Recreating This Classic 60's Sound

[Retro Audio Enthusiast]

I've done my fair share of making 'vintage' sounding recordings (using period instruments and emulations of classic gear from the 60's etc.) but I'm wondering how on a forensic level how you might accomplish a grungy classic imperfect sound like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3pNkLIrVC8

If you need a song to sound like a real 'lost 1966 band' how would you go about doing it? I'm interested in the EQ'ing in particular - that distinctive and natural-sounding roll-off of highs and distortion.

[Pink Wool]

From what I'm hearing (mind you I'm no mixer or pro, just a music lover):

- Tape saturation and lots of compression
The beginning of the song ducks so much when the drums come in! Love it!

- "Bad" mixing (no modern separation of sounds)
The drums are super-compressed but you can't really hear them. The clarity comes from the added percussion. The guitar is super dry, the bass is just all bass, the organ is there but it too is buried.

- Plate reverb/room reverb
Lovely dark reverb on those vocals.

- Mono
Well obviously!

- Crazy good vocals that are upfront and have a melody you can hum +lots of harmonies
This is what I miss in most of todays music. And I'm not talking about modern pop that's on top of the charts on Spotify. I'm talking about music! It needs more harmonies and melodies you can actually sing in the shower. So yeah, you need those!
+ Dynamic song structure. I think this is where it all begins! A good song! That's under 3 minutes!

My 2cents.

ps. Like I said I'm no mixer but I read about this Abbey Road EQ trick you can do on vocals, or rather the reverb. Not sure if you know this allready but here:

https://westlakepro.com/abbey-road-reverb-trick/

[jrk]

Oh yes. Lots of compression on the drums all squashed together. Listen to that wash of cymbals!
The bass doesn't go super low does it? Deffo consider doing some high limiting to replicate what was happening at the poor cutting lathe. (a few dB GR above 4k?)

[Retro Audio Enthusiast]

Thanks guys. Any insight on EQ curves? That natural hi-end roll-off in particular?

Just cutting top end doesn't seem to sound authentic...

[Allybye]

Don't know why you would want to copy that awful recording but.....

Sound like very steep top cut at relatively low frequency.
Have you tried comparing a full range sound (something fairly flat like a decent recent track) with that old track in a spectrum analyser to see what the difference is and try to replicate the difference? Than add the tape overmodulated distortion?

Purely as a guess I would suspect some lift up to maybe 8 kHz or lower but not much content after that! Sound as bad as a comms voice circuit that has little over even 4kHz!!....well that's maybe an exaggeration.....

[Eliseat]

This crunchy sound comes clearly from a vinyl record. Its not all about mixing and compressing. So the best way to recreate this would be pressing in vinyl and playing the record 500 times.

[zeekat]

Wasn't a typical 60s recording basically a band playing live with few (by todays standards) microphones? I guess that makes the impact too.

[jrk]

Well, I guess not everyone likes it

Definitely try the high limiting I suggested (ReaXcomp? Airwindows acceleration? Both?)

To me it sounds like there's some "presence" boost - certainly on the vocals, probably on the whole mix - I'd reach for something like PTEq-X (Ignite Amps - it's free) Try some boost at around 5k with a broad-ish bandwidth and a high cut-off maybe 8 or 10k or whatever.

You could also maybe cut the bass - 50? 80?

Obv, use the eq of your choice - if you decide to try PTEq-X you'd use the bottom two units (you'll see what I mean), probably.

I suspect a lot of music at the time was being consumed on less than hi-fi equipment or via AM radio - so extreme top end wasn't terribly important.

[Pink Wool]

One thing that caught my attention on a recent Isolated Tracks by KEXP where they interviewed King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard was how they (KGatLW) used a tape emulation for the tracks. They first cut A LOT of bass away from the master bus. Then the master went through the emulation and then the lows were brought back again. This way your highs are way crunchier than your low end. Thought it was a cool trick!

Here's the interview (the master bus thing is talked around 23:20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJn1tgAQfk

[Retro Audio Enthusiast]

Thanks for all the replies.

Originally Posted by Pink Wool

Here's the interview (the master bus thing is talked around 23:20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJn1tgAQfk

Thanks Pink -this is great.