streetboy
Member
As long as you know what's upside, down, inside and out you're on the right path
Posts: 153
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Post by streetboy on Sept 6, 2009 16:29:01 GMT
Hi, Let me put things in a plain danish down to earth perspective - following is just MHO after reading some posts in this great forum. We can chase equipment and purchase it at the cost of bread an butter - wife's are probably not in agreement with us here. But when it comes down to the basics - whooooo be careful now - we'll never hit that sound anyway. Many posts have already stated that - and I agree totally. We have tried - we have thrown money at miscellanous gear to get there. OK - but for the purpose of what - achieving the Hank Marvin/Shadows sound?? We'll never reach that stage - we might get close. Not because we're lousy guitar players, but final resulting sound is the result of so many variables (not to excl. the Hank B. Marvin effect itself) which we cannot reproduce in our lifetime. We are individuals - and thank you for that. Why not just be happy if we can play the tunes to our own likings (and wife's if required)? If echoes, reverbs or distortions are not quite in place - who cares - don't blame people for charging money for their achievements HW and SW wise. It's just a step probably in the right direction - who know's? Aren't we just chasing a dream about what could be?? Wouldn't we be a lot happier just to accept our own playing skills? - well, I've settled down to that. That being said, I will just like to express my appreciation towards all the efforts done by Charlie (Hall) conveying some of the more subtle sound effects of Shadow/HBM tunes. I know he has put a lot of time and listening skills in developing of the patches for most of the gear we have (or dream of having) -. and I don't mind paying for that. rgds Soren
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2009 10:32:32 GMT
HI SOREN ,, A very honest ,true, well said message ''GOODONYA-MATE'' ;)I have said this on here before!!!!!,,, It is a combination of ''ALL'' effect's,guitar ,amp ,and as some do recording after tweak's ,etc & last but not least our playing style & compitence .. & our ''EAR"S'' ,, are not all the same either adding further hassle's... BUT saying that I have heard some 99.9% acurate sound-files posted here & elswhere!!! BUT ,the goal ''WILL'' continue due to our as said ear's are different & so it should as after-all it is a hobbie [for-me at least] & it is the same as racing car's etc you will always strive for improvement,IT is the human-nature that kick's in & the adrenalin start's to flow,, [I think mine has dried-up HA.HAAAA.!! .. THIS goal so many of us have is about to get a kick-start again as ''The-final-tour-get's under-way ,there will be a new set of ''hank-would-be's'' on the scene , a good thing for the guitar related businesses & member's alike with more gear wanted.. Well SOREN you are quite right in what you say,,,, but I cannot see ''That sound-goal '' diminishing'' any-time soon,'' I feel it's here to stay .. I think we are not all trying to get that exact-sound , but a ''sound-we-want to hear'' and that will vary from one of us to another? I myself like the original shad's recorded sound too,but like equally the ''peter-korving'' sound a richer sound that he creates and it is not easy to emulate either ... ''charlies programed unit's are exellent as many many have found including the as bruce say's ''THE MAN-HIMSELF''[hank] & '' p/korving'' to only scratch the surfice of people using ''EFPT'' programed equipment..The gemini III is another great help as well,, The new one on the block ''PAUL"S TVS's has proved themselve's as well ,, there is more no-dought.......... I personally hope it never end's !!!!as it is a great pastime how ever you evaluate your personal sounds... CHEERS ALL home-guitarist's and all other's who ''gig'' as well & guy's just discovering ''That-sound'' that infected so many of us older bugga's all them years ago & now retired are trying to catch-up on those 60's sound's whether it be the, Shadow's ,Chet-atkin's,Duanne-eddie, The venture's, The atlantic's you name them &we heard &bopped to them &now we try to sound at least similar to them hero's of our youth. SO if we can afford a new bit of kit that we think will help us we obtain it with the ''wife's agreement or other wise ;D ;D.. I have myself heap's of gear & just bought a ''GEMINI III'' to add to it & I like it!!but will as said probably continue occasionally to buy some thing that takes my eye ,but It's all part of the fun now retired as we could not afford to do it in our-youth ,so why-not .... ''HEARING-IS-IN-THE-EAR"S-OF-BEHOLDER''.....................barry..
