Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kevin Maxwell]

“I Am the Walrus” effect?

I am doing sound for a Beatles tribute band tonight or if they postpone it due to the weather forecast of thunderstorms today, it will be held tomorrow. I am betting it will be tomorrow.

Last year I got their set list ahead of time and made notes on it as to what effects I thought were appropriate after listening to recordings of the Beatles doing these songs. The show went very well with this information in hand. Yesterday I got the set lists for this year’s show. And there are some songs on it that they didn’t do last year. One of them is “I Am the Walrus” after listening to that and looking online for how to do that effect I called a friend and asked his recommendation as to how to get that distorted fuzzy sound. BTW I will run this by the band before doing it like I did with the other effects last year.   

I am using a Midas M32 for this show. My friend suggested trying the guitar amp effect. Does anyone here have any suggestions of how to set the guitar amp effect to get close to this effect sound? Or any other suggestions as to how to accomplish this effect? I actually can’t imagine doing that number without some sort of effect.

I won’t have a chance to play with it till on site after setup. I was also thinking of double assigning the input and insert the effect using a snippet and a user defined key to switch it between inputs (muting one input and unmuting the other) for this one song and changing to the guitar amp for that effect. I don’t have a spare effect to dedicate to this. I played with these setting off line (so no actual sound to hear how it sounds just the recalling of the settings) and the only problem I had was the user keys don’t seem to work to recall snippets in the edit software to test that part of it. I know it works on the console because I have done that before. 

[Taylor Hall]

It's actually a combo of effects, one part was double-tracking the vocals (which was done in a lot of other songs also on that album), along with a healthy dose of overdriven preamps, and (unconfirmed) use of the studio console's talkback mic to further enhance the low-fidelity fuzz effect.

[Kevin Maxwell]

It's actually a combo of effects, one part was double-tracking the vocals (which was done in a lot of other songs also on that album), along with a healthy dose of overdriven preamps, and (unconfirmed) use of the studio console's talkback mic to further enhance the low-fidelity fuzz effect.

After looking at what the guitar amp effect does and listening to a video demonstrating the effect on a guitar I am hoping to get something usable. I was thinking that just some distortion would help but I couldn't think of a way to make it distort on an M32. I just think a dry vocal on this song would sound weird so I am trying to do something to help.

[Taylor Hall]

After looking at what the guitar amp effect does and listening to a video demonstrating the effect on a guitar I am hoping to get something usable. I was thinking that just some distortion would help but I couldn't think of a way to make it distort on an M32. I just think a dry vocal on this song would sound weird so I am trying to do something to help.

Yeah, it may end up taking a bit of outboard work to get it closer, the M32 effects are decent at what they do, but lack the "hackability" of a physical processor. Dryish vocals with a fuzz pedal or overdriven guitar cab and a cheap mic might get you there.

[Kevin Maxwell]

Yeah, it may end up taking a bit of outboard work to get it closer, the M32 effects are decent at what they do, but lack the "hackability" of a physical processor. Dryish vocals with a fuzz pedal or overdriven guitar cab and a cheap mic might get you there.

This is a one shot deal so if I can do it in the M32 then great. I will hopefully have a little bit of time to play with it to see how it works. I was trying to figure out if I want to have both channels up (dry and effected) and mix to taste. Or just all effect. If I have both channels up I can add delay to one of them if that helps. But which one?

[Andrew Broughton]

The original was done with a crappy mic that JL loved the sound of.
Use a distortion patch, high-pass and low-pass the channel and blend the distortion with the dry and you can get close enough.

[Dave Pluke]

“I Am the Walrus” effect?

I am doing sound for a Beatles tribute band tonight or if they postpone it due to the weather forecast of thunderstorms today, it will be held tomorrow. I am betting it will be tomorrow.

I give you credit for caring but, if the Artists were concerned about that, I would expect them to provide their own solution, be it an outboard effect or a plug-in...

Dave

[Robert Lofgren]

I found these quotes:

Lennon, one of rock’s best vocalists, was always frustrated by the sound of his voice. For “I Am The Walrus,” he asked engineer Geoff Emerick to make his voice sound like it was coming from the moon. As always, Emerick turned Lennon’s strange request into the perfect effect. Violating EMI’s strict rules, Emerick had Lennon record his vocals using a low-fidelity talkback microphone (typically used by an engineer in the control room to “talk back” to musicians in the recording studio). This helped create one of rock music’s first distorted lead vocals.

It is an analog double tracking done with Studer tape machines and a custom speed control bulit in the lab at Abbery Road. People have been trying to duplicate that sound for years...

See Recording the Beatles for details:

Recording The Beatles
wherein Geoff Emerick is quoted on page 466 saying that is the distictive overloading of the REDD47 (a modified V72A premp) that gives it the particular fuzz effect...

[Robert Lofgren]

Try this:
======
Insert the precision limiter on the vox channel. set input gain: 18dB, out gain: -18dB, squeeze: 100%, knee: 0, fast attack and slow release.

Or this (my pref):
============
Insert the ultimo compessor on the vox channel. Set input gain: 0dB, out gain: -32dB, attack: 7, release: 1, ratio: all

To eliminate hearing the compressor release try setting the channel gate to exp4, threshold to taste, attack: 5, hold: 100, release: 100, range: 18dB

EQ the channel to taste to give it that vintage sound.

[Kevin Maxwell]

I give you credit for caring but, if the Artists were concerned about that, I would expect them to provide their own solution, be it an outboard effect or a plug-in...

Dave

I partially agree with you, but I have been surprised at the groups that I have worked with that don't seem to care as much as I do. This group was very thankful for the effort I put into them when we worked together last year. I have had compliments telling me how good a job we do on the sound for the groups I have worked with.

BTW it is raining out and the concert is tomorrow night.

A week ago Sunday the group that we did said to the audience at one point "we don't usually sound this good, thank you to the sound company for making us sound good.

[ProSoundWeb Community]