hendrix flange
Patrick Neve
On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Damian wrote:
> can we all just agree that there is no magic box that will do this for us?
> can somebody tell us how to do it the reel way?
> i understand how tape phase works and all those lovely falling delays
> but what about flange???
> john lennon didn't have any box's.
> how
> how
> how?
> see ya
The way I undersatnd it was that flange was achieved by actually pressing
vertically on the tape as it passed the mastering heads.
I forget the name of Hendrix's engineer, but I thought I heard that he was
credited with being about the first to do this.
Danny Caccavo
In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.97111...@darkwing.uoregon.edu>,
Patrick Neve <sp...@darkwing.uoregon.edu> wrote:
No, Eddie Kramer was certainly NOT the first engineer to do this....for
years, I've heard *about* "The Big Hurt", which was allegedly the first
song to use this (early '60s?) - but I've never actually heard the track!!
And you don't press "on the tape" - you press on the flange of the tape
reel to slow it down, which creates a slight delay as compared to the
"control" machine, etc etc....creating the flange effect.
And John *did* use some boxes - the old Eventide Instant phaser on "Walls
and Bridges".
DC
--
Danny Caccavo (dan...@interport.net)
This Way Studios
http://www.users.interport.net/~danielj/
"Hey, Bee-atle - we shall have fun, eh?"
(delete the * from my return address for replies.....)
Damian
can we all just agree that there is no magic box that will do this for us?
can somebody tell us how to do it the reel way?
i understand how tape phase works and all those lovely falling delays
but what about flange???
john lennon didn't have any box's.
how
how
how?
see ya
ps----eventides flange is truly terrible
Bill
Danny Caccavo wrote:
> No, Eddie Kramer was certainly NOT the first engineer to do this....for
> years, I've heard *about* "The Big Hurt", which was allegedly the first
> song to use this (early '60s?) - but I've never actually heard the track!!
And even earlier than that, Les Paul was fooling around with multiple
delays using record cutting lathes fitted with playback cartridges,
though I think he was getting more of a "chorus" than a "flange" (i.e.
longer delay time, for an "ADT" effect).
Still, it's amazing what George Martin will take credit for -- he even
claims to have coined the term "flanging", saying that it had nothing
whatsoever to do with the flanges of tape reels.
Andrew P. Mullhaupt
Bill wrote:
>
> Still, it's amazing what George Martin will take credit for -- he even
> claims to have coined the term "flanging", saying that it had nothing
> whatsoever to do with the flanges of tape reels.
I hadn't heard that before, and it certainly surprises me. What _does_
he claim it refers to?
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
Andrew P. Mullhaupt
Bill wrote:
>
> In his book, Martin says that he and one of the engineers had come up
> with the technique as a way of thickening vocals. At some point during a
> session, John Lennon supposedly asked Martin to use the effect and, not
> knowing what to call it, he made up some nonsense term for it which just
> happened to include the word "flange".
This is a case where one would expect that there would be a lot of
sound engineers at that time ready to "make the leap". In the spook
world, a similar technique of stereo simulation had been in use for
years previous.
"Microphone transcription is difficult because you have only
one microphone source for a multichannel conversation. I decided
to design a piece of equipment to ease the problem. I went out
to an electronics exhibition at Olympia and bought a tape machine
which provided two heads. The second head gave a constant number
of milliseconds (or more) delay on the sound as it went through,
making it much fuller-bodied. In effect it simulated stereo sound,
and made even the worst tapes much easier to understand. I
installed the equipment on the seventh floor, and it made me a
friend for life in Mrs. Grist."
- Peter Wright, _Spycatcher_
Mr. Wright is referring to 1955, and one expects that having the
wiretap transcribers at MI5 as "friends for life" was much better
than the alternative. The reason that they only had one mike was
usually because it was burglarizing someone to get even that. From
our point of view, _Spycatcher_ is an interesting book about mike
placement, wireless mikes, and signal processing.
Using the five year rule of thumb - "five years after the spooks get
it _everybody_ has it" you'd guess that 1960 would be the time when
doubling and flanging would be about ripe for "discovery", and that
the hipper individuals might have already been there, possibly even
long before.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
Danny Caccavo
Except he's talking about straight tape delay, not "ADT" or "flanging"..
Andrew P. Mullhaupt
Danny Caccavo wrote:
>
> Except he's talking about straight tape delay, not "ADT" or "flanging"..
