Recording/Mixing techniques question for Steve: The Doors s/t debut and "Strange Days" differences..

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by wes, Jul 24, 2013.

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  1. wes

    wes Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hillbilly Hollywood, TN
    Hello Steve,

    I was listening to The doors debut album and Strange Days last night....

    Those two records sound so different from each other.... Was Botnick using the same console?....
    The first album has more overload distortion in some places, while Strange Days sounds less distorted and less murky.....

    What make these albums sound so different... Strange Days is more polished and has more "effects"... Perhaps they had more time in the studio... Is that what made the difference?....

    Thanks!!
     
    wes, Jul 24, 2013
    #1
  2. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    HI Wesley. I remember back as a kid thinking the same thing. The second album (that I love dearly) had such a different feel from the first. It was sort of cold and distant. Well, here's the deal.

    The first album was recorded with vacuum tubes, in four track stereo. A long time ago I got to hear the session reels and let me tell you, the raw stuff was a letdown. It didn't sound like "The Doors" first album, it sounded.....well, like unfinished demos. These had drums/organ bass on first channel, Jim on second channel, guitar/organ on third and fourth, open (blank). No reverb, dry as a bone.

    The stuff just laid there. They must have thought so as well because the actual tapes were then overdubbed (bounced onto a second four track machine) and a second layer of vocals, percussion, etc. were added along with a crucial reinforcing bass guitar on some songs. During this second pass (SI, overdub, dupe, whatever you want to call it) some other stuff was added. Mainly, compression and this funky echo/distortion that gave the album it's sound that we all know and love. A full, warm, exploding sound that can't be beat.

    In fact, when I did a remix of the first album (unissued), I was surprised to find all the gooshy goodness to be right on the four track tape. When Bruce Botnick mixed down to stereo and mono he added even more tubes in the form of EQ, and tube echo and tube leveling (compression). This was then (by Elektra) bounced to another tape, called the LEDO which all records were cut from, and everything else, for that matter.

    So, after all that, the first album sounds the way it does for those reasons.

    On to album number two the band was excited that they could use the eight track tape machine for the first time. Bruce Botnick wanted a lean, mean sound for album number two and made an effort to have the album sound different from the first one as possible, sound wise. More solid state sounding, colder, more clinical, the album was mixed in mono and stereo differently. The mono was more in your face, with a better (to me) balance of instruments and voices while the stereo mix was more goofy, spooky, more reverb, less "you are there", more we are somewhere else and you must join us, if you get my drift.

    Make sense?
     
    Steve Hoffman, Jul 24, 2013
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  3. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Steve Hoffman, Jul 24, 2013
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    norman_frappe, IronWaffle and Naughty Chord like this.
  4. Rochdale3

    Rochdale3 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Meridian, ID
    Fascinating stuff and such a quick, detailed response to the question!
     
    Rochdale3, Jul 24, 2013
    #4
  5. wes

    wes Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hillbilly Hollywood, TN

    Wow, very interesting!! So the Bounced 4 track with the added overdubs, and added layer of tube flavor, etc... is where that sound took shape?...
    Was the console tube driven on both albums?....
     
    wes, Jul 24, 2013
    #5
  6. wcarroll

    wcarroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Baton Rouge, LA

    From the article above:

    "One my big things was messing with echo," Botnick recalls. "That Ampex 200 would hold 14-inch reels, and it had been converted to three-track from a quarter-inch mono. Allan Emig had actually got an Ampex head stack and attached it to this machine, and made his own record/playback amplifiers. Those amplifiers were totally separate, they weren't even on the same chassis, and they had different equalisations available. They had NAB, they had the European CCIR, and they had AME, which was Ampex Master Equalization. That was basically a pre-emphasis type of noise-reduction system, where it put in more highs on record and less highs on playback to ostensibly cut down the tape hiss. It was really ahead of its time, a precursor to Dolby in some respects, but I'd use it on that machine as the delay for the echo, because I loved that 167-millisecond delay in the Ampex at 15ips. I would make the record side AME but the playback NAB, so I got this bump in the curve and it really made the echo chamber shine. I always delayed the output in the chamber, not the input, because it sounds different.


    Sounds like Mr. Botnick was not afraid to experiment with the equipment he had to work with. I'm sure that some of the stuffy engineers at some of the other recording companies would have frowned upon this "improper use" of the gear!
     
    wcarroll, Jul 24, 2013
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  7. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    You can hear all that on the drum/organ bass channel on LIGHT MY FIRE. Listen to the drums during the organ, guitar solos. Amazing cacophony of swirling over-the-top distortion, echo, delay, etc. sound added during the bounce.
     
    Steve Hoffman, Jul 24, 2013
    #7
  8. Togo

    Togo Same as it ever was

    Location:
    London UK
    Fantastic insight - thanks Steve. Come on Baby Light My Swirl....;)
     
    Togo, Jul 24, 2013
    #8
  9. wes

    wes Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hillbilly Hollywood, TN
    wes, Jul 24, 2013
    #9
  10. wes

    wes Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hillbilly Hollywood, TN

    It is a cool sound... Completely night and day difference from Strange Days and all their other albums...
    LA Woman has some distortion as Well, I heard that they used a UA 610 console for the LA Woman LP... Recorded and mixed?...
     
    wes, Jul 24, 2013
    #10
  11. wes

    wes Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hillbilly Hollywood, TN
    Thank you Steve,

    I'm getting something new out of this with each read...(Me and my ADD riddled head)

    So, there were two phases of reverb... Reverb in the bounced 4 track, and additional reverb in the mixdown to Mono and Stereo mixes..

    It was the first phase of reverb(4 track bounce) that gave us that special drum and organ bass sound yes?....

    In the mixdown to mono and stereo, was that when the vocals, and guitar/organ went to the chamber for some verbage?....
     
    wes, Jul 24, 2013
    #11
  12. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Yes, the special stuff was on the bounce to the second four-track tape, it's printed right on there. All chamber was printed to the four track. No reverb was added during mixing, as far as I can tell, oh, except Jim's "BEFORE YOU" line at the intro to CRYSTAL SHIP. the "SLIP INTO..." part is wet on the four-track the "BEFORE YOU..." is dry as a bone. Must have been added later as an afterthought..
     
    Steve Hoffman, Aug 4, 2013
    #12
  13. Voynich

    Voynich Forum Resident

    Location:
    Alboran Sea
    Steve, maybe you know the answer to this question regarding the making of The Doors records:
    How did Bruce Botnick get that "shadow crowd" vocal effect behind the lead vocal on "Riders On the Storm"? I've always loved the sound of that.
     
    Voynich, Aug 4, 2013
    #13
  14. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    You mean the whispering? By whispering.
     
    Steve Hoffman, Aug 4, 2013
    #14
  15. Voynich

    Voynich Forum Resident

    Location:
    Alboran Sea
    Not the whispering. It sounds as is there are people yelling in the distance behind Jim's lead vocal...like a shadow, for lack of a better description.
     
    Voynich, Aug 4, 2013
    #15
  16. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Don't make me play it!
     
    Steve Hoffman, Aug 4, 2013
    #16
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  17. Voynich

    Voynich Forum Resident

    Location:
    Alboran Sea
    Sorry......just curious.

    regards,
     
    Voynich, Aug 4, 2013
    #17
  18. Voynich

    Voynich Forum Resident

    Location:
    Alboran Sea
    I found this bit of info in an article on the Mix website:

    from Classic Tracks:
    Another brilliant finishing touch on the song has been claimed by both Botnick and Densmore, “so we take credit for it together now,” Botnick says with a laugh. This was doubling Morrison's sung lead vocal with a spoken-whisper track underneath, done at Poppy during the mix sessions. “It adds this mystery to the song,” Botnick says, “and then you put the rain and the thunder with it, and all of a sudden, this ‘cocktail jazz’ song became something else altogether.”

    To my ears it sounds like a bit more than just whispering. In fact, near the very end of the song, he's yelling if you listen closely. Anyway...case closed. Thanks for your input, Steve.
     
    Voynich, Aug 4, 2013
    #18
  19. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    You're welcome.
     
    Steve Hoffman, Aug 4, 2013
    #19
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