Love stuff like this. Please, sir, may I have another?

And no pumping compressor. Sounds so natural. Acoustics are dated but thats part of the sound. Sounds like staircase reverb.

So that bleed - it's not from the cans, right? Are they tracking with speakers out of phase in this?

So that bleed - it's not from the cans, right? Are they tracking with speakers out of phase in this?

JohnTodd, post: 426539, member: 39208 wrote: So that bleed - it's not from the cans, right? Are they tracking with speakers out of phase in this?

Sounds more like room bleed. You'd be hearing that ugly phasing in the vocals a lot more than this. The reason the old music sounded so good was also due to the fact that there wasn't weird editing and headphones bleeding tracks no longer in the mix. Well, I'm sure there were splicing that got off sync or a track that got goofy from the overdub crosstalk but nothing like the transient swirly thing going on in digital audio today. This sounds like they sang it right through.

Kurt Foster Kurt, how would you answer this?

apparently, headphones.

DonnyThompson, post: 426545, member: 46114 wrote: apparently, headphones.

na, I don't think thats all headphones, that's the room coming through the lush mic. There is low freq info in there. But, I could be wrong, however, headphones back then sounded like total crap! And that crap wouldn't sound that good as bleed.

From "Recording The Beatles":

http://www.damngoodtunes.com/RECORDING_THE_BEATLES.html

DGT: I have been in and around studios my entire life and cannot imagine not having good headphones on when laying down a vocal or guitar part, yet you say that the Beatles did not use headphones for many years and most of their records. How then was it possible to isolate a vocalist or any other part for that matter, or reduce bleed through?

KEVIN: Yes, for the first half of their career, they didn’t use headphones. This is so alien to modern record production, but it wasn’t too unheard of at the time. If they were overdubbing a vocal, they listened to the music playing from a big speaker in the studio and sang along. The mics were positioned for minimal bleed, and what bleed resulted wasn’t too much of a concern.

BRIAN: They used to not worry so much about bleed-through of previous tracks as we do. It was there, but minimal. And they weren’t doing heavy processing, like crazy EQ or gating later on, where the bleed would be noticeable. There is a thing I find in studios – if you sing or play without headphones – that you actually do better, because that is the way you are used to performing. It’s natural to hear things in open spaces.

they sang the harmony live, with the echo printed! ..... all on one track. what i'm hearing is how uninspired it sounds soloed. but when the whole thing was finished, what a difference. it shows that they had a plan. i think they were monitoring a speaker or we are hearing a c/r mix. notice the instruments were louder at the top.

audiokid, post: 426538, member: 1 wrote: Sounds like staircase reverb.

Check out the echo chamber at 16:40

[GALLERY=media, 374]Paul McCartney "Creating Chaos at Abbey Road".SUBT ESP. - YouTube by audiokid posted Mar 27, 2015 at 9:16 PM[/GALLERY]

Cool!

Since this one was recorded in 1965, and the photos posted were from a later date, its likely that there aren't any headphones being used and the 'bleed' is from the studio playback monitors. In this case...at least on this song and its single partner, We Can Work It Out, both were originally mono recordings and like most of the songs on Rubber Soul were really dry. The stereo recordings weren't produced until a year later and were mixed by Peter Brown in Room 65 at Abbey Road and were mixed on the old REDD37 console which had been retired from Studio Two. The reverb was added then. Most likely its Abbey Roads famous chamber.

I'll add this......During these sessions (Rubber Soul) and the previous record (Help) The Beatles had become very very adept at arranging and playing their finely crafted Pop music to the point that there weren't a lot of "reductions" to make space for more instrumentation on the 4 tracks. This one , in particular, is a live to 2 track rhythm section WITHOUT a guide vocal at all and then a single track of the two main voices, Paul and John and then the last track consisting of the vocals again with George on the third voice, tambourine, and another lead guitar track. Simple, sweet, and to the point. Also another reason its fidelity is way up there.

audiokid, post: 426896, member: 1 wrote: Check out the echo chamber at 16:40

[GALLERY=media, 374]Paul McCartney "Creating Chaos at Abbey Road".SUBT ESP. - YouTube by audiokid posted Mar 27, 2015 at 9:16 PM[/GALLERY]

audiokid, post: 426896, member: 1 wrote: Check out the echo chamber at 16:40

Davedog, post: 427086, member: 4495 wrote: The reverb was added then. Most likely its Abbey Roads famous chamber.

Paul shows us that! Check out the echo chamber at 16:40 Very Cool!

There were three different chambers. The one in the video is chamber two and was associated with Studio Two. The pipes are 18" and 12" sewer pipe and their arrangement in the room was set by trial and error. There were also 4 EMT 140 plates in Abbey Road as well as a whole room dedicated to filters, drivers, pre-amps and controls for ALL of the echo and chambers and plates throughout the facility. The speakers and mics in the chambers changed over the years but mostly the mics in the chambers were KM53 Neumanns.

The biggest wow for me in this thread is now , trusting its accurate, them tracking without headphones. I think this is awesome. (y)
Certainly not for all but perhaps for a lot of people who like singing in an open way like that. I have got to set this up. And, I do need another Bricasti as it is without doubt, the greatest room emulation tool invented this century.
Their vocal sounds great to me. Very natural. I'm guessing the monitors are low and they are well verses on singing like that. A great way for 3 people, backup singers etc to get that Beatles/ vocal/harmony/ backup Motown singers sound. I love it.

How would one set up an ideal room and monitor system? The images look pretty simple.

Yeah, how'd they do that? I hate using cans when I sing.

