The Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" appreciation thre

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AngelRho
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22 Dec 2010, 9:54 am

auntblabby wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
One thing I don't get, though, is that really nice stereo spread. I'm not happy about that, but mono is a necessary evil for me. Our church has the house loudspeakers almost directly front-and-center above the pulpit, which means even if you TRY to feed them stereo, it's getting mixed down to mono whether you like it or not.


what you could do if so inclined, would be to get a HUGHES SRS stereo sound expander box and run your stereo feed through it before it gets to the speakers above your pulpit. this is the most sonically neutral stereo expander box i have found, and i have tried them ALL. you could also combine this with a bit of antiphonal sound, in that the difference signal OR the mono signal could be sent either to rear or far-forward speakers in the venue, or you could send a mono signal to the pulpit speakers and the stereo/difference signal to all other speakers. experimentation is the key to finding the best technique. just a jejune thought.


The problem is that our setup is about the most ignorant setup imaginable, and what's even more shocking is just how many churches are set up this way. There are no rear speakers, no side speakers...NOTHING. Just one great, big, decorative scrotum of a speaker installation hanging from the ceiling. More contemporary churches are going with smaller speakers along the walls, much more like a theater setting. But even those speakers are only putting out a mono signal.

What we're going to end up doing eventually is just investing in our own PA. I really wanted to do that for the last handbell thing I did. The video you saw was mixed by our media guys, and you can probably tell it's all realtime--no editing. I tried to talk our worship leader into bringing in the PA from the youth room or something, but time just ran out. You know what they say about when you want something done RIGHT...

So my problem becomes one of having a mono mix for the house, even if I have my own PA and monitors. The television broadcast is mono, also, so I have to be concerned about that, too. I wish they'd bring things up into the 21st century, but in the meantime it's really more of a minor annoyance than anything else. Anyone out there really serious about their sound needs to understand they might not be working in the best of the best venues or recording studios. It's always good to be prepared for whatever happens. And like I said, mono is one of those rare skills that everyone needs to attempt to build at some point.

I'll look into the Hughes SRS. I've never thought of anything like that before. Back when I was still young and naïve, I was really heavy on Logic native effects. But ever since I've gotten nothing but mud from my recordings, so I've been going as dry as I can get away with lately.



TellEmSteveDave
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04 Nov 2011, 7:20 pm

I'm a big fan of The Beatles and The Ramones, but I think Phil Spector's best work was with The Ronettes, The Crystals and The Shangri-La's

I don't like Phil as a person, he scares me! but he has produced some great records!



auntblabby
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05 Nov 2011, 7:56 am

phil's best work was when he was forced to ashcan his wall of sound technique for something more modern. i liked what he did with the beatles. the monophonic and veiled sound quality of his early work with the ronnettes, crystals et al was excreble. he ordered his engineer to "push it to 11" and deliberately saturate the tape and the microphone electronics in order to get that big amorphous "wall of sound" he was so enamoured of.
i would bet good money that upon his death he has it in his will that all his production master tapes are to be destroyed, leaving just the mono mix masters. that means we will likely never get to hear the pure stereo mastertapes of his xmas album. the bastard :x

i will just have to stick with my stereo lp of the xmas album. there is a VERY rare CD with the spector stereo xmas record on it, what few surviving copies are in the hands of a few DJs and private collectors. it was on the european Duchesse label, if memory serves me right. i would so love to be able to hear it. on the torrents there are rips of it, but my computer won't do torrents for reasons beyond my ability to understand. :hmph: