glyn johns' stupid grin at banging on the hammer in 'maxwell's silver hammer' cracked me up
― flopson, Friday, 3 December 2021 09:03 (two years ago) link
suddenly i sound like some kind of beatles pub bore so i apologise but that was mal evans not glyn johns
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 3 December 2021 09:21 (two years ago) link
Being a master charlatan like Magic Alex seems really hard! I'm trying to picture seriously selling a proposal where the Beatles live on a Greek island (at that time under a military regime IIRC) in individual circular glass houses houses connected by a tunnels to a central house so they can be served by their staff such as Mal and Neil. And that's on top of the day job of selling vague audio-visual solutions that haven't yet been invented to individual Beatles.
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 3 December 2021 11:36 (two years ago) link
It still amazes me that there were utterly no consequences for promising a 72-track recording studio, and delivering precisely nothing, plus a cartoonishly goofy "prototype" of a rotating double-necked guitar.
Like, I have a whole job where I tell people "We're going to do some cool things some time in the future." That is literally my job. It's how I can pay my mortgage and feed my children. But there is a whole structure of expectations. Standards of proof. Requirements to show past success. I wouldn't last six weeks - let alone months or years - on stuff that never panned out.
oh and hardcore dilettante, I confess that I have become unhealthily obsessed with that pony-digging linguistic formula of "you can (fancy verb) any (noun) you (verb)."
Like, just this morning I was getting a kid breakfast and found myself singing "yes you can accessorize your oatmeal, bro."
― tone-loki (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 3 December 2021 11:49 (two years ago) link
hopefully answered by a request for some toppings with good bite and texture, because "all i want is chew."
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Friday, 3 December 2021 12:14 (two years ago) link
He invented vaporware - that's something.
― Alba, Friday, 3 December 2021 12:20 (two years ago) link
re: I assume it’s down to something more than just studios moving to transistorized desks (as Abbey Road had just prior to Abbey Road), but I dunno.
for the beatles i think the big shifts that lead to that 70s feeling on abbey road are indeed the transistor desk - that really changes the colour of the recording - but also the addition of moog synths to their sound palette. not sure it's really any more than that
― ufo, Friday, 3 December 2021 13:20 (two years ago) link
I read a book last month that is based around this idea, called Solid State
― Maresn3st, Friday, 3 December 2021 13:21 (two years ago) link
was it good? this conversation (and listening to Abbey Road side 2 right this moment) has got me interested in this. cause i could totally imagine a world where basically they were recording this largely like The White Album, heavy on after-the-fact overdubs on each other's songs, etc., but the equipment change-over yields a much more precise, 'clean' sound, rather than the fascinating and sometimes unsettling sense of closeness on the earlier record. but i have no idea.
one striking example: the "out of college, money spent" vocals from Paul - the effect on those is something i'm sure they used on earlier records, but it somehow feels more pasted-in to me. i love it, i have no beef with it, but it does feel like he literally picked up the handset and phoned that one in.
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Friday, 3 December 2021 13:26 (two years ago) link
ranking George's beard over Paul's beard is basically being in Q Anon
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 3 December 2021 13:27 (two years ago) link
And now,
your host for the evening,
Mr. Mike Love.
― pplains, Friday, 3 December 2021 13:34 (two years ago) link
XXP - It was decent, I can't say it brought any great insight but it was a good summation of the transition period, I think it could have done with being a bit more technical really.
― Maresn3st, Friday, 3 December 2021 13:41 (two years ago) link
I started watching this last night and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. And I am not the worlds biggest fan.
― A Pile of Ants (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 3 December 2021 13:48 (two years ago) link
there’s an interview excerpt with Alex Van Halen that Dave q posted once where basically he says that the 70s close-micd, dry drum sound was largely about making it easy on the engineers.
― brimstead, Friday, 3 December 2021 15:28 (two years ago) link
Was going to say, he's very much a Silicon Valley character.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, 3 December 2021 15:29 (two years ago) link
surely Da Vinci or someone deserves the vaporware-inventor title tho
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Friday, 3 December 2021 17:13 (two years ago) link
loved this whole thing, felt like part 3 was way more of a slog than the other two but whatever, the part where John and Paul sang that one song through clenched teeth was pretty funny
I still don't get any of the criticism that this is getting, it feels very magical and mundane to me, something about the whole vibe of this reminds me of the Gus Van Sant Cobain movie that I thought was hilarious (prob the only music biopic I've liked) but a lot of people hated
― Bongo Jongus, Friday, 3 December 2021 17:15 (two years ago) link
The magical mundanity tour
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Friday, 3 December 2021 17:22 (two years ago) link
basically he says that the 70s close-micd, dry drum sound was largely about making it easy on the engineers
But were drum sounds in the '60s any great shakes either? Generally not, in my opinion. I've seen Jimmy Page credited with popularizing the notion that the mics should be pulled back from the kit, to provide a more reverberant sound on tape. (Culminating, of course, with setting Bonham up in a stone hallway.)
― Vast Halo, Friday, 3 December 2021 18:02 (two years ago) link
But were drum sounds in the '60s any great shakes either?
Motown, Stax, Dylan (particularly Highway 61), James Brown, the Impressions ("A Fool For You" especially), Hendrix' first two records, Phil Spector's productions, Shel Talmy's Kinks and Creation records, the Sonics,...and that's before we even get to Glyn Johns' engineering work on Who, Small Faces, and Rolling Stones records.
