Any of you audio isolation experts able to isolate the guitars on IKTAA?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Let's talk about reverb.

I'm very interested in how they routed things.  Now, we know that the consoles had three echo sends, which would generally just follow the three main output busses, unless they patched things differently.

Now, without seeing a diagram (I do have a diagram of a Putnam console from Universal in Chicago, or maybe it was from United B...I'll have to find it) one would presume that the console had three "echo returns."  But also presumably, there would only be one mic in a chamber, and thus only one output from the chamber.  IN other words, if they sent all three echo sends to the same chamber, either the reverb would be returned to only one buss, or they could "mult" the return on a patchbay and send three identical signals back to the three busses.

This seems pretty redundant though when they were just mixing in mono. 

So, some possibilities.

1.  They'd use different chambers, EMT plates, or spring boxes.  This would make total sense.

2.  They'd only return the chamber, etc, to one buss.


This is where it would be interesting to hear isolated multitracks.  You might be able to hear some things from session tape too.  The closest I've gotten to hearing isolated multis is from the Little Girl I Once Knew session, when the middle track is omitted and the other two tracks are hard-panned.  So we have an isolated rhythm track and the isolated horns.

So if you have isolated tracks, you could hear if the reverb includes ALL the instruments, or just the instruments assigned to that track.  Do you get what I'm saying?

However, I suspect that they often did use three separate "echo" devices.  Or two, because the horns on, say, LGIOK sound pretty dry on the session tape.  This would also make sense because when they used tape slap, that would be applied to selected instruments only.

However, I can think of some interesting things you can get by playing with the balance or OOPSing the Caroline, No session tape.  In that case, it does very much sound like one track of the tape is totally dry, but it's reverb return went to another track.

What do you guys think?

Didn't some of those studios (like Western and Capitol, not sure about Gold Star or Sunset) have more than one echo chamber?  They'd almost have to, if they were doing multiple sessions at the same time in different rooms.

Absolutely.  And supposedly studios would have phone lines dedicated to their chambers so other studios could rent them from afar if they were all booked up.

[c-man]

Speaking of 12-strings, do we think the intro on "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is Fender XII or Rickenbacker?  It was recorded June 22, 1964, ang the "Hard Days Night" movie didn't premier in the UK until July and the US until August, and that's reportedly where Carl got his hard on for a Rick.  Yet he's clearly playing a 12- on "DHMLS", right?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Speaking of 12-strings, do we think the intro on "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is Fender XII or Rickenbacker?  It was recorded June 22, 1964, ang the "Hard Days Night" movie didn't premier in the UK until July and the US until August, and that's reportedly where Carl got his hard on for a Rick.  Yet he's clearly playing a 12- on "DHMLS", right?

I think Fender.

[DonnyL]

What's interesting is that guitars are leaking into the horn mic, meaning that they were amped.

or sent through the tracking room monitors

[DonnyL]

Speaking of 12-strings, do we think the intro on "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is Fender XII or Rickenbacker?  It was recorded June 22, 1964, ang the "Hard Days Night" movie didn't premier in the UK until July and the US until August, and that's reportedly where Carl got his hard on for a Rick.  Yet he's clearly playing a 12- on "DHMLS", right?

I think Fender.

Ric ... Fender XII did not exist until '65; Carl's was an an early prototype (I think he got it in March or April). The earliest production models have late '65 neck date stamps.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

* There were no echo returns on the individual channels? I always assumed so, but it doesn't really make practical sense when you look at similar boards. I think the echo returns are the trims on the top (or some of them? can't tell). What is the indication that there are 3 returns? 3-buss board?

I suspect the 610 consoles in Western were slightly more sophisticated than this one, but no, there were not individual returns, as you read in that .pdf file.

* When you're talking about session tapes, are you referring to the SOT stuff? Are we 100% certain that these are 'raw' transfers, and no echo was added during this 'mix'/transfer?

I'm pretty sure they're dry transfers.  I guess we can't know for sure, but there are enough totally dry tracks on the UM that ended up reverbed on the final mix that I suspect they weren't adding reverb.  You never know, though.

