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 | | | | Apr30Written by:Rip Rowan
Thursday, April 30, 1998 6:00 PM  I remember the first synthesizer I ever played. It was a Roland Juno 106.
Many of you are already guessing my age. You're right.
The Juno 106 was one of the first affordable programmable synthesizers for the masses. With its LFO and resonance filter it had the quintessential "analog synth" sound: big, fat bass, zingy treble, and an unearthly sound.
Several years later and I would have walked up to this thing and embarrased everyone - including my mother - with a hideous interpretation of Van Halen's "Jump". At one point in history "Jump" was the "Stairway to Heaven" of keyboard pikers. However, when the Juno 106 was released, Van Halen was still an all-guitar band. I walked up to it and started playing Jean-Michel Jarre's "Equinoxe Part 4".
Today, this technology is "vintage" to me. Keyboards are almost universally digital, and one of the goals of digital synths is to sound more "analog". Wow... I remember the release of a piece of vintage gear... maybe I'm not as young as I thought.
Kinda puts things in perspective, don't it? Especially if you widen the frame to include all the various forms of "brand-new vintage" equipment now flooding the market.
Every manufacturer is ass-deep in reissues. Fender re-released its all-tube tweed amps. Neumann released the M149, the update of the original M49, one of the finest mics ever made. Esoteric companies like Manley and Groove Tubes exist to extend "old technology" designs to the state of the art. Gadget Labs and Waves are making software devices to simulate the sound of tubes. Meanwhile the only industry of the former Soviet bloc that shows any real promise is Sovtek, the country's vaccuum-tube business.
What the hell is going on here? I thought technology was supposed to ADVANCE the state-of-the-art! I mean, I don't see anyone pulling out the old RCA Victor stand-up radio to replace their Sony Pro Logic receivers. What is it about some equipment that makes it "vintage" and other equipment just plain old?
Check out this advertisement for Vox amps:...  Doesn't this ad say it all?
Here are five guys with what can only be described by today's standards as super-clean cut looks,
playing what was at the time state-of-the-art music over state-of-the-art equipment.
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The Beatles were one of the first bands to make records with a virtually limitless budget and a true willingness to experiment. They contracted to have custom equipment built for them, and even built their own studio. Using, I might add, all state-of-the-art equipment for the time....  Paul McCartney dials in the perfect mix during a White Album session while Ringo Starr and George Martin look on.Wouldn't you just LOVE to have this stuff in YOUR studio?
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Oh, and speaking of Beatles, how about those reissue Beetles? Cars go vintage!...  Other products are not immune!This car, almost nothing like the original, has immense appeal because it triggers our fond memories of the original, irreplaceable, irresistable, unbeetable Beetle.
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Hey, have you ever DRIVEN a Beetle? OK, so they were well-built. I'm told they were so tight and solid that they would float on water for hours. Cool, I'll remember that the next time I go water skiing. They were also NOISY, BUMPY, hard to STEER and STOP, and completely without any kind of luxury. Are we so infatuated with the warm, fuzzy memories of Beatles and Beetles that we're willing to subjugate ourselves to the same limitations they faced?
And the Beatles definitely weren't the first musicians with the budget and personal needs to build their own studio. Check out this old photo of Les Paul's studio from the early 60's....  Les Paul's studio.Note the mic over the drum kit: a single Sony C37.Would you ever imagine using ONE mic on a drum kit?If you call yourself a vintage nut you better believe it!
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Aren't we so infatuated with the "old" equipment that we're getting a little afraid to try something NEW for a change? I mean if every album is recorded with the same U47s and C12s and KM84s, using the same Marshalls and Fenders and the same miking techniques, well, where's the freaking innovation!?! I mean, I LOVE this old gear -- really LOVE it, but I want something different... not bad, just different.
OK, so what does this have to do with the price of 12AX7s in Norway?
I'm getting there, give me a minute!
If you're reading this WebZine, chances are you have a small collection of equipment you call a studio sitting in a room at your house that your Significant Other has learned to stay out of. You've probably got at least something in your pile of junk that came from Radio Shack. You have a nest of wires all tangled up because patchbays seem like SUCH a waste of money. But you're making it the best you can.
I started my studio in 1996, with no budget and only half a clue as to what I was doing. I had recorded in about half a dozen studios and I was sick and tired of paying to educate some idiot engineer. Would you believe that we paid a guy $50 per hour to explain to him that the most expensive microphone is not necessarily the best microphone to use on every piece of gear?
Most engineers in most small-time studios charging $40-80 per hour just don't know how to make music. I'll never forget how angry I got when, after spending hours setting up, tuning up, and miking up my drum kit, I went into the control room to hear some scratch drum tracks I'd laid down, and the engineer said "they sound almost as good as sampled drums." I wanted to hit him! "Idiot, if I wanted sampled drums, I'd have played my TD-7 kit." I should have walked out right then and there.
Good recording - especially rock recording - is a process of taking informed chances.
If you've been reading Lionel Dumond's series on EQ, then you've learned by now that each instrument must occupy its own sonic space. That means that 16 tracks of big fat sounds all mixed together make oatmeal. Only carefully pruned sounds stand a chance of interacting nicely in a mix. The traditional dipshit engineer method is to compress and EQ the signal into submission. Of course, a better way to start is to use a microphone or amplifier that offers a unique sound....  An RCA type 88A pressure mic on location at SquareWAV (my personal studio).The 88A is a truly horrible mic by any objective standard, except that its design offers what is best described as built-in EQ and compression.
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One of the best parts of owning my own studio is the luxury - indulgence, actually - of being able to spend a day experimenting with new and different sounds. To me this is the most important change that home recording technology will ultimately provide. Gone is the ticking clock of a quickly draining budget, and the idiot engineer who thinks he knows everything there is to know about recording: guitars, use a 57. Vocals, use a U87. Kick drum, must have a D112. And so on. Where's the fun in that?
Therefore I issue this manifesto to all home engineers:
...1. Learn the rules
...2. Break the rules
...3. Break them again, just to make sure you did it wrong
...4. Listen and be amazed at your creativity
Step one is critical. The Rules exist for a reason: they worked at least once. If you don't know them, you won't know what to avoid, or when to follow the rules because that's really what your creativity tells you is best in a particular situation.
Step two is simple: take a chance. Want a warmed-up vocal? Use an SM58 or a kick drum mic. Want a really bright sound? How about a Radio Shack PZM? Want a thinned-out vocal? Plug those headphones into your mixer and sing into them. Brighter electric guitar? Mic the strings. Are you going to screw up some good stuff along the way? Of course. As J.R.R. Tolkein points out, "He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
Step three is important too: don't create your OWN rules. Just because you took a chance and it worked once doesn't mean you should codify your newfound creativity and stifle your future innovation.
Step four is simple: you will be much happier with the results you achieve by taking a chance, because you will have created your own sonic stamp as an engineer. You will have recorded sounds in a way that few if any engineers would have tried -- and few if any musicians or record labels would have paid for!...  Here at SquareWAV we're not afraid to record some gonzo shit.Note the nice Mesa dual rectifier amp and Ampeg cabinet being usedas a very expensive stand for a battery-powered Marshall amp.Miked with an AT4050 and Shure SM58. Nuts, huh?
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