Sir Needs To Mixalot

The version everyone knows goes like this. December 1970, Headley Grange, John Bonham’s brand new Ludwig kit set up at the bottom of the stairwell, and engineer Andy Johns hanging two Beyerdynamic M160s a couple of floors up. All true, but it leaves out the part Johns himself kept bringing up.

He ran the two mics through a pair of limiters (Vintage King’s write-up says they were Helios F760s in the Rolling Stones’ mobile truck) and then sent the drums through Jimmy Page’s Binson Echorec. In his MusicRadar interview he’s pretty blunt about where that lurching “ga-gack” comes from: “It was the Binson that made him sound like that.”

The song was also recorded at a different speed and slowed down afterwards, which goes a long way toward explaining why the whole track feels like it’s wading through mud. Rick Beato made a video a while back arguing the stairwell gets more credit than it deserves. His comments section did not take it well.

Why the M160? It’s a double-ribbon hypercardioid that’s been in production since 1952. The tight pattern means a pair hung high picks up the kit and the space without turning to mush, and it’s dark enough that the cymbals don’t get nasty once you start leaning on a limiter.

Trying it at home

You don’t need a stairwell. Put one mic well away from the kit (a hallway works), hit a limiter hard enough that you can hear it breathe, and print a short tape-style echo underneath. Then play slower and heavier than feels right. Johns said it himself: for the rest of it, you really need Bonzo.

Watch and read

• MusicRadar: Andy Johns on the Levee drum sound
• MusicRadar: Andy Johns on recording Led Zeppelin IV
• Vintage King: Recreating the Levee drums, with video
• Diffuser: Chad Smith and Roger Taylor play the Headley Grange stairwell
• Wikipedia: Beyerdynamic M 160

Royer released the R-121 in 1998. Back then ribbons were mostly something you found in the closet of an older studio, and the R-121 is a big part of why they came back into everyday use, especially on electric guitar.

Engineer Ross Hogarth was one of the first to pair it with a Shure SM57 on the same speaker. The 57 brings the bite, the ribbon brings the low mids and a softer top, and you blend to taste. Hogarth described his video series on it as a way to “crack the code.” Steve Genewick used the same pair on every guitar amp on Spinal Tap II, according to Mix, and Royer’s library has Slash’s Marshall miked the same way.

Getting the two mics to agree

It’s all phase. Put both mics on the same spot on the cone, with the capsules as close to lined up as you can get them. Solo both, flip the polarity on one, and keep whichever setting sounds fuller. Then move the ribbon back half an inch at a time while you listen in mono.

Two things about ribbons. The back of the mic hears as much as the front, so whatever is behind it ends up on the track. And loud is fine, but a blast of air (a kick drum port, a bass cab with no grille) is not.

Watch and read

• Royer Labs: Ross Hogarth and Tim Pierce, Recording Electric Guitar video series
• Mix: Ross Hogarth on Royer history
• Mix: Hogarth’s guitar miking videos announced
• Sweetwater InSync: Ribbon mics on electric guitar

Spectra Sonics was founded in Ogden, Utah in 1964 by William G. Dilley. It’s not where you’d guess a Memphis soul sound came from, but Spectra’s 101 preamps get described as exactly that: the sound of Stax Records. Spectra consoles also ended up at Ardent in Memphis, the Record Plant in New York, and much later at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound in Nashville.

The 610 Complimiter came out in 1969. It pairs a compressor/limiter module with 101-style make-up gain, and it’s fast. The published attack time runs from 100 nanoseconds to 2 microseconds, which is quicker than almost anything else you’re likely to plug in.

That kind of speed can be ugly in the wrong place and great in the right one. Dave Cobb has been loud about liking them. Vintage King quotes him: “I used the hell out of them on the new Jason Isbell record.” Vance Powell and Tchad Blake are fans too.

Where it works

Drum rooms, mostly. Something that grabs that quickly turns a room mic into a wall. It’s also good on bass when you want every note to sit exactly where it is.

Watch and read

• WhisperRoom / Recording Studio Rockstars: The Spectra Sonics story
• Vintage King: Spectra Sonics 610 Complimiter
• Vintage King: A short history of Spectra Sonics
• Tape Op: V610 Complimiter review

In 1959 EMI bought a batch of Altec 436B compressors for Abbey Road. By 1960 three of its engineers, Bill Livy, Len Page and Mike Batchelor, had reworked them enough to give them a new name: the RS124. It’s a variable-mu tube design. Slow, smooth, and more about tone than catching peaks.

