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Hi everyone. I was wondering if some of you could help me fill in the gaps of my knowledge regarding how the beach boys were recorded at western in the earlier part of their career. Mainly when they were tracking as a more or less self contained group around ’64. I love this period in terms of their production. I know some of you know quite a lot of the details here so hopefully I can learn a thing or two.

As far as I’ve been able to piece together from photos, the drums in studio 3 were usually set up close to the the near left hand corner of the tracking room as you look out from the booth. Al, I’m guessing, would usually be set up just opposite the drums facing Dennis, playing with a bassman amp set up next to him. Brian, I imagine, would often be playing piano near the back or middle of the room? Does anybody know if he was playing a grand or an upright usually? Lastly Carl would presumably be set up with an amp right next to Al or in the booth plugged right into the board. I don’t know how accurate any of this is so hopefully some people can chime in.

As I understand the band would then track live together all directly onto one track of the 3 track tape machine. Once a take was completed to satisfaction Al would often double his bass track along with Carl doing another take of guitar and sometimes Brian adding more piano or organ all onto a second track? Then it would seem that the first tape would be bounced down to the first track of a second tape and vocals would be doubled onto the 2 remaining open tracks? I’m sure sometimes more bouncing was done as needed.

I’m also interested in the microphones Chuck Britz was using. I’m guessing mainly Shure 545’s and E.V RE15’s and 666’s on guitars, bass and piano? Drums really interest me. I figure drums were mainly Sony 37’s or 38’s as an overhead and possibly a 666 on the bass drum? What fascinates me is that I’ve seen Hal Blaine around this time mic’ed with pairs of Sony’s or what look like Sennheiser MKH 405’s as overhead mic’s. In the days of early 1960’s mono drums I haven’t heard too many anecdotes of 2 mic’s employed overhead so it seems somewhat unique, however I’m not sure if this was done on these Beach Boys sessions or not.

Lastly I don’t think much compression was used at all but I believe I read Mark Linnet saying that early 176 Compressors would be set up on the three tape outputs adding very light compression as things went to tape? Things sound pretty flat so I doubt much extra EQ was employed on these sessions. Does anyone know if they had much access to things like Pultecs, Fairchilds etc in Western 3?

I’d love to hear as much technical detail about any of this as possible. I love the sound Chuck and the guys got on these records. I don’t know how scientific he was with placement etc but I remember hearing one outtake with the guys calling out that the bass drum mic isn’t pointed at the drum, and Chuck chiming in that he’s hearing everything just fine so “Don’t move it!” I’m sure bleed was a huge thing on these records… But please, those of you who know more, I’d love to hear about it. Sorry for the long rambling post.

Sorry, I meant to say that the drums were usually set up close to the near "RIGHT" hand corner as you look out from the booth... As far as I can tell anyway...

The more I delve into this subject with my ongoing research, the more I discover that there is no one answer: some 1964 tracks were recorded with Brian on piano, Al on bass, Carl on rhythm guitar, and Dennis on drums, with Carl then overdubbing the lead guitar - pretty simple. On others, Al is playing both rhythm guitar and bass (by virtue of an overdub), or doubling the bass (again on an overdub), Brian sometimes played piano and bass (overdub again), the drums were doubled (overdub), etc. Vocally, by this point, they were often doing the first vocal track on the third track of a 3-track tape which already housed the basic track and an instrumental overdub on the other two tracks, then there was a dubdown to a 2nd-generation 3-track, during which the vocals were simultaneously doubled on the same track of the new tape, while the two instrumental tracks were kept discrete. This contrasts to other times, where the two instrumental tracks were combined to mono on the dubdown, and the two vocal tracks were discrete.

Short answer is - it varies!

As for the piano - David Marks told me it was always an upright while he was there - after he left, I think it was sometimes an upright and sometimes a grand.

I don't have a whole lot of info to add, but I did enjoy a couple emails with Bones Howe awhile back and he gave me some specific information that might offer some clues. Of course, Chuck likely did things differently ... but Bones had a standard set up that he didn't seem to deviate much from for things like the Mamas and Papas and 5th Dimension sessions.

He used 545s on "guitars" (assuming acoustic and electric), and I have seen photos of acoustics mic'd with 545s on Beach Boys sessions too. RCA 77DX on pianos (this might be a Bones-only trick since he also used these for vocals), "Sony" (assuming 37/38) on the bass amp, Sennheiser 405 on drum overheads (plural emphasized), Shure 545 on the kick drum (yes, I thought that was an odd choice too, shows what I know).

