Hall & Collins demos

[localhero]

After discovering a slight software glitch that resulted in unwanted 'panning' of the lead guitar, we're back on track today with much improved results.

Here's the first this morning - Atlantis - I will add the others here as I complete them.

ATLANTIS  soundcloud.com/robbo47/atlantis-h-c-vox-mini-3-b

THE SAVAGE   soundcloud.com/robbo47/the-savage-h-c-vox-ac4b

FIND ME A GOLDEN STREET   soundcloud.com/robbo47/find-me-a-golden-street-h-c

The Rise And Fall Of Flingel Bunt   soundcloud.com/robbo47/flingel-bunt-h-c-vox-mini-3-1 using the Burns Marvin

Sweet Dreams    soundcloud.com/robbo47/sweet-dreams-h-c-vox-mini

Mustang   soundcloud.com/robbo47/mustang-h-c-vox-mini-3

Foot Tapper      soundcloud.com/robbo47/foot-tapper-h-c-vox-ac4   (double tracked as original)

Peace Pipe   soundcloud.com/robbo47/peace-pipe-h-c-vox-mini-3   re-recorded after a mixing error yesterday.

The Frightened City   soundcloud.com/robbo47/the-frightened-city-hall  re-recorded after a mixing error yrsterday.

Wonderful Land   soundcloud.com/robbo47/wonderful-land-h-c-ac-4b  REMIXED WITH THE HELP OF CHARLIE HALL

APACHE   soundcloud.com/robbo47/apache-h-c-ac-4              REMIXED WITH THE HELP OF CHARLIE HALL

[sixchannel]

It just gets better and better!!
Ian

[JohnJ]

That Is a top sound and playing
JJ

[Kurt Fröberg]

Many thanks for all the demos, Dave! I can clearly hear the machine's capabilities! The magic is there!

Kurt

[rogerbayliss]

Hi Dave

Wonderful Land sounds really good this time and the H&C shows what it can do on these. Not to keen on Foot Tapper out of that set but overall fab result. I thought Frightened City was better last time on the AC4 but just low in the mix.

Now then Vox Mini 3 and Mini 5 no doubt have also proven themselves here !

[localhero]

Yes I agree Roger, it just goes to show how over a period of time your ears become fatigued, I thought the mixes today were fine at the point of committing to Soundcloud, but since have changed my mind and intend to re-mix a couple. The early ones I did are fine, but as the day wore on they deteriorate. However the main point here is to show off the echo and it does that perfectly. I want to re-record some of them with heavier strings, these are 9/46 on the G&L because my fingers aren't strong.

[localhero]

I remixed Foot Tapper and The Frightened City closer to the original sound.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Dave,
Some very good playing and sounds. I have to say Atlantis nearly brought me to tears because it is so good. I even prefer it to the original and that must be saying something. I especially loved the way you play the end parts.
I thought I noticed an extra tap that stood out in Flingel Bunt unless it was the guitar tone and playing that made it stand out. The patch as I set it has two taps 5 and 6 set to the same timing. The reason for that is because Hank plays two parts at the beginning and end. One part has the echo with 3 heads, the other with just one head, the same head as the last of the 3 heads! The single 6th tap used for the single head part is EQ'd differently, like the 5th head on its own would have been on the real unit.
The timing of any of these heads does not fall on the beat of the tempo, they sit either side of it. I have studied it carefully to realise this and I believe this is why so many have had trouble trying to figure it out.
On Sweet Dreams the echo sounded very clicky. Maybe that was the light strings you said you used?
Regards,
Charlie

[localhero]

Thanks for that Charlie, you are indeed very observant. On Flingel Bunt I had accidentally caught the level control for the echo on the Vox Mini 3 and turned it slightly up - it wasn't supposed to be on ! Anyway after I had mixed the track and posted it, I went to change the echo for the next tune and happened to switch the Hall & Collins on/off switch to OFF and I could still hear this delay, finally discovering what I had done. I thought I'd done it after the recording so I didn't know it had gone on tape so to speak, but obviously it did. I can do that one again as I saved them all this time. As for Sweet Dreams, I too noticed that and I think it's down to where I play it and the fact that the strings are old (5 months) I play it starting on the low E string on the eighth fret 'C'
I too was pleased with Atlantis, without doing it in two parts as well, normally you'd use a track for the 'plinky' bits and another for the verses, but I got it in one take with the pickup switching so I left it. You'll have read what I wrote about ear fatigue, it's a fact that you keep going and accept things that at the beginning of a session you may not. I hope that this has demonstrated that a normal bloke with mediocre guitar and amp can achieve good results with your new echo. My guitar is an Indonesian G&L Tribute model which cost me £300 and the amp is less than £100 new. I could have used my 1963 Strat and Mesa Boogie, but wanted to prove that it can be done reasonably low cost by today's standards. The main thing is listen to the records and try and get the subtleties into the track,

[lw]

Thanks for taking the time to post all of those tracks. The sound is very impressive. I have to agree about Atlantis, it's a thing of beauty.

[bill]

Hi,

Just to say thanks for posting these demonstrations, it's a great help.

Bill

[HC HANOUN]

Très bonnes démo, le sound est bien là, alors encore d'autres ....
Cordialement
HC

[Airhostess.]

Translation for above as best as I can get

Very good demo, the sound is there, then still others ....
cordially

HC

Kay

[localhero]

I re-recorded FLINGEL BUNT using the Burns Marvin, APACHE using a Fender Strat with heavy strings and Sweet Dreams on the same Strat. Check out the difference !

