Fwd: The Motown 1960's 'Exciting Compressor'

[clamnebula]

This was part of an interesting article I read at Recording Engineer's Quarterly
about some of the original Motown studio engineer's tricks.

-Neb

-------------------------------------------------------
"Lawrence Horn came up with a brilliant idea. He took the vocal and split the
signal so that it when to 2 console channels. Before the vocal signal went to
the second channel, it went through a compressor. Now he had two channels of the
vocal - one compressed and one uncompressed. On the uncompressed vocal he added
very little with the equalizer and he added the reverb. On the compressed
channel, he compressed the h**l out of it and added a ton of high-frequency
equalization. What he would do is bring up the "natural" channel to full level
to get the basic natural sound on the vocal. On the other compressed and
equalized channel, he brought this up just enough to add excitement and presence
to the vocal sound."

read on here-
http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

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[rocksteady]

This was not only a Motown trick.

Al

[Bob Olhsson]

In article <CbpZ9.5867$fk6....@news.bellsouth.net>, clamnebula
<clamneb...@netscape.net> wrote:

>"Lawrence Horn came up with a brilliant idea.

I understand the idea actually came from some classical music labels by
way of Mike McLean, Motown's chief engineer. Lawrence used to also use
a noise gate on the compressed signal.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery Recording Project Design and Consulting
Box 90412, Nashville TN 37209 Tracking, Mixing and Mastering
615.352.7635 FAX 615.356.2483 Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
40 years of making people sound better than they thought possible!

[Rick Hammang]

"clamnebula" <clamneb...@netscape.net> wrote in message news:<CbpZ9.5867$fk6....@news.bellsouth.net>...

I use that process all the time for multi-mic talk show set's and VO
tracks. It works great with different languages as well, gives balance
to lows and highs. Levels, controls, and stabilizes sibs. It improves
consonants and with adjustable gates (release times) on each, removes
extraneous lip smacks and clothes, silk tie, and paper rustling,
thumping etc.. I use a buss out, mult to each side of the comps/gates
(unlinked), into 2 channel strips, EQ one high, one low, then send to
main out buss. Once set, it is automatic for that show. I also found
the article at RID some time back.
--Rick

[Kato Jenkina]

This is a well-known trick. Many people have posted this advice but
you're the first to credit the innovator.

From now on I will refer to this as a "Lawrence Horn."

Thanks for the link!

Kato

"clamnebula" <clamneb...@netscape.net> wrote in message news:<CbpZ9.5867$fk6....@news.bellsouth.net>...