You do see the 666 in some photos, so it was certainly in use ... but the RE15 didn't come out until 1967, so that wasn't used on the classic-era sessions.

He also noted he did not use compression on anything except vocals. I think this is a part of the West Coast '60s sound that doesn't get mentioned very often.

... anyway, hope that offers a tiny glimpse of insight into the '60s studio scene, right from the horse's mouth. He also mentioned (being a drummer himself) that Hal Blaine was always pushing the tempo, playing slightly ahead of the beat. I never noticed or thought about that but now I hear it all the time on those recordings ... I think that's one of the ingredients that gives these tracks the "teenage" edge.

Bones used Shure 546's

He said 545 specifically in the email, but he might use the model designation interchangeably. My understanding is that the 546 is very similar to the 545. The Beach Boys used them for vocals sometimes too.

One anecdote I heard somewhere was that Britz would sometimes plug a mic directly into a Fairchild compressor (bypassing the mike preamp) for vocals. Don't quote me on that one though.

The 546 had the angled head design, easier to stick into tight spots on snares and the like. Every session I researched with Bones involved, along with the Western/Heider guys like Halverson have been specific in their quotes on the 546 and how often they used them. No big deal but they were different mics that shared characteristics.

I'm not sure on the Fairchild. Weren't they mostly using Putnam's own designed limiters and compressors at Western? Not saying they didn't have a Fairchild to patch in or other more esoteric RCA limiters and the like, but I remember a few cases where Bones said they were using some prototypes of what became the 1176 that had no fancy design or graphics, just a bare-bones housing and essential stuff. And of course the LA-2A. I got the impression if it was done at Putnam's studios, they encouraged using Putnam outboard gear that was being made in house.

Let me add to that: The 546 does in fact have a different element than the 545. Unlike its successor the SM-57, it also had an imp. switch.

Watch Monterey Pop (and see/hear the work of Stephen Desper, Wally Heider, et al) and see the 546 with that angled stand/shock mount. Pretty cool design for mic'ing amps and snares, which is why they used them so much perhaps.

The 545 was also offered with the "pistol" grip. The appearance of the base of the 546 is more rounded, whereas the 545 with the pistol base are more rectangular ... possibly the best way you could tell them apart in a photo. But I don't believe the 546 came in a non-pistol option, so these photos below would presumably be a 545 (since the cable was plugged directly into the back of the mic):

(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c312/donnylang/216bboys.carlwilson_zpsgugttpha.jpg)

(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c312/donnylang/216bboys.promo__zps5js7j6al.jpg)

... I'm certain it's safe to say that both 546 and 545 models were used for Beach Boys and Bones Howe sessions.

Re: compressor: I think the generally accepted info is that the 176 was the pre-1176 compressor of choice. Don't think the LA-2A was around until a little later. Bones apparently had a prototype (solid state) 1176 pretty early on.

Pretty sure they used SM-56 models at Monterey Pop.

Yeah, both the 176 and 175 were first, before the LA-2A and were in use in Putnam's studios (and are phenomenal pieces of equipment) from 61-onward or so, which means they would most likely have been employed on the sessions we're talking about. I still come back to saying there seemed to be a push for uniformity on what outboard gear was used on these sessions at Putnam's studios, because they were also in essence promoting the outboard gear to sell and if word got around that Unit X was used on Smash Hit Record X, more cash would flow into Putnam's businesses.

But there were prototypes Putnam was building and testing out in his studios, mentioned by Bones Howe regarding the bare-bones design compressors, and I'm guessing similar beta testing happened with the LA-2A and most of his other designs too before they hit the market. Like Abbey Road, some of this stuff was a one-off design or prototype build that came and went.

The 546 was the broadcast model of that mic, and was more expensive (and came with a shockmount built-in to the stand adapter design) and a little different if not higher quality sonically and overall to some ears.

I think the 545 pistol-grip models had an on-off switch, which isn't what you'd see on a broadcast or studio version of a mic.

Going by sight I think the only way you'd tell the SM56 from the 546 could be the chrome versus the flat gray color. It's more or less the same housing if you look at them. In 1967 they could have bought new 56's and used 546's too, they were both current and readily in mic lockers all over. I'll have to look at that video of Fast Eddie Hoh playing Monterey with the M's & P's and see how they mic'ed his kit.

Absolutely, they were both ubiquitous in the 60's and had a similar counterpart in the EV 666, but I think in the case of Bones he's said in several sources it was a 546, and Bill Halverson specified the 546 too. And Chuck Britz named the 545 in at least on interview/comment if I recall.

