One of my favorite things are the Raybeats live to 2 track cuts on "It's only a movie". If I can ever get my band into a studio, that's what I'll shoot for...

Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters
Boston's Premier Surf/Noir Combo
http://www.heatonsurf.com

I've seen lots of bands decide they were going to get into recording to tape and it doesn't always work well. You could record with the nicest 24-track tape machine and the nicest analog desk and get a shit result if you don't know what you are doing. Versus if you knew what you were doing with a laptop and plug-ins you could get a great result.

Stick with what you know. Or, learn the technology before you commit money/too much band time to the project.

I love the idea of using good gear to record live on tape, and pressing records from that. THat's how the best classical & jazz 'audiophile' recordings are done & it suits surf as well which most folks would agree is a music best served live. Of course there are myriad ways of approaching recording, but the live one is extremely apt.

Squink Out!

Surfzombie wrote:

We're thinking about how the original surf bands may have recorded, trying to capture a bit of that vibe.

And do we like the old recordings because of how they were recorded or because of how they were written? These songs were all written before the studio, which is something to keep in mind. Don't go too far down the retro path without asking how the bands wrote the songs, why they wrote them, and who they wrote them for. Were they written together? Did a single person write the song?

Also, recording studios were as new fangled back then as my being able to record a record in my living room on a tiny computer.

So don't just rely on 'going retro' as that won't get you there. They had professional engineers recording those sessions.

I'm with you Jeff on the not too many mics dealie. The Surge! is currently hunkered down in the Boat Werx in the very early stages of trying to do a bit of recording. We are initially playing around with just four mics direct into an old Fostex MD-8 digital disk recorder that I've had lying around for years. 57's on the guitars a Beta 52 on the 2-12 bass cabinet and one AT 37R over the drum kit up about 60" aimed between the kick pedal and snare. We were all amazed at how this came out with practically no real effort. Must be the K.I.S.S. principle. I think this may be the best drum sound to come out of my basement yet. All the cabinets are off the floor sitting on milk crates where can hear ourselves well enough to turn down and still be able to hear each other. Now if we can just learn how to play..........

Reverbs,

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Cassette is such a terrible format though!! Wouldn't you be better off figuring out what it is that you like about cassette, then trying to incorporate those aspects in your recordings while using a different (higher resolution) format?

Maybe it's the compression, or recording to only two tracks (and how it forces you to make final decisions during the recording process), or recording live in the same room with the band, or the limited (smoother)treble frequencies?

You can't tell me that you really dig the tape hiss, horrible noise floor, wow and flutter, non-durability, and lack of random access that cassette tapes have, can you?

I just remember the days of buying pre-recorded cassettes, or recording LPs to cassette...and the cassette NEVER sounded like the original source. Even in-studio recordings from the master tape made with a professional Nakamichi cassette deck to high quality Maxell or TDK cassette tapes didn't sound like the source and often times developed dropouts after only a few plays!

That being said, whatever works for you is cool. I think anyone would rather listen to a cassette recording of awesome music over a pristine audiophile recording of terrible music. The most important thing is the song and performance.

www.apollo4.com

Never look at the board during mixing. Make an adjustment then turn around away from the console and really listen. This works great for live mixing as well. Even while recording, your eyes can fool your ears.

Have it professionally mastered and take along examples of the sound you are trying to achieve.

Reverbs,

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

JakeDobner wrote:

How about this trick...

Record live in a modern studio to digital(to save cost and avoid the horror that is cassette) and then just mix the album really quickly and don't listen to any input from the engineer.

That should get you a vintage sound.

Not sure if it works or not...but that's pretty-much our approach.

www.apollo4.com

I do plenty of quick digital mixes. I know what that sounds like. This is different.

TIME TO ROCK!!!

Hi Jeff! I hear modern recording on surf bands and it sounds great. Very clean, well edited, perfectly mixed, I like that. We might do something like that in the future. I have a nice Tascam 4 track rack mount thing I got in Nashville in the late 80's. Been listening to some of those old tapes, (they held up fine) and though the tracks I did were pretty experimental and dated, the energy, ideas and audio quality are still very cool. I was just doing goofy drum machine and over dubbing mostly with too much cheap digital reverb but we all start somewhere right? We might break that thing out too! I should mail you one of our live things so you can hear what I'm talking about. I still need to come down and see ya!

TIME TO ROCK!!!