* Referring to the PS Sessions box, I think all bets are off with regard to that giving us insight into the reverb situation.

Oh yeah, Mark slathered everything with reverb for that.

* 3 sends makes sense. I don't know if they had a plate or not. I do know that some smaller studios had homebrew spring units as well. Spring gets a bad rap but I believe it can sound very close to plate and chamber if well designed.

Mark has said that Western had at least one plate and a spring unit, and I think he even mentioned hearing that Chuck said he often used plate and people just assumed it was chamber.  That's like, three levels of hearsay, though.

* Tape echo was obviously used in conjunction with chamber in some cases, so there are two busses in use right there. Keep in mind you don't neccesarily need a send/return, you can just go out from the preamp (or even smaller submixer) to the chamber, then return it through any open channel. This can be done during tracking, bouncing, mixdown or any combination (all 3 if they wished!). You can do things like sending a track (or group) to the chamber, then bringing that signal back into a tape deck for delay, and simultaneously sending the original dry signal to the chamber as well. I believe this may have been done in places -- it would create a big reverb 'splash'. Mixed in subtley, maybe even this 'leslie' effect.

Considering how limited the inputs were, I doubt they used input channels for returns much, but you're right, there are other options.  But on a session like WIBN or GOK, when there's more mics than console inputs, so they're already using summing mixers or going straight in, they'd have to rely on the returns, I think.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Speaking of 12-strings, do we think the intro on "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is Fender XII or Rickenbacker?  It was recorded June 22, 1964, ang the "Hard Days Night" movie didn't premier in the UK until July and the US until August, and that's reportedly where Carl got his hard on for a Rick.  Yet he's clearly playing a 12- on "DHMLS", right?

I think Fender.

Ric ... Fender XII did not exist until '65; Carl's was an an early prototype (I think he got it in March or April). The earliest production models have late '65 neck date stamps.

Good point.

[DonnyL]

I suspect the 610 consoles in Western were slightly more sophisticated than this one, but no, there were not individual returns, as you read in that .pdf file.

I think I meant individual 'sends' (like an 'echo control' knob) ... looks like they did have these, according to the sheet.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I suspect the 610 consoles in Western were slightly more sophisticated than this one, but no, there were not individual returns, as you read in that .pdf file.

I think I meant individual 'sends' (like an 'echo control' knob) ... looks like they did have these, according to the sheet.

Ah, yes indeed.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

This thread is so fascinating

[DonnyL]

Considering how limited the inputs were, I doubt they used input channels for returns much, but you're right, there are other options.  But on a session like WIBN or GOK, when there's more mics than console inputs, so they're already using summing mixers or going straight in, they'd have to rely on the returns, I think.

This also brings up something that has interested (and bugged) me for some time:

* Where / how was Pet Sounds mixed ?!?

It seems so very odd, given all of the info we have about this album (box sets, etc), that we cannot answer this question !

The final mono mix, to me, is the ONLY Pet Sounds. Everything else is great for study, but not the real deal.

We don't know the process from studio to studio. We don't know what was done during mixdown. You mentioned hearing some reverb on the basic tracks, but we also know that some reverb was missing (hence Mark adding reverb here and there).

Ok, so did they bring the 4-track tapes to Columbia, then mix them dry to the 8-track, or add echo, etc during the bounce? This is kind of what I was getting at with the mono mix being really the only definitive reference. Because there is always a possibility that something was added or changed during bounces/mix. For instance, some of the sections are spliced in from earlier work tapes. There's that weird version of 'WIBN' that ended up on a bunch of compilations that has different vocals.

For the 8-track songs, we can assume that they were mixed at Columbia. So any echo that was added during mixdown was done with Columbia's facilities.

I have several theories but no concrete evidence/info. There are the stories people tell about Brian mixing PS in one day, etc ... those have to be false. 'Caroline', 'Sloop' and probably 'WIBN' and 'GOK' were mixed prior to the rest of the album.

I have also speculated about the '2 db fades' being an indicator of tracks mixed at Columbia. Which means some of the 4-track songs were recorded at Columbia.

