Behind the Recording of Led Zeppelin II
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.พ. 2024
- Led Zeppelin's second album was sound of the band cementing their place as one of the biggest hard rock bands of all time. Songs such as 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'Ramble on' are true rock classics. This is the story of how it was recorded and the techniques and equipment used.
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#ledzeppelinii #ledzeppelin #jimmypage #johnpauljones #johnbonham #recordproduction - เพลง
I think Led Zeppelin II is the quintessential Led Zeppelin album
I've listened to everything they've produced in one sitting, LZ II... quintessential is definitely the word. (That was a great day, tough 12hr shift, every song and every album, these m************ did not mess about)
I listened to Pink Floyd's discography start to finish too, also great if you can stomach 'The Early Years/ Cambridge Station' right at the start. ( Needed to throw in 'The Madcap Laughs' to sanitise myself before going into Gilmour period!)
It is. I get sick of it after a while and keep going back to it later. Same goes for ZOSO, Houses and PG. Such great albums, but II beats them all by a p-hair.
Indeed.
I'd say IV is. There are no folk songs on II and Zep's folkiness is a quintessential part of them.
I walked 4 miles through the snow to EJ Korvettes, and with my Christmas Money…bought Abbey Road and Led Zeppelin II. Pretty cool purchase I’d say.
A very successful shopping trip ! 😃
We had a Korvettes in Morton Grove, IL. Where was yours located?
E J korvettes......classic!!!!
@@sloprun Parkville, Maryland. Joppa rd at Perring Pkwy. Perring Place Shopping Center.
That's dedication!
The 2nd album 💿 knocked The Beetles Abbey Road off the #1 spot on the charts.
Yes, but Abbey Road came out four weeks earlier than LZ II, so it had mostly run its course.
Beatles
Beatles. Not beetles.
Only Led Zep afficionados remember the 2nd album; almost everyone (fan or not) knows the Abbey Road by the Beatles. It's the Beatles man! From boy band (who actually play instruments) then psychedelic rockers and eventual icons.
@@theloniouscoltrane3778 The 2nd album has their Whole Lotta Love
I had an opportunity to ask Eddie Kramer about the bass sound on Led Zeppelin 2 at a clinic he was doing one time. It’s such a classic sound. I always thought it was a Fender Jazz. He said that he thought it was a P Bass directly into the board but he went back and forth on that a couple of time, and finally came back with “What you’ve got to remember is that ‘Johnsey’ is probably the finest rock bassist of all time and that’s what really produced that bass sound”. I don’t think anyone can disagree with that.
The bassline on WTLB is such a mood
That STILL doesn’t answer the question though 🤣 I think it’s a J bass
That STILL doesn’t answer the question though 🤣 I think it’s a J bass
that's because JPJ is the GOAT
Personally, I think it’s a Jazz bass
There Will Never Be Another Band Like LED Zeppelin In History
They Were Just Iconic.
The Darkness come damn close, though
Thank God! They blow
@@douglasfuerst9363 ok Mr. No Content🙄🤣
why are you capitalising each word that kind of writing is so annoying
@@earthbound914 Didn’t know this was spelling class.
Ramble On, a priceless ageless work of art. i never tire of it now @ 77 still rambling on.
ROBERT PLANT.... HIS VOICE ON THE FIRST ALBUM WAS AT IT'S VERY BEST EVER....ROBUST, STRONG, ABSOLUTELY MY FAVORITE SINGER OF ALL TIME. 2ND ALBUM WAS A HIT MACHINE. NO OTHER BAND HAS SUCH A VAST CATALOG OF GREAT SONGS....NOBODY IMHO RESPECT
Indeed
My first Zeppelin album. You never forget your first.
l just love how every album has a unique mix and life of its own. The mix is just as important as the material. The book, "Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page" gives great insights into Jimmy's evolution as a studio musician. For nearly a decade he was like a hawk, quietly watching all the engineers in various studios. He explicitly said that he had a certain notion of how he wanted to record drums. And when Bonham came along? It was destiny itself.
