Can you describe the vocal treatment on this song?

[rasputin1963]

Hello CASS&S,

 

Give this great old 1964 recording a listen, why don'tcha...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL1a5tGnd8A&mode=related&search=

 

 

Can you tell me what has been done to Peter Noone's lead vox on this recording (they're almost certainly lip-synching here) to give it its peculiar, idiosyncratic sound?

 

Thanks, ras

[axe2 2001]

I was thinkin about this a few weeks ago. Sounds like some multi-tracking along with a reverb and some tape speed trickery. The background vox sound pretty normal but he's soundin a bit like Alvin the chipmunk. Vince Neil knows that one!!

[zenchin]

Common for the Shindig, Hullaballo tv show era. Simply play the finished track and also have a live mic on the main singer in front of the camera. Various degrees of on or off double tracking then occurs on the voice. The thing to remember about Peter/Herman in that clip is that he's only 16 or 17 there. That voice is the way lots of kids that age sound when singing.

 

Also common in those days, as you can see from this particular clip, the electric guitars aren't plugged in and the drummer is only hitting "air"..never making contact with the drums or cymbals (notice the cymbals don't move?).

 

In the old shows, they'd sometimes..unwisely..let the band play along. One really sore thumb youtube video that comes to mind is the Buckinghams playing the old 60's hit "Don't You Care" on the Smothers Brothers show. They..for whatever reason...put mics on the drummer and then played the record for the band to pretend-play with. Problem is that Dennis (or whatever his name was) is WAY off on the timing with his singing on the track..no doubt because they let the drummer (Jon) REALLY whack the drums along with the track in front of the camera. Even the drummer can't grab the beat (maybe they weren't hearing the record loud enough on the stage)...and the resulting song is a keyboard player, bass player, guitar player...not plugged in...and a live singer and thwacking drummer who can't hear the recorded track they're supposed to play along with. OUCH. Painful to watch that one. Take a listen on Youtube sometime.

[axe2 2001]

The clip provided is totally lipsunk, there are no mics, anywhere! So we're talkin about a studio recording correct?

[zenchin]

Thing is that on a lot of those Hullabaloo/Shindig type shows, there was a boom mic straight out over the top of the center camera. That mic would pick up whatever noises were happening on stage ..including any actual singing..as well as a lot of the room sound of the auditorium. That one mic would be mixed in realtime with the recorded tape/45 (naw, tape) playing from in the tv control room.

 

You don't always see the boom mic, but it's definitely always there on those types of old shows. What you have is that mic picking up Peter/Herman's voice from about three feet or so up and in front of him.

 

Of course when it comes to Youtube, every other video is out of sync with it's audio by some small or abusive amount. For as much money as the two Google guys have, ya'd think they'd get that bug fixed.

[axe2 2001]

 

Thing is that on a lot of those Hullabaloo/Shindig type shows, there was a boom mic straight out over the top of the center camera. That mic would pick up whatever noises were happening on stage ..including any actual singing..as well as a lot of the room sound of the auditorium. That one mic would be mixed in realtime with the recorded tape/45 (naw, tape) playing from in the tv control room. You don't always see the boom mic, but it's definitely always there on those types of old shows. What you have is that mic picking up Peter/Herman's voice from about three feet or so up and in front of him. Of course when it comes to Youtube, every other video is out of sync with it's audio by some small or abusive amount. For as much money as the two Google guys have, ya'd think they'd get that bug fixed.

 

 

I can't disagree with how you say they did shows like that but that song sounds exactly the same when I hear it on my local radio station. I think that clip is completly a recorded version of the song... could be wrong though.

Going with my assumtion that it's a studio version we are hearing in that clip, i'll stick by the tape speed thing. I know kids have high voices but his sounds un-natural.

 

If you check out the other video's in the link you can tell the difference between the performances. Can't you hear my heart beat sounds most definitly live and probably used techniques as you described. To my ears Heartbeat sounds very live and the song in question is a studio recording. Then again I was only 1 year old at the time so what do I know!!

[Fendercaster]

Kinda OT, but I don't remember Herman's Hermits doing "Bus Stop". Who recorded it first, HH or the Hollies?

[Hard Truth]

Considering the time it was recorded-I would guess that his voice is just double or triple tracked. There is also reverb from a chamber, with possible predelay from a tape machine. Unintended variations in the recorders' speed may also be partially reponsible for the sound.

 

I think the warbly munchkin quality is mostly from the way he sang.

 

The whole track might have been sped up a bit also, which was not too uncommon at the time,

[blue2blue]

 

The clip provided is totally lipsunk, there are no mics, anywhere! So we're talkin about a studio recording correct?

 

 

Actually there ARE mics in some scenes -- just not in others. In some scenes, some members of the backup band have mics in front of them. In others they do not. At one point I thought I saw some mic booms just to the side of the frame -- away from the band.

 

It's possible they slowed down the track for him to sing along with or perhaps sped up the whole track -- that was not all that uncommon, as I understand it, particularly to "urgent up" a track that was deemed lacking in the forward momentum department.

 

But don't forget, squirrely voiced singers were BIG back then... there were a lot of "adenoidal adolescents" picked out for teen fave duty... I mean, that's why guys like Orbison stood out... he didn't sound like the A&R man was squeezing his... uh... near extremities like so many of the pop singers of the era.

[rasputin1963]

 

It's possible they slowed down the track for him to sing along with or perhaps sped up the whole track -- that was not all that uncommon, as I understand it, particularly to "urgent up" a track that was deemed lacking in the forward momentum department.

 

 

I guess those were the days when it was impossible to speed up a recorded signal-- without also raising the pitch.

 

A number of Dusty Springfield recordings from this era have been sped up, sometimes to the point where the pitch of the record is on a "non-key", like, somewhere bewtween C and C#. In fact, when I import those tracks into WAVELAB and lower them down precisely into discrete [Western] keys, I actually find that Dusty's voice, and her song delivery, sound more like what I expect the recordists initially heard in the studio... Just a hunch.

 

True 'nuff about squirelly-voiced male singers of this era... I'm a huge Gene Pitney fan, but he often sang by putting his voice into this oddest, nasally register... a hair's breadth from sounding "chipmunk-y" at times. He was kind of "Frankie Laine, Lite" But he had such control over his instrument, he could always keep it sounding acceptable. I guess that was his "style", or part of it.