Re: Higher End Studio Gear Can Make a Song

ernstinen · Post by **ernstinen** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 3:30 am

Quote:I started out with a Teac Simul-Sync 4 Track. Big fun back then.Wheee! I had one, and the drummer in my band had one. We bounced tracks like on Sgt. Pepper, albeit with 1/4" tape. Ern

ernstinen · Post by **ernstinen** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 3:43 am

Quote:Interesting. Then you take away the arrangement, performance, and production, then what Rolling Stones song is great?? Well, "Wild Horses" comes to mind. I'm not a HUGE Stones fan, but I'm sure there are lots of songs that hold up as songs. How about "Angie?" "Ruby Tuesday?" "Honky Tonk Women?" "Brown Sugar?" If you could imagine another artist covering a song of theirs, it's a good song IMHO.I heard "Sympathy For The Devil" the other day. It's a brilliant lyric, and I don't think of "lyrics" when I think of Mick Jagger!Ernie Stones P.S. Hey, I'm at 1,500 posts. Gotta get a life.

edteja · Post by **edteja** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 3:48 am

Quote:Quote:I started out with a Teac Simul-Sync 4 Track. Big fun back then.Wheee! I had one, and the drummer in my band had one. We bounced tracks like on Sgt. Pepper, albeit with 1/4" tape. Ern My first studio in the 70s was based around a SONY 350 and then we upgraded to a Dokorder 4-track. Enven with the SONY we did sound on sound until overwhelmed by noise. What great fun!

bc · Post by bc » Fri Mar 23, 2007 4:17 am

After lurking on this thread, I got the urge to dig up some old gear/tracks. Here's an old Teac Porta Studio 2mix (mucho bounces) I imported into PT and re cut the vocal. Not a great track but it was fun to revisit an ancient 2mix. I'm waxing nostalgic, but not enough to return to those days! http://paintriver.com/godspeed_032207.mp3I'll bet some of you guys have some old tape bounces that would be fun to hear. best,bc

Casey H · Post by **Casey H** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 7:00 am

Quote:Quote:Interesting. Then you take away the arrangement, performance, and production, then what Rolling Stones song is great?? Well, "Wild Horses" comes to mind. I'm not a HUGE Stones fan, but I'm sure there are lots of songs that hold up as songs. How about "Angie?" "Ruby Tuesday?" "Honky Tonk Women?" "Brown Sugar?" If you could imagine another artist covering a song of theirs, it's a good song IMHO.I heard "Sympathy For The Devil" the other day. It's a brilliant lyric, and I don't think of "lyrics" when I think of Mick Jagger!Ernie Stones P.S. Hey, I'm at 1,500 posts. Gotta get a life. Yes, the Stones wrote some good SONGS such as Wild Horses... But I think they have a lot of tracks (tracks that I love!) that are much more about the performance than the songwriting. I did say earlier that I thought the lyrics to Sympathy for the Devil were great. But so much of that track is the "oooh oooh" backing vocal, Jagger's vocal, the percussion, and those evil guitar licks by Keith. Now it's hard to say what is part of the songwriting itself. Is the Brown Sugar guitar riff part of the songwriting or the arrangement? That riff has a lot to do with making it a great track... And the sax solo against the riff... wow! I love what it says inside the album cover of "Let it Bleed"... "This record should be played LOUD!" Casey

ernstinen · Post by **ernstinen** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 10:32 am

Quote:I'll bet some of you guys have some old tape bounces that would be fun to hear.I think that would be a great idea! I've got some OLD Teac 4-track stuff that I'll upload to Broadjam in a few days.BTW, that song sounds pretty amazing, bc, for an old track!Ern

bc · Post by bc » Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:08 am

Thanks Ern. I sequenced the do-do out of it on a Korg 01W- dumped that to the Porta Studio and added some acoustic and Les Paul, while always bouncing back to a stereo mix. Those four track bounces really forced one to play and record with a dedicated sense of ensemble. bc

ernstinen · Post by **ernstinen** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:40 am

Quote:But I think they have a lot of tracks (tracks that I love!) that are much more about the performance than the songwriting.Casey, I agree with you --- performance and LICKS! Richards is a genius with that. --- It took me awhile to come up with a few "songs."BTW, I saw the Stones here in L.A. in the Coliseum awhile ago. I didn't know what to expect. Man, was I blown away. I couldn't believe it. The funkiest white band on the planet. I never knew what a GREAT guitarist Richards is. And Jagger must be a marathon runner.But --- WHY can't/doesn't Charlie Watts hit his hi hat when he hits his snare!? It's very bizarre. Never seen another drummer do that. Ern

kouly · Post by **kouly** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:57 pm

Quote:Quote:I tend to agree with PREZ (though I'm no fan of his tone) that it's more about song quality than gear quality. Production quality matters as well, but high production values can be achieved with poor or mediocore gear, and great gear can yield crappy production...it all depends who's in the driver's seat.Andre Give us an example of high production values with poor gear?http://www.studioreviews.com/motown5901 ... g.htmSince you asked for it. Better late then never. I have been AWOL and am getting caught up on the postings. Although I agree that the song this thread is referring to is well recorded and it does bring back memories though I am not sure if getting carsick is the kind of memory a song should invoke. I agree with Prez up to the point of it being like a Pink Floyd song. It has few things in common with Floyd, maybe a male vocal and they both used electricity to power the equipment. Other than that nada. The style may be similar but the quality of the songwriting is not even close. Ultimately it is the song itself that makes the song and of course this is going to be subjective. IMO the producer and engineer come in a very close second and third. That is why pop songs try to appeal to the largest audience possible. IMHO this song is just a well recorded, well produced, well arranged, piece of polished junk. For me it is about the music, which means the song itself. Not the fancy packaging. The song I linked to has no special effects, no boutique equipment, recorded with nothing but SM57s and not even mastered but I can listen to it repeatedly because the song has substance. I have put on my flame retardant suit so have at it. K

grandmatarkin · Post by **grandmatarkin** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:15 pm

I don't think "On the Nash" was a bad song at all. There is no doubt that the production helped, but there was definately something there to begin with. Musically speaking, I don't see how "Head Over Heels" trumps the other song in substance. This may need to be explained to me Dave