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Post by peterbower on Sept 7, 2009 15:48:17 GMT
Hi Soren and Barry
Let me put 'That Sound' into some sort of perspective.
Years ago a jammed in a pub playing a few of the old Shads standards such as Apache, W/land etc. After i had finished several people including the Landlord came up to me and said i sounded just like Hank. Well i was flattered but i knew myself that i was way off that sound, i had the wrong amp, the wrong echo you name it. So to a certain extent, that sound is very subjective depending on who's listening. The general listening public are not that critical.
Its a holy grail you will never find but my admiration goes to those that have got pretty close, I'm not that bothered myself.
Peter
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Post by asimmd on Sept 8, 2009 8:32:02 GMT
Hi All I would discuss this subject all day but it would never reach a conclusion.It's not my intention to try to convert anyone to my way of thinking,just to give a view on what is a rather emotive subject. Let me say now,I am not and never have looked for "That Sound",it exists inside everyones head,the message from Peter about sounding just like Hank say's it all.
The sound of the Shads was produced in a studio,probably with AC30's running at near full volume,and the echoes running at input volumes that caused the signal to distort.
My home studio uses a small ammount of outboard gear which one day I may get to use properly,but I was watching an interview with a Recording Studio Owner in USA the other day who was giving a tour of some of the equipment they use.
My compressor cost say £100 - the compressor in the studio cost $30.000,is it any wonder that we have difficulty producing anything,when pro studios have this sort of equipment.
Again,if it was possible to re-create "That Sound",wouldn't Hank have done it already,it would make Him and the record company millions because the hardened Shads fans would probably buy it by the bucket.
I'll shut up now,apologies for the rant,I need a lie down.
Alan
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2009 8:49:14 GMT
HI PETER & well said & of course very true especially about the general public !!!.. To whom I have never played!!, but most of the member's here have played in public & I have heard that comment before,so It's really every-body to there own sound that they are happy with is what it all boil's down to.... If that-sound was easy to produce we would not be here talking about it but as said above it's a great topic & nice to get other's ''view's'' on the subject & for me this ''forum'' is a great way to meet like-minded fellow's and exchange idea's and to get help when needed ,,.. In my revisiting a teenage hobbie ,which in my case was electric-guitar & echo and finding this site & earlier[msn] & 1 or 2 other's I have discovered thing's that I would have never in a life-time have found other-wise!![ I must add I do live remotely in ''OZ''& this site & it's member's have become my friend's & just as if we were meeting in a club-house].....
THIS charlie's site is what got me motivated to have another ''GO'' & over these last 4 year's have enjoyed it so much..
ALSO as said earlier in above message I hope this guest for ''THAT-SOUND'' continue's as it is keeping this forum [club] alive & well...
CHEERS TO ALL ........................barry..
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Post by olemuso on Sept 8, 2009 21:54:11 GMT
The above are all good points. As far as I`m concerned "The Original Sound" (almost) was accidental. OK, Hank and Co probably had some idea of what they wanted but after all, all they did was plug in, turn some knobs and play. The A&R man will have finalised the mix and Bob`s your uncle. How many times have you seen or heard Hank play Apache on record, on TV etc? They`ll all have slight differences because he changed strings, or used a different amp, or the room acoustics were different. I believe thank many "Hank anoraks" are more keen to replicate "That Sound" than Hank is. And if he ain`t bothered nor am I. Alan`s point is very valid. Professional tools cost a fortune. Street level mixer, around £200 - £400. Professional theatre stage or studio mixer, £10,000 to £250,000. Guess which one does the job best? I have three electric drills; a Black n Decker mains drill that cost me about £40 twenty years ago; a Bosch mains drill that cost me £80 five years ago and a Bosch 24v battery drill that cost me £400 five years ago. Guess which one is the best? As long as there are Shads fans playing Shads music there will always be those who search endlessly for The Holy Grail of Shads sounds. Me? I use the sound which I like and which I think fits the piece.
