Drewcifer's Tone Zone

I was just on the Gearslutz Forum and a kid on there was asking how certain production techniques were done before the age of digital, and DAW. There were five questions, so I chimed in. Why? Because I am now a vintage old studio fart myself and I knew how to do all these things. It made me realize that, to this kid, who has grown up with a lap-top and an i-Phone, the old analog ways must seem like ancient history, only heard about or read in a book. He’ll actually never use any of these classic techniques himself, and they must seem so odd to him. Sort of like the days before tape would have seemed to my generation.

Kramer and Hendrix, Analog Space Pioneers!

Here are the questions, and here are my answers:

How were these studio techniques accomplished before digital?

1) EDITING/ARRANGING A SONG: Answer, By cutting tape with a razor-blade. For instance, use first verse and first chorus from take two, take solo from take three and the end from take six, and cut them together. This would involve slicing the 2” multitrack tape at very precise points and scotch-taping it together in the right order. Better not eff-it-up! The ultimate in destructive editing!

2) REPLACING DRUM HITS WITH SAMPLES: Answer, This really could not be done until digital sampling. Once digital samples were available in the mid 80s, analog audio-triggering was used. Before that, certain producers used to record the drum-parts one-at-a-time. Track one, play the kick part. Track two, play the snare part. Track three, play the hat…and they’d overdub the whole drum-kit like that, getting perfect sounds and perfect separation. When sampling became available, we used to record a desirable snare hit in to the Yamaha SPX-90, which had a second or two of sampling, and then you could simply audio-trigger it using it’s input. So I’d patch an aux send or an insert send from the snare and send it to the SPX. Often you’d have to gate the trigger-signal down pretty tight to avoid false triggers. Then we’d mix that sample in with the real snare. 

3) AUTOMATE LEVELS, EFFECTS AND PANNING: Answer, Console automation began in the late 1970s and you could create all kinds of effects by automating the faders. For instance, repeatable auto-panning could be done by having two channels of the same sound, one panned left one panned right. You’d program the left fader to start up and move slowly down, while the right fader would start down and move slowly up. You could do this manually too, and people did. I know I did. Or I twisted the pan knob! Automating an effect could be as simple as programming the effect return faders to mute and unmute at the right time in the song. One of my favorite effects back then was “fade to reverb” - at the end of the song, the music would fade in to the reverberant distance. I’d automate the main 2-mix fader to fade-out slowly, then program the reverb return faders to go slowly up, up, up as the main fader came down. Spooky. 

4) VOCAL COMPING: Answer, Comping vocals was done by having multiple takes takes of a vocal on multiple tracks, and one open track. All of the vocal tracks would be bussed to the open track. You’d put the open track in record and mute and unmute the other takes until you had the perfect single take on that one track. We called it “bouncing”. Of course you’d have to match the levels of the takes to the bussed track. Often I would also insert a compressor and even an EQ across that “bounce” buss.

5) PHASING FLANGING DELAY AND REVERB:  Answer, Modulation and time-based effects were done by using multiple tape machines, or later, analog outboard gear. The famous story about the invention of flanging is that Jimi Hendrix asked Eddie Kramer to make his guitar sound like it was under water. Ultimately, Eddie came up with the technique of lightly pressing his thumb down on the flange of the spinning tape reel. Later, the Eventide Instant Flanger and Instant Phaser were among the first outboard effects units. Delay was done using tape-echo, either with a spare tape machine or a dedicated tape-echo like an Echoplex or a Roland Space Echo. Reverb had to be done with an actual acoustic reverb chamber or a reverb plate. It was expensive to have reverb and required extra studio space, therefore, many studios actually did not have reverb. They simply didn’t offer that effect. That’s why when Lexicon and EMT and AMS came out with the first digital reverbs, it was a real boon to the industry. Even still, those first digital reverbs were super-expensive, running in the neighborhood of $12,000 1980 dollars. That would be like $40 grand now. How many of you have $40K invested in your whole DAW project studio now? How many have even $4 grand in it?