That Early Shadows Sound

[almano]

From reading an interview with Hank by “Ultimate Guitar” in 2007 (I’ve only just found it!) I wonder if that elusive sound of Hank’s Strat in say “The Savage” or “Man of Mystery” etc, which we are all striving for is in a large part down to the recording methods Hank insisted on at that time – and of course the desk, monitor amps (Leaks so I’ve read) and monitor speakers (Tannoy GRF’s or similar) in use in those days?

Hank states in the interview that he would only use his amp “miked up” – he refused to use direct injection into the desk as he wanted the sound of the air around the amp to contribute to the sound on the record.

Now I thought it could therefore prove to be rather interesting, considering what Hank said, to compare the sound Hank produced on the Final Tour DVD, when he played some of those early numbers, to the sounds from the original recordings themselves (yes I do have the original 45’s and LPs!). So I set up my own comparison test with the original 45’s – CD’s and the Final Tour DVD to find out.

I used a Garrard 401 deck with a Linn arm and Linn cartridge and stand alone M/C preamp for the 45’s. For the CD’s I used the latest Cambridge Azur 640 series deck for that job; and for the Final Tour DVD a Sony BDP-S550 Blu Ray for that task. They were all then plugged into an Azur 840A V2 high power Hi Fi amp which fed a pair of B & W 801 speakers - the same speakers as the ones Abbey Road studios used for monitoring classical recordings a few years ago.

With this gear all set up and, sort of cued up together, I was able to run a comparison test – especially (and most importantly) bearing in mind Hank’s own statement about those early day’s recording techniques.

My personal impressions from that comparison test were that, the Final Tour sound compared to the early recordings was much smoother to quite a degree. It definitely smacks of a level of direct injection of Hank’s guitar somewhere along the line/mix these days – a rawness of flapping speaker cones and cabinet rattles doesn’t seem to exist on the Final Tour sounds, they are in a way “too clean!” Alright, the Hank sounds and playing are perfection on the Final Tour and Last Reunion DVDs – but they don’t seem to have that raw edge anymore.

Could it be that the peculiar parameters of those early day’s recording techniques hold the key to the sound we strive for? If it is, could a computer “modelling” software program be cobbled together by some enterprising manufacturer to achieve this goal for us? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a small “Early Hank” pedal we could “kick” that’d instantly change our amp sound to Hank’s “non d-i’d” ‘59/60 recording set up?

But, don’t take my own estimated conclusions as a possible answer for why the sound is so difficult to achieve – do read Hank’s interview for yourself and make up your own mind. Here’s a link to that interview: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/interviews/hank_marvin_everyone_has_to_move_on.html

I hope you find it interesting, I certainly did!

Cheers,

Alan.

[Tab]

How to achieve 'That Sound' has been the subject of many a long thread on this site and its previous carnations.

The experts in nailing 'That Sound' are; The TVS Guys - visit the TVS3 website
Phil Kelly - checkout Youtube
Colin Pryce-Jones - go to a Rapiers concert
Ge-Ge from France - can also be found on Youtube

[roger bayliss]

Anybody think it was his thumb that did it in the early days ! some people say it's in his fingers but surely it's his thumb

No doubt the mic's and mic preamps also added presence and air and gusto to the recordings which you cannot acheive with direct recording methods and the preamps tend to colour the sound as does lots of other stuff like fairchild compressors, EQ mic placement etc... and of course the strat and the right Vox amp and delay unit and correct PU settings and so on and good old Abbey Road reverb. None of Hank's later recordings sound like the Abbey Road recordings so maybe that was a big part of it.. I think so but some of it was in his erm thumb

[ecca]

[RayL]

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

For those recordings made in the early sixties, the process of getting from the vibration of Hank's guitar strings to a vinyl disc can be divided into three sections:

a) What happens on the studio floor (physical movement of metal wire in magnetic field produces varying electrical current which is increased in size until it will move a metal wire in a magnetic field connected to a paper cone in a wooden box. The movement of the cone in air then causes movement of a small plastic diaphragm wound with wire in a magnetic filed which produces an electric current.)

b) What is done in the control room to put the recording on tape. (The electric current is amplified and modified before being converted into varying magnetic flux on a narrow strip of plastic which is coated with a ferrous material which retains that flux).

c) what is done to the tape recording to convert it into a modulated groove on a plastic disc. (the varying magnetic flux is converted to an electrical signal and modified (using RIAA curve) to make it suitable for disc recording. It is then converted into physical movement of a stylus using metal wire moving in a magnetic field. The heated stylus ploughs it's way through a blank nitro-cellulose laquer disc to make the 'master' recording. The master is then coated with conductive dust so that a nickel surface can be electroplated on to it. This metal master is then used to make a reverse plastic disc ('mother') and the mother is itself coated and electroplated so that it can make further plastic discs which are themselves coated and used to make 'stampers' . It is the stampers which press a blob of vinyl into the disc that you buy in the shop and put on your record-player).

All of the above is simply to demonstrate that the process of making a vinyl disk is long and complicated, and there are a lot of conversions from one type of energy to another and from one physical medium to another. Note just how many of those conversions go on after the studio control room - section c) shows just how often that movement of Hank's guitar string has to be somehow retained while going through a whole series of physical transformations.

