The history of music keeps records of the most unusual studios and legendary recording sessions. Studying them, you can get acquainted with the methods of recording and mixing https://ekmixmaster.com/, which appeared in these places, and some of them are still part of the indispensable repertoire of sound engineers.
The Abbey Road Studios in London gained cult status thanks to the now legendary The Beatles. From 1962 to 1970, these musicians recorded almost all of their albums. Together with producer George Martin and sound engineers Jeff Emerick and Richard Lush, many creative recording and mixing techniques were created here. These are tracks played in the opposite direction, and flanger, and phasing, and sound collages, and controlled feedback. For that time, these were truly revolutionary techniques, which subsequently had a huge impact on the production of music.
In 1966, Ken Townsend developed the ADT (Automatic Double Tracking) method, which uses the same vocals (recorded simultaneously on two tapes), with one tape playing with a slight delay (typically 80-120 milliseconds). The same The Beatles used ADT on “Revolver” and many of their subsequent albums. In addition, an oscillator was used to automate the delay value and make it fluctuate. The average oscillation value (50 Hz) can be adjusted with a potentiometer. Everything was possible, from audible echoes to flanger. The wildest “wobble effects” were created, such as with the “rolled up” backing vocals from the “Magical Mystery Tour”.
Ken Townsend has developed another pioneering studio technology for Abbey Road: the world’s first DI box. This allowed the e-bass signal to be fed directly into the mixer. This avoided the problem that electric bass with a microphone in the control room never sounded as convincing as the sound of the speakers in the recording room.
In 1952, amateur musician Sam Phillips founded the independent label Sun Records and signed a then-unknown Elvis Presley. Later other future stars followed such as Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins. And the Sun Studio became the center of a new breed of rock and roll – rockabilly, which arose under the influence of country music and rhythm and blues. It should also be noted the so-called slapback delay, which was born during the recording at the Sun Records studio. Its distinguishing feature was the creation of a proprietary echo effect with one repetition (no feedback). We are talking about the so-called slapback delay, which was performed on two tape recorders. Sam Phillips himself described Sun’s “signature sound” rather simply. According to him, it’s all about the skillful use of microphones, combined with a minimum of instrumentation.
After Kyuss disbanded in 1996, Josh Homme, best known today as the vocalist of Queens Of The Stone Age, formed Desert Sessions with his friend and bandmate Brant Björk. From 1997 to 2003, the musicians came together for ten sessions, each resulting in an album. The sessions mixing and mastering studio took place on an old ranch filled with rare mixing instruments and one-of-a-kind recording equipment. Songs were always created in just a few hours. The story tells how Chris Goss and PJ Harvey, having met at the ranch, as they say on the move, recorded the song “There Will Never Be a Better Time” in one take.
In 1850, a church was built in London’s Crouch End, which was of great importance in the history of music. Since 1984, parts of the building have been rented out to artists, with the large room upstairs owned by Eurythmics. Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox converted the space into a studio and recorded their debut album Sweet Dreams there. Lennox and Stewart later bought the entire building and recorded most of their music there.
