Goldstar studio's 60's technology

[cube_monkey]

I hope I am not cluttering up the board with my questions!

Earlier in this forum, there was a discussion about Carls guitars, and it was mentioned that Goldstar didn't have compressors in those days...just for mastering.  Does anyone know if that is true?  I would think it would
almost be impossible not to be able to record loud enough with drums and vocals without one.  At least a Universal Audo UA-1 or whatever which is mild.  UNLESS they just put the mics further away.
[ to ME,  I *HATE*  the mix of River Deep Mountain High, its got that horrible plate reverb  and its too murky. Heck if the mics are miles away, you don't need any processing.
 Maybe Phil should listen to the beach boy records to learn how to get it right  


thank you.

[DonnyL]

Not sure about your specific question, but ...

In the '60s, most U.S. studios generally did not use compression on individual elements except vocals during tracking.

[cube_monkey]

I understand that.  I would have just been shocked if a leading studio like Goldstar didn't have any compressors  in the early 60's -- even for vocals.
I always thought at that time there were actually 2 and three track recorders.  But from hearing session tapes, we hear talking between takes, so that tells me,  they are going from one machine to another.  Possibly
record the instruments on a 2 track, 3 track or whatever,  then copy (during the vocal take)  everything on another 2/3 track machine.  The reason I mention 3 track is that was mentioned in something about Abbey
Road and how the british wanted to keep up. 

According to one of the engineers at the time, they actually would have background vocals on like a U87 and Mikes vocals on a Shure 545.  THAT is interesting.  I mean a stage mic vs. a studio mic. 

[guitarfool2002]

If you go to this link, you'll find a piece I put together around a film shot at Gold Star in early '66 which includes closeups of Stan Ross at the board:

http://www.classicstudiosessions.blogspot.com/2010/07/classic-session-at-gold-star-1966.html

Unfortunately the camera didn't seem to get any shots of the outboard gear, just the board and the tape machines.

Compressors were used before the 60's obviously, and units like the RCA limiters were used in radio engineering and later taken out of that realm to be used in recording, whether or not they were used during mixing or tracking would be a subject for individual engineers and how they chose to work...now I do have a clip from the Headquarters Sessions where Mike is setting up his 12-string electric to record, and Hank Cicalo can be heard patching the track through a compressor/limiter and adjusting it as Mike is playing, which would suggest they did this for tracking with that specific 12-string "Byrds/Beatles" sound in mind as the track was recorded. And I believe, I could be wrong, but I *believe* they fed Roger McGuinn's 12-string through the chain of multiple compressors as he was tracking rather than tracking clean and then running through compression.

Interested to hear opinions on those. And also interested to hear about maxing out something like the LA-2A or the RCA in the 60's, we know Emerick did this with the Fairchilds in England but was anyone in the US doing that to this extreme prior to Revolver/Pepper? If anyone did I'd bet it would be Stan Ross and Larry Levine. They did it after bands and clients wanted their records to sound like the Beatles after Revolver...