MEAZZI Emulation

[phil kelly]

Hi Dave,
I am not a Shads historian by any means but i know what i hear and the first Meazzi is without doubt on those tracks you stated it wasnt on, Hank got it in 59 like the strat , before those tracks were recorded, surely you can hear it to ?
Regards,
Phil.

[ecca]

Why is it being said that the Meazzi was on, for example, Dynamite ?
I've listened with a 6 foot ear'ole to it and other early ones and I'm buggered if I can hear anything other than reverb.
There are damped notes aplenty that would reveal echo .

[phil kelly]

My apologies Dave , mean woman and dynamite as you state no echo, after listening to the originals , still stand by Gee Whiz, nine times etc, just had a listen to please dont tease, appears just to be reverb, although it has that slight barky tonality in the solo, could it be a very moderate , fast echo ? i know Bruce said once Hank had the echo box he couldnt put it down, so who knows,
Regards,
Phil.

[dave robinson]

No need for apologies Phil, it's doing my head in too.
I only made those assumptions from what evidence is available i.e. the recording dates and Bruce's statement about when Hank first recorded with the Meazzi, apparantly on the Apache session.
Because of what you said in your last post, it's clear to me that you can hear the sound on those tracks, which is all I was hoping for, thanks. Now I know it's not just me that can hear it.

[roger bayliss]

Having heard Justins Meazzi and the pleasure of playing through it I would concur it does add to 'That Sound' and it does sound better than my Magicstomp which of course is digital in nature. This gives a great live sound which is very pleasing and obviously correct.

However the recorded sound is much different and that simply implies that after recording with the right gear the studio bought the magic out later and for me that comes down to the desks the mics the various compression / EQ / presence and so on.

I am thinking more and more now that fully Parametric EQ is the next important thing.

I note that Getab who is noted for recording some very good 'That Sound' files on UTube etc uses anything but a Meazzi but he does use a variety of other units to get there and I believe one of these is the Behringher Ultra Curve Pro DEC 2496 Mastering processor (about £240) which features a variety of EQ and compression tools. I think this sort of EQ its part of the process to That Sound and they had it on the Abbey Road desks. I certainly intend to get one of these EQ units and try it out at some point.

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/DEQ2496.aspx

[Twangaway]

Having heard Justins Meazzi and the pleasure of playing through it I would concur it does add to 'That Sound' and it does sound better than my Magicstomp which of course is digital in nature. This gives a great live sound which is very pleasing and obviously correct.

However the recorded sound is much different and that simply implies that after recording with the right gear the studio bought the magic out later and for me that comes down to the desks the mics the various compression / EQ / presence and so on.

I am thinking more and more now that fully Parametric EQ is the next important thing.

I note that Getab who is noted for recording some very good 'That Sound' files on UTube etc uses anything but a Meazzi but he does use a variety of other units to get there and I believe one of these is the Behringher Ultra Curve Pro DEC 2496 Mastering processor (about £240) which features a variety of EQ and compression tools. I think this sort of EQ its part of the process to That Sound and they had it on the Abbey Road desks. I certainly intend to get one of these EQ units and try it out at some point.

The question is Roger , if they had Parametric Equalisers back then ? I think they didn't so who knows for sure. What about the EMI Abbey Street Plugins, would that tell us for sure ?

Could be a waste of your pension money

Twangaway

[dave robinson]

Roger, according to the Shadows recording engineer Malcolm Addey, the only EQ on the Abbey Road desk was a 5k treble boost and a 100hz bass boost. Apparantly, the skill is in the choice of microphones and placement.

[roger bayliss]

They did have these type of EQ back on the EMI REDD desks then as mentioned by Malcolm Addey himself. I believe they included two mid range Para EQ for upper and lower mids and two shelving filters for bass and treble but cannot recall from memory whether there was para EQ on the treble and bass side as well. EMI engineers also built some special 'presence Boxess' to enhance the very high frequences as well and then there was the famous Fairchild Compressor and the mic preamps and the microphones and so on and so on all valve based of course.

The EQ must have played an important part in shaping the overall sound.

