Could YOU produce it?

[JeffTD]

I love the sound of Led Zeppelin's recordings in particular. A lot of it was the miking techniques used, and working around the limitations of the equipment at the time. I also think that on average, the musicians were far better back then, and generally had many more hours of time to practice together than artists do now. Just watch any John Bonham live footage - he sounds just like he does in the studio, even on the poorly recorded Icelandic "Danmarks Radio" performance on the Led Zeppelin DVD, his drum tone was because of his technique primarily.

+1


There used to be some MP3's on a site floating around of Bonhams raw drumtracks - you could hear the guy friggin GRUNTING with some of the hits.

 

[Torniojaws]

There used to be some MP3's on a site floating around of Bonhams raw drumtracks - you could hear the guy friggin GRUNTING with some of the hits.

http://www.saladrecords.com/bonhamfiles.htm

 

[metalkingdom]

You know....pretty much the same gear that was used back in the early days is still being used quite extensively throughout the industry. Neve, API, Neumann, and Ampex are just a few names that readily come to mind.

I'd say the first step to making vintage sounding records would be to use vingate instruments played by musicians who know what they're doing.

 

[PhilR]

My studio partner once took part in a college session, the object of which was to cover one of the Beatles very early songs, using only the level of resources they had available.

So that was 4 tracks maximum, no digital bouncing etc. They were still using a computer to record as they didn't have a tape machine available but you get the idea. Drums were miked with one microphone with careful attention to placement and room sound and the snare had to be muffled using a towel as Ringo's was in the original.

The end result was actually very convincing. In some respects the sound was much clearer than recording to tape probably would have been.