The LA-2A went to market in '64/'65 I believe.

My understanding is the 545 and 546 are silver w/ black band, whereas the SM57 and SM56 are all black ... SM56 with the pistol grip (and those huge pop filters at Monterey).

That's right, the 545 and 546 are silver and the 56/57 are dark gray or black. More dark gray, lol.

Interesting to go through not just Shure but the other companies like EV and go through the differences in their models and features. What i like is seeing how the advent of television then later color television affected the colors of these mic housings, like which colors were made so they wouldn't reflect lights in a TV studio versus studio or radio mics where it didn't matter. I think the 666 has two or three color options, mine is flat olive drab. Others are light gray, others were black. Meanwhile most of the other EV line was silver/chrome.

If you find any of those 1960's pics of Johnny Carson on his show that I've posted here, the RCA 77 on his desk is painted with a light blue/gray color, probably to avoid that light reflection on camera.

Unrelated but speaking of EV mics and all, weren't there some old sci-fi TV shows and movies of the lower budget variety that used the EV 644 mic as a ray gun or alien weapon type of prop because it looked for all the world like a ray gun?  :lol

I'm trying to think if I ever saw any photos or still of any of these sci-fi shows where this was the case...can't think of any offhand.

(http://www.coutant.org/ev644/644.jpg)

Ah yeh that's true. I think some of them even had the term "TV" in the color name or something!

COMMENT to Mr Bones"
I think more ribbons were in use than discussed here.
Suggest you listen to the button "God Only Knows" at my webpage (link below). If you haven't checked it out yet, it will be a fun listen for you.
~swd
http://swdstudyvideos.com

That's a welcome point, Mr. Desper ... I seem to recall reading somewhere that some of the Electro-Voice dynamics were designed to attempt to mimic the sound of ribbons, and it seems that some studios bought into the hype and began replacing ribbons gradually, later into the '60s.

COMMENT:  If you study the photos at the links below, note the use of Neumann U47's and RCA ribbons. These were (and in some cases still are) the workhorses of the industry.

If you click on any photo that interests you, a whole series of related photos will appear. Festinating to look at. ~swd

60's >>> https://www.google.com/search?q=early+60's+recording+sessions&biw=1067&bih=509&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjauYjwiI3OAhXELSYKHU7QA8kQ_AUIBigB&dpr=1.5

70' >>> https://www.google.com/search?q=early+60's+recording+sessions&biw=1067&bih=509&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjauYjwiI3OAhXELSYKHU7QA8kQ_AUIBigB&dpr=1.5#tbm=isch&q=early+70%27s+recording+sessions&imgrc=_

We got sidetracked on those Shure dynamics! By far I'd also say the bulk of the classic vocal tracks that I think the original poster had in mind were done with those mics seen in the familiar studio shots: RCA 44 and 77 ribbons, AKG C12, whatever Neumann condensers they chose, 47 and whatnot. And then the various photos of even the Sony C37 on drum overheads, AKG small diaphragm condensers, EV 666 on guitar cabs, all the classic setups.

What is amazing is how the whole industry did a 180 flip in the past 15-20 years and went back to the mics from the 50's and 60's. Pick up a recording mag and it's full of ads from small builders recreating the C12, U47, the RCA ribbons...even the "look" is in vogue again. I remember hearing that Allen Sides (and others) would literally find classic outboard gear in the outgoing trash bins, and would pick up classic mics for pennies on the dollar. Now they are worth a fortune.

What blows my mind too...the prices. Those mics the Beatles used on the first Sullivan show, AKG C60 (as far as research has found) with those odd windscreens that looked like a tennis ball. You can't find those screens. I saw one, I think the AKG model number was W60, was sold for 400 bucks. For a windscreen.

What made the classic sounds was thankfully found to still be capable of making the classic sounds, after whatever mind-numbing decisions were made in the 70's and 80's to scrap all that stuff in favor of the newest version of building a better mousetrap.

Now we have a disposable culture in full effect where your last year's iPhone is deemed no good if Apple comes out with a new one, and they say you need a new one because it's new. Sad in a lot of ways.

DAT. Enough said.

Oh, and on the related topic of the Shure 546/SM56 with that angled housing...for probably a decade one company has been advertising their mod for a Shure 57 where they mod the 57 guts into that angled head, like Shure did 50+ years ago. They say it's good for drum head mic'ing, guitar cabs, etc.

