Studio Recording Techniques Through the Years - Photos Please!

not the best video, probably staged, but a look into Festival recording
in Australia with JOK, other than the annoying woman, some quick peaks
at the console and recorders:

 

- Ampex 300 mono machine to the left of the desk.
- Ampex 300-4 4-track machine with 351 electronics and Sel-Sync in the rack behind the engineer.
- Unknown tape machine to the left of the 300-4, with what appears to be 5" reels.
- Neumann U67 vocal mic.
- Neumann U47 mic above 4 feet in front of O'Keefe.

 

Bobby Darin recording "Weeping Willow" February 4, 1966 at United Recording in Las Vegas:



The session is from 1:19 to 3:36.

 

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That was the best photo...."period!"

 

It seems that, according to the studio booking information, the August 16th session was held in Studio B, while the July sessions were all in Studio A. That, along with the double bass in one of the photos, strongly suggests those photos are of the Feelin' Groovy session. I have to wonder if "Date Created/Published: 1966 Aug. 8 (date added to Look's library)" is a typo, and they were actually catalogued on August 18th.

 

I wonder if Bill Porter is engineering this Bobby Darin session? I know Porter left RCA Nashville in late '63, then had another Nashville studio for another year or two before working at United in Las Vegas. What makes me think of this is that Porter mixed separate live horn overdub to mono and stereo for Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" there in 1969, and thought maybe he did the Darin session as well. Does anyone know?

 

Alan did DSOTM on that desk.

 

This.. must be one of the greatest threads!

 

Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil at the Record Plant, Studio B - 1972
(provided by Steve Remote)

 

It's always funny to see people smoking and drinking stuff around sensitive, expensive electronics and mics!

 

Modern One mic recording

 

This one is very good as well, maybe even better;

 

"Hold your group together...
...with RotoSound Strings!"

 

I know this post is from a while ago but can anyone help me out with the source of these images? Might want to license them for use in a documentary.

 

I worked at Sigma Sound NYC a couple of years after this.
Left to right, Jellybean Benitez, Madonna, Jay Mark, not sure of the fellow far right. Maybe an assistant engineer or other SS staffer?
The Control room they're in suffered an accident in the eraly'80's. Water pipe burst over a Holiday weekend. It was restored after insurance paid out about 1984 or 1985, so this photo is earlier. It had an SSL board installed when I started.
I suggest you join the Sigma Sound Facebook page and ask about the photos there.
Good luck!

 

Count the XLRs:


Producer Ray Minshull (seated centre) with Herbert von Karajan, Luciano Pavarotti, Mirella Freni, Elizabeth Harwood and Nicolai Ghiaurov at recording sessions for Puccini's "La Bohème" (1972)

 

Amazing! I take it it's from 1962 when the single was released?

 

The funny (peculiar) thing was, when Benny Hill impersonated Dylan on one of his 1978 shows to sing one of his own songs, Hill as Dylan was playing bass:

Looked like a Fender there . . .

Speaking of which, did the kind of setup as pictured on one of Hill's EP covers exist at Pye studios?

 

Wow!!!! What a great photo it is!
Is it Gordon Parry who has elbow on the wall? And who are the Decca crews?

 

A couple of Easybeats pictures from 1965

 

I worked at Sigma/NYC in '79/'80. That track sheet is pretty familiar. On the lower left, you'll see reference to "Doc", Jim Dougherty who had worked with Reggie Lucas for a long time, through most of the Mtume/Lucas productions. Don't know who the assistant "LR" would be. The original tracks were recorded in Studio 7 in '83, long after I had left. The photo looks like it was taken when Lucas and Madonna has parted ways and Jellybean was re-mixing several of the tracks. Interesting, in '79 a couple of things had happened: (1) Sigma had been lent (for testing purposes) 3M's new digital system, and (2) many engineers at Sigma/NYC had stopped using Dolby or dbx noise reduction in favor of "+6" levels (@30 ips) which yielded better top end. Most engineers there seemed to prefer +6 analog to that digital system when the budget would support spending that much on tape.