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Post by peterbower on Sept 8, 2009 22:30:27 GMT
Hi all I'm just a realist when it comes to that sound. We have to remember that all the recording gear in those days was valve driven as were the amps and echo units. Guitar leads were not lo loss or super conductors as they are now and strings were pretty rough compared to now. Hank had no idea how to set his Strat up and some of that sound was by accident rather than by design. Hanks action was low to the point where the strings buzzed if he plucked them hard which he did and the echo chamber picked up this and just reproduced it faithfully. Abbey Road added some reverb against Hank's wishes but Hank nearly always liked the end result.
Although the Shads liked the AC-15 for recording and later the 30, Hank some times plugged into the studio house amp which i believe was a Fender twin and he is on record as saying he liked it. So there are numerous formulas that you can experiment with for that sound, not to mention all the gizmo's we have to day.
If any one is a fan of the Swedish band '1961' they to my mind are the closest i have heard from a band to the Shads.
I also have lead guitarist Ronnie Gustavson's formula if you are interested.
Peter
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Post by asimmd on Sept 9, 2009 8:08:44 GMT
Well Peter,I learn something new every day.
When Hank was asked about reverb He always says He never used it,I always thought Wonderful Land had reverb added,perhaps Hank was correct that He never used it,He didn't say the Studio didn't add it later.
Fender Amp,this was a surprise,in all the years I have been playing I never knew Hank used a Fender. I was asking yesterday if Fender Amps were any good for Shads stuff,obviously they are for early stuff. Would you know which tracks may be Fender?
Alan
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Post by didier on Sept 9, 2009 8:24:45 GMT
When Hank was asked about reverb He always says He never used it,I always thought Wonderful Land had reverb added,perhaps Hank was correct that He never used it,He didn't say the Studio didn't add it later. In the Abbey Road Studio 2. The recording console was directly linked to the famous "echo chamber" (in fact a reverb chamber), and Malcolm Addey could add some reverb at will. Here is an extract of an interview of Malcolm Addey about his first recording as sound engineer. This was for "Move It" (he later recorded all of the Shadows' early years tracks) : Studio Two was the facility's pop domain. The upstairs control room housed an EMI RS1 mono desk with two-band, Pultec-type peaking EQ on each of its eight inputs — as opposed to the classically oriented shelving EQ that was to be found in the other studios — at 5kHz and 100Hz. There was also an echo send for all of the inputs, echo return, a peak level meter and a single main gain control. The monitor speaker, positioned to the left of the console, was a Tannoy 15-inch dual-concentric mounted inside a large bass reflex enclosure and driven by the power amp built into an EMI BTR2 mono tape machine. Running at 15ips, this served as the main recorder while another BTR2 stood by in case there was a need to do mono-to-mono overdubs. Meanwhile, a third machine running at 30ips took care of the delay going into the echo chamber. This was an L-shaped room located behind the north wall of the studio, with brick walls, reinforced concrete ceiling and floor, and a half-dozen glazed ceramic drainpipes that stood vertically and were positioned around the chamber to help scatter the sound. A Neumann KM53 omnidirectional mic was placed at one end of the room, while at the other end, pointing slightly upwards and towards a corner, there was a Tannoy 15-inch dual-concentric speaker driven by a Leak TL25 amp. "Having paid close attention to what I'd seen Peter Bown and Stuart Eltham do in other sessions, I followed common practice while adding some modifications of my own," says Addey. "Not that there'd been all that many examples of common practice at EMI with a rock & roll group. Therefore, I suppose what I brought to the recordings was the way in which I mixed them.Didier
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Post by Charlie Hall on Sept 9, 2009 10:30:30 GMT
Hi Alan, The original release versions of Wonderful Land had reverb added, I believe the out take versions without orchestra do not have added reverb. Regards, Charlie
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Post by peterbower on Sept 9, 2009 10:42:42 GMT
From one interview with Hank many years ago, he said he usually told the studio after a recording session that he preferred not to have any reverb in the mix. The studio knowing better sneaked a bit on in the final mix and when Hank heard it he liked the end result. I'm not sure though if they ever owned up to adding reverb or not. Apparently, it was a bit of an on going deception by the technicians.