[ubique]

Hi Dave
Thank you for taking the time to put the excellent demo's on the forum. Much appreciated.
I would love to own a H&C, as I think Charlie and John have done a brilliant job, but its not possible at the moment. One day maybe.
Kind regards.
Neil

[localhero]

Thanks everyone for listening and for your kind words. I did want to keep these simple and by and large I have done, but today with the help of Charlie on the telephone we managed to do a little mixing, going a little deeper into the guitar tone. The results are amazing and the tracks can be heard in the soundfiles as I added Apache & Wonderful Land, removing the earlier mixes. You too can now achieve this amazing sound.

[Charlie Hall]

To add more detail to what was done today, Dave set up a parametric 5 band EQ to the guitar track only of Apache. Dave had re-recorded the track using a Strat with D'Addario Chromes 11-49 flatwound strings after I suggested there wasn't enough attack on the previous version, and that any compression could spoil the attack, so compression was also left off.
The sound was already a lot better to my ears than the previous version, so it seemed worth trying EQ to fine tune it. The recording seemed a bit too bright so we set a parametric section at 2900Hz (the nearest we could get it to 3000Hz) and reduced the level by a few dBs. The bandwidth, measured by Q, was set around 3 or 4. This was a start in the right direction. I then thought there needed to be a more hollow tone so we set another parametric section I think around 1200Hz and with a similar Q of 3 or 4 and reduced the level by several dBs. This also got it closer but then the lack of mids at another frequency became more obvious. We tried a frequency around 700Hz and boosted it there and this helped too. The final touch was with another parametric boost I think around 1700Hz by several dBs. Now I'm going purely on memory which isn't very good so I am hoping Dave has the actual figures written down.
We then worked on Wonderful Land with a similar EQ technique. This track was not re-recorded, it is the same take as was posted previously. It soon became obvious that the frequencies used for Apache were not good for Wonderful Land. Again, I hope Dave has the figures written down.
After we were happy with the EQ, I decided to try a 29.5ms delay to the guitar track to thicken it up as had been done on the original. This was set about 6dBs below, or about half the track level. This worked well to get closer to the original sound we hear on most versions.
If there is any interest in this work, then we will try to elaborate further. Bear in mind that the figures will not work with any guitar or recording take by someone else. The idea is to give some indication of the frequency areas that got nearer to the original sounds.
Regards,
Charlie

[normg]

Hi Dave, great sounds and excellent playing.
Quick question, is the amp that you used a Vox mini3 G2 and were the BT's played through it.
Cheers, Norm

[localhero]

May 7, 2015 23:37:10 GMT normg said:

Hi Dave, great sounds and excellent playing.
Quick question, is the amp that you used a Vox mini3 G2 and were the BT's played through it.
Cheers, Norm

No, the BT is on a separate track on all of the demos.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Dave,
The links to The Savage and Foot Tapper have stoppped working!
Regards,
Charlie

[normg]

Thanks Dave, so it was the Mini3 G2. Interesting from such a small amp.
Cheers, Norm

[localhero]

Thanks Charlie for letting me know, I have now corrected those two tunes.
Norm, yes it's the Vox Mini 3, guitar only.

[localhero]

Because some claimed that The Shadows backing track made the Hall & Collins sound good, I recorded Apache with the 'Casting A Shadow' BT (the UB Hank one isn't really usable for this purpose) and it still sounds good. No doubt in my mind that the sound is there, I did it for myself as much as anything. I have sent Charlie A mix and he may want to post it.

[Charlie Hall]

Having listened to Dave's new version I don't like the backing track sound against the lead guitar so I don't want to post it yet. I want to work on it if Dave can send me the individual lead track wav file sometime, as I already have the Casting A Shadow CD.

[localhero]

I didn't know you could do that Charlie, I'll do it in the morning.

[Charlie Hall]

I can as long as my CD still plays! I haven't checked it yet.
Regards,
Charlie

[TonyL]

May 8, 2015 14:46:13 GMT localhero said:

I recorded Apache with the 'Casting A Shadow' BT (the UB Hank one isn't really usable for this purpose).

Hi Dave, can you explain what you mean by this, is it that the UBH tracks in general don't sound good with the HCSE unit or just this one? I always use UBH apart from a couple from other sources.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Tony,
The issue is with some backing tracks not sounding close enough to the original Shadows backing sound. It really does make a difference to the perception of the lead guitar sound and feel. I wish that wern't the case, but we don't want to give too much of the wrong impression by using a backing track that doesn't do justice to the end result we want. You will probably have noticed that a certain manufacturer uses backing tracks derived from the original Shadows recordings but with Hank removed. This is because they know anything else won't do justice to their product. We basically agree with that thinking. On the odd occasion, I have been able to doctor a UB Hank backing track to sound closer to the original.
Regards,
Charlie

[localhero]

Hi Tony, the UBH tracks are OK for general use but we were trying to show that it's possible to achieve an exact match to Hank's sound on the original record, something that has been difficult to recreate since we all began posting sound files. Using the original Shadows track with Hank taken off is ideal, because in our case Charlie and I did that and had the original with Hank on another track so that we could make fast A/B comparisons of tone and technique etc. Anyway back to the subject, the sound of the guitar on the original does not blend in a nice way with the UB Hank track so it won't show it off in the way you'd want it to. I too use all the UB Hank CDs for practice so don't worry about it. Hope that explains.

[localhero]

Looks like I was writing when interrupted by a phone call and Charlie explained it too. No worries.