>
Which is what I meant by "making the leap". Note that if you made
a little loop of tape between the heads and wobbled it, you would
have invented one common form of flanging. Also it is to be supposed
that since they were transcribing wiretaps taken over long periods,
that they were probably pretty slow - certainly not 15ips, more
likely not even half that. This would mean that changes in tape
tension might actually have produced audible flange effects.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
Tom Hartman
In article <64oaid$o...@seminole.gate.net>, Angela Hawkes
<be...@seminole.gate.net> wrote:
>
>...which was a phil spector production (the song was by toni fischer, i
>believe it was for a movie of the same name). apparently, they stumbled
>upon the procedure by mistake while cutting the track in 1967.
>
>chris
The song was cut in the late 50s....
Joseph
On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Danny Caccavo wrote:
> > On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Damian wrote:
> >
> > > can we all just agree that there is no magic box that will do this for us?
> > > can somebody tell us how to do it the reel way?
> > > i understand how tape phase works and all those lovely falling delays
> > > but what about flange???
> > > john lennon didn't have any box's.
> > > how
> > > how
> > > how?
> > > see ya
> >
> > The way I undersatnd it was that flange was achieved by actually pressing
> > vertically on the tape as it passed the mastering heads.
Wrong. Although I suppose it would have a similar effect (slowing down the
playback speed of the deck) it was done by a technique called FLANGING for
a reason.
I have actually done this trick, back in my old college radio days. This
is how it was done on such 1960's classics as Hendrix's "And the God's
Made Love", the Animals' "Sky Pilot" and The Small Faces "Itchycoo Park".
In technical terms, this is called "zero-point flanging". The whole reason
this effect is _called_ "flanging" in the first place will soon be clear.
You need two indentical reel-to-reel master decks. They must be good
quality decks with very low wow-and-flutter, and tweaked to exact i.p.s.
speed. The one's I was using were made by Scully/Metrotech (I can't
remember the model now.)
Make simultaneous copies of the audio track you wish to flange onto the
two decks, using the same tape stock if possible. Set them up for playback
mixed together at the exact same level.
Rewind the two decks and cue them up tight to the start of the track(s).
Now comes the tricky part: you must start the decks simultaneously, and
have the signals be so in sync that they don't "echo" but are tight enough
to cause phase cancellation. Listen for echoing and you'll know right away
if you got it. If you don't hear an _intense_ flanging effect right away
instead of echos you must stop, rewind and start over. I usually managed
to do this manually within about half-a-dozen tries with practice.
Now comes the fun part! Choose one deck and place a fingertip (I used my
thumb) _very_ gently on the FLANGE of the supply reel. This has the effect
of vari-speeding the playback _down_ slightly. You will hear an intense
downward sweep of comb filtering. You must stop dragging the reel _before_
the timing of the two decks slides so far out of sync that the ear
precieves an echo or you'll lose the effect and end up with
Elvis-slapback.
Then touch the flange of the supply reel of the _other_ deck, slowing it
down in turn, and the "flanging" will sweep back UP again. At the point
where the timing converges you'll hear an intense "peak" as the turn-over
point is passed -- and then the effect sweeps back down again.
Continue in this manner, artfully orchestrating the timing of the sweeps
to compliment the music. As in all things, practice makes perfect.
The difference here is that with artificial flanging, a signal is split
into two lines and one of them is delayed and then the two are combined
again. The delay signal is lagged progressively longer, then reversed then
lagged again to produce "sweep".
With zero-point flanging, _both_ signals are vari-speeded _down only_ and
"dovetail" each other producing a far more intense effect, with the
dramatic "peak" as the signals converge and diverge.
Although it's possible to do this using two delay lines and varying them
independently, but to only add more and more delay to the signals (always
slowed down, never brought back up) ends up with your delay lines reaching
their limit somewhat soon.
The effect of doing it with analog tape machines is much more striking.
The tiny imperfections in playback speeds create an ongoing "warm flanging
distortion" (don't know what else to call it) that's very pleasing to the
ear.
One can also use THREE decks to do this trick, but the other tape machine
we had in the studio was an old Crown and it didn't track or sound quite
the same way as the Scullys -- and was _really_ a bitch to start three
decks at once -- you need two people! We only managed to pull it off a few
times but WOW! Now, with remote controls...
Probably someone could do some digital modelling with a DSP system and
come up with something close, but it sure wouldn't have the tactile
sensitivity of doing it the old school way.
Geoff Kirk
Danny Caccavo (*dan...@interport.net) wrote:
: In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.97111...@darkwing.uoregon.edu>,
: Patrick Neve <sp...@darkwing.uoregon.edu> wrote:
: > On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Damian wrote:
: >
: > > can we all just agree that there is no magic box that will do this for us?