Even by this young age, he must have had so much studio experience and know how.
@@mixingmasteringonline Agreed. So many underestimate how great he was. I mean, he was on TV at 15, playing 'skiffle' in that famous clip. How many 15 year olds can do that? His right hand technique of hybrid picking is, I believe his secret weapon. As a guitarist, I will flat out declare that he is perhaps the most difficult guitarist to copy precisely because of his right hand. It's how he gets all those counter rhythms and odd notes inside of certain phrases. "The Song Remains The Same" is a perfect example of this technique. He picked that skill up at a very young age from influences like Scotty Moore and rockabilly guys. Yeah... he had a lot going on long before Zeppelin.
Very true. Every album has it's own character, but also has that trademark sound.
@@houdinididiit "So many underestimate how great he was."
Agreed, like the royal family of idiots that deemed him only worthy of an OBE when he _clearly_ is deserving of being SIR Jimmy Page. But hey, as long as Brian May (rolls eyes) has a knighthood.
Led Zeppelin II is the best rock album of all time. The sonics, the groove, the vast scapes of sound created were otherworldly and I am sure that all the traveling and being in different spaces to produce and mix it gave it more of that mojo. It truly blew my mind as a very young boy listening to that album, putting the needle on the record and being transported to another dimension. Whole Lotta Love changed my life!
Given that Led Zeppelin I (the debut) was recorded _and_ mixed in 1968, it sounds incredibly modern for the time. 1968 was still a time of wonky stereo mixes, with mono drums to one side, bass on the other. LZI‘s mix sounds full-bodied and balanced, no doubt credit to Glyn Johns. I find it actually even overshadows LZ II in certain sonic aspects and freshness.
I very nearly did Led Zep I as it’s their introduction to the world but the songs on Led Zep II swung it for me.
Jimmy Page was a great producer…..smart too. He owns all the Zeppelin master tapes.
I agree. One, for 1968 was an incredible recording.
I believe LZ II was the first album to only be sold in a stereo format. Page obviously didn’t want people to settle for an inferior sound with mono.
@@PeterTea All that panning on "Whole Lotta Love" was dramatic.
Led Zeppelin II is my favorite Led Zeppelin album. It was so different and fresh when it came out. I remember hearing "Whole Lotta Love" on the radio. I liked the song so much, I went to the music store and bought the album. At first, I didn't like the other songs on the album but, after repeated listenings, I learned to love all the songs. There isn't a bad song on Led Zeppelin II.
ok, ok...now we know.
Best rock album of all time overall!
@@andrewSUN17 _What?_
@@pangeaproxima3681Yes the one that had a shocking impact on rock reality. Ask anyone who was a rocker or a musician then...it had a massive impact. I was a little kid and it blew my mind.
Moby Dick is boring.
A timeless album still relevant today. 👍😊
This was the album that introduced me to "stereo" as I listened on my parents' console stereo through a pair of headphones I made and plugged in through a Radio Shack headphone "adapter". It's a wonder I lived to hear Led Zeppelin III. The panning techniques Kramer used have impacted my mixing techniques. I love listening to "stereo". By the way... I just got my first set of hearing aids last week. Go figure...
This was AWESOME!!!
More Zeppelin please 🙏🏻
Led Zeppelin II is one of the all time great mixes in popular music. Much of that is due to the music itself but the mix is adventurous to match. New ground was broken and the end result is almost unbelievable.
ok, ok... you're such a _genius._
Just a heads up to serious readers. I’ve got some 7th grader troll with a phone in my comments. Ignore @pangeaproxima3681. He’ll go away.
The sonics! I'll never forget getting the moldy-smelling LPs gifted from my uncle and dropping the needle down on Side One with stereo headphones... The left-right pans and ghostly tracking vocals were something special. Roll another for Side Two...
(Bravo! Once again, the background tracks here really bring it on home. 😉🙏)
Great memories! I bet you can still remember the smell. Thank you! 🙏
It is terrifying how long ago this was.
It seems like last week I was in a record shop in Liverpool buying this a week after it's release.
