The Smiley Smile Message Board

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate section in the forum, but I'll post it here. This is for the Audiobuffs or anyone interested in recording and production techniques and such.

Recently I've been listening to alot of the different amazing echo chamber reverbs from a lot of Beach Boys and Phil Spector recordings and trying a lot of different ways to re-create it. So I recently took a short sample from the Gold Star Studios session of I Just Wasn't Made For These Times of Brian's talkback mic reverberating through the echo chamber. At first I didn't expect it to work very well but very surprisingly I was able to create a sample which actually replicated the sound of the chamber quite well.

Here is a link to the sample if anyone would like to try it out. Let me know what you think: http://www.mediafire.com/download/e7rkfnxr8tfhd41/GoldStarChamberReverb.rar

Hi Joel, thanks for the sample! I was wondering about what program do you use with the sample to record your music. I have seen your examples on YouTube and they Rock!

Very cool. Going to try this out in TL Space tonight! Thanks! They have United Western ones out there to download as well!

Does remind me of a "Be My Baby" intro drum hit (seriously).

Thanks for checking my Youtube! :)
I record all of my stuff with a program called Magix Samplitude and I use an in built reverb plugin with the reverb sample. I also add a room reverb effect to further replicate the 'live' sound.


I actually use the united western ones for most of my recordings and mixes because they are so amazingly close to that Beach Boys reverb sound.

If you'd like to hear the sample in action Here's a test I did with my own recording of the Be My Baby Instrumental track (mostly focusing on the sound of the drums): https://soundcloud.com/joel-koster/be-my-baby-ronettes-backing

I'm so going to use this...

It's pretty good but there's some sort of stereo phase issue happening so it kind of sounds weird.
The United Western TL Space ones are good but a little thin. I prefer the EMT140 plates or the spring verb ones as well.

I'd love those Western ones. Unfortunately you have to be a registered user to download them.

This isn't a hint.

Thanks for posting this. I made a "Be My Baby" beat in Logic Pro X, imported the sample as an impulse response in Space Designer—boom—there it was. That sound.

Amazing what is available on the cheap in terms of recreating sounds these days.   I haven't the skill or time to play with these resources but have had great fun  playing with the new generation of fender mustang modeling amps.  Working on a tune from one your favorite guitarists?   Just dial in the amp and settings and go for it!

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Sounds pretty good!  For comparison, here's the original backing track to "Be My Baby". 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7vpdSmU1nc

Thank you for the sample Joel.

I really dig the 'Be my Baby' backing track attempt but I think the drums still lack a little 'oompth' there. However, you did an instrumental take of 'You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling' a while back that I thought was simply stunning and really spot-on in capturing the Gold Star sound and feel.

In terms of getting a wall of sound / Gold Star thing going, I think getting a convincing and authentic-sounding 'fat' drum sound is the hardest part, really. The group I'm in has just completed a Christmas single where we've tried to emulate that whole sound and approach. We didn't use any of the Western plug-ins mentioned but fiddled with a lot of reverb and the like to arrive at a sound I think is pretty cool. Though, to be honest, soundwise the song is probably more inspired by the stereo 70s Spector productions. You can check it out here:

http://surfschooldropouts.bandcamp.com/album/another-christmas-with-you-single

When are someone here going to offer up a cool, instrumental cover of 'This Could be the Night?' Go for it, Joel!  :)

Sorry if I haven't replied since I first posted a while back. I have revised over the Gold Star Sample and I realized the first one I made was a little harsh and got really messy when there was a lot of instruments combined together, so I made a new one plus I attempted to sample the studio room aswell from a click sample from a session. In the pack I've also included the United Western samples I also talked about which include a heap of live room samples and 3 different Echo Chambers (these are real ones). I hope you enjoy :-D

Here's a link to all of them
http://www.mediafire.com/download/z2al2ojmyo031l5/Chambers%26LiveRooms.rar