[Vintage-Audio] Re RCA Nashville Studios

[LeeHazen at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/25/06 8:44:22 PM Central Daylight Time, 
dfischer at usol.com writes:

<< So pray tell, what was the magic that came out of the infamous Nashville 
 studio that gave it a sound like none other, ever? >>

It was the Nashville musicians and singers - they arrange a piece on the spot
and work together so tightly - yet effortlessly.

It IS magic.  I've experienced it over and over through the years.  

Another ingredient is the widespread use of EMT "Plate" echo chambers.
Everyone had them and cross echo and delayed echo sends created a very
spacious sound.  I have one here, parked up in my garage.  It has a stereo
return and can sound like anything from a closet to mammoth cave !

If you don't have good echo chambers, you can't create the "experience" that
they've created for so many years in Nashville.  And, tasteful use of 
"echo/reverb"
is the secret.

Compression was also a part of the sound.  The early consoles had a final
line amplifier/compressor in the chain.  So the end product was already
compressed as it was recorded on the master tape.  It's all part of the 
"sound".

For several years, when I was mixing at Glaser Brothers' studio, I had a pair 
of
Pultec Equalizers and Teletronics LA 2A compressors in the chain
with the 2 track machine.  I always set them up the same way, album to album,
and it made my master tapes very consistant and ready to master.

One album that I recorded was Jimmy Buffet's "A white sport coat and a pink
crustacian" in l973.  We cut the tracks in 2 nights, spent a day with overdubs
and I mixed it in a day.  Same setup as I mixed many other albums.  

In later years, I've not used overall compression and EQ as I once did and I
think I like the purer sound quality.  It's a different sound.  There's a 
place for
both styles of mixing.  If the recording has wide dynamics and a "cast of
Thousands", then overall compression helps out big time and keeps levels from
getting out of hand.   The master will get compressed somewhere along the
way, regardless.  I've also been a disc mastering engineer, so I tried to make
my master tapes ready for mastering .

Lee