Only 55 years 😊
Blink Of An Eye ❤.
This is my favourite album of all time. When I hear that initial cough on Whole Lotta Love the adrenaline starts to flow.
Awesome. Led Zeppelin IV was given to me first, but I was in 4th grade and into KISS. It wasn’t until 5th grade I bought Led Zep II that I became a fanatic. This album f’in rules.
ok, ok...now we all know.
Led Zeepelin and Kiss should never be in the same sentence.
In the video, the guy talking said the Les Paul Jimmy bought from Joe Walsh in 1969 is a 1960 Les Paul. That's wrong. Led Zeppelin was on tour for their first record in the USA, opening for James Gang, and Jimmy was playing the Dragon Tele. Jimmy watched Joe play his Les Paul, and that was what Jimmy wanted. Joe Walsh was living in New York, and when the tour ended there, Joe brought Jimmy to his house because he had two 1959 Les Pauls. One of them had the baseball bat neck, and the other had a slim taper neck. In 1960, Gibson made the Les Pauls with a slim taper neck because a lot of players were requesting them. Joe sent one of the 1959 Les Pauls to his luthier so he could shave it down to the 1960 spec. That is the guitar Jimmy Page bought from Joe Walsh.
Cool, thanks for the background info on the Joe Walsh story! 🙏
You are absolutely correct. Thanks. You saved me from writing all that stuff.
You explained to me the pre delay on the vocal track was bleed over! I have always wondered about that, it is such a part of the song and I thank you for that. That also explains the bleed over on riders on the Storm at the end. 👍
this is great stuff. Thanks for the detail. This is "THE" Led Zep album in my opinion. The magic is in the limitations. Like the Beatles before them, it was because they didn't use every piece of gear known to man but a selected toolset that did the trick. We could learn a lot from this idea now! Cheers
Cheers! Absolutely ,a lot of soul comes through with this approach.
Yes, but you really need superb musicianship to use it successfully! @@mixingmasteringonline
A couple personal Led Zeppelin memories and a piece of opinion thrown in. I believe that Page in his day was the greatest all around guitar player, he touched all sides of music as a master. I don't believe he gets enough credit for being a masterful producer and with JP Jones on board himself a master musician...... Boom. I can't name a favorite Zep album,they are all so different and musically diverse, I love them all. My brother and his buddy for my birthday in 1976 painted the cover of Zep 1 on my bedroom wall, floor to ceiling exactly like the album, I had the coolest bedroom in all of Warwick Rhode Island. My buddy in JR high school was a Stones fan and didn't get Zep cause he didn't listen, I invited him over one morning and set the stereo speakers on each side of my bed, we smoked a joint and I plugged in Zeppelin 2 8 track cranked it full blast on Whole Lotta Love, my buddy half way through was yelling this is blowing my fucking mind 🎉😂, He went and bought 3 Zeppelin 8 tracks the next day. There is another Zep story about Dazed and Confused and purple microdot...... I will leave that one out. Lol.
Great memories to share! 😃
Greatest rock album of all time
Nothing sounds like it. One of my first LP’s. Still one of the truly great albums of all time.
The Greatest Of All Time Period.
Jimmy was the multi talented business man that was a great recording producer and nuances in sounds explorer ... Tape recording and listening to it is 1000X more interesting than Digital but Digital DSD is a great for preservation of old master tapes ..
Led Zeppelin III..
An amazing album, although they are all amazing really
The Greatest Of All Time Plain And Simple.
My friend Chris Huston was one of the engineers on that album. The stories are marvelous.
Wow! What a privilege to hear those stories first hand.
Good stuff! It really is amazing just how technically savvy and ahead of their times bands like Zeppelin were considering the technology of the day was hardware and not software. As a kid you just waited for the next album to come out and went to the record store to buy it. Most never knew the incredible backstory to making the albums only that the music grabbed your soul.