My theory right now is that the most of the album was mixed at Columbia, minus 'Caroline', 'Sloop' and a few others.

Also, I'm not so sure how much of the album was actually recorded on a Scully 280, as has often been reported. I think Gold Star had a 4-track, but I don't think Western had one (I will have to do some more research to try and pin down what they were using at this time). All of the Columbia (8-track sessions) were done on an Ampex 300/PR-10 deck that was made by Columbia. Don't know what the mix decks were at all. I think Gold Star was still using the Ampex 300 deck (shown in that photo w/ Brian in glasses earlier in the thread).

Sooooo ...

on the SOT tracks, is the reverb mostly complete? Some of that stuff on 'American Band' sounds pretty dry (Mike's vocals on 'Here Today' for instance).

[c-man]

No, on the SOT "release", Mike's "Here Today" isolated lead is as drenched in the slapback echo as it is in the final mix.

[DonnyL]

No, on the SOT "release", Mike's "Here Today" isolated lead is as drenched in the slapback echo as it is in the final mix.

Maybe I'm thinking of something else from that show, or the show used a different 'mix'. I remember something sounded really off with his vocals on that American Band doc on 'Here Today' ... maybe they only used a single track instead of both? I can't seem to find it anywhere, and I think I lost my old VHS !

I just found a SOT link for 'IJWMFTT', and the vocals are totally dry there, except for tape echo (which comes in around 2:05), which means that's one example where the reverb would have been added at mixdown, unless the echo return for the vocals was printed to a separate track (possible, anyone know if this was done at all?). So, here's one example of a track where the echo on the vocal on the original mix was from Columbia's facilities. This also means the vocal echo on the stereo mix was a modern re-creation.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

No, on the SOT "release", Mike's "Here Today" isolated lead is as drenched in the slapback echo as it is in the final mix.

In my opinion, while there's definitely slapback on the multi, I still think reverb-wise it's drier than on the final mix.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

No, on the SOT "release", Mike's "Here Today" isolated lead is as drenched in the slapback echo as it is in the final mix.

Maybe I'm thinking of something else from that show, or the show used a different 'mix'. I remember something sounded really off with his vocals on that American Band doc on 'Here Today' ... maybe they only used a single track instead of both? I can't seem to find it anywhere, and I think I lost my old VHS !

I just found a SOT link for 'IJWMFTT', and the vocals are totally dry there, except for tape echo (which comes in around 2:05), which means that's one example where the reverb would have been added at mixdown, unless the echo return for the vocals was printed to a separate track (possible, anyone know if this was done at all?). So, here's one example of a track where the echo on the vocal on the original mix was from Columbia's facilities. This also means the vocal echo on the stereo mix was a modern re-creation.

WIBN's lead vocals are also dry as a bone (and one can be totally isolated too, whee!).

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

We need to start some sort of repository for a lot of this information, don't we.

It's so funny, isn't it, that all of these weird little technical questions we have could be answered in just a few minutes sitting beside Chuck and Brian at a session.  Just like any history, I guess.    What did spoken Latin sound like in the age of Augustus?  I agonize over this, but 5 minutes with Vergil would answer everything.  Oh well.

[guitarfool2002]

Speaking of 12-strings, do we think the intro on "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is Fender XII or Rickenbacker?  It was recorded June 22, 1964, ang the "Hard Days Night" movie didn't premier in the UK until July and the US until August, and that's reportedly where Carl got his hard on for a Rick.  Yet he's clearly playing a 12- on "DHMLS", right?

I think Fender.

Ric ... Fender XII did not exist until '65; Carl's was an an early prototype (I think he got it in March or April). The earliest production models have late '65 neck date stamps.

Carl had an early Rickenbacker 12-string, I say early because the first ones ever/anywhere came out in early '64, with George Harrison receiving his in Feb '64 as a gift from Rickenbacker chief John Hall. That guitar was the second one ever made, and the one heard and seen the most...like Carl's various Ricks, the early ones had more pointed body shapes, the later ones were rounded off.

