the backwards pitch would have been going the wrong direction from the forward singing. Wole Lotta Love...at end where Plant is singing by himself, you hear his singing also at low volume just before the louder singing. What you hear at low volume is the bleed from his guide track blasting from his headphones...which must have been turned up to 12. Itchikoo park...basic tracks were recorded (minus vocals) and then dubbed to a second machine. Then, both basic track machines were routed into the console and a third machine was activated to record. The studio had one of those primitive sync boxes that simply read tach pulses to keep machines in sync. The second machine was hand nudged to get the degree of phase flanging the producers/band wanted, and then the song was dubbed over to the third machine. While dubbing, the engineer would bring up the console fader for the flanged recorder only during those parts where you actually hear the flanging. Then the vocals were recorded on a spare track of the third machine. All that dubbing to different machines is probably a big reason why the overall record is pretty lo-fi sounding. But the effect is cool. I don't know about "Who's That Lady" but I never really liked that solo. It always sounds like the guitar was piped directly into the console and all the distortion is console overload. I think a Marshall stack would have been better for that one.
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[quote]Originally posted by BOOKUMDANO: [b]Wole Lotta Love...at end where Plant is singing by himself, you hear his singing also at low volume just before the louder singing. What you hear at low volume is the bleed from his guide track blasting from his headphones...which must have been turned up to 12.[/b][/quote] I always wondered what happened there. I didn't think it was intentional.

Steve

 

www.seagullphotodesign.com

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Yeah, how about those effects? I ran across one yesterday. The lead guitar on "Jackie Blue" by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Just creepy the way the guitar sounds like it's coming to the song from a completely different planet and acoustic space. My guess is that there was an Echoplex involved, and possibly other things as well. Like, reading this thread, I wondered if they made more out of those early tape delays by using them with spring reverb and/or analog delays, and/or multiple mics in a large ambient room. When I listen to that era of production, it seems to me unlikely that all of that "float" came from just one effect. Anyone?
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Whole Lotta was print through, greatly increased by the intense compression on the vocal track on mixdown. "Fame" is simpler than you might think; the first few "fame"s were recorded with the master machine running slow, then a few with the machine at speed, then a few with the machine going fast, and a couple more with the machine going even faster. I believe the end of "War Pigs" was a similar sort of thing, only they simply turned the varispeed knob to the left as Ozzie sang the last note, until the machine almost stops. Then when you play it back, well, you know... "Time", you're right. Leslie. Although it was probably done after the vocalists were recorded. Regarding guitars through leslies, I think the guitar solo in "Old Brown Shoe" might predate "Badge". But I wouldn't lay lots of money on it. BTW that's a great solo, Old Brown, it's also got tape delay with the return much louder than the dry, and it's a well-played bit of guitar by Mr. Carl Harrison. JW
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Over the years, I also heard the print through theory about the vocal on Whole Lotta Love. It was sometime in the early 70's that I read about the headphone/guide track explanation. I never held much creedence for the print through/tape wasn't stored tails out thought because the multitrack tapes were of course new at the time and probably hadn't been stored for any length of time before mixdown and mastering. While print-through can also occur for other reasons, I also notice that at the section where the cool vocal thing happens, there's no hint of other instruments leaking in ahead of main signals (ie: just before all the instruments come back in after the vocal). If there had been a print through problem on the mutltitrack, i would thnk other affected tracks would have noticeably begun to enter just as the solo vocal section ends. At any rate, I wasn't there. But the explanation I read sounds valid.
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[quote]Originally posted by John Whynot: [b] Regarding guitars through leslies, I think the guitar solo in "Old Brown Shoe" might predate "Badge". But I wouldn't lay lots of money on it. BTW that's a great solo, Old Brown, it's also got tape delay with the return much louder than the dry, and it's a well-played bit of guitar by Mr. Carl Harrison. JW[/b][/quote] Definitely one of the best guitar solos on any Beatle song...
"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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From Eddie Kramer Bio on [url=http://www.studiomenu.com:]www.studiomenu.com:[/url] As Eddie tells of one particular session, "Zep II was mixed over a two day period in New York, and at one point there was blood-through of a previously recorded vocal in the recording of "Whole Lotta Love." It was the middle part where Robert (Plant) screams "Wo-man. You need it." Since we couldn’t re-record at that point, I just threw some echo on it to see how it would sound and Jimmy (Page) said "Great! Just leave it."
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[quote]Originally posted by DC: [b]I always really liked those flanged cymbals on the break in the Doobie's "Listen to the Music." And whatever the hell was going on all through 'Pictures of Matchstickmen' by Status Quo I think. Maybe the hole was off center on my 45? Of course Johnney L and his tape snippets spliced forward and backward and looped. And his insistance that George Martin put a rock arrangement and an orchestral arrangement of the same song 'together' (recorded at different tempos and keys) and coming up with 'Strawberry Fields.' Man, that's cool.[/b][/quote] I also loved the flanged break on the Eagles' "Life in the Fast Lane", still one of the best rock singles ever. Another cool tone I've always liked, even though its probably simple, is the lead guitar on Fleetwood Mac's "Hypnotised", can't remember from what album. That track takes me to another place......

Botch

"Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will

www.puddlestone.net

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The first time I recall hearing reverb that really knocked me over was Keith Emerson's Lucky Man solo. Just HUGE tone made even bigger. And Frankenstein by Edgar is still a standard for synth players everywhere. What a clever blend of horns and percussion. And the ARP??? going off with the Star Wars thing is such a credit to Edgars genious. Not so much an effect as just incredible playing ability. I saw him do it live on that Saturday Nite show they used to have. What was that show called?
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[quote]Originally posted by b_3guy: [b] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Cereal: [b]One more. How did Tom Sholze get the mod wheel effect on the "Smokin" B-3 solo? [/b][/quote] Turn the start motor on while the B-3 is already on. The pitch rises like a pitch bend wheel. When you let go, you may have unpredictable results. Pitch may be flat, might be A 440.[/B][/QUOTE] Another cool trick I used to do with a Hammond organ is to flip the power switch off & on while holding a note or chord - the tone wheel motor would slow down, then speed back up (sort of like a whammy bar), and the tube amp would run off the power supply filter caps long enough to keep the sound coming. Great way to get a short glissando... - philbo Tangent Music
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Uh my example is slightly more rescent... ABBA - "Lay all your love on me", before the chorus, there is a nifty pitch drop, that was done by running the vocal through a harmonizer (pitch shifter in todays parlance, they were expensive and lo-fi at the time) and routing the output through a tape delay back to the input. Of course ABBA's producer, Michael Tretow, was one of the pioneers of using varispeed in creative ways while recording the backing vocals for a "fuller" and "abba sounding" vocals. They also doubled a lot of instruments w. slight varispeed for a chorusy effect. /Z
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how about anything king tubby did in the 70's! the man was a god with homemade fx....i mean who else at that time would hit a sping reverb box (with his hand) in time with the snare drum? [b]~°¤o§þÅ¢£ ߪ$§o¤°~[/b]
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[quote]Originally posted by BOOKUMDANO: [b]I don't know about "Who's That Lady" but I never really liked that solo. It always sounds like the guitar was piped directly into the console and all the distortion is console overload. I think a Marshall stack would have been better for that one.[/b][/quote] I'm pretty sure that was a Korg X911 guitar synth and a Maestro phasor. I think it's a pretty cool solo, myself... About the 'Fame' track, i got to ask Harry Maslin, the engineer and co-producer on that track, how he did it. He said it was the first version of the Eventide Harmonizer that they used for the pitch change. Also mentioned it took a 'long time' to do it ! That's John Lennon playing the reverse piano at the intro... -John This message has been edited by John Paterno on 10-08-2001 at 02:33 AM
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This thread has me thinking ... I love the phased conga part on 'You Sexy Thing' by Hot Chocolate. Not a dramatic effect, but it is just odd enough to catch your attention... I also love the organ part in 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' -- it creates tension by going in and out of tune as much as the part played on it! -John
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