Now that's what I call a band absolutely brilliant
I was the sole customer at an audiophile quality stereo store in San Francisco a few years ago where stereos commonly cost over $50,000 and can run into hundreds of thousands and was considering my first purchase of high end audio. They asked me what I wanted to hear first and my mind went blank and then all I could think of was Whole Lotta Love which embarrassed the hell out of me and I think even heard a staff member exhale in suppressed disgust. But the moment completely changed when it started to play: I was blown away by how awesome it sounded! I was blown away by Led Zeppelin all over again. Its true what they commonly say in the high end audiophile world: A big upgrade will make your whole music library sound like you're hearing it for the first time all over again.
My favourite album! 🤘🎸
Me too!
Then came 4 which was the Pedal to the Floor! Rip roaring Rock n Roll!
Brilliant take!!! Absolutely love this video. Seeing it for the second time, taking notes!!!!
Kudos man
Thank you! 🙏
Short, sweet and chock full of good stuff. Well done.
Thank you! 🙏
It was the album that I first got into when I discovered them in my early twenties. It cemented me as a life long fan ❤
In 1970, when I was about 14, I'd ride home from school at lunchtime to an empty house, make myself a quick jam sandwich & then lie on the floor, with my ear right next to the single speaker of our Dancette & blast out Led Zep II as loud as it could go!
Happy days...
Thanks for this most informative video. I've always known Eddie Kramer was Jimi Hendrix's wizard studio engineer but now I find he was also the one workin' his magic for Led Zeppelin...WOW!
Thank you! Yeah, Eddie’s career is incredible!
nice work - i still have the vinyl(s) - and it's amazing to hold them and spin them after all these years.
There are two Led Zep bands - multitrack recording perfection and the live 3 piece embodiment. Both remarkable.
I thank God for the technology that allows recording period!!!. Just THINK of what it takes to make it happen!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Great research was done on this one.
This is great. I always wondered about the leading vocal under Robert's lead at the end. Fantastic insight into the recording of this classic. How lucky we are now days with digital DAWS and soo many tracks and cut and paste and gadgets galore and still we can't better this album. Audio engineering schools should have semesters on recording with 4 tracks analogue, minimum mics, fx, and time limits to get songs down. Thanks for the post, brilliant.
Great, really glad you enjoyed it!
Really nice to see a video that focuses on what this band was all about.
Cheers!
in my opinion led zeppelin 2 is the best album
Zeppelin!! Hard rock godheads! The peak of the mountain! The best!! LZ 2 is a masterpiece of no comparison! After all these years it kills like no other!👏👍👍
This is amazing!
Thank you!
So many choices but "The Brown Bomb" is my fave for sure from Zep. I still listen to their catalog of material as much as when I first heard them in the mid 70's.
Truly timeless.
What an informative yet concise video - thank you!
There's such a curious, elusive, 'chime-y,' crystalline quality behind the distortion of the strumming guitar parts of Whole Lotta Love that I've been curious to sus out for a while. I've always had the suspicion that it was either due to a unique peculiarity of a tube amp that Page used or that it's one of a swathe of many numerous possible analog effects and adjustments they may have mixed in - This is such a great insight for that curiosity.
There’s a video where Page said that he recorded it with a Les Paul into a Vox UL4120 solid state amp with a Rickenbacker Transonic cab, and there some studio plate reverb on it too. I have a ‘67 Vox Berkeley II solid state amp and I tried plugging my Les Paul into it to see if I could get the same sound and it sounded just like it when I cranked the amp up. I always thought it was a Marshall amp.
th-cam.com/video/7SDBVnkgGFI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=93vtOkKRbkub_Wpx
That was great. Very detailed. Subscribed!
Thank you! 🙏
When I record my drums I usually use the Glynn Johns technique. As Page has said " distance creates depth".
GREAT album! Ramble on! \m/
I saw them at the Boston tea party in Jan69, then a few months later at the Carousel Theatre in Natick Mass then at Boston Garden where ZepII was being sold in the Lobby. They went from playing to maybe 700 at the tea party to 2500 at The Carousel, (a tent with rotating stage) to 20k at Bos Garden by Nov. Between shows they wrote and recorded ZepII.. That's a stunning 9 mon of productivity!
