Hello,

after lurking and being fan of this forum for years, I have finally decided today to register and make a first post.

I've been a surf rock fan for over half my life, and since I've been actively making music myself, I've been trying to make music in a surf rock style or influenced by it, just for fun.

Although I listen to a lot of 60's surf, my own songs tend to be more modern, haha. Since I got a real spring reverb (SurfyBear DIY Kit) the ideas flow almost by themselves - here are the last two tracks I found time for to record (on the second one I tried to get that drippy lead sound from the Surfin' With The Astronauts album, but of course i got not even close, haha):

Nice work dude! I quite like the second piece, it’s a nice composition with a cool riff. Well played with a nice tone too.

That photo of garbage all over a beach really struck me. Where I grew up (Oahu) the beaches never, ever had trash. Even Waikiki beach. I thought your photo was an art installation at first glance, but then I realized it was just trash on the beach. Gross me out the door!

Dan

Daniel Deathtide

Cool tunes, Don! Tell us about your drums! —

*Dick B.
The Aquatudes
http://www.aquatudes.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Aquatudes/107419619521

Surfing_Sam_61 wrote:

Hang ten Surfer dude

I like the first song a lot.

The astronauts used tape delay machines on the mixer board and Tank between the amp and guitar. They used a reverb room with a speaker on one end and mic the other (Frank Sinatra used the same studio back then). Another wards you need a delay device of some sort, Surfy Bear won't get you there by itself (but needed though)

Oh! Interesting! I am also interested in more infos about this.
From which source do you know this?
Can you make a video how to recreate the Astronauts sound best please?

Thanks

Twang cheers!

Ralf Kilauea

www.kilaueas.de

https://kilaueas.bandcamp.com/album/touch-my-alien

Wow, first off thanks a lot for so much resonance!

SilverFlash wrote:

I liked both of those, Don. Great sound! Thanks for sharing.

Thank you SilverFlash! I appreciate it.

DeathTide wrote:

Nice work dude! I quite like the second piece, it’s a nice composition with a cool riff. Well played with a nice tone too.

That photo of garbage all over a beach really struck me. Where I grew up (Oahu) the beaches never, ever had trash. Even Waikiki beach. I thought your photo was an art installation at first glance, but then I realized it was just trash on the beach. Gross me out the door! (...)

Thank you Dan! And yes, it's horrible - unfortunately this is a real photo. This is sadly the reality on the beaches of some less privileged countries.

Surfing_Sam_61 wrote:

Hang ten Surfer dude

I like the first song a lot.

The astronauts used tape delay machines on the mixer board and Tank between the amp and guitar. They used a reverb room with a speaker on one end and mic the other (Frank Sinatra used the same studio back then). Another wards you need a delay device of some sort, Surfy Bear won't get you there by itself (but needed though)

Thank you Surfing_Sam_61! Wow, these are really deep insights, thank you very much! I would also be very interested in a source for this! I have a Catalinbread Belle Epoch on my board, which I use decadently mainly for subtle slapback. Maybe I can tinker something together with the SurfyBear, which comes a bit closer to the Astronauts sound.

drumsdick wrote:

Cool tunes, Don! Tell us about your drums!

Thanks drumsdick. I currently don't have access to real drums and I wouldn't have the time to record them properly if I had. That's why I use the EZDrummer software and try to get the drums to sound reasonably authentic through some tweaking. But of course this limits me to the pre-recorded drum sequences, which are mostly rather modern or at least tailored to other genres than authentic surf rock which of course also leads to a more mordern touch of my compositions. Here I am always looking for authentic midi files that I can feed into the program and edit creatively.

HallmarkSweptWinger wrote:

Hi!
Thanks for posting this here.
I like the 2nd song a lot. This sounds like surf music, yes.
This song could sound even sound better with more drippy surf music sound. (...)
Woher kommst Du denn? Where are you from? (...)

Many thanks for your constructive input. I come from bavaria, where are you from dear fellow german?

Cheers,

The_Electrified_Guitarist

'#2 has a nice vibe to it!

Surfcat

MARCH OF THE DEAD SURFERS! (2024) - Agent Octopus
Wake up Jimmy! It's Christmastime! (2024) - Agent Octopus (Single)

YOUTUBE - Agent Octopus Surf

Last edited: Feb 29, 2020 11:31:43

Number9 wrote:

Now, that's interesting! Could you give us your source, please?

Its my own theory based on long experiments on my Avid Rack Eleven emulation rack unit. The source is the actual record and recognizing the sounds used on it... I found the sounds trying different gear and combinations. I base all this on common recording techniques of the day and equipment available at that time

You have to have room Reverb, Tank with mix at 10 O'clock (no more than that) and Tape Delay to even approach The Astronauts studio sound. To get that sound live you need a lot of gear and players.

The Studio version has four lead guitars - The Slappy wet root note player in 8's starts first with a high setting feedback on the Tape Delay (Hear the slap-back effect), then the dry rhythm player starts then the main lead starts playing with lots of Room Reverb, Tape Delay and Tank during the intro. And finally the turn around player on the 6 and 5 string. That's a totally separate guitar from the main lead players tone. So definitely four guitar slingers on the studio track.

Last edited: Mar 01, 2020 02:22:56

Number9 wrote:

Yep! They both sound great. Think I could not be able to differentiate them from any other Surfer Joe tunes !!

Sorry I did not get this. What do I have to do with this?

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)

I still this that the holy grail of surf is a showman amp and a reverb tank, but obviously these are points of view. But again I don’t feel the tape delay anywhere. Probably my ear.

but if you have something recorded please share it.

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)

Out of all these hours spent playing, how many are on stage?
What amp are you using for these recordings, what speaker, what cabinet, what microphone, and then what guitar, string type, strings gauge, pick material, pick gauge, and most importantly what volume? What reverb tank, what reverb pan, what cables in between the gear?
All these factors contributed to make the sound of the Astronauts (like any other band) and this is why those recordings cannot be replicated in any way and I think you are misunderstanding an harmonic tremolo on a rhythm guitar, compressed in the mix, with a flanger on bass that I don’t feel at all.

But again I maybe wrong, I cannot give this for sure, so I would certainly be happy to hear some recording in order to better get your idea.

The fact that the studios were using their own mixing techniques is clear and obvious. But in most cases I think they were applied to the mix to obtain a better overall sound. For example on the Lively Ones there is a strong overall compression on the mix that makes it feel like an extra room reverb added on top of everything. But I cannot be sure of this and I cannot say now that there was a certain technique used.

But as I said in many other posts this to me does not really matter and I feel like dick dale on this. Surf Music is not the reverb or even the amp per se, is an way of playing. The effects are only cool toys to make it sound better, but what’s behind that is beyond the reverb used.

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)