Do you love the sound of early Rock'N'Roll and Rock-A-Billy ?If so and if you ever recorded your band in a modern studio, chances are that you have been disapointed... Modern recording gear is so accurate, that there is no space for a breath of air or the vibration of an instrument. Most of the time you'll end up with a cold and sterile sound.Also, todays recording techniques tend to smoooth any angle of the music, to make it fit into a certain commercial idea. The process is so complex, that sometimes you don't know if you're making music or taking part in a surgical operation! Many of the people who make recordings are used to work that way and won't understand the needs of a real cool rocking band !Vintage recordingSo let's get back to the real thing. Put your band in a front of a couple of microphones and let's go ! As Sam Philips said, we look for the whole feeling and not for the individual mistakes. If the feeling is there, we'll try to catch it on tape...So the band itself, its skills, its musical direction and its mood at the moment are the most important things to achieve a great recording. That's the philosophy of the JCR vintage recording studio. But that's not enough, for a vintage recording you need vintage gear!
Vintage & valve equipmentThe most important change in recording equipment, between the 50's and today, is the change in the electronics from valves (vacuum tubes) to transistors. Musique going through valve equipment is much hotter and fatter, than the fruitless transistors. That's why we use as much as possible valve equipment. The initial recording is crucial in achieving the great sound we are looking for. Any afterwards mixing won't save a song that started sounding bad! So, we take extra care with the choice of equipment, that we use in the signal's path to lay the music on tape. Let's start with maybe the most important piece of equipment, that will give a certain color to the sound from the beginning: the microphone:
Most of the time we use two Neumann KM 56 valve microphones to record a classic 4 piece band. The KM 56 model appeared in 1955. It was intented as an alternative to the big Neumann classic valve models (like the U47) with a smaller size, but the same quality. It's a condenser mike, that features a vacuum tube inside and therefore has a high output level. As most of valve mikes, it needs a high voltage external power supply. Preamps: To do justice to the vintage mikes, we have a great preamp / compressor : An Altec 438C from 1957. We also use newer valve preamps, that like most of the so called tube preamps made today, use in fact a valve stage, followed by a second transistor stage. The big difference in the brand we choose, is that the transistor stage can be completely switched off. The result is that we have less gain, but still more than enough to amplify a high output valve or condenser microphone. Another cool feature is that the transistor stage has a fixed amplification ratio. That means, that even when this stage is engaged (for example to record an anemic singer...), the gain slider only acts on the variable valve to control how hot the sound will be. Some high end studio magazines have complained in their reviews of these preamps, that because of this vintage design, the valve colours to much the sound...I told you they are used to cold fruitless music!
Limiters / compressors In the next step, the dynamics need to be controled, so that anyone can listen comfortably to the music on any system. To avoid excessive tape hiss, when working with vintage tape recorders, this operation needs to be done before the signal hits the tape. The modern compressors use a special transistor called VCA (Voltage Controled Amplifier). Again, many pretend to be vintage because they might have a tube somewehre inside, but the process of compressing the music is still done by a VCA transistor. The devices we use, apart from the Altec, really have a vintage design. The compression is done by an electro-optical system (featuring a photo cell) like did compressors before the invention of VCA transistors. They also feature a valve stage output to match the levels before going to the tape recorder.
Tape recorders Revox is an original swiss company, that gained a worldwide reputation for their high quality tape recorders. Their first machines were designed after military specs and build to last a whole life. The company launched their 36'serie (A to G) vacuum tube tape recorders in 1955. They lasted until 1967, when their new line of transistor machines appeared. Our main machine is a Revox F36 valve tape recorder that has been totally restored by a former Revox engineer. Its electronics is made out of not less than 12 tubes! We also have an older Revox C36 and a high speed version of the last valve model done, the Revox G36.
Now if you are a die hard purist, you might be interested in the fact that we have a small stock of vintage tape ! Most of the time this is overlooked when trying to achieve a vintage sound. But recording tape has tremendously changed since the 50's. Old tape compresses the sound and starts to distort at much lower levels than those we use to work with when recording on modern tape. This is worth experimenting with, to obtain real different coloured sounds.
Effects Although the music would sound great so far, you may want to add the classic 50's effects to it, that is reverb and echo. So we have an all tube 4 spring reverbfrom the early 60's and two Klemt Echolette 5 valve tape delay unit. But, like in the old days, we also can take advantage of one of our tape recorders (they have separate record and playback heads) to provide the classic tape delay effect. One of the two rooms we have in the studio has stone walls and a corridor. So it can be used to achieve natural reverb.Mastering to CD Nowadays most recordings will end up on a Compact Disc. So it's really important to preserve the original valve analog tape sound when going to digital. We use professional 24 bit analog to digital converters. Any additional work in the digital world is done in 32 bit format to preserve the original sparkle of the recordings. The final master is dithered to the usual 16 bit CD resolution, with a special algorithm that keeps as much as possible of the benefits of the higher 24 bit transfers.Can you take up the challenge ?If you want to sound different, don't hesitate to try the JCR vintage studio ! And to be different, don't expect a cosy room with a big shiny mixing desk. It's just a cellar and there is no mixing desk ! We have been listening to rockin' 50's music for years and it's our hobby to recreate the same recording conditions. We don't have a mercantile goal, we just want to do some cool rockin' music ! The vintage studio is located in Vevey, Switzerland, at the border of the lake of Geneva. KEEP ON ROCKIN' !! |
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