Wow, the boys did well! Amazing that you got see them in their prime.
Absolutely fantastic video. Packed with an enormous amount of great data! Well done!!!
Thank you! 🙏
The mic at 2:18 is not an AKG D19 but actually an Electro-Voice RE15. I own one and they use similar vents/proximity technology as the D19
Cheers! Yeah, a few people pointed that out. I haven't come across the RE15 but I do know the D19. I've since learnt that the body is the same but the capsule is different apparently.
Plant didn't "feel" like he didn't get any credit on the first album - he didn't. And that's because he was still under contract with CBS.
I like the more heavily distorted rhythm guitar parts on Zeppelin ll. The Lemon Song in particular.
Great old photos!
This is a phenomenal presentation. Thanks. It's thoroughly enjoyable.
Thank you!
Greatness.
Amazing. Recording and engineering one of the greatest rock albums of all time in a piece meal fashion, with what by today's standard would be considered a hammer and chisel. A testament to how skilled engineers were before they could rely on software and cut & paste.
Great documentary, awesome pictures!
Thank you!
The Lemon Song is my favorite off of LZII. A masterpiece of bluesy rock.
Great video. Thanks. Long live rock and roll
Thank you! Rock on!
Whole Lotta Love is a classic riff to this day. Masterpiece! Bring it on Home is a tour de force riff also. Powerful! Ramble On is an acoustic beautiful song. Joe Walsh did Jimmy a huge favor when he sold him a vintage Gibson Les Paul sunburst. It became Jimmy's favorite guitar from then on. Moby Dick has an undeniable monolithic riff, giving way to a Bonzo drum solo. Heartbreaker and Living Loving Maid are also magic riffage.
Eddie Kramer.....one of the absolute greats!....Side note: For those who love bootlegs...the boot called "Listen To This Eddie" is NOT a reference to Eddie Kramer as MANY people think.....it is a reference to Eddie Van Halen........Awesome boot by the way....and performance.
Their best album, IMO.. Every track was great
Opinions are like assholes...
Interesting information
Really insightful. Thank you
Thank you!
Great video! Thanks! 😀
Thank you!
Dude thank you so much for this video
Thanks you! 🙏
Not especially a Zep fan, but now I want to hear this album - good job!
Thank you!
There's nothing like the Robert Ludwig master....worth every penny and blows all other pressings away.
Was Ludwig’s master released?,..I’ll google
Look up Led Zeppelin II Robert Ludwig.@@truemanmontfort8031
@@truemanmontfort8031 Just look up Led Zeppelin II Robert Ludwig.
Great work on this video. I think Led Zeppelin 2 WAS the turning point for them that solidified their musical efforts and let them know that they could be here for a while. I would just like to point out a couple of things, if i may- the guitar in question being used by Page at 4:17, the one used on Ramble On, was not a Vox country western nor an EKO 6, it was in fact a EROS 606 Dakota model which was an Italian made acoustic guitar. Jimmy Page did use an EKO Ranger 12-string acoustic guitar but that was circa 1970-1971. Also Led Zeppelin 2 did knock Abbey Road off the top of the number one spot but fun fact: Abbey Road knocked LZ 2 off the number one spot a couple of weeks later. This went back and forth until the early part of 1970. Total number of weeks at number 1- Led Zeppelin 2= 7 weeks. Abbey Road= 11 weeks. Awesome stuff man, wonder if you could do Queen’s A night at the opera, that would be awesome. Rock on 🤘
Thanks for the info, that would be a great one to do, yes!
I don't think you can say Zeppelin II displaced the Beatles or Rolling Stones on the charts because of the style of music, it was just a really amazing record, regardless of style.
The breakdown of how the individual instruments were recorded during the first to Led Zeppelin records is definitely informative. There's definitely something to be said about how the hardware used to create reverb, echo and modulation effects was employed. However, I'm sort of convinced that the most significant negative info is the Glynn John's method of capturing the drums and percussion.
