Mic'ing the first record

[YMI5150?]

is there a thread started for details on micing to get first record results? its a huge player in the game.

wasnt each cabinet mic'd in two positions and blended on the board? one on center, one off center mic. then a second cab in the sound chamber with a condenser mic in the center of the room for the right channel?

i have a cab in each corner of the front of my room and the right side runs through a Hardwire reverb pedal (phenominal for sunset verb!). I am leaning toward micing that right cab instead of adding reverb via software. it sounds incredible live. I'm scratching my head as to the best way to get what i hear live on the recording.

[Sparky4444]

First things first, you will NOT get the sound accurate with only 57's and celestions -- that is a completely wrong...If you have the right software, take the beginning riff of Mean Streets (not the tapping part, but the riff), and do a real-time audio freq analysis...There is NO WAY in hell that a 57 will give you that frequency response alone on any celestion -- I tried it and it's impossible, talking about the low-end in particular that is noticeable as well as the general openess of the sound...there is definately a full range mic in there somewhere, and my guess it is either a room mic or something being piped into the chamber that is coming from a full range mic track...You can actually hear a hi-hat or cymbal of some sort on the actual track in the intro -- if it was all 57, you'd never hear that,...even in the chamber reamped from a 57/celestion source you'll never get it because once the track is cut from a 57 into a celestion, you'll always have that drop-off from 100Hz down and the clipping off of the high's, 12K and up

..back to VH1...pictures of them in the studio show two mics being used...1-57 pretty much dead-on, but not sure which speaker...1-57 is dead on where the rim meets the paper (almost to the front cab baffle itself), again not sure which speaker this is...apparantly JBL D120's were being used in the mix...a 57 on a JBL D120 will give you more full range content than a 57 on a celestion...conversely, putting a full-range mic on a celestion will kinda give you the same effect...it's this combination somehow that gives you the aggregate overall thick and bitey tone...

...pictures from VH1 in the studio show differences where these mics were positioned wrt with cabs...can't see into the cab's but obviously the choice of cab/speakers was coming into play...

[motrock]

The first album did use one of the big RCA mics. I think they have a new version of it out by another brand. Its like $3000. Pretty awesome mic! Plus the SM57!

[dirtycooter]

I am not a believer of the jbl thing. Do a comparison of the mic dead straight center on a greenback-its really bright. Then yoi got about 6 more inches of fabulous flavors movin from there out to the outside edge. Easily creates that sample track that was put up here sayin jbl/green, and you can get that off of one greenback. That center just sizzles the same way into a 57.

[YMI5150?]

do you have pics of them in the studio during the first record? the famous shots are the second record.

Eric, Mike and I got pretty decent results with one mic just off center during out summit.

[Sparky4444]

I am not a believer of the jbl thing. Do a comparison of the mic dead straight center on a greenback-its really bright. Then yoi got about 6 more inches of fabulous flavors movin from there out to the outside edge. Easily creates that sample track that was put up here sayin jbl/green, and you can get that off of one greenback. That center just sizzles the same way into a 57.

.I agree with you the JBL's were probably not used for the focused main sound, but perhaps somewhere in the chain for the reverb/delays...this would add to the "big-ness" of the sound that a 57 on a celestion will NOT give you even though it's still ambience...either way, a 57/celestion alone will NOT get you there..no way, no how...it may still sound good and be close enough, but it won't sound like the tracks on the records...The 80Hz's and below, as well as the 12K and up are minor in terms of SPL, but they are critical in making up the overall sound that was captured to tape...

do you have pics of them in the studio during the first record? the famous shots are the second record

...you're right..I just learned this that the pics are from VHII...interesting...do you think they would have changed the mic'ing technique that much?? I would guess no seeing as it was all recorded in a big room just the like VH1...

[cary chilton]

If you listen to Angus' Tone on Back N Black, his old Marshall was tracked with a 6000 dollar U67 in a medium sized room. That is a very accurate 12 series Celestion sound, no questio. Ed's would have had many mics on his shit. I am guesing a sm57 and Senn421 maybe a Senn 441, too. Ed loves Senn mics. Large Condenser mic would been used in the live room in x-y or spaced pairs config, not on a cab, the bleed would have been a comb filter grilled cheez sandwhich nightmare! Celestions would get the high sheen evev 1147 slammin compressor and EMT-140 plate, they do add a lot of highs and silk, butI think Friedman is right, Reamping or patching the signal thru a JBL D120f qwould have been preferable to boosting the highs on the board another 12dB withte same kind of board. A unique sound source, mixed in to tast would have been best.

The Senn is your hype the bass and highs and mid-scoop, and VH1 is totally mid scooped, blisterimg highs and attenuated lows.
Keep in mind using mic in which will be used for a specific purpose like mid scooping etc can help sculpt the sound with even less eq moves and sound much more pristine sound since it is an origimal source, blendod, not a track stretched to fill many requorwmebta

[motrock]

I am not a believer of the jbl thing. Do a comparison of the mic dead straight center on a greenback-its really bright. Then yoi got about 6 more inches of fabulous flavors movin from there out to the outside edge. Easily creates that sample track that was put up here sayin jbl/green, and you can get that off of one greenback. That center just sizzles the same way into a 57.