Shure knew that 50 years ago!

Time for summer in paradise unplugged? ;D

But seriously, what was the progression of Mics in the BBs recording sessions from the 1960s to 1990s? Did BW have trouble adjusting to 1970s recording tech in the mid 1970s?

That's like asking what the progression of Mike Love's hats are.

Yeah but it would be interesting since Desper worked both on the classic 1970s stuff and KTSA at the dawn of the 1980s.

Side note -- the  Shure pistol grip 545 aka the "Butterfield" mic, much loved by harp (harmonica) players.

COMMENT:  BW did not select microphones, nor does he now. He does not concern himself with the technical aspects of recording, only its limitations. Mainly the number of tracks or tracking pin-pongs available. As to what mic to use for the sound requested of the producer, this was solely an engineering decision.  ~swd

Thanks Stephen! It's always great to read your posts and I love your videos. Yeah, I've certainly seen pictures of the guys recording vocals through RCA 77's etc and assumed they would have been utilised throughout the sessions.

One other thing that interests me when it came to recording vocals was how the guys were monitoring during the overdubbing process. I know over in studios like EMI they had the artists monitoring playback through large speakers such as the famous 'White Elephants' while they overdubbed up until '66 or so, but I'm sure I've seen pictures of the Beach Boys from quite early on using headphones. Were headphones utilised much by the guys during these years do you think? Would Dennis have been wearing them when guys like Carl or Brian were playing from the booth? I know for the session for Christmas day he must have been wearing them right? As both Carl and Brian seem to be playing from the booth.

And thanks DonnyL for the information from Bones Howe. The records coming out of western around that time were some of the best productions ever made in my opinion so it's always great to hear from guys who were there. I also remember hearing from someone that Chuck would often record the vocals through an Ampex mixer rather than the console, but don't quote me on that either.

Yeah, the thing that strikes me about Brian's productions were just how adventurous he was in going after bigger and bigger sounds right from the get go. It seems like most artists back then would track their band live, maybe overdub the vocal and a guitar solo and that was it. Brian's records quickly seem to make a big departure from just capturing an on the floor performance and instead head towards building a production from multiple overdubs surprisingly early on. It's only recently I noticed just how often the drums were double tracked. Not too many other groups seemed to be be doubling things like bass either. It's funny that guys like Paul McCartney always envied the big bass sound of American records but never really thought until much later about double tracking and layering the bass instruments.

I guess it makes sense that with all the extra lengths Brian was going to he would quickly start employing more and more musicians to help naturally build that sound right in the room.

Bones Howe and the Western 3 setup:
http://www.mixonline.com/news/profiles/classic-tracks-mamas-papas-california-dreamin/365434 (http://www.mixonline.com/news/profiles/classic-tracks-mamas-papas-california-dreamin/365434)

>>>>The track, intended for McGuire (it was released on one of his albums), now became the basis for The Mamas & The Papas' first hit. It had been played by members of the famed Wrecking Crew, which included Hal Blaine on drums, bassist Joe Osborn, pianist Larry Knechtal and acoustic guitarist P.F. Sloan, who created and played the wonderful picked guitar intro that so perfectly sets up the mid-tempo track. Howe's tracking technique was typical of the era and varied little, if at all, from session to session. “In those days, we'd have a track mixed together in 10 minutes,” says Howe. “There was none of this, ‘Let me hear the kick drum and now the snare drum.’ If you listen to instruments individually, they don't sound the same as they will when they're all playing together, whether it's a drum kit or a rhythm section. When you have the musicians in the same room together without headphones, they tend to balance themselves better than any engineer can.”

Howe's standard microphone setup in that era was Shure 546 mics on the kick and hi-hat, as well as on the guitars, with a Sony condenser microphone on the snare. Howe would usually record bass and drums to one track, then put guitars and keyboards on another nonadjacent track (e.g., tracks 1 and 3 or 2 and 4), leaving the intervening tracks for vocals and bouncing. The actual track layout for this song was track 1, female vocals; track 2, guitars and piano; track 3, male vocals; and track 4, bass and drums.

The new vocals by The Mamas & The Papas were laid atop the original track, which fortunately was in the right key because the 4-track Ampex 300 recorder (which was basically two 2-track decks' electronics in a taller tower with new headstacks) didn't have much in the way of VSO capability. Howe set up the vocals the way the group naturally stood: the men and women facing each other, close in, each group with its own RCA DX-77 microphone. “I took the two mics and set them in a directional cardioid pattern, with the dead sides facing each other,” Howe explains. “That gave us great rejection and allowed them to sing naturally. The song starts out with the guys singing ‘All the leaves are brown’ and the girls answering the lines. It's pretty much the group all the way through except for a few lines that Denny sang solo. When the time came for that, John walked around to sing at the girls' microphone.”