Remember Rickenbacker at this time made an all-out push for the implied Beatles endorsement, starting with the party they threw in NYC around the Sullivan appearance. So you had the top American band, in California no less, also home of Rickenbacker, would it be assuming too much to think someone at Rickenbacker if not Hall himself at least got in touch with Carl if not directly "sold" him on the idea of this brand new, revolutionary electric 12-string?

It's easy to not realize there was no electric 12-string before 1964, considering how ubiquitous they became and still are. I think Rickenbacker went on a marketing blitz so guys like George and Carl would be seen playing them on network television, and it worked like a charm.

That's assuming Carl just didn't go to Wallich's or wherever, see the new Rickenbacker 12-string hanging on the wall, and buy it.

The Little Sister track...weird sound, very weird. It doesn't sound like the normal, stereotypical Rickenbacker 12-string. It doesn't sizzle, it doesn't jangle, it doesn't ring that crazy way, or do much, it just kind of sits there. Is that in fact a Rickenbacker on the track?

[guitarfool2002]

WIBN's lead vocals are also dry as a bone (and one can be totally isolated too, whee!).

Tell me if I'm wrong on this: As Brian was recording the lead vocals (SOT), you can hear that they pitched down the tape, vari-speed, which I can only guess was done for his vocal range, so he could hit something with a certain voice without cracking or going into the head voice, or whatever.

Did anyone notice that on the series of vocal attempts, or am I dreaming that? While he's tracking the lead, the pitch of the track has been lowered.

[guitarfool2002]

What's interesting is that guitars are leaking into the horn mic, meaning that they were amped.

The same point I raised a few pages ago: Just because a photo shows the guitarists in the booth doesn't mean they were going direct, it has to be equally assumed they could have been running into a mic-ed amp placed elsewhere.

And related to the reverb-chamber-send/return topics, Brian at least always had some kind of a slap echo or chamber echo on his bass, Danelectro tic-tac bass, and usually guitar depending on the part. Very, very few of Brian's mid 60's guitar and bass tracks are "dry", and these effects we can sometimes hear on the session tapes being applied during the tracking session and printed to tape, so they're not added after the fact during mixdown.

They only had so many sends and returns available to use, and at the most I'd say one echo chamber to use on any given session, unless Brian had blocked out the entire United-Western complex so he could tap into whatever other chambers the studio had. Gold Star, I believe, had one chamber...correct if I'm wrong.

And you wouldn't send a guitar or picked bass signal to the same place as, say, a drum track or keyboard, you'd have sonic mush instead of a nice effect.

So how did they do it? 

[DonnyL]

It's easy to not realize there was no electric 12-string before 1964, considering how ubiquitous they became and still are.

Not to split hairs or derail the thread, but I think the Danelectro Bellzouki 12-string predates the Ric ('61 I think) !

[DonnyL]

We need to start some sort of repository for a lot of this information, don't we.

It's so funny, isn't it, that all of these weird little technical questions we have could be answered in just a few minutes sitting beside Chuck and Brian at a session.  Just like any history, I guess.    What did spoken Latin sound like in the age of Augustus?  I agonize over this, but 5 minutes with Vergil would answer everything.  Oh well.

We do ... I'm afraid this is it for now! the thing is, these threads are really eye-opening to me with regard to the sheer amount of info we DON'T know. The same questions come up, we all guess, then the thread dies! I should really get my ears glued to the SOT and spend some time taking notes.

[DonnyL]

No, on the SOT "release", Mike's "Here Today" isolated lead is as drenched in the slapback echo as it is in the final mix.

Maybe I'm thinking of something else from that show, or the show used a different 'mix'. I remember something sounded really off with his vocals on that American Band doc on 'Here Today' ... maybe they only used a single track instead of both? I can't seem to find it anywhere, and I think I lost my old VHS !

I just found a SOT link for 'IJWMFTT', and the vocals are totally dry there, except for tape echo (which comes in around 2:05), which means that's one example where the reverb would have been added at mixdown, unless the echo return for the vocals was printed to a separate track (possible, anyone know if this was done at all?). So, here's one example of a track where the echo on the vocal on the original mix was from Columbia's facilities. This also means the vocal echo on the stereo mix was a modern re-creation.

