Getting an 1920s/30s sounding recording with modern gear

[Dazzlebrush]

Hi,

I have a little home recording knowledge but was onering if anyone could offer any advice on getting close to that old sound with modern gear.

what i have is

Software
Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer

Mics
Behringer B-1 large diaphram conderser
AKG C1000s condenser
AKG perception 170 small pencil condenser

any ideas apreciated.

Dazzle

[ukejon]

Which old sound? From the mic in particular or the overall sound of the recording? There are places that sell vintage mics, such as Vintage King Audio, so that is one option. But I get the sense you also might be talking about software, for example some of the vinyl and analog tape emulations that Izotope and many others make.

[Dazzlebrush]

Hi ukejon,

I am talking about the over all recording using the gear I already have from mic placment / tecqunigue to eq ect to get a naturally old feel.

[Picking Moose]

I got a similar effect to what you're after by placing a pencil mic inside the guitar.
Here http://www.hulkshare.com/9gjox4bf56kg You can hear the result.

Worth giving it a try

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by Dazzlebrush

Hi,

I have a little home recording knowledge but was onering if anyone could offer any advice on getting close to that old sound with modern gear.

what i have is

Software
Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer

Mics
Behringer B-1 large diaphram conderser
AKG C1000s condenser
AKG perception 170 small pencil condenser

any ideas apreciated.

Dazzle

Probably with lots of subtractive eq. Since most of those old recordings had very limited bandwidth, you will want/need to attenuate enough of the low & high end to emulate the mid-range persona of those older records. Adding in 78 rpm surface noise might take you even further. Why do you want to do this?

[KevWind]

I have never tried such a thing but lets for the sake of discussion use the sound of a typical mass produced 78 rpm record as " that sound"

So because the both the dynamic range and frequency range of typically marketed 78's is fairly restricted by comparison to modern production.
Some basic criteria to replicate that sound might be:

Record in and mix down to mono.

Start with an EQ that has a high and low pass filter and start a gentle slope low end rolloff about 100 hz then completely cut every thing below 40 hz

On the high end same thing start a gentle rolloff at about 7k or 8 k and cut everything above 10k

The dynamic range typical of 78's was somewhere in the range of 40 db when new, where modern digital is just below 100db for 16 bit and 144 db for 24 bit

So again a fairly substantial reduction in dynamics would it seems, be necessary for emulating "That sound" which could be done with multi band compression with I am guessing only heavy reduction no makeup gain.

Then there is the noise factor induced by poor record material and wear from repeated playing which is rumored to have brought the dynamic range down even further to around 30 db.

I believe there may be some software programs that will induce record/stylus noise. Or you could also induce low volume pink noise in the background, again EQ'ing out from 50 hz down and from 10k up

So to sum up what you would be trying to accomplish by comparison to modern, would be a sound that is thin, squashed, and slightly distorted.

[Bob Womack]

AND... listen to the recordings from back then and see if you don't hear narrow "formant frequency ranges," meaning resonances or positive frequency response humps. The mic capsules often had them and the recording and playback cartridges did as well. And here's a hint: in the real world when you have a resonance peak at one frequency you can bet there's going to be a second one an octave up (twice the frequency). To simulate all this, you can use a typical four-band parametric EQ, using the low and high bands as roll-offs and the remaining two bands to simulate the two resonance peaks. Most audio was recorded either directly to disk or to an optical film sound track. The music on records was recorded by cutting it directly to a shellac master.

As to groove noise, the RCA 33 1/3 rpm transcription record was introduced in 1931 but was initially a failure due to the depression. During the Second World War many still played their 78rmp records. Remember this when selecting a background noise file because the two speeds sound quite different.

Bob

[Picking Moose]

You could also try Izotope Vinyl...

It's free and you can download it from the iZotope site here http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

[Scootch]

Originally Posted by Picking Moose

I got a similar effect to what you're after by placing a pencil mic inside the guitar.
Here http://www.hulkshare.com/9gjox4bf56kg You can hear the result.

Worth giving it a try

Wow. That sounded great.

[Picking Moose]

Originally Posted by Scootch

Wow. That sounded great.

Thank you Scootch.
Believe it or not, that recording was done in my own bedroom 30 years ago, using a HIFI cassette recorder.
Nothing else added

The good guitarist and singer is Mike Martin, I play second guitar.

[Dazzlebrush]

Thanks for all the advice guys, Im gonna give it ago tonight. and if its any good i will post a link.