So before a comparison is made between a 50-year-old vinyl disc and a 5-year-old DVD (pretty meaningless I would have thought since every single item in the chain, including Hank's fingers, is physically different), the comparison I'd like to hear is between the 50-year-old vinyl disc and the original tape recording that was made in the Abbey Road control room at that time. Then we'd find out how much of that 'early Hank' sound is down to "rawness of flapping speaker cones and cabinet rattles" and how is much down to being converted into a cheap plastic disc with an inevitable proportion of recycled vinyl.

Ray

[Didier]

My personal impressions from that comparison test were that, the Final Tour sound compared to the early recordings was much smoother to quite a degree. It definitely smacks of a level of direct injection of Hank’s guitar somewhere along the line/mix these days – a rawness of flapping speaker cones and cabinet rattles doesn’t seem to exist on the Final Tour sounds, they are in a way “too clean!” Alright, the Hank sounds and playing are perfection on the Final Tour and Last Reunion DVDs – but they don’t seem to have that raw edge anymore.

On early recordings, the "raw edge" mainly came from the Meazzi echo box, which was everything but linear and brought a very specific sound.

Could it be that the peculiar parameters of those early day’s recording techniques hold the key to the sound we strive for? If it is, could a computer “modelling” software program be cobbled together by some enterprising manufacturer to achieve this goal for us? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a small “Early Hank” pedal we could “kick” that’d instantly change our amp sound to Hank’s “non d-i’d” ‘59/60 recording set up?

With the help of Gégé, Patrice Bastien designed in 2000 a special unit (the PB Box) to emulate this Meazzi sound when associated with a modern digital echo unit. The PB Box has been improved in 2004 with the addition of a ECC83 valve for a closer Meazzi sound emulation.
The more recent TVS1 designed in Australia by Paul Rossiter is aimed at the same goal. The TSV3 integrates an analalog echo unit and has settings memorisation.

Gégé now uses various units to achieve this goal :


A few people, such as Christian (Springer16900 on our French forum), are now using VST programs on PC to do that with excellent results.

Didier

[Picker]

Let us not forget that those early recodings around Apache time 1960 nearly everything at Abbey Road was recorded on Ferrograph reel to reel valve recoding
equipment, which might have had an influence in the overall sound. And I am led to belive that all the top artists at that time wanted to record in Studio 2.
I wonder why ? ?
Rob

[Didier]

Let us not forget that those early recodings around Apache time 1960 nearly everything at Abbey Road was recorded on Ferrograph reel to reel valve recording equipment,

As far as I know, at this time, EMI didn't use Ferrograph tape recorders, they used their own in-house designed EMI recorders, which were among the best studio recorders then available.
But the studio 2 acoustics and the famous "echo chamber" certainly contributed to "that sound".

Didier

[Picker]

Let us not forget that those early recodings around Apache time 1960 nearly everything at Abbey Road was recorded on Ferrograph reel to reel valve recording equipment,

As far as I know, at this time, EMI didn't use Ferrograph tape recorders, they used their own in-house designed EMI recorders, which were among the best studio recorders then available.
But the studio 2 acoustics and the famous "echo chamber" certainly contributed to "that sound".

Didier

Hello Didier,
EMI was the record company and not a recording studio and Abbey Road studios in North London were completely seperate The BBC and Abbey Road used Ferrograph Tape recorders as they were the best availiable at that time, due to the most of them being mono they used two together to get a sort of stereo until they went on to use Revox recorders which were stereo.
If I knew how I would upload a photograph of John Lennon sat in front of two Ferrograph machines playing piano and recording, I also have one of
wout steenhuis playing guitar doing the same.
The Beatles recorded at Abbey Road, but their record company was Parlaphone, In the early days I was refering to the Shadows and Cliff recorded with
Columbia (The Columbia Gramaphone Company) but made their recordings at Studio 2 Abbey Road.
Regards
Rob

[RayL]

Rob

I hope you've got a tin helmet handy because I think you're going to need it. You will get other contradictions to your assertions but here are a few.

The Ferrograph was a good semi-professional portable tape recorder but it was certainly not used as the main recorder in professional recording studios in the early 1960s. In fact I'm not at all sure that it was even manufactured until later in the 1960s. The idea of using two separate recorders for stereo is frankly ludicrous (how do you synchronise them, for example?). If you've ever tried moving that clunky, noisy, rotary switch that the Ferrograph used for tape transport functions you'll know why it would have been impractical in a professional studio.

The Revox was, like the Ferrograph, a semi-professional portable, although its manufacturer Willi Studer later produced the Studer range of professional recorders (though these were rarely seen in the UK in the 1960s due to cost and import duty).

EMI at that time was involved both in the manufacture of electronic equipment and in the production of recorded music. They owned the Abbey Road studios and ran three main record labels - Columbia, HMV and Parlophone.

In the 1950s EMI manufactured the BTR1, a large, floor standing, professional tape recorder. As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s this was upgraded to the BTR2, also large and floor-standing. Built like a writing desk, it had the tape spools flat on the top (below a transparent lid), the controls on a sloping panel and its record and replay amplifiers in the lower cupboard .These could be racked out for lineup or maintenance. The BTR2 remained the UK studio standard for quite a few years. The BBC used them (I can state this positively since I worked at the BBC from 1963), as did independent studios such as IBC in Portland Place. The BBC did not use Ferrographs for their studios.

Ray