Hi folks! Martin here, from The Miramars.

If you haven't come across us before, we've got a few tracks available on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/themiramars)
and we're on Sharawaji Records' first Surf Britannia compilation (https://surfbritannia.bandcamp.com/album/surf-britannia).

A few people have asked how we achieve our (relatively trad) sound, so I'm here to give you some details. I should point out that I am only the bass player, and I don't get involved in the mixing process - too many cooks! But I'll tell you what I know, and if you have any questions then feel free to ask and I'll pass them on to the lads.

All instruments were recorded one-at-a-time into a Tascam Portastudio 424 MkIII - that's a 1990s four-track cassette machine.

Guitars:
- Fender Stratocaster (MIJ)
- Fender Jazzmaster (MIM I think)
- A Gretsch of some kind - either hollow or semi-hollow
into a Fender spring reverb unit ('63 reissue)
into a blackface Fender Twin Reverb amp (I believe a '65 reissue)
with a Shure SM58 mic a few inches out.
Where you hear tremolo, that's a Boss TR-2 pedal.

Bass:

This is the one area where I really could bore you with details, but I'll keep it brief!
Squier Precision bass with GHS Precision Flats
into a Keeley Bassist compressor pedal for a bit of bounce
into a Joyo American Sound pedal (Tech 21 Blonde clone), mostly flat EQ with some very light overdrive
DI'd straight into the Tascam.

Drums: (updated)
The shells are 1960s Premier; not sure about the rest of the bits. This is probably the only truly vintage gear that we use (unless you count the Tascam!). There's no port/hole on the kick drum. We mostly used a single overhead SM57/SM58, somewhere between the hi-hat and snare. There's a photo further down in the thread: https://surfguitar101.com/forums/post/438281/

Mixing:
The songs were mixed on the Tascam. We added reverb to some of the individual tracks (e.g. drums) by sending them through the Fender reverb unit, and I think we may have also have done the same for the whole track once mixed. We didn't use any other post-recording effects. Recording to tape adds a degree of compression and saturation anyway, although less so on cassette than on reel-to-reel.

And that's about it! Shout if there are any additional details you're interested in, and I'll see what I can find out. I'll leave you with some pictures of the gear mentioned...
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb8CUIulVW4/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc8BUsKFH7P/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5BOwCbg1j7/

The Miramars (2017-2022) https://www.facebook.com/themiramars / https://soundcloud.com/themiramars

Last edited: Jun 27, 2020 12:37:36

Sounds great! shows how much you can do with a four track - although that Tascam is pretty advanced with 6 XLR Mic Inputs and a stereo 7/8 line jack... 4 track machines are fun in that you have to commit when you bounce; it eliminates the potential for endless takes in a digital audio workstation.

I recorded our band (non surf) to my ancient Yamaha MT2X 4 track, but cheated as we had a mixer that fed 4 vocals, keyboard and 1 guitar to 2 channels stereo, and then 1 Radio Shack PZM mic for drums, and an extra mic placed inbetween the bass amp and the other guitar player amp. With 4 vocal mics, plenty of drums in them plus the Radio Shack mic.

If you've never used it, the Radio Shack PZM is a cheap version of the Crown PZM and works great for budget recordings. Place it on the floor, hang it on the wall behind drums - under $50 in the usual places...

'65 Fender Tremolux, '74 Princeton; 77 Vibrolux Reverb; '81 Princeton Reverb
'65-66 Hilgen Basso Grande
Dr. Z MAZ 18 Jr. + 1x12 Cab
Various Telecasters and noise-making pedals
Farfisa Compact Duo

Thanks for that great info. I'm sure recording it to tape helps get that vintage sound.

Hey, let's not just focus on the recording techniques and give props to the great music and playing.

Well done!

Thanks for the write up, Martin. It's great to hear that the process can be so simple, given the enviable final product. I love that this music seems to work best with such accessible levels of tech.

