60s style production

I have a project coming up that is total 60s psychedelic rock. My idea is to "recreate" a 60s vibe with the recording/production. What are some decent tips, plug-ins and friendly advice? I realize panning is very important...I've been studying some classic Who and more obscure 60s bands. Those guys were all over the board back then huh? No SOP, just do what you think sounds cool kinda approach. Anyway, any tips would be appreciated. Cheers!

The 60s can mean a wide range of sounds, from the Beach Boys to Led Zep, Motown to Funkadelic, Elvis to Alice Cooper. Can you be a little more specific?

One rule of thumb -- George Martin was perhaps the greatest genius of 60s techniques Sgt. Pepper is an encyclopaedia of 60's techniques, as is the White Album. Phil Spector was another -- listen to the Ronettes "Walking in the Rain". Tom Doud is yet another, at his best with the Derek & Dominoes double.

What 60s?

lets see - 60's style...

tube everything where possible - start w/ tube mic pre and use a large diaphragm condenser.

track everything though a compressor, again - Tube if possible.

all effects committed while tracking.

record 4 tracks, bounce to stereo mix, add 2 more tracks (total 4) bounce to stereo, repeat...

only three pan positions; Left or Center or Right

all drums in Mono

-tbf

Killer post! get yer head there and the rest is just resisting the temptation of over-producing with the pre-master plugs.

Nice Job bunny!

ORIGINAL: bunnyfluffer

lets see - 60's style...

tube everything where possible - start w/ tube mic pre and use a large diaphragm condenser.

track everything though a compressor, again - Tube if possible.

all effects committed while tracking.

record 4 tracks, bounce to stereo mix, add 2 more tracks (total 4) bounce to stereo, repeat...

only three pan positions; Left or Center or Right

all drums in Mono

-tbf

To get an authentic 60s sound have all your takes done in mono and distorted. The more distorted the better. Also use the Isotope vinyl in abundance. If you can use only spring reverbs. Do not use a multiband of anything. Use only EQ that adds lots of distortion. IM distortion is most important. You should setup your gear so nothing above 15 khz is reproduced.

Your best bet for media distribution would be 8 track cartridge tape that will eat your work at regular intervals.

Low and high pass filters were unreliable and had a nice tendency to cut everything back then. Use them if you want that Bell sound.

Here's one of my 'secrets'.

I agree with all that is said above - but I would only add - track to tape, and if the band doesn't understand the vibe, there's no plugin, outboard gear, or mic that can make it happen - are you engineer or producer? If you're producer, make sure you know how to get them to track in the fashion you hear - you'll be able to make stuff happen in post - but there are no miracles when moving tracks across decades if the players didn't get it when they performed the stuff.

Now to my little secret.... I am a fan of having my tracks sound like the band is playing live looking right at each other in the same room during tracking - logistics, sonics and schedules don't always make this possible - but I go after this in both performance and sound in spades. One of the things that I do to create that 'old 60's sound is I create a buss called 'room bleed' I put a Sonitus or equivalent reverb with a moderately short ER and EQ the thing to sound exactly like the instruments would sound if there were mic bleed in the room - I then mix that to my two buss and darn if sometimes I swear they were all in the same room during tracking - In some cases it's been so real the players couldn't remember if they tracked together or not... fun stuff.

-D

ORIGINAL: Cormega

I have a project coming up that is total 60s psychedelic rock. My idea is to "recreate" a 60s vibe with the recording/production.

Is this a "band" project or are you going to be overdubbing all parts?

What are some decent tips, plug-ins and friendly advice? I realize panning is very important...I've been studying some classic Who and more obscure 60s bands. Those guys were all over the board back then huh? No SOP, just do what you think sounds cool kinda approach. Anyway, any tips would be appreciated. Cheers!

Tip #1: If it's a self-contained "band" or "rhythm section" only use a "click track" (not the metronome) to establish the starting tempo and the "preroll count-in". After that, all bets are off tempo-wise...Let the band set the tempo of the song as it progresses.

If you are tracking the individual parts yourself, I would suggest using some basic MIDI drum patterns initially as a "scratch/guide" track along with a MIDI keyboard vamp or pad track to indicate chord progressions and movement changes as well as a "I know I'll be discarding this" scratch vocal. If at all possible, establish a fairly definite tempo map (including tempo variations in appropriate places) before recording any "real" audio parts.