Hank apparently only used the Fender studio amp occasionally in the studio, but his live gig amps were always Vox. Jet also told me this when i spoke to him a few years ago. It may be a good project to find out what was recorded on the Fender. I certainly can't tell from listening to all my old vinyls. My personal view is that he probably only used it a couple of times. Peter
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Post by john44 on Sept 9, 2009 10:44:16 GMT
Hi Soren, Didier,Alan,Barry , Ian and Peter I agree that we have all at some stage gone overboard in our attempts to sound exactly like the Shadows Hank sound without getting it. Strings back in those days were very rough and used to screech when moving fingers, and a lot of the mixing people do at home now could not even be done in a studio fifty years ago There was no digital equiptment and everything was valve driven which probably produced a warmer guitar sound As Ian has said the sound changes depending on the hall or stadium ,size of audience just so many variables . When rehearsing for my 40th wedding anniversary in a borrowed studio The guy who owned the site came running all excited as we played Theme for young Lovers saying it was the nearest to a shadows sound he had ever heard .It did wonders for my ego but I think he was mistaken and is an example of how different people hear things differently
One thing you did get with the Shadows sound was a beautifull electric guitar sound with varying delay and echos what I hear today on a lot of sound files both here and on the Perth site is so overloaded with delays echos compressors and other effects that you dont get to hear what the guitar actually sounds like . The guys posting the file can certainly play their guitar and have good techniques but the sound is way overdubbed in attempt to sound like Hank These days I know I aint ever going to be Hank Marvin so I just like to play instrumentals and sound a bit like Hank and enjoy myself and I use my 45 +year old Fender concert amp Cheers John44
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Post by olemuso on Sept 9, 2009 15:42:06 GMT
It did wonders for my ego but I think he was mistaken and is an example of how different people hear things differently Cheers John44 I sold my Korg AX1500 to a DJ/guitarist who said he`d never heard anyone sound so much like Hank. He admired my Korg stompbox and I showed hime the patches I had programmed for Shads sounds - he made me a nice offer so I sold it to him. I have spoken to him since and he says he can`t get the sound right - so what does that say?
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Post by Fender Bender on Sept 10, 2009 6:11:04 GMT
Hi All This was one of my first threads when I joined this site about That Sound and I do agree with most of the comments.At the end of the day that is after all the main reason why Hank don't bother to replicate his old sound due to all those reasons mentioned and moved on by trying all kinds of combinations that gave us his sound and tone up to now. As I mentioned in another thread earlier, That Sound can be any tone from 1958 to recent and must agree to some of our friends to get a sound that sound more or less like Hank when gigging and play old and new stuff with that tone just changing the echo patches for the correct tune.That is what I do anyway.But when playing at home and do homemade recordings I try to get as close as I can within my limit to try and sound like Hank did on the specific song I want to record and yes some come close as most of our friends posting their sound files and other you just can forget due to professional studio gear. It will always be fun to try and get That Sound which ever one is in your head and that is what it is all about.We all do share the same passion and the love for this kind of music and yes,one can't be Hank all the time and that is what make things so exiting when you hear most of the sound files on this site. Here is a question ? I believe that Hank played with a Fender amp occasionally in the studio in the early days as mentioned now a few times already.It was my understanding that this happened somewhere in the early seventies during the "Marvin,Welch&Farrrar" period and also recorded some instrumentals with the Fender which I believe was a Fender De Lux and not a Twin.It will clear up this confusion if someone can give me some light on this subject.It might be that he used both those Fenders during their hundreds of recording sessions during the '60& part of early '70.I have read this and can't recall the resource of this information about the Fender De Lux. I would also like Peter to send me a PM about Ronnie Gustavson and his formula.Once again I also want to congratulate Charlie on a great site. Regards Louis
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Post by Fender Bender on Sept 11, 2009 7:05:17 GMT
Hi Peter
Thanks for your quick reply and info of Ronnie.
Regards
Louis
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