The first-pass vocals were laid to one of the two open tracks. Howe then bounced the music bed tracks together on a second Ampex 300 deck and doubled the vocals, careful to keep the vocal tracks separate from the rest of the recording. Adler wanted a solo, and the arrangement for McGuire had a hole for it on one of the vocal tracks after the second chorus. “Lou was saying he didn't want a sax solo like every other rock record had,” Howe remembers. “I knew that Bud Schank was playing flute on a jazz session in another studio because I had seen him earlier in the hall. So I went down there and said, ‘I can get you another session when your 8-to-11 [p.m.] is done.’ I set Bud up on one of the DX-77 microphones and he played the solo over the verse chord change.”

Howe was working on a custom console designed by studio owner Bill Putnam. He recalls it as having no more than 12 inputs, possibly as few as eight, but still plenty for a 4-track recording and plenty more for what would be a mono primary mix. A stereo mix was done afterward at Howe's request, and Adler never bothered to show up for it. “He had the radio mix he wanted in the mono mix,” Howe says. “Stereo was optional in those days.”

In fact, as was often the case in this era, much of the mix had been done as the recording went along, with reverb from Studio 3's live chamber and EMT plate being recorded to the vocal tracks, and compression supplied by what Howe remembers as the prototype of what would become the 1176 compressor/limiter. “It was just a plain metal face with no numbers or anything on it,” he says. Howe split the men and women right and left, respectively, on the stereo mix, just as they had stood in the studio. He didn't use a particularly light touch on the reverb on each pass, either, adding a bit more on the final mix. “The reverb was part of the whole '60s sound,” he comments. “Everyone used it a lot on [all the vocal groups]: Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys and so on. It might have sounded the same, but you have to understand that back then, everyone made the same records. We were using the same studios, the same musicians, the same equipment. The only thing that changed was the artists. That's where the difference was.”

Like pilots flying on instruments, engineers had to trust their judgment when applying reverb, because, as Howe points out, there was no way to monitor the reverb return separately on the ultrasimple signal path of the Universal console. “Those were very simple straight-line modules: an echo send, a fader and a mic/line switch,” he explains. “The way you monitored it was to listen to the reverb recorded on the track with the vocals. You were making these kinds of commitments and decisions throughout the recording process as you went along. But the benefit was that when you layered the reverbs on each vocal pass, you got this wonderful, sparkling sound from the phasing in the chamber. We didn't plan these things; we discovered them as we went along.”<<<<<

Bones Howe on his setup at Wally Heider's Studio 3 a few years after California Dreamin:
http://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-fifth-dimension-aquariuslet-sunshine (http://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-fifth-dimension-aquariuslet-sunshine)

>>>>The Fifth Dimension toured virtually non-stop following the completion and 1968 release of the Stoned Soul Picnic album. So, if Bones Howe and Bob Alcivar worked with the band members on new material, this was whenever they returned to LA for a few days' break. And while the singers commenced an engagement opening for Frank Sinatra at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, the backing track was committed to eight-track tape on the 3M machine in Howe's favoured Studio 3 at Wally Heider Recording in Los Angeles. There, inside the compact, long and narrow live area — an almost exact duplicate of Bill Putnam's Studio 3 at United-Western, although it was slightly longer — the aforementioned Wrecking Crew rhythm section of Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn, Larry Knechtel and Tommy Tedesco was augmented by guitarist Dennis Budimir, while Bones Howe spent a good part of his time behind the control room's API console, monitoring with Altec 604s.

Through the window, he could see the guitarists sitting with their backs facing the left wall, while the drummer, bass player and pianist sat against the right wall. "They could take two paces and touch the person facing them," Howe says. "People often ask me 'How did you isolate the drums to get that sound?' and I've explained that the first thing they've got to understand is that the musicians were in a room where they had to watch out they didn't bump into each other when they got up for a break. It was a tiny room and all the mics were open. That meant you had to know the microphones you were using, because the entire sound from every instrument went into every mic. The sound was therefore down to the room that we were using, the instruments that we had and the way that we miked them. There was no isolation, there weren't even any baffles."