It is Leap Year 2024 as I comment. My 12th solo record, *The Price that Fools will Pay,* is out today. Of all the recordings I've made on my own, the only one to include a regular drum kit is my self-titled debut, *Eric Benjamin Gordon,* which is also the only record I've made in a facility other than my own. Since then, I've (mostly) depended upon electronically-triggered percussion in lieu of traditional drums. In the future, if I found myself at liberty to include a regular kit on my tracks again, I imagine I would attempt to use the method employed by Glynn John's in capturing John Bonham's playing.
The quintessential LZ album is the one Im listening too at that particular time .I hate comparisons
The picture at 6:20, seems to show JPJ playing that show through a (possibly borrowed) Sunn rig. The woofy Acoustic 360's, JPJ favored were dreadful in many ways, but were one of the few 1960's bass amps loud enough to keep up with a Marshall stack.
Thanks for the info! I've never experienced the Acoustic 360's, explains why you don't see them about now..
@@mixingmasteringonline I think the simple answer is that music technology got way better and modern rock bassists desired more treble/articulation than earlier players. Acoustic 360's definitely provided solid bottom end but the introduction of the Ampeg SVT with 8-10" speakers gave all the bottom with more clarity.
I wouldn't call them dreadful. I have one and it sounds glorious. And it's not all bottomy as you would think with the 18" speaker and all. It can cut. A 5 notch vari-amp and even a bright switch helps bring out some sizzle. And the built in fuzz......One of the best fuzz tones I have heard.
@@burtreynolds2969 I should have picked my words more carefully. My experience is from a band mate back around 1974 and maybe his taste was the problem. Peace.
Very interesting as ever.
Thank you! 🙏
Just a note😉, the Walsh LP cost was + a return first class transatlantic flight, not an insignificant sum then. Btw try an Eko Ranger ( not really a 6) . You can pick them up for buttons. Bolt on neck but the quality of the wood is superb. The zero fret might take some getting used to used to but spend £75 on a set up and a fret dress and you’ll be a happy bunny.
Thanks for the tip!
very well done!
Thank you!
Awesome content... No bs... Straight to the point
Thank you!
Had both on 8 Track in my Corvair.
Yes, ll is the reference standard.
I've been seeing this on my feed for a good while now. Like the Hammer of the Gods were trying to get my attention.
Watching this and hearing for the first how some of the sounds were created gave me such a hard on that I have decided to do a Led Zeppelin binge fest starting in 3, 2...
This is great stuff man
Thank you!
Wow this is great info!
Thank you!
First album recorded late '68. Released early '69.
Had this on 8-track! Good times!
😎✌️
Yeah! Good times indeed 😃
Hey LOL. That backwards echo and backwards reverb effect. We all learned that from Star Trek. Back in 1966. And that was backwards EMT Plate Reverb. I love it! I've used it for years, myself. Along with backwards echo. Where the echo happens first. Before the sound happens.
Yeah and the Pan Pot a.k.a. Panoramic Potentiometer. Walt Disney made the first one. For, Fantasia. And it was connected with, bicycle sprockets and chains to, volume controls. That must've been wild? And so did they turn the sounds of the left and right or peddle it? We may never know? They are all dead now. Certainly they must have smoked something? I mean who would put bicycle sprockets and chains on volume controls if you were not stoned? I'm just saying……
I wired up my first recording studio. When I was 12 years old. It was an old radio station production studio equipment. Daddy brought the gear home. He got from the, Channel-9 TV engineer. He was friends with. But daddy didn't know what to do with the gear? Daddy was technically inept. He was a violinist and an advertiser. And he wanted a copywriter that could do announcing work. But daddy didn't know how to plug everything in.
So one day. I sacrificed my, your phone on my portable transistor radio. So I could plug the earphone wire. Into the Western Electric 23-C, radio station console. Until I could see the meter move. Ah Ha! Victory! Until I traced out all the wires. Then I connected the turntables the tape recorders the microphone. I got everything working! Then daddy came home from work.