MartinB wrote:

Absolutely! Obviously vintage gear is super cool if you're in a position to acquire it. But I'd hate to think that there were great surf tunes going unrecorded out there because folks had convinced themselves that only vintage gear would give a good sound.

THIS.
Play with what you have vs. waiting for what you may not ever have. Don't have a Jazzmaster, Showman and external Fender Reverb? You can still play surf and other music. Go by the words of Joe Meek - if it sounds good, it is good.

one of my close friends is an auto photographer and has worked with Mercedes and other companies on vintage car shoots. He has always said that the right camera was the one he had with him... whether that was an iPhone, mirrorless Sony, or an insane Canon.

No disrespect for gearlust, but agree that play and record with whatever you have to get the sounds down on tape, digital, etc. Share, get feedback and get better.

'65 Fender Tremolux, '74 Princeton; 77 Vibrolux Reverb; '81 Princeton Reverb
'65-66 Hilgen Basso Grande
Dr. Z MAZ 18 Jr. + 1x12 Cab
Various Telecasters and noise-making pedals
Farfisa Compact Duo

Thanks for posting this. The recording and (more importantly) the band sound great!

Can you dig up more info about drum mic placement? I'm a goober for minimalist drum micing techniques.

Neptune Trojans

Hi Martin

Your stuff always sounds great. Thanks for the insight, I'm a big fan of the humble four-track.

Can I ask about what you mix/master to? Presumably that does go into a DAW as a simple stereo mix and you master it on there?

Cheers, J

The Spiratones - Instro/Surf from the rain-soaked north-northwest of England

BrentD wrote:

Can you dig up more info about drum mic placement? I'm a goober for minimalist drum micing techniques.

It turns out we used a single overhead mic on all the songs recorded so far (including the ones we haven't released yet). This was either an SM57 or SM58 (which are essentially the same), somewhere between the hi-hat and snare. Here's Ben recording the drums for Coconut Hop (also note that we muffled the snare for this tune):

It looks like it was at about (drummer's) head height in this case. The position will have varied a bit for each song. Getting this right is very much a case of trial/error, using your ears, and referring to the classic surf recordings for guidance.
We did try adding another mic on the ride side of the kit, but as far as anyone can remember it wasn't that useful, and ended up on at most one song.

Also from this photo I now know that the drums are Premier
I'll update the original post for the benefit of future readers.

The Miramars (2017-2022) https://www.facebook.com/themiramars / https://soundcloud.com/themiramars

J_Durango wrote:

Can I ask about what you mix/master to? Presumably that does go into a DAW as a simple stereo mix and you master it on there?

Haha yes, mastering. We kinda... didn't
So here's the story: The tracks that are on Soundcloud were originally only intended to be demos to help us get gigs. We didn't spend a lot of time getting flawless takes, because we assumed that at some point later we'd want to go into a studio to record "proper" versions of them. So what you're hearing is just the stereo mix from the Tascam recorded into the computer's audio interface, with no additional adjustments.

(Actually the version of El Fantasma that's on the Surf Britannia compilation did have some limiting applied, to smooth out a few peaks. I did this in Reaper using Waves' PuigChild compressor plugin (which is a Fairchild 660/670 emulation). It's pretty subtle though.)

We never intended to go the DIY route in the long-term, but since recording those demos we've come to realise that it actually works well for the kind of lo-fi sound we're going for, and the time/money we have available. The positive response from the surf community has been really helpful in this!

We'll be looking into some mastering options before we release anything that people can actually pay us for

GuitarMuk wrote:

What order did you record the instruments, especially the drums?

I think we started with a scratch track of metronome & rhythm guitar as a guide to help record the drums. Then the proper rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, and finally any extra percussion. It's not strict; we've used a different order on some later recordings, but generally drums are first or second.

The Miramars (2017-2022) https://www.facebook.com/themiramars / https://soundcloud.com/themiramars