The guitars, on track 1, were invariably miked with Electro-voice 666s; the piano was on track 2; the drums, recorded mono to track 5, had Sony C64s as overheads and Shure 546s on the snare, kick and hi-hat; and the bass, on track 7, went through an amp that was also miked with a 546. The vocals were destined for tracks 3 and 4, while tracks 6 and 8 were reserved for string and percussion overdubs.

"The overheads were condenser mics, and the others were dynamic," Howe says. "They were all what you would call inferior microphones, bottom-of-the-list kind of stuff, but the 666s and 546s were what everbody used on stage in those days. You could hammer nails with them. At the same time, there were no more than 12 inputs on the API console, so we had to bring things in and make decisions about what we were going to mic. It was contemporary for its time, yet this kind of equipment is now a collector's item."<<<<

Bones Howe on Hal Blaine, Larry Knechtel, and Joe Osborn:

>>>>"As a drummer myself, I always loved the feel of the way that Hal played. He played rock & roll with authority. Some people have that feel and some people don't, and no matter how precise they are and how good their technique is, they just don't have that feel for the music. Well, Hal always had this great feel for the music. OK, so he played a little loud and he pushed the time a little bit — whatever. It was his style, and his style worked for the kind of music that he played. I never thought he was much of a jazz drummer, quite frankly — I heard him play a couple of times and I didn't think he knew how to lock in with the rhythm section, but with rock & roll he was just wonderful. The fills that he played were fantastic, and he wasn't afraid to try things. He would ask me 'What do I do in these two bars?' and I'd always say 'I want you to make me see stars.' And he would do that.

"With those guys it was about what ended up on the tape. Joe Osborn was a bass player who sat on the time. He didn't play anything fancy, he would just play the time, and that let Hal loose to go wherever he wanted to go, because he knew Joe would always be there when he got back. Joe was like the metronome in the band, but those guys all had great timing. I mean, Larry played electric bass around town for several years, so when he and Joe were together you could set your watch to them. And that just left Hal free to do whatever he wanted to do. With his great feel he would get up on top of the time, and that's where you got that tension.

"When it came to keyboards, Knechtel was the guy because he had the feel. And I loved the way he hit the keys. For the kind of music that he played, his touch was absolutely amazing. I mean, I used him the first time to play piano because Leon [Russell] didn't show up. Larry was supposed to be the bass player and he ended up playing piano, and the first time I heard him play I went 'Oh boy,' just because of the sound that he made, the sound that he got out of the piano. If you've got those kinds of ears and you hear those people playing, you go 'Those are the guys.'

"For me it was always about the feel. I'd played as part of some rhythm sections, I bought lots and lots of records before I made any records, and as an engineer I sat behind the console and listened to all these different configurations of rhythm sections and string sections and so on. Well, talk about opinionated — by the time I came out the other end I already knew the people who I wanted to work with. By name. I knew who the people were going to be, even though it wan't carved in stone because there were always new people coming up."<<<<

Three takeaways I got from those were how the setup and choice of gear was essentially the same from 65 to 68, even though the 4 tracks had been bumped to 8, and with different songs with completely different feels...yet the methods used to capture those sounds remained basically the same, in similar studio rooms.

It was as much about the musicians playing and performing those parts as it was the gear. Yes the gear and the room affected the sound, no one is denying that, but there was a reason why the trio of Blaine-Osborn-Knechtel had so many hits to their credit...it was the feel, the sound, the groove, whatever other intangibles you want to add to it. The songs and the sound and the feel coming from the studio floor was great - All that had to be done was to capture it the right way on tape. And that's where Western 3's "mojo", combined with some of the finest gear ever made, combined with engineers like Bones and Chuck who knew what they were doing - It all combined to make timeless records.

Two articles above are specifically citing the Shure 546. Add to that a few others, and the detail on other mics at those sessions, and I have to go with the 546 over the 545 in the case of Bones Howe at least. They wouldn't specifically say 546 multiple times if it were a 545, and there was a difference in those two mics. As far as the Beach Boys and Chuck Britz, it was most likely a combination of both.

Great stuff, you need to win the lottery to build an exact replica of western 3 circa 1965 and get to work! ;D

Must point out too, my bad  - and it's been edited - 5th Dimension was cut at Wally Heider's Studio 3, which as the article mentioned was basically a copy of Western's Studio 3. That became Bones' studio choice, and no accident that Brian Wilson recorded at Heider's "3" as much as anywhere else in the latter part of 1967 as soon as Heider's studio opened for business. But the mic'ing and other choices were basically the same as Bones (and Heider) were used to at Western.

