When I were a lad I only had one fret and I had to play all the notes on it

[Beedster]

So, inspired by this.......

 

 

...and by some reflections recently about just how easy it is to play music these days, and especially to record it, I thought it would be interesting to see how folks made do in their early playing careers? Fpor example, in the early 80's I used to multitrack using two cassette tape players, record a rhythm track using block of wood, play that back on one cassette machine while playing the bass part and recording that and the rhythm track on the second cassette machine etc, as you can imagine after four or five tracks the noise floor was not low 🤔

 

Did I mention that the 'bass' was a down-tuned guitar   

[Franticsmurf]

36 minutes ago, Beedster said:

I thought it would be interesting to see how folks made do in their early playing careers?

My dad had a couple of old reel to reel tape recorders and I used those in a similar way to your cassette recorder pair. 'Drums' were whatever sounded right, often empty plastic food containers. A large rubber band stretched over an open container for a vaguely bass-like sound. Like you, noise played an integral part in my mix. 😃 

[Waddo Soqable]

I ripped an old GPO phone apart to make a microphone, makes two in fact as you can use both ends as a mic. Stripped the wires and gashed various jack plug options on the end as required. I sussed out how to record diffent tracks on each "side" of the stereo on a cassette tape machine as I recall, doing away with the need for a second recorder ( which I didn't have anyway) 

Was In a band with a posh bird for a bit who actually had a cassette deck, called "symul-sync" something or other, that was designed to overdub one track, very sophisticated ... she also had a top loader video machine so we'd pile round there and watch assorted OGWTs and stuff. Clearly she had loadsa money 😁

[Gasman]

Ah she was a Toploader fan - such a fine and natural sight, I imagine, 'specially dancin' in the moonlight!

Edited March 26, 2023 by Gasman
add a word

[Waddo Soqable]

21 minutes ago, Gasman said:

Ah she was a Toploader fan - such a fine and natural sight, I imagine, 'specially dancin' in the moonlight!

I doubt they were even born then 😁

[BigRedX]

My first band who were part of the DIY cassette scene of the late 70s and early 80s recorded their first 3 "albums" live (one song at a time) directly onto a stereo cassette recorder. The mix was achieved by moving the mics and amps around the room until we were happy with the balance and the overall sound. Then everything would be left as it was until we had finished recording all the songs for that "session".

 

The first album was done in the percussionist's (we didn't have a proper drummer) lounge whilst his parents were away on holiday. The next two were in the singer's garage. If we required more instruments for a song than we could play in one go, we'd record some of them onto an ancient mono reel-to-reel machine, stick the output through a spare channel on one of our amps, and play along with the results. 

 

For the last two albums we were able to borrow a "stereo" reel-to-reel tape recorder that allowed us to bounce one channel to the other whilst adding another set of instruments. Generally could only do this process twice before the hiss and hum had built up to unacceptable levels.

 

 

[Woodinblack]

I had a reel to reel for recording, that was good, and a home organ that sounded like a home organ, until you put the headphone output through an overdirve pedal, then it sounded great.

My first amplifier was a cassette player with a microphone input, it didn't sound very good then it got shot with an air pistol, then it sounded great, really overdriven and good.

Some time later I decided that as shooting it with an air pistol made it sound great, shooting it again would probably make it sound ever greater. Sadly, that wasn't the case, it didn't sound of anything after that.

[msb]

We used to have to use tuning forks to tune up guitars and basses. And do it while disco music was blaring through the bar’s gigantic PA system.  

 

You’d bang the fork on your knee to get a pitch and then hold it over the pickup to hear it and get your A string to pitch. Then you’d tune the rest to the A string. Not easy to do while solo or shaking disco music was blaring. And the patrons did not care much for the pinging noises. You had to take turns tuning. 

Edited March 26, 2023 by msb
Spelling

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, msb said:

We used to have to use tuning forks to tune up guitars and basses. And do it while disco music was blaring through the bar’s gigantic PA system.  

Tuning! Luxury. When I were a lad….😀

[Dan Dare]

Feedback? You were lucky. We used to have to pay someone to stand in the wings and scream at us.

[naxos10]

Not strictly a band but 4 of us recorded two tracks in the keyboard players front room. Cardboard drums, piano, and bass on a 6 string acoustic with the added use of a childs 3 wheel cycle. I think the tape recorder was a stereo model by ITT and as it was in the days of bands like Faust, Can and Gong the tracks were aptly named Squeeky Trike Parts 1 & 2.

Edited March 26, 2023 by naxos10

[nilorius]

How much string did you own with 1 fret 12 or 24 ?

[Beedster]

17 minutes ago, nilorius said:

How much string did you own with 1 fret 12 or 24 ?

Strings, who mentioned strings, luxury, all I had was a fret 😀

[nilorius]

9 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Strings, who mentioned strings, luxury, all I had was a fret 😀

So how did You maked a sound ?

[BigRedX]

In some ways because of the types of music I was interested in playing, I was sometimes ahead of the curve. 

 

I bought my first electronic tuner in 1983 when they had just become relatively affordable (although it was still a lot of money at the time compared with something like an effects pedal), because in my synth band we were fed up of spending a minute before we played tuning the keyboards to a test tone off our backing tape (which the whole audience could hear too). 

 

In bands before that we tuned to whatever we had that was the most difficult or impossible to change the tuning of. For the DIY cassette band it would be one of our two reed organs. They had slightly different sounds and a different selection of chords, but were also tuned differently so the band's overall tuning would depend on which of the two we needed for the song in question.

[Marky L]

11 minutes ago, nilorius said:

So how did You maked a sound ?

 

Vocalised it?? Boom boom, dum dum dah dooo.

[Beedster]

13 minutes ago, nilorius said:

So how did You maked a sound ?

Sound? Luxury, in my day….. 😀

[nilorius]

3 minutes ago, Marky L said:

 

Vocalised it?? Boom boom, dum dum dