Hey folks,

I envisioned this as a sort of ongoing thread about little recording tricks and tips to get interesting sounds, but with actual sound samples. They could be questions about sounds, or little tidbits of "hey, this is neat, it was recorded like this:", etc. the form of it is pretty open. feel free to post your own music, or other music, or whatever. I'm going to use sendspace links to mp3's.

if it's not clear, here are four examples; three tidbits and one question:


1)
David Bowie's ""Heroes"".
the vocals in this song, which we've discussed here before were recorded with three vocal mics, one close, one medium distance and one far. all of them were set on gates, so as he sings louder, the more mics become active and you get more of the room. the quiet verses are really controlled, and as he starts to holler, it really soars.

2)
Os Mutantes' "Bat Macumba".
B/C of the Brazilian gov't's ban on most things american, the Baptista brothers' other brother, Liminhe had to build all their pedals for them.
The wicked fuzz tremolo in this song, played by 15 year old wizard, Sergio Baptista was a basic fuzz pedal Liminhe built that had the volume knob attached to the motor of a sewing machine. As you worked the sewing machine motor, the volume would turn on and off faster and faster and create that insane sound.

3)
Stevie Wonder's "Village Ghetto Land".
they stereo mic'ed Stevie's head on this song. you can hear him swaying as he sings in stereo. so cool.


4) QUESTION!
Stina Mordenstam and Brett Anderson's "Keen Yellow Planet"
Her voice is a little too sweet for me, but when he sings, the vocals are superb. granted, a lot of his voice sound comes from the way that he sings, and it sounds like there are at least two tightly recorded vocals making the whole, but how would one go about selecting a mic for this type of vocal? I love how rubbery it sounds. and his "Marc Bolan with Bowie's range" vocals are just perfect.

second question: the distorted guitar beneath his vocals. that is some crunchy, breaking up fuzz. anyone get a sound like that before? I like how low it's mixed, but also how it just collapses, too.




Have fun with this. I'm looking forward to your input.



Faiz

It would be a lot easier (I know I'm being picky) if the files you put on Sendspace were MP3s cuz those m4as are big slow fuckers.

I'm not convinced that those m4a files sound better at all, for what it's worth.

Mp3s aren't proprietary either.

I'll cut you.

You posted that last one as a wav?

Were you just like, "I want to make everyone else go slower today!" or what?

When you type "Faiz" into microsoft word, the first option spellcheck gives you as a possible correction is "Fail."

also, "Faiz" in Persian, means "Successful."

hey, i'll play along! (with my own music, since it's the only thing i really have any technical insight to)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ifb1yc
(mp3, 1.5mb)

the first bit: that percussion noise is a ride cymbal lowered half an octave, into a ring modulator, distorted, and with a delay applied to it (in case you ever wondered what that would sound like).

the second bit: the louder harmonics with that flangy sound= i sampled about 10 seconds of the normal harmonic (5th fret, i think) w/ my Headrush pedal and played the same harmonic on top of it, but with neck bends. this was done live to 2 track. i love this effect to death, but it came out too subtle here. oh well.

kerble wrote:When you type "Faiz" into microsoft word, the first option spellcheck gives you as a possible correction is "Fail."

also, "Faiz" in Persian, means "Successful."

Also in Turkish Faiz means "interest"

And animal "turkey" in Turkish is "hindi" and "Hindi" in Turkish also means "Indian"
I don't know Faiz, I don't know who is the real turkey

kerble wrote:
4) QUESTION!
Stina Mordenstam and Brett Anderson's "Keen Yellow Planet"
Her voice is a little too sweet for me, but when he sings, the vocals are superb. granted, a lot of his voice sound comes from the way that he sings, and it sounds like there are at least two tightly recorded vocals making the whole, but how would one go about selecting a mic for this type of vocal? I love how rubbery it sounds. and his "Marc Bolan with Bowie's range" vocals are just perfect.

second question: the distorted guitar beneath his vocals. that is some crunchy, breaking up fuzz. anyone get a sound like that before? I like how low it's mixed, but also how it just collapses, too.




Have fun with this. I'm looking forward to your input.



Faiz

Okay, this is at the 'fun' end of input for the EA tech room, but i'm positing in the hope that someone with more expertise will chip in.

The distorted guitar underneath Brett's vocals-you could get that effect by recording the guitar on anything, a Marantz cassette recorder for example, and then playing it back through a small guitar amp-I think it would 'break up' more if the volume was way up on the tape deck as opposed to the gain on the amp.

His vocals, I think it's the same take panned left and right in two separate channels, but EQ'd differently on each. Maybe if they were very slightly out of sync with each other this would create some of the rubbery, weirdly spacial feel.

As an aside, on each of the ten tracks on 'This is Stina Nordenstam', there is at least one sound or production flourish which is a complete mindfuck. It truly is a wonderful and extraordinary sounding record-i'm pretty sure that Tchad Blake and Stina herself had more of a contribution than Mitchell Froom, as I can think of at least four or five records by very talented artists that Froom rendered unlistenable due to his 'input'. Jim O'Rourke was originally lined up to produce I think, but I very much doubt that he could have improved on the finished result.

i could do this with basses.

kerble, do a basses one.