According to Recording The Beatles by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, an RS124 may have been used on every Beatles album from Please Please Me to Abbey Road. The Shadows and The Zombies went through them too, and they did duty on the mix bus and in the cutting rooms. From Revolver on, Geoff Emerick also leaned hard on a Fairchild.

Chandler Limited, in Shell Rock, Iowa, is the one company licensed to make official EMI and Abbey Road gear. Their RS124 recreation was modeled on three surviving originals, which matters, since no two vintage units sound quite the same.

How we’d use one

Bass and vocals. Two or three dB of gain reduction, slow release. It isn’t going to flatten anything. It makes things sound settled, which is a different job.

Watch and read

• Abbey Road Studios: RS124, the gear that made us
• Sound On Sound: Chandler RS124 review
• Chandler Limited: EMI RS124

Fleetwood Mac tracked much of Rumours at the Record Plant in Sausalito, in Studio B, on an API console with 550A EQs, going to 3M 24-track tape. Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut produced and engineered alongside the band.

The first days didn’t go well. As Vintage King’s write-up tells it, Caillat spent about nine days moving mics and swapping amps and still didn’t like what he heard. What finally fixed it was the desk: opening up the preamps and, in his words, “+12 on every EQ channel.”

For mics, Caillat told Sound On Sound he used a Sennheiser 441 on kick, an AKG C414 with a 20 dB pad on snare and AKG 451s overhead, with the bass through a DI and a 414. Nothing exotic.

Big boosts aren’t a crime

The 550A uses what API calls proportional Q. The more you boost, the narrower the band gets, so small moves are broad and gentle and big moves get more focused. That’s a large part of why you can push one hard and it still sounds like music. If you’ve been told to only ever cut, try a bold boost on something that sounds dull and see what happens.

Watch and read

• Vintage King: The making of Rumours
• Tape Op: Ken Caillat interview
• MusicRadar: Rumours track by track with Ken Caillat

The 4038 started out as a BBC design in the 1950s. STC built it first, and Coles has made it since the mid ’70s with the same specs. It looks a bit like a small waffle iron and it sounds dark, wide and very natural, especially on loud things.

At Abbey Road, Norman Smith used a pair as overheads on Ringo Starr’s kit, and Geoff Emerick kept experimenting with them. Ken Scott told Sound On Sound he used one on Paul McCartney’s bass cab and on the Hammond during the Sgt. Pepper and White Album sessions. Glyn Johns’ well-known drum setup often used two of them, and they’re on Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn too.

A Glyn Johns-style setup

Excuse the drawing.

One mic three or four feet above the snare, pointing down. A second just past the floor tom, low, looking across the kit toward the snare. Use a mic cable as a tape measure to get both the same distance from the center of the snare, then add a kick mic. It’s simple and very hard to make sound bad. With 4038s you’ll want a preamp with plenty of clean gain.

Watch and read

• Abbey Road Institute: The Coles 4038 at Abbey Road
• Vintage King: Coles 4038 history
• Wikipedia: Coles 4038

Coil Audio is a small company in Lawrence, Kansas that builds tube mic preamps from very old circuits.

The CA-70 is a two-stage octal tube design (a 6J7 into a 6C5) based on the Western Electric circuit that RCA, Gates and Langevin all built versions of. It’s thick and creamy, heavy in the lows. The CA-286 uses a two-stage EF86 circuit in the same family as the Telefunken V72 and the old Langevin, Collins and Gates broadcast amps. It’s more forward and detailed, with a bit of edge.

Tape Op’s reviewer put it about as well as anyone could: “CA-286 would be Lenny Kravitz, CA-70 would be Beck.” Vance Powell, who has engineered for Jack White and Chris Stapleton, keeps CA-286 modules in his rack.

One practical note. Neither one supplies phantom power, so condenser mics need it from somewhere else.

Watch and read

• Tape Op: Coil Audio review (issue 121)
• Tape Op: Coil Audio review (issue 107)
• Front End Audio: Coil Audio CA-70
• Equipboard: Vance Powell and the CA-286