Very simply, its all about how well your microphone's patterns work. Placing the playback speaker in the 'null' of the mic is the way that it has been done forever. It is a true test of how defined your mic's pattern is and just how 'null' this area is. The Beatles had access to the 2 dozen or so U47's and U48's that Abbey Road had in their locker. The difference being, U47's did not come with a figure of eight pattern whilst the U48's did. However, Abbey Road's engineers are famous for getting things built in order to facilitate their needs. Several U47's were sent back to Neumann to have a figure of eight setting installed. There a lot of early tracks where the boys are singing into both sides of the mic and most of the harmonies were done this way. The early REDD consoles didn't have that many mic amps so it helped to be able to cature two sources with one input. It ALSO helped them develop that tight close harmony that was the trademark of their sound. In some cases you could see all three, John, George, and Paul, gathered in close proximity with two mics...one for the lead singer...probably a U47 in cardioid and the other two singing into both sides of a U48 or one of the 'special' U47's in Fig-of-8 and both of them in the null of the cardioid mic. No phones. The primary studio playback monitor was the RS 101 from Capitol records.

Cool!

DonnyThompson, post: 426548, member: 46114 wrote: From "Recording The Beatles":

http://www.damngoodtunes.com/RECORDING_THE_BEATLES.html

BRIAN: They used to not worry so much about bleed-through of previous tracks as we do. It was there, but minimal. And they weren’t doing heavy processing, like crazy EQ or gating later on, where the bleed would be noticeable. There is a thing I find in studios – if you sing or play without headphones – that you actually do better, because that is the way you are used to performing. It’s natural to hear things in open spaces.

This is why I like to put a slapback echo or some short reverb in the headphones during vocal tracking. Living in and around boxes all our lives we are used to hearing our voices reflected back at us.

JohnTodd, post: 426539, member: 39208 wrote: So that bleed - it's not from the cans, right? Are they tracking with speakers out of phase in this?

That's not bleed, that's the rhythm track mixed in for reference.

DonnyThompson, post: 426550, member: 46114 wrote:

Now that's bleed. It sounds like "one cup off" bleed to me but I'm not sure that fits with the canonical timeline of Beatles studio techniques.

bouldersound, post: 427187, member: 38959 wrote: Now that's bleed. It sounds like "one cup off" bleed to me but I'm not sure that fits with the canonical timeline of Beatles studio techniques.

Definitely not singing to room speakers. They also do not sound like they are struggling which I think is a very valuable discipline. Don't drive the cue mix too loud.
They always sound relaxed.

Notice the very subtle double on Paul's voice. Pretty smeared vocals too. Shows us we really worry about a lot of BS.

more info:
"Automatic Transient Overload Control"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperback_Writer

http://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/paperback-writer/
And interesting read on using sampling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles'_recording_technology

No headphones until 1966. Anything before that will be the bleed from the playback monitors out in the recording room. It disappears when the tracks are mixed together since it is the same track used as the bed tracks. In certain songs you can hear a little ghosting from it being a different track used as the playback and then not used as the mix track.

Davedog, post: 427199, member: 4495 wrote: No headphones until 1966. Anything before that will be the bleed from the playback monitors out in the recording room. It disappears when the tracks are mixed together since it is the same track used as the bed tracks. In certain songs you can hear a little ghosting from it being a different track used as the playback and then not used as the mix track.

audiokid, post: 427205, member: 1 wrote: Abbey Road studios in April 1966, and Paul digs into his Rickenbacker 4001 S bass while John and George sing a backing vocal. By this time The Beatles had started to use headphones in the studio for monitoring, which would soon become common practice.

All of this is after the end of 1965. The track represented here, Day Tripper, was recorded in October of 1965. Although Rubber Soul was recorded and structured much like every thing before it, it also was the first record where the Beatles themselves were becoming more involved in the recording techniques and marked the beginning of the 'experimental' phase which would lead up to Sgt Peppers. There were no headphones in use on this recording. The bleed is from the playback monitors in the studio.

If you have two speakers do you:

1. On the master bus, mono the output with a VST thinggie;

and then (because the master bus is actually stereo anyway - now running dual-mono)

2. Throw the two sides out of phase with each other;
3. Make the 2 speakers' output "intersect" at the null of the mic so they cancel each other?

Davedog, post: 427199, member: 4495 wrote: No headphones until 1966.

So just about the time Paperback Writer was recorded.

Davedog, post: 427252, member: 4495 wrote: All of this is after the end of 1965. The track represented here, Day Tripper, was recorded in October of 1965. Although Rubber Soul was recorded and structured much like every thing before it, it also was the first record where the Beatles themselves were becoming more involved in the recording techniques and marked the beginning of the 'experimental' phase which would lead up to Sgt Peppers. There were no headphones in use on this recording. The bleed is from the playback monitors in the studio.

On Day Tripper I doubt it any kind of bleed, it sounds like the rhythm track mixed in, up at first then pulled back.

JohnTodd, post: 427253, member: 39208 wrote: If you have two speakers do you:

1. On the master bus, mono the output with a VST thinggie;

and then (because the master bus is actually stereo anyway - now running dual-mono)

2. Throw the two sides out of phase with each other;
3. Make the 2 speakers' output "intersect" at the null of the mic so they cancel each other?

And with the singer's head also in or near the null he will hear a washy sound. Reflections won't cancel in any consistent way so they'll get into the mic.

Remy's method involves not moving the mic or speaker, not changing the playback mix, recording just the bleed alone on its own track and then mixing that back in with the polarity inverted.

Ahh! Makes sense!