Oh my God! What have you done?! You got it all working! Yes I did daddy. I want to be a DJ!
And I was already slip q. week records. Switching my microphone on and off. Announcing the songs I was playing. Saying hi to my nonexistent listeners. I was having a grand time.
And so I practiced for three years. Then I took my FCC license test. And at 15 years of age. I went to work for FM College Station. While I was flunking out of high school. And I never looked back. After I dropped out of high school. Yes I did. Then I went and got my GED without studying for it. I just took the test. And whoops. I passed! Ha ha!
I was a lousy student in school. I had ADD. I couldn't concentrate on anything. Except this stuff. It changed my life.
Now I'm 68 and retired. I made Audio History. And garnered multiple major music award nominations. Under best engineered category. When it was not my best engineering LOL. And so I guess I really good? Everybody else seems to think so. I just don't have any hip pop records. I don't get any royalties. I'm anonymous. And that's okay. I would have liked a little more recognition and notoriety. But that's okay. I did good. I accomplished a lot. I'm proud of my accomplishments and my career. I'm just broke. I get no royalties. Like the other famous engineers do. I was a union guy. I'm anonymous. I just made things happen. Like I was supposed to. Like we are supposed to. Like you are supposed to.
And you just learn by doing it. There is no right way. There is no wrong way. There is just what sounds good and what doesn't. And you don't really have to know anything technical for that. You just make it sound good, fun and exciting. You don't think about all the technical blah blah. Because that doesn't get you anywhere. You are just going for a fun sound. That's all. And you get that anyway you can. With anything and everything you have two use. It doesn't have to be called professional. To be able to use it. Just don't overload it badly and it will sound good. That's the only thing you have to be mindful of.
A lot more can go into studio productions. Where you can experiment and play. But when it's time on the clock. Experimenting can get costly. So only if they have the budget.
Today. Nobody really has any budgets. The big record labels are all but gone. Things are different. Equipment and software has come way down in price. And it all works and sounds incredibly good. In the right hands. Or the left. Binaural if you like..
Stereo microphone technique is a lot of fun. But few people know how to do that well. As there are numerous different techniques. All are great. All are different. Decca Tree? Really I don't bother with that one. I prefer MS. It's nearly ideal. It's variable after the fact. It's versatile. It's mono compatible. It's not a stupid Decca Tree. Thank you, no.
Suffice it to say. RCA and NBC, hired only the best engineers in the world. And they hired me back in 1981. I worked for them for 20 years. They loved me. I loved them. I did for them what I never thought I would ever do in life. I mean who the hell am I? To be working with our presidents. Our elected officials or dignitaries from other countries? I was just a rock 'n' roll engineer. This wasn't supposed to happen! But it did.
So doing the news coast-to-coast. Did not stop me from pursuing rock 'n' roll. It virtually paid my way. And because I am an, actual Audio Engineer Extraordinaire. Yes I am. I just don't have any hit records. I wasn't involved in such productions. I specialized in Live Broadcasts & Recordings. But the same famous people on the radio. But live. And that was a lot of fun. Oh yeah I know this hit! I'm now engineering it live. It was really cool.
Do your own thing. Don't let anybody tell you what's right and what's wrong. Use all cheap microphones. Do not bother with those studio condenser microphones. They are actually rather superfluous for rock 'n' roll. Sure they are nice on some things. Oh boy drum overheads! I like vocals on SM-58's with a large additional foam pop filter added. It makes an enormous difference. All the difference in the world. You get great vocals that way. It gets lips another 1/4 inch to 2 inches further away. And that will sound much better. Far less over bloated proximity effect.
And then to get truly good vocals. Rolloff all of the low frequencies below 300 Hz. Cut off everything below 300 Hz. Then boost, 3-5 kHz. With a bump up of approximately 6 or so DB. Then crank your high frequency EQ up. A good, 6-10 DB.