It's interesting even back then how much the industry knew how that set up was classic and sought to recreate it.

Thanks Guitarfool! That's some great reading! I know there was a video interview with Chuck Britz but I've never been able to come across a copy. Does anyone know if he discussed many aspects of the recording process in it? I'd love to see it some time regardless. Listening to session outtakes you really hear how good a match he was for the Beach Boys. He didn't seem to take any sh*t but at the same time he seemed to have a pretty fun, relaxed manner which  jived well with them all.

Talking about the beach boys sessions specifically, I'm wondering if the reason Carl often tracked while plugged straight into the console was purely to help contain leakage? I don't see Bones Howe mentioning anything about that so perhaps it's more of a Chuck Britz thing. It's just I find it interesting that some songs were tracked that way and others were still done through the amps. I wonder if they preferred the D.I'd guitar sound for some songs or if it was purely logistical. I guess we'll never know and I guess it doesn't really matter. I just find anything to do with Carl and his guitar sound fascinating.

I have a few 545's and a 546 by the way but have never actually compared them side by side on the same source but just tend to use them interchangeably. Might have to do a comparison sometime to hear the difference.

If you can, do an A/B test on your 545 and 546, and report back on what your ears picked up! That would be cool. The 546 was designated a "broadcast" mic, and it did have a different element, so there would be some difference there in the response, but it would be great to hear what your ears pick up when doing the test.

Re: Running guitars direct. I think this was as much an "operations" decision in 1965 or so as it was a sonic or aesthetic sonic choice. Operations in the way of how to fit all those people into the same room! Consider if you went "direct" with a guitar at this time, you were plugging into a tube amp. Unless you specifically wanted the coloration and tonal character of a specific Fender amp, or related sounds like the Fender spring reverb tank, you could run a guitar direct into the tube preamp channel, access EQ and the usual delay-echo chamber-reverb type effects, and have a clean guitar sound ready to shape into the mix. When you see photos of the control rooms with three guitarists in the booth, consider they could have amps mic'ed up on the floor, or they could be going direct...and then there are plenty of photos of these same studios where the guitarists (sometimes up to 4 or 5 of them) are lined up on metal chairs in front of their mic'ed amps on metal chairs behind them.

So leakage was not a concern, in fact the leakage was what made those records in the 60's sound like they do versus the 70's and as the 16-track plus era came in.

Was it a sonic choice? in 1964/65 I really can't say, but as much as i doubt it was, it very well could have been. Fast forward into the late 70's and Nile Rodgers said he specifically plugged his Strat direct into the board because he liked being able to shape and EQ the tone for the mix, devoid of having an amp color the sound at all. He liked the control aspect at a time when cramming musicians into a small room was not a concern in the process.

Yet in 1965 there was an issue of how to fit all this stuff into one room, so I tend to think having those guitarists run direct was a combination of both, depending on the scenario and the session at hand. If it were just Carl overdubbing a guitar after the basic tracks had been done, and he was going direct into the board, then I'd have to say that was a sonic/aesthetic choice.

I'll do a little test when I get a spare minute. The one problem is that my 545's are all so old and slightly beat up that even they all sound a little different from one another,  :lol. Would still be interesting though.

Yeah, I also have the feeling it was more of a logistical decision to D.I the guitars. I can't picture an engineer from that time period worrying too much about experimenting with the sonic character of the guitar tone for certain tracks. But I do just wonder a little as some sessions seem like Carl was tracking from the booth when it was basically just Dennis and Al out on the floor. Surely he could have sat out there with them when there were only 2 or 3 other guys in the room. Perhaps they were experimenting with trying to get as clean a sound possible on everything. Then on the session for Christmas Day it seems like both Brian and Carl are tracking from the booth (or am I misremembering?) and it's only Dennis out in the live room? Perhaps Carl was running his guitar out through to an amp at the time. Although it sounds more D.I'd to me... Anyway...

I was listening to the Party outtakes and during one version of Smokey Joe's Cafe you can hear Chuck getting peeved with Brian for moving around and messing with the relationship of all the mic bleed. He says something like "that's the whole sound, everything bleeding into the vocal mics, so don't mess around with it!"

A quick comment.

In those days the setup for all the studios was pretty much always the same regardless of the session or who was engineering. at The engineers figured out how the room sounded best and stuck to that arrangement for the players. This has a lot to do with why F. Bowen David's engineering several sessions for PS in Studio 3 sounds the same as those engineered by Chuck Britz and to some degree why even those done at Goldstar (WIBN and IJWMFTT) and Sunset all sonically fit . It was the players and the room more than the sort of experimentation with engineering that began a few years later.