The Beatles were acutely jealous of the Motown drum sound(s), and seriously looked into recording at Stax (which, it was found, would've been insanely expensive, due to a few clauses in their EMI contract).
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 3 December 2021 18:16 (two years ago) link
Vast halo, this is a little confuzzled, because 60s drums were not close-mic'd, it was usually room microphones.
Geoff Emerick almost seems to credit himself with inventing close-micing, because EMI had strict placement standards that he bravely ignored in order to get the punchy sound of mid-career Beatles. Glyn Johns is famous for a 3-mic technique.
I associate strict close-mic technique with 70s when it became economically feasible to have one mic per drum.
― tone-loki (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 3 December 2021 18:21 (two years ago) link
i swear lately on ilm there's this weird hoffman board thing where anything that doesn't sound like rumours is considered bad sounding or lo fi. so many 60s records have amazing sounding drums.
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 3 December 2021 18:26 (two years ago) link
lots of different drums sound good
― in twelve parts (lamonti), Friday, 3 December 2021 18:34 (two years ago) link
fuck, you leave the beatles thread for three days and there's like 400 new posts
― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Friday, 3 December 2021 18:37 (two years ago) link
xxpost even some of the earlier Beatles albums had some great drum sounds. That opening CRACK! on “Any Time At All” comes to mind
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 3 December 2021 18:59 (two years ago) link
but yeah, what Tarfumes said60’s were awash with awesome drum sounds and Hal Blaine would def like a word
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 3 December 2021 19:00 (two years ago) link
Definitely true that some of their early records had great drum sounds -- the drums on Please Please Me sound incredible (especially "Boys").
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 3 December 2021 19:03 (two years ago) link
Y'all are right, of course. I just get vexed that there are a bunch of songs from that era that I love (e.g. "Substitute") that are let down by really ineptly-recorded drums. That rarely seems to have happened any more after 1970. (Back on theme, I particularly like the sound they got for Ringo's kit on "Come Together".)
― Vast Halo, Friday, 3 December 2021 20:14 (two years ago) link
maybe its just your hearing
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 3 December 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
― brimstead, Friday, 3 December 2021 20:57 (two years ago) link
80s gated drum sound was an overcorrection to recapture presence and atmosphere or something
― brimstead, Friday, 3 December 2021 20:58 (two years ago) link
which is why we should use drum machines if Ringo isn't available
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 3 December 2021 21:00 (two years ago) link
No, it's an opinion, and mine is as valid as yours
― Vast Halo, Friday, 3 December 2021 21:03 (two years ago) link
I can still eat corn if you mash it into a fine paste
― Cool Im An Situation (Neanderthal), Friday, 3 December 2021 21:05 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG3VUXBcyt0
― Goofy the Grifter (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 3 December 2021 21:18 (two years ago) link
The rumors are true!
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 3 December 2021 21:21 (two years ago) link
Your hosts for the evening,
Two monkeys fucking.
― pplains, Friday, 3 December 2021 21:24 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Pq2cCVLpQ
― Goofy the Grifter (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 3 December 2021 22:44 (two years ago) link
While I think '80s gated drums came first - Phil Collins/"Abacab" was one of the first to really push drums to the fore - they definitely cohabitated with increasingly bigger sounding reverbed-out everything as the decade progressed. The huge marshmallow snares would sound so small with everything else overinflated.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 3 December 2021 23:21 (two years ago) link
I just get vexed that there are a bunch of songs from that era that I love (e.g. "Substitute") that are let down by really ineptly-recorded drums.And “Substitute” is far from the worst of them. The drums on A Quick One and The Who Sell Out (with an exception or two) are abominably recorded. It sounds like there may have been a single mic within no less than 20 feet of the drums.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 3 December 2021 23:34 (two years ago) link
Shel Talmy, absolutely terrible engineer/producer, same with the early Kinks stuff that sounds like shite.
― Maresn3st, Friday, 3 December 2021 23:42 (two years ago) link
Maybe you guys should tell him so on Facepalm.
― Goofy the Grifter (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 3 December 2021 23:44 (two years ago) link
Talmy was great. His Kinks records had far more bite and presence than most of the ‘64-‘65 Beatles or Stones records, and his Who records — the My Generation album and the two singles that preceded it, all engineered by Glyn Johns — were heavier than anything previously heard.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, 4 December 2021 00:01 (two years ago) link
Have to disagree, those first few Kinks records and My Generation have always sounded bad to me.
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 4 December 2021 00:17 (two years ago) link
i swear lately on ilm there's this weird hoffman board thing where you leave the beatles thread for three days and there's like 400 new posts
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Saturday, 4 December 2021 02:32 (two years ago) link
400 postsAnd it’s the same philosophy
― Goofy the Grifter (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 December 2021 03:18 (two years ago) link
i mean if the Kinks & My Generation “sound bad” what is yr idea of “good sounding” records
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 4 December 2021 03:29 (two years ago) link
I'm going to side with those that think the early Who and Kinks records sound great. I mean not from the standpoint of technical proficiency, but their sloppiness and roughness is part of their appeal. I wouldn't want them to have glossy '70s studio polish.
― Lee626, Saturday, 4 December 2021 04:13 (two years ago) link
exactly! the garagey sound is the bonus byproduct and what makes this stuff cool.
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 4 December 2021 05:16 (two years ago) link
I always thought The Stones "I wanna be your man" sounded like an insane carcrash of sound, especially for its time
― Mark G, Saturday, 4 December 2021 12:50 (two years ago) link