: > > can somebody tell us how to do it the reel way?
: > > i understand how tape phase works and all those lovely falling delays
: > > but what about flange???
snip
: > The way I undersatnd it was that flange was achieved by actually pressing
: > vertically on the tape as it passed the mastering heads.
: > I forget the name of Hendrix's engineer, but I thought I heard that he was
: > credited with being about the first to do this.
: No, Eddie Kramer was certainly NOT the first engineer to do this....for
i once did some tape flange on my old 4 track cassette by using the
vair-speed as i played my drum machine snare along with the already
recorded snare.
SteveHigdn
Wait a minute, there, Andrew! Delay caused by record/playback head spacing is
way too much delay time to cause the effect known as flanging (whoEVER
invented it). Headstack delay gets you no less than about 30 to 40
miliseconds (at 30ips of course, longer at lower tape speeds). Flanging
requires something in the range of 2 to 15 milliseconds. Also, to get the
"sweep" effect of flanging, the delay time must be modulated, or changed over
time. This can't be done with only tape head delay.
Nor does the technique in your post describe anything like a stereo simulation.
Flanging, generated using tape delay, relies on using two decks that have the
exact same head spacing. The signal is passed thru both decks (monitoring
playback head) and combined, the effect happens when one deck is slightly
modulated (by your thumb on the flange of the tape reel, usually).
I hope this helps to clear things up.
Steve
SteveHigdn
>No, Eddie Kramer was certainly NOT the first engineer to do this....for
>i once did some tape flange on my old 4 track cassette by using the
>vair-speed as i played my drum machine snare along with the already
>recorded snare.
By the time any drum machine was available, the flanging effect had already
been in existance.
Anyway, what you did with a drum machine and a four track would not give the
effect known as flanging..... more like "flam-ing"
Danny Caccavo
In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.971116222929.5753D-100000@slip-3>, Joseph
<ma...@slip.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Danny Caccavo wrote:
>
> > > On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Damian wrote:
> > >
> > > > can we all just agree that there is no magic box that will do this
for us?
> > > > can somebody tell us how to do it the reel way?
> > > > i understand how tape phase works and all those lovely falling delays
> > > > but what about flange???
> > > > john lennon didn't have any box's.
> > > > how
> > > > how
> > > > how?
> > > > see ya
> > >
> > > The way I undersatnd it was that flange was achieved by actually pressing
> > > vertically on the tape as it passed the mastering heads.
>
Well, there's really a much easier way to do this, ya know...<g>
I do remember (in MY college radio days) phasing using 2 cart machines
(easier to start at the same time...). But the easiest way is to take two
3-head tape machines (identical in distance between record and pb heads)
at the same speed, feed them BOTH with the same signal, put them both in
record/repro, and combine the outputs. Then do the flange thing as you
described. No need to "cue up" the selection - it's already in sync. If
you have a varispeed control, all the better.
In a multitrack environment, it's easier still (if you have a Studer,
which the Beatles did). You see, the Studer has the capability of playing
off the record(sync) head and repro head simultaneiously, through two
different outputs. So all you have to do is take the sync head output from
the multitrack, delay it through a tape machine in record, and combine it
with the output from the repro head of the multitrack machine. Set the
varispeed on the delay machine for "ADT" or "Flange"....longer delays for
ADT, less for flanging.
15 ips seems to work better than 30. So does lower quality
formulations of tape. I guess the harmonic distortion helps...
Danny Caccavo
Except that you can't get flanging with delays as long as that.
Andrew P. Mullhaupt
Danny Caccavo wrote:
>
>
> Except that you can't get flanging with delays as long as that.
The delays probably weren't all that long or else the transcribers
would have had problems "hearing double". And if Wright had wanted
to get smaller delays, anyone who reads his book will know that the
idea to use two decks would have occured to him readily.
Now it may seem hard to understand that the delay was not that long
if you are thinking of heads spaced an inch or so apart, but I'm
pretty sure that would not have done. I expect that the machine in
question was a "portable" (yeah right) unit of the time. I have
seen machines of this type from the early sixties, and, depending
on the manufacturer, the head spacing varied a lot.
By the way - I'm not claiming that Peter Wright invented flanging in
1955. I'm pointing out that enhancing sound by superposing delayed tape
copies was an idea that was not that hard to come by in 1955, since it
occurred to a radio engineer while doing wiretapping.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
SteveHigdn
Joseph described his method for creating FLANGING....
>........(portion clipped)............
>Make simultaneous copies of the audio track you wish to flange onto the
>two decks, using the same tape stock if possible. Set them up for >playback
>mixed together at the exact same level.