If Dave Friedman says its JBL.. its going to be true. Gotta trust that guy! Everything he's told me has proven to be true time and time again. 1000% JBL!

[Sparky4444]

I say we all pitch in $100 and pay Landee to give it all up ..I'm serious, if we could raise a few thousand bucks, do you think we could buy the info?? ... I think for VH1, Landee and Templeman did what they did, however they needed to do it, and the boy's pretty much just setup and play...I seriously doubt Eddie had a choice on which mics went on the amp with VH1 ....it is really chasing down ghosts...

..having said that, probably the closest you'd get is mixing the 57 and a LDC on a greenie, and blending the right amounts of each for your dry signal and that which gets sent to a nice Lexicon reverb -- probably more of the cleaner hi-fi LDC gets sent to the verbs ...back then, they were supposedly using a heavily modified API console at Sunset, plus LA2A's/1176's, Pultec tube eq's, choice Neumann mics -- and all onto tape...holy crap!

[bmf5150]

Has anyone ever contacted don and just asked??the guy may tell u

[MrBeasty]

Don landee was NOT the only engineer on the VH records. He was the Head Engineer and the only consistent engineer! There are other people who were there:

VH-1:
Engineers: Donn Landee, Peggy McCreary, Kent Nebergall, Logan Jervis
VH-2:
Engineers: Corey Bailey, Jim Fitzpatrick, Donn Landee
Assistant engineers: Corey Bailey, Jim Fitzpatrick
W&CF:
Engineers: Donn Landee, Gene Meros
Fair Warning:
Engineers: Donn Landee, Gene Meros
Diver Down:
Engineers: Ken Deane, Donn Landee
1984:
Engineers: Ken Deane, Donn Landee

A few years ago I did look some of these people up on the web. Most have many engineering credits to their names but I could not find a way to locate them (studio website, etc), some seem to have left the business ... the only one I could "track down" was Gene Meros who seem to still work as Sound Engineer, but in Washington DC and in the broadcast business. He plays sax in a couple bands around DC/Virginia/MD. I did not go much further than that.

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Gene+Meros" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.groovequestproject.com/meet_ ... ticle.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Meanwhile Gene, was on the move again, this time to the hallowed halls of one of L.A.'s hottest properties when it comes to recording music-Sunset Sound.

Enlisted as second engineer, Gene worked with production mega-man Ted Templeman and engineer extraordinaire Donn Landee on Van Halen's Women and Children First and Fair Warning albums. Recounting what it was like working on those particular recording, he leans back smiling and says, "Now that stuff was a lot of fun! I remember that Women and Children First was real spontaneous, and it happened a lot faster than the other one. We went in and did it in about four days. It was like total energy and real quick. It had more of a wide-open live sound, whereas Fair Warning was more of a painful process. There was much more experimentation going on. It was done in a different way. There was more time spent on arranging things in the studio, getting sounds, and laying down the various tracks. Edward (Van Halen) was getting more and more into studio techniques at that time, whereas before, they would just come in and bang 'em out without even thinking about how they were recorded. But by the time Fair Warning was recorded , Edward was more interested in the ins and outs of studio technology, and he went on to build his own studio right after that record."

Next on Gene's agenda was a studio stint with the Doobie Brothers and their One Step Closer album. "That one was produced by Ted, too," he rememgbers, "but by then Donn Landee went his separate way ...

If you guys want to deputies me, I could go down to one of their gigs and see if he would be willing to talk to us?

[Sparky4444]

If you guys want to deputies me, I could go down to one of their gigs and see if he would be willing to talk to us?

Hell yeah!...For me personally, Fair Warning IS the best guitar tone in the entire catalog

...but there was no doubt some real special engineering techniques going on to get the sound on vinyl to sound the way it did -- and I've been trying like hell to reverse engineer it..I think it would be easier reverse engineering the UFO's at Roswell...

[Bore Em at the Forum]

MrBeasty, rgorke, and I are all down here. Maybe we grab Gene and water board him until he gives us some info?

[Sparky4444]

MrBeasty, rgorke, and I are all down here. Maybe we grab Gene and water board him until he gives us some info?

With whiskey, vodka, tequila, or whatever

[dirtycooter]

Damn Beasty! What are you a skip tracer?? Lmao!! Got this stuff in your back pocket huh??

You know, there has to be some way to contact these guys. Especially Don. Shit, that would be so damn awesome to contact those dudes. Do you think they are forbidden to talk about it??
Wonder if they even have a clue so many of us out there wanna know this stuff?
I bet if we could just get contact they would be willin to share some things and eliminate alot of mystery.

And for him to say hey, we need to put that big ass solo thing you are doin on the record Ed.
Thats a historical moment. Otherwise, without this solo, would things have been the same?????
No. And I don't even think Ed had a clue it was gonna do what it did to the music world.