Dave I have checked up on what Malcolm Addey says and You are correct that there were only two controls on desk of the 'peaking type which would mean parametric he is what he said

While Studio One catered almost exclusively to orchestral recordings and Studio Three had been designed specifically for chamber music, Studio Two was the facility's pop domain. The upstairs control room housed an EMI RS1 mono desk with two-band, Pultec-type peaking EQ on each of its eight inputs — as opposed to the classically oriented shelving EQ that was to be found in the other studios — at 5kHz and 100Hz. There was also an echo send for all of the inputs, echo return, a peak level meter and a single main gain control

It is well know that several add on EQ boxes were made by EMI technicians though to supplement the inadequate EQ on the desk and that may be what I read somewhere else so that probably why I misquoted. My mistake

[roger bayliss]

Done a further bit of digging and it would seem that EMI engineers had a break out EQ box called the RS56 Curvebender as early as 1951 onwards which was revamped throughout the 1960's and 1970's as new studio desks and equipment came along. They frequently used EQ break out boxes to supplement the desk EQ because the desk EQ was not enough in itself although the Pultech added some real warth to the recodring even when bypassed. The Pultect appears to have been capable of doing both gain and cut on a frequency at once which was unique in itself and the high frequency section seems to have had a parametric type of arrangement with switchable frequencies and the the bass control also switchable with about 4 frequencies on the bass freq.

Other break out EQ boxes deployed were the RS127 brilliance control provided gain / boost on freq 2.7/3.5 and 10khz and the RS135 presence box at 8khz

So it would seem that parametric EQ was available and used in those early days and some of these recording techniques are apparently in the book Recording The Beatles.

Add the Fairchild compressor and those wonderful valve mics with their special mic pre amps and transformers and that is what adds to the sound that comes out of our amps to make a sound we could never acheive in a live situation methinks.

I think parametric EQ is part of the deal on That Sound and have been ponderingthis for a while now.

[Twangaway]

I think the threads have deviated from the Meazzi into old territory on same controversial topic " that sound ". I thought we were praising the Meazzi and its distinguishable repeat echoes and warmth of tone from it's circuitry. Seems like the Transistor ones are equally praised when the last chain in the link is a valve AC30 style amp. To some of us " that sound " is associated with the unique meazzi tripping echoes that Charlie did so well to nail in his EFTP project a few years back. Now of course the info is published and widely known in technical terms and many others following in Charlies footsteps and more and more digital products have emerged with programming capability. So when we talk about the Meazzi , we must surely be thinking Apache, WFL and Peace Pipe, Kon-Tiki as our grasp of the sound we love as distinct from the tone element of that sound the cause of many arguments. So to summarise I feel we have these elements or ingredients. Echo repeat pattern type, Tone whether EQ or Compression tweaks, the guitar itself and wood body influence, maple neck wood influence, scattered inimitable pickup windings on that Strat used.The type of strings used, roundwound or tape, the gauge of string, the plectrum used and thickness and point sharper radius or blunt type. The capacitors within the guitar wiring, the amp used, the valve types, the amp tone circuit, the top boost circuit, the sweat and grubbiness of daily playing ( LOL ) and finally the magic fingers of no less than one very very unique Hank. B . Marvin and his vision of how a tune should be played. I truly believe that he is one of the rare gifted musicians who has a distinct musical signature that simply cannot be imitated. Other musicians such as Herb Alpert, Jimi Hendrix, famous horn players etc , yes even Russ Conway are all part of that special brotherhood that inspires us to take up playing from an early age.

So we are chasing a pathetic dream and should simply admire the cash pockets that each member indulges in when buying kit that makes for comfort and suits them. I have seen guys playing Shadows stuff on non Strats and all sorts of amps and they enjoy what they do, so what if it's not like the record. It's a passion, their passion and to be fair we are all in same boat and like loose women sharing naughty stories or tips on makeup and padding in bras etc ( sorry Amanda and other ladies, am not sexist really ) but am sure you can laugh at the sentiment I am describing, and sometimes like adolescents in a school yard showing off our new toys, not having a dig Justin, I promise.

I enjoyed this post of Amandas very much.

Twangaway