That Party comment brings up the great lost art of mic placement and how dramatically a few inches of a move could affect the character of the sound. There are some similar comments on Sloop John B sessions where Brian from the booth tells the flute specific things to do on where he was playing "on mic", and the sound gets richer immediately. Same with the accordions on WIBN, that was at Gold Star, but as soon as Brian hears the sound of those accordions bouncing around the room and creating another sound apart from that coming from the actual source, he's ecstatic. And that is where the room, mic placement, and leakage all play into the final product.

In those days, and in almost every famous studio where I've been able to hear outtakes and session tapes from, the leakage and the interplay between the source and the room was the key element. I've heard raw sessions and have raw multitracks where as the old saying goes "they mix themselves", and that was the ethos - get it right on the studio floor first.

The direct guitars issue is a tricky one to nail down. What I can say is *if* it were a sonic choice, consider a direct guitar at Western 3. It would go into one of Putnam's 610 channel strips, which was tube. It was basically going into a pure tube preamp and being "amplified" by tube power amps...basically what a guitar amp does. If you had, say, a Fender Deluxe mic'ed up on the studio floor...the guitar going into that amp is going through that amp's preamp tubes, going through EQ (bass, mid, high if the amp had 3 EQ controls versus 2), then coming out through a speaker which was pushing air physically around the amp as the mic picked it up and brought it back into that 610 on the console.

Consider the variables: What kind of guitar, what kind of amp, what was the setting on the amp, what was the volume, where was it on the floor, where was the mic placed - close or a foot away, on the cone directly or off-axis, what kind of mic was it and what were the characteristics - did it roll off highs, lows...did it boost mids, etc. , what kind of speaker was it - was it a Celestion with bright top end or did it cut some highs, was it a speaker with a warm bass response, etc.

Then put all of those through yet another tube preamp via the 610 which had its own character, and you have essentially two signal chains from the output jack of the guitar itself. Add outboard processors like, say, McGuinn's 12-string that went through 3 compressors chained together and pumping like mad...and you have many variables that affected those sounds. Then consider what a few short years later in terms of Beach Boys recordings would sometimes be re-amped and fed back into the mix to deliberately tweak the sound of the guitar amp and speaker pushing air into a mic and being altered by the character of a specific amp's "voice" versus another.

If you ran Carl's guitar direct, you have in theory a more "pure" sound, as the only thing it's running through is the DI box, then through the 610 channel strip, and wherever it went after that was up to the people in the booth.

I'd say a more pure sound might have given more punch or more ability for the part to sit into a mix depending on what they were going for sonically, just as Nile Rodgers said about running his Strat direct on all those hits where his Strat is one of the main hooks (rhythmic and sonic) of those songs. The part jumps out of the speakers, yet sits into the mix, even in late 70's and 80's technology.

Again I'd lean toward some of those decisions to go direct being one of fitting people into a small space, but for the reasons above - and the crystal-clear, sparkling sound of some of those guitar tracks Brian and Chuck got in the mid-60's that jump out of the mix (and carry perfectly via AM radio) - I'd also say it was just as much a sonic choice, of course on a case-by-case basis.

What blew my mind, and still does, after hearing what went into the song is how "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" as cut by Bones Howe was done in several different studios in different states, yet the way it was skillfully edited and the consistency of the sounds remained constant from section to section. I guess that's why it won all the awards!

That consistency of the sound texture going track to track on Pet Sounds amazes me as well - Considering how many different players and different rooms and engineers went into the process. If you play it for people who don;t know or don;t think about the tech angles, they might think it was all done in the same place on the same day or week. It;s pretty amazing considering the limitations of the technology.

Yes it does.  But I'm not great...just a hard workin' guy. 






I'll just be moving along now.

I think there are a few possible reasons for this:

1 - Brian liked Carl’s ear and wanted him in the control room as the mix came together.

2 - Lots of Carl’s guitar leads and solo parts from the 3/4-track days were done as overdubs during the final mix. Makes more sense to have him in the room in these cases.

3 - They just liked the bright, clean, present sound - particularly 12-string.

:lol

1 - Is actually a really good point Donny. I hadn't thought of that but it makes a lot of sense to me. Having Carl in there listening to the whole thing and getting his perspective on the overall sound would have been a big plus.