a

[Sloan]

i suggest the use of low wattage tube amps, jenson style speakers, single coil pickups preferred.

felt kick drum beater. don't mic in the kick hole, mic the resonant head; if your micing separate. if you listen to a lot of old 50's stuff, it's sometimes very hard to even realize the kick is there - the bass actually carries almost all the low end.

stand up bass if possible. electric basses probably didn't quite catch on until the late 50's early 60's.
you may want to cop the style of carol kaye
http://www.carolkaye.com/


for a mono drum mic, i think i would use a ribbon.

 

[Sloan]

here's one of my favorite examples of crushing shit, this would be 60's.

 

[StefTD]

loads of cool stuff mentioned, pretty cool because I could use loads of it for some stuff I am doing...but...

006-I hope I got it right-he wants to record grind? with a 50-60 style sound, double bass, mono drums
and single coils recommened-this will either turn out fucking awesome and redefine musical history or
sound like shit imho

I would try using a fuzzy guitar sound, using a fuzz face into a fender amp or an old marshall or something
like that, pretty mid-heavy bass, mono drums could be cool, depends on what is played and saturate it all
to death.
I am just not sure if there's a way to get a real 50-60 style sound without playing music that was played in
these times if you get what I mean.

 

[ahjteam]

Check out this book, they tell a lot of shit related to everything recorded between the beatles and alanis morrissette.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Glass-Record-Producers-Craft/dp/0879306149

 

[Sloan]

Check out this book, they tell a lot of shit related to everything recorded between the beatles and alanis morrissette.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Glass-Record-Producers-Craft/dp/0879306149

speaking of alanis, i remember a few years ago hearing one of her hit singles on the radio and realizing that it had an 808 or something mixed in.

 

[LeSedna]

Ill add try a middle ground between hard panning like stupid (vocals on the left and bass on the right or stuff like that) but keeping in mind contrary to the 50s we do listen to music on the headphones so doing it too extreme is fatiguing and annoying to the listener.

 

[JakeAC5253]

Mike, if you decide to go the fuzz route, I have a really sweet and vintage sounding Fuzz Face with NOS Germanium transistors that I could lend to you to track the parts with.

 

[mva801]

Astronomy Domine? That was written by their old guitarist Syd Barrett and recorded in 67, not the mid-nineties. Sick song. The version that Mike posted in his first post is actually a live recording.

The album cover in the video is from their 1994 record "The Division Bell" though, so I bet that's where the confusion came from.

Oh shit you're right. I just saw the division bell cover and thought wth... that record was out in 1994 or something... Trolled by Youtube I guess

 

[StefTD]

no problem Mike sure it's going to be funny, just thought that some suggestions are a bit extreme,
at least if you want to record grind, I really like the approach and try stuff like that as often as possible.
I might even be able to get some old equipment due to my new band, guitar player works in some kind
of music school/youth club, the building is used by bands since 1965 and there's lots of old stuff lying
around (old Peavey bass amps, laney heads, strange asian guitars ).
You could even try to play the mix through your monitors and record that signal and so on, not sure
where I read this, but I know that it was mentioned by a few guys in an interview I've read like 10
years ago.

 

[glasstornado]

Well since you don't seem to have access to a lot of vintage gear or even a tape recorder, your options are kind of limited. If it's a one man project, one thing I've always considered doing is to set up all the gear in one room, and setting up one mic in the middle. This mic never moves throughout the whole recording process. Have your friend track each instrument as usual, using the one mic in the same place for every instrument. I always imagined it would simulate the whole "one room mic for everything" deal, which is largely how they did a lot of recordings back in those days.

In either case, this is kind of a neat concept. I prefer to mess around with lo-fi stuff, though most of what I do centers around making recordings that sound like old death metal demo tapes from the 80s and 90s. I'd be interested to hear how your project comes out.

 

[Nimvi]

one thing I've always considered doing is to set up all the gear in one room, and setting up one mic in the middle. This mic never moves throughout the whole recording process. Have your friend track each instrument as usual, using the one mic in the same place for every instrument. I always imagined it would simulate the whole "one room mic for everything" deal, which is largely how they did a lot of recordings back in those days.

That's a pretty cool idea I haven't tried before. Pretty much what I try to simulate by playing everything back through the monitors together and recording it with a roommic. Sounds like your idea would create a more natural image. Definitely going to try that one day!

 

[nezvers]

I think that one option is to put one mic further into room and capture each tracking for use of bleed emulation into other tracks (like it would happen when tracking live band perform), and maybe that could get some slap-back.

 

[Terminus]

I'd probably try and rent or borrow an old amp, something along the lines of a Vox AC30 2x12 or even a 1x12. Use an old gibby with soapbars in it and oooh try to get a cord that is coiled hahah. For bass, a trusty Fender P Bass and a Bassman.

 

[KBMoser]

i would start with the absolutely tightest performances you can manage to capture, as perfect as the guy can play. From there, look into micing techniques. I personally like distortion on drums, even for that era. Try getting the set as dry as possible, mic'd as close as possible. i would use a stereo pair of omni-directional dynamic mics above the drummers head. definitely use your biggest room as well. Put a single mic about 20 feet out if you have the space, waist high. the right blend of these mic combinations will get you in the ballpark, i would start with the stereo pair, and use the close mics as thump. I wouldn't recommend eq'ing too much, but i would definitely spend my time notching out all annoying frequencies.

i wouldnt close mic any guitars, maybe 1 foot or 2 back, dead on center with another dynamic mic.

the goal is to capture as close as possible without all the dynamics. a room signal is always less dynamic than a close mic'd signal. so balancing the two was the art in the day. Combined with solid performances, you should get some pretty good vibe.

+1 on coated heads, preferably single ply.

sounds like fun.

 

[Mago]

I think they didn't use resonance heads on toms back then, so that could get you closer to the ballpark for the drums