WIBN's lead vocals are also dry as a bone (and one can be totally isolated too, whee!).

Also, the SOT stuff is not definitive because whoever was 'mixing' (ouch) this stuff seemed like they were just pulling up faders randomly. Could be a whole unused track (for reverb or doubles or something) that's not even pulled up.

[guitarfool2002]

It's easy to not realize there was no electric 12-string before 1964, considering how ubiquitous they became and still are.

Not to split hairs or derail the thread, but I think the Danelectro Bellzouki 12-string predates the Ric ('61 I think) !

The Bellzouki wasn't technically considered a guitar necessarily because of the body shape and the origin of the instrument, like the Coral Sitar it was one of Vinny Bell's oddball namesake ideas that Danelectro actually put into production where the others like Fender/Gibson wouldn't touch. Bell wanted an electric Bouzouki, and ran with the idea of making it 12 strings rather than 8, or whatever the traditional bouzouki had.

There are handfuls of bizarre Danelectro models like the Mandolin-guitar thing which was basically a guitar with something like 40 frets to "simulate" a mandolin...crazy stuff like that.

If it looked like a guitar or was made to be a guitar, I'd agree the Bellzouki was first.  

[DonnyL]

It's easy to not realize there was no electric 12-string before 1964, considering how ubiquitous they became and still are.

Not to split hairs or derail the thread, but I think the Danelectro Bellzouki 12-string predates the Ric ('61 I think) !

The Bellzouki wasn't technically considered a guitar necessarily because of the body shape and the origin of the instrument, like the Coral Sitar it was one of Vinny Bell's oddball namesake ideas that Danelectro actually put into production where the others like Fender/Gibson wouldn't touch. Bell wanted an electric Bouzouki, and ran with the idea of making it 12 strings rather than 8, or whatever the traditional bouzouki had.

There are handfuls of bizarre Danelectro models like the Mandolin-guitar thing which was basically a guitar with something like 40 frets to "simulate" a mandolin...crazy stuff like that.

If it looked like a guitar or was made to be a guitar, I'd agree the Bellzouki was first.  

oh i see ... didn't consider it that way !

[DonnyL]

What's interesting is that guitars are leaking into the horn mic, meaning that they were amped.

The same point I raised a few pages ago: Just because a photo shows the guitarists in the booth doesn't mean they were going direct, it has to be equally assumed they could have been running into a mic-ed amp placed elsewhere.

And related to the reverb-chamber-send/return topics, Brian at least always had some kind of a slap echo or chamber echo on his bass, Danelectro tic-tac bass, and usually guitar depending on the part. Very, very few of Brian's mid 60's guitar and bass tracks are "dry", and these effects we can sometimes hear on the session tapes being applied during the tracking session and printed to tape, so they're not added after the fact during mixdown.

They only had so many sends and returns available to use, and at the most I'd say one echo chamber to use on any given session, unless Brian had blocked out the entire United-Western complex so he could tap into whatever other chambers the studio had. Gold Star, I believe, had one chamber...correct if I'm wrong.

And you wouldn't send a guitar or picked bass signal to the same place as, say, a drum track or keyboard, you'd have sonic mush instead of a nice effect.

So how did they do it? 

I think sometimes they sent groups to the same tape deck for slap, or the same chamber/whatever, just varying the volumes.

Other times, I think they just applied the tape echo to the bass/baritone or individual instruments, yeh. But this would have to go through the board. They also had a limited number of decks to be used for slap. And everything had to be mic'd up ... smaller homebrew/portable mixers would not likely have any echo sends or returns, they would be straight-up mic preamp-mixers. It's not really feasible that they would have set up a tape deck just for one player's instrument ... that would be much more easily accomplished routed through the board.

Are you saying maybe the players had like an Echo-plex or something plugged into their amp? That's a possibility I'd not yet thought of. You and Josh would know more than I if these dudes were the type to carry around something like that. I guess I just assumed not.