Tip #2: Tubes. As much tube sound as you can get. This includes mics as well as preamps and instrument amps. A lot of the 60's stuff was tracked using the actual preamps of an idle tape machine being fed into the actual recording machine. Many engineers still use a similar technique going into their DAW system.

Tip #3: Keywords: Pultec, UREI/Universal Audio, API, Neve, dbx, Valley People, Drawmer, EMT, Focusrite, Eventide, Compression, Limiting, Gating, Harmonic Distortion, Actual Distortion, Unconventional use of effects such as Tremolo, Reverse Tape effects, Feedback loops, phasing/flanging, etc., etc., etc.,...There is no SOP so let the games begin!

Tip #4: As has been previously stated, some "bleed" in the "room" (actual or simulated) as it fits the project.

If this is a decent paying studio gig, I envy you! As today is my birthday and I'm reminded just how much of the 60's I actually experienced I would love to have the time to spend on such as project as the one you briefly described. Have fun!

{The EDIT}: If you don't have Lava Lamps, get a couple. If you don't have incense and the appropriate burners, get plenty. Some black lights and a few fluorescent posters scattered about wouldn't hurt, either. As much as possible, eschew modern amenities and immerse yourself (and those involved in the project) in the "Sense of the Sixties"--musically and aesthetically--before, during and immediately after each session.

Pink Floyd is 70s not 60s. BTW they cared about the recording quality.

For anyone interested, check out The Smoke's My Friend Jack - http://www.myspace.com/thesmokeuk - A good example of 1967 Psychedelic Production. Adjust your balanced left to right and see what I mean. Get a hold of there album, ...it's Smoke time! if you can. A Psychedelic classic.

Classic fookin' track aswell. Great, pretty unknown, UK band.

Or check out Pink Floyd's - Piper At The Gates Of Dawn for some extra-ordinary sounds and production.

John
I have to go with Mr Clean here.

Lucifer Sam is classic psych and that is 1967 from piper at the gates of dawn.

Careful with that axe egene is Ummagumma from 1969.

I thought this thread was about the 60s sound as a recording technique. PF at that time was not really part of that type of recording. The equipment had evolved and sound was much better in the very late 60 vs the early and mid 60s. Music type has nothing to do with it. Art least as I see it.

I'd say the Pink Floyd sound and styles of recording would be worth examining for the OP's forthcoming project. Piper was recorded in EMI's Abbey Road Studio with all the same equipment as bands like The Beatles, The Hollies etc etc were using.

Analysing sounds of such bands would give the OP as much insight into how things are recorded along with what tube mic's and pre's to use would it not? Listening gives a better insight into production by far than any gear advice could provide? IMO

Listen to an early Beatles recording and one done a little later. They are so different its as if they were recorded by very different gear. Oh they were. We can debate this but the point is to not sound good. That is what 60s recordings were like . Late 60s recordings had a sea change in recording quality that continued into the 70s and 80s. The early 60s were a bad time for rock recordings. Great music but awful recordings. If one wants to sound 60ish then low fi is the ticket. 45s were king then.

BTW getting a CD wont be that useful because it may be remastered.

ORIGINAL: Clydewinder

Track a real band live in a good sounding room. Lately I have been doing a lot of "live in the studio stuff" and the vibe is great. I'm not saying live to 2 track but you can certainly capture the song, breathing & rocking, with a bunch of good mics and good musicians. The Hendrix recordings seem so random but others like the Who, Cream, Hollies, first Zep album, all great examples. I believe the first 2 yes albums were recorded live in the studio as well, with some vocal overdubs after the fact.

Personally, I think this is the best advice so far. I've read lots of stuff about this in recent years (EQ & Tape OP magazine and a few other monthly mags have discussed this a lot). And my own experience has seemed to echo what Clydewinder said. All these 60's bands that made a name for themselves all had something in common - they all tracked live (more or less) to a minimum of equipment. Remember back in the day they were lucky to have 8 tracks. The rooms certainly played an important role but even more importantly than the room was how the engineers positioned the few mics they had to work with and how the players were positioned in relation to the those mics. Also, I think, pre-production played an important role.

I think it was EQ that had a really good article about the first Pink Floyd album a few months back. Definitely worth reading if you can find a copy of the issue. Whichever road you take - have fun on the journey!

Advice to OP: Maybe try recording basic tracks live to 4 Track tape (i.e. Porta Studio). All my 80's recordings on a Porta Studio sounded vey '60s to me.

I was thinking of that as a means to the end. Neat idea.