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The organ "modulations/FX" on Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" (1966)


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Hear that treatment given the percussive organ during the verses of "Good Vibrations"?

 

It sounds like it's beng flanged or phased or something... both the amplitude and overtone aspects are being affected.

 

 

What studio FX would've existed in 1966 to modulate the organ like this? It sounds kind of like that weird "aquatic" sound that Vinnie Bell was using on his guitar in those days...

 

[video=youtube;TCeD_6Y3GQc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCeD_6Y3GQc

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What studio FX would've existed in 1966 to modulate the organ like this?

 

It seems I have a question similar to this one almost everyday.

I have learned a lot about classic sounds on the internet but not nearly as much I have had questions about.

 

Just yesterday I learned that the piano sound on Joy to the World was a Hohner Pianet and not a Wurlitzer.

 

For years I had always wondered what the keyboard sound in Aerosmith's Dream On was.

Through my research I surmised it was probably an RMI electronic piano.

 

When I picked up Steven Tyler's new autobiography at the bookstore recently I opened it to the page about him "finding" a suitcase full of money and him going out the next day and buying an RMI electronic piano.

 

That's the closest I've come to proving my assumption on that one.

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You can hear the organ much clearer on the extended takes that form part of the bonus tracks to the Beach Boys Smiley Smile LP - there's bits where it breaks down and Brian instructs the musicians what to do. IIRC he says something about a motor being on for one beat and off for another which I thought was in relation to the organ perhaps? Can't find a youtube link to the track though. If you can find the track check it out as it wil give you more of a clue by hearing it more isolated.

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The keys have the leslie and tape loop trick recording the playback heads to a new track to create the echo on them.

Since a reel to reels only have a few speeds you play to the slap back of the tape heads and the speed of the motor/tape feed.

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No, no-- not the Theramin. And, while the keyboard being used might be a Hammond B3, it sounds definitely as if some post-FX of some sort have been introduced to the sound. I'm just always curious about what "tricks" were available, say, pre-1968.

 

Two posts, two incorrect spellings of the word Theremin...

:cop:

I shall cease being a pompous ass now.

:p

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Analog flanging via tape machine was well known at the time. You'd get 2 machines going with the same track on both, but one machine would be driven by a 60 Hz generator with an LFO that would be fed to a power amp then to the tape machine power cord. Another way was to drag your hand on one of the tape reel flanges (hence the name).

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  • 8 years later...
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On 6/27/2011 at 7:36 AM, WRGKMC said:

I havent listened to it in a long time but I believe its a spacial effect you're talking about that was done with tape or with tape in combination with panning.

Good Vibrations was only mixed in Mono.  If you're hearing panning, that's a testament to the recorded arrangement.

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  • 1 year later...

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