But then. You want to plug that into a Dynamic Range Limiter. Not a compressor. And set your limiter to a minimum of 20:. Where, I will frequently set it to 50:1. And making that meter move. Like the windshield wiper on your car. Driving at 70 mph. Through a hurricane in South Florida on letter I-95. That's the way the meter moves on my limiter with a vocalist. Like your windshield wipers on high. Yes.
Then after that crunching. I'll stick that into a Allison Research KEPEX-1. Set the threshold on the breath. Set the downward expansion to about -15. Release to, quick. To track the vocal. And Voilà! Super Fabulous Vocal! You really aren't going to need to do much to on mix down. As I commit while tracking. It just sounds better that way. You are packing more digital bits in, together. At that sounds better. You'll see.
I've been doing this for over five decades. That means over 50 years. I'm no slouch. I am a Top Dog. And this is how you do it. You don't be timid.. You don't act like a scared little girl. That's not engineering. That's acting like a little audio girl being overly timid.
You get different sounds on vocals. By using compressors or limiters. I generally prefer, limiters over compressors. Though both are good. Both are necessary. For those applications and others. I just prefer using the, transistorized, FET, 1176 type limiters. Over that of the, LA-2, LA-3 A, LA-4 & 5 compressor/limiters. Though Bob Clearmountain likes those on vocals really well. But then he also likes the 1176 also. On vocals. You can use both together or independently. But I frequently just use the heavy limiter. That works better for me for Live, broadcast and capture. As that's my specialty.
And so Audio Engineering can be approached differently. In different applications. I like studio productions. But I also find them rather boring and taking too long. I'm not into that. I'm into instant gratification. And I get it. My way. That everybody else also likes.
And so I only make my audio sound fun and exciting. That's my criteria. My technical stuff is built-in and automatic to me. As I know how each piece of equipment works on the inside. But most don't know that. They don't have to know that. I wanted to know that. I wanted to be complete. And I am. More so than most college professors. They've never done what I've done. They've never accomplished what I have accomplished. I've done it all. At the very top. I did good.
You will do good also. When you just follow your ears. Not your eyes.
RemyRAD
God your boring!! Write a flicking book...you just went on on and on
On ‘ You Shook
Me ‘ Jimmy used a Gibson Flying V ‘ that was left in the studio through a Leslie Cabinet’
Superb.
Thank you!
Zep 3 is my favorite!
Parkville, Maryland
On Joppa Road
Perring Place was the Shopping Center’s name.
It was at the end/start of Perring Pkwy on Joppa Road.
Inside Out by Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette (2000) on ECM is a wonderful album…
Very interesting
THE LEMON SONG🤯🤯🤯
Great stuff! Thanks. To me, the amazing thing about Zep II from a production standpoint, is that when you listen to it you'd never guess it was made across so many studios. It has a sonic continuity like it was all done in one place. At least to my ears.
Thank you! Yeah, it’s amazing, I never knew it was recorded like that originally. Just goes to show what the important factors are.
@@mixingmasteringonlinerecording in so many different places was already a very modern thing for the time. It must've been a pain in the ass to do and get a cohesive sound considering it's still difficult nowadays.
Yeah, a real pain lugging those tapes around!
Where a record is recorded and mixed is virtually irrelevant if the same production crew does the final mixes. That is where the sonic stamp is made.
@@artysanmobileFor sure, having the same people do the whole thing definitely helps.
But it's still hard to create perfect cohesion across patchworks like these. It's an art on its own.
I love mixing.
You can call it the " Glynn Johns method " but Page was tired of drums sounding like "...cardboard boxes." referencing guitar magazines I read back in the day.
That miking technique holds true to this day if you have 3 mics, placement, and a decent room with some space.
But the mics they used are are a whole different story.
Many great albums were recorded with only Shure 57's.
Bonham's drum sounds weren't, and Page and Johns had great ears and monitors in the control room for their time with great equipment.
Those 3 placed mics is sometimes all you need.
I've recorded in studios that had multiple mics around the drums that weren't even plugged in, but the drummer or recording artist was really impressed with all of them.
Only 3 were used.😂
Its Living Loving Maid, not Mad. 👍