>
>Rewind the two decks and cue them up tight to the start of the track(s).
>Now comes the tricky part: you must start the decks simultaneously, and
>have the signals be so in sync that they don't "echo" but are tight enough
>to cause phase cancellation. Listen for echoing and you'll know right >away
>if you got it. If you don't hear an _intense_ flanging effect right away
>instead of echos you must stop, rewind and start over. I usually managed
>to do this manually within about half-a-dozen tries with practice.
>
>Now comes the fun part! Choose one deck and place a fingertip (I used my
>thumb) _very_ gently on the FLANGE of the supply reel. This has the effect
>of vari-speeding the playback _down_ slightly. You will hear an intense
>downward sweep of comb filtering. You must stop dragging the reel _before_
>the timing of the two decks slides so far out of sync that the ear
>precieves an echo or you'll lose the effect and end up with
>Elvis-slapback.
DAMN.... that is the harder way to do a difficult effect! There is really no
need to do all that synching of playback decks. All you have to do is feed a
mix to both decks, put them in record, switch the output of both decks to
REPRO (or playback, depending on how your deck is labelled) and leave 'em
running in record. Point is, you simply monitor the playback head while
recording. This eliminates the need to synch playback, which doesnt even work
very well and is time consuming (not to mention annoying). It also lets the
delay (induced by your thumb on the flange on the supply reel of one deck)
return to normal when you let up on the flange. So you dont have to resynch
the decks by applying equal flange pressure to the other deck. You could even
make tape loops so you dont have to rewind your flanger every 15 minutes of
your mixing session.
Joseph
On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, Danny Caccavo wrote:
> Well, there's really a much easier way to do this, ya know...<g>
>
> I do remember (in MY college radio days) phasing using 2 cart machines
> (easier to start at the same time...). But the easiest way is to take two
> 3-head tape machines (identical in distance between record and pb heads)
> at the same speed, feed them BOTH with the same signal, put them both in
> record/repro, and combine the outputs. Then do the flange thing as you
> described. No need to "cue up" the selection - it's already in sync. If
> you have a varispeed control, all the better.
At first glance, I don't see how this could work that same way.
Think about it -- If the signal is being constantly "updated" (as it
passes from the rec to PB heads), then as soon as you let go of the
flange, it's going to "snap back" to being fairly in sync -- you're no
longer slowing it down, so the signals are again timed to each other. With
the PB only method, once you slow a deck down and let go , the playback of
that deck STAYS a few milliseconds behind the other.
Not that you wouldn't hear a flanging effect doing it as you described,
but it would be very different to control.
- J:.M:.555
> 15 ips seems to work better than 30. So does lower quality
> formulations of tape. I guess the harmonic distortion helps...
But I agree with you here.
Asimov
amul...@ix.netcom.com said the following to All on the subject of
Re: hendrix flange (18 Nov 97 01:07:36)
am> Danny Caccavo wrote:
> Except that you can't get flanging with delays as long as that.
am> The delays probably weren't all that long or else the transcribers
am> would have had problems "hearing double". And if Wright had wanted
am> to get smaller delays, anyone who reads his book will know that the
am> idea to use two decks would have occured to him readily.
am> Now it may seem hard to understand that the delay was not that long
am> if you are thinking of heads spaced an inch or so apart, but I'm
am> pretty sure that would not have done. I expect that the machine in
am> question was a "portable" (yeah right) unit of the time. I have
am> seen machines of this type from the early sixties, and, depending
am> on the manufacturer, the head spacing varied a lot.
am> By the way - I'm not claiming that Peter Wright invented flanging in
am> 1955. I'm pointing out that enhancing sound by superposing delayed
am> tape copies was an idea that was not that hard to come by in 1955,
am> since it occurred to a radio engineer while doing wiretapping.
am> Later,
am> Andrew Mullhaupt
Maybe it could have been invented a lot earlier still in that the use of
more than 1 mic can result in phasing effects particularly if one of
them was moving in relation to the other. Also rotating speaker cabinets
have long exloited the effect i.e. Leslie's.
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Idea 00
i wondering if anyone knew of a good program for writting sheet music? I
just want something simple...it doesn't have to have MIDI capability. I'm
looking for the cheapest program that can do anything I'd want to write on
a piece of sheet music. I found a what seemed like a decent program(Mozart
2.0), but it doesn't seem to be able to do chords. maybe i just missed
something.
Brian Redmond
ide...@aol.com
Commercial Pain Studios
http://members.aol.com/compain0