T Boog Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 Very cool deep dive video... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 This will be an interesting watch, with the thumbnail implying that they used an advance prototype of a Tascam Portastudio. Flip the cassette over, record the guitar solo, flip it back? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 Wow, that IS truly amazing and inspiring. Instead of taking the usual thought path of "oh we can do that all easily with the tools we have now" he tries to duplicate the methods as much as the performance. To me, it suggests that chasing the sonic tools and techniques used by ones heroes is not as futile as many suggest with the "tone is all in the fingers, maaaan" mantra. Yeah, you DO have to have the chops to pull it off, but getting your gear as close as possible isn't as silly a pursuit as some suggest. Yes, in subsequent decades Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all sounded unmistakably like themselves no matter what gear they were playing or singing through or who was recording them, but they never sounded like they did on Revolver. I might listen to "I'm Only Sleeping" and hear that they're using a primitive version of chorus/flanging on the vocals, but I would not have worked out that they did it with someone working the speed knob manually. That's a performance in and of itself. Could it be done entirely in the box? When you manually adjust the playback speed of a tape deck, both pitch and speed are adjusted. For every move you make in one direction, you must make one in the other direction so that by the end of the song, they're not too far out of sync. He uses the natural imperfections of the cassette format to approximate it, but that's not the same as controlling it in real time. It's still random. You could try duplicating the vocal track, then putting RC-20 or Needlepoint or whatever on one track and not on the other using their approximation of wow and flutter, but that would only duplicate his process, not the realtime performance of the tape op turning the knob. Is there a way to set that up using a control surface? You'd need to have control over both pitch and speed and be mindful of having to nudge it in both directions. It would be so much trouble to set up and execute that 99% of people would just say screw it and slap on something like Quadrovox and leave it at that. You want vocals that are thickened via pitch shift? You gottit. But that leaves out the effect of having them also become out of sync in the time domain.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 more importantly (for me) is how much preplanning the recording had. given the precision of the AR engineering, and setting pitches (via frequency driving the tape motors) and the band performing at multiple tunings and speeds, is pretty amazing. and to consider how many of their songs underwent this kind of process. this is a serious devotion to obtain results like noone else... pretty sure not many bands were even aware of these techniques at the time, or even had bothered to try them... and i think yeah, all this can be done in the box today. and i'd wager if the band had DAW tech back then, they'd have used it... and who know where they would have taken things. lol. maybe if we build a time machine and bring them a proper computer and Sonar, we could have flying cars today... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted September 18 Share Posted September 18 On 9/13/2025 at 8:55 AM, Glenn Stanton said: pretty sure not many bands were even aware of these techniques at the time, or even had bothered to try them... Not that early, I'm sure. They had so much freedom to try whatever they wanted to try. Paul McCartney got a bit experimental on his most recent album, doing things like overdubbing massive amounts of guitar tracks, but in most cases, once The Beatles split up, they didn't do much of this creative studio stuff. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted Sunday at 11:29 PM Share Posted Sunday at 11:29 PM On 9/13/2025 at 8:55 AM, Glenn Stanton said: if we build a time machine and bring them a proper computer and Sonar It would wind up in the hands of Alex Mardas, and he'd probably find some way to copy it. What would they call the computer company? International Beatle Machines? Northern Computers? I bet they could come up with a really catchy name for a computer company. Pepper Computers? Yellow Computers? Abbey Computers? Magical Mystery Computers? Linear System Designs (wink wink)? It's right there on the tip of my tongue.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted Monday at 09:52 PM Share Posted Monday at 09:52 PM (edited) what's a three letter abbreviation for IBM? a company i worked for had it listed as MMB (they simply took all computer related items and starting with AAA just assigned them a 3 letter abbreviation... and you have to use the look up chart to find the "official" abbreviation if you wanted service or new gear) i'd call it the "yellow abbey magical pepper machine"... although someone would likely turn it into a porno... 😈 Edited Monday at 09:53 PM by Glenn Stanton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted Tuesday at 05:43 AM Share Posted Tuesday at 05:43 AM On 9/13/2025 at 8:55 AM, Glenn Stanton said: more importantly (for me) is how much preplanning the recording had. given the precision of the AR engineering, and setting pitches (via frequency driving the tape motors) and the band performing at multiple tunings and speeds, is pretty amazing. and to consider how many of their songs underwent this kind of process. this is a serious devotion to obtain results like noone else... pretty sure not many bands were even aware of these techniques at the time, or even had bothered to try them... and i think yeah, all this can be done in the box today. and i'd wager if the band had DAW tech back then, they'd have used it... and who know where they would have taken things. lol. maybe if we build a time machine and bring them a proper computer and Sonar, we could have flying cars today... Who needs flying cars? What we need now are musicians as dedicated to, and creative in their craft, as the Beatles. Not that creativity is lacking today, as there are many artists doing truly remarkable things with a wide variety of musical styles and genres. But I want to see the game change again. I want to see artists come along who redefine the expectations of what popular music can be and what it can say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted Tuesday at 03:34 PM Share Posted Tuesday at 03:34 PM never sat in rush hour traffic in the NYC area then... LOL. we all need flying cars. agreed, many musicial types of people are as dedicated and creative. and some are even using much less capable equipment than commonly available DAW etc. at the end of the day, it's about the song. regardless of it someone simply singing it, or an orchestra. and then, what is the criteria? most popular? least popular? loudest? fastest? most notes? least notes? a number of notes which reflect being one with the universe? many people think Miles Davis was the last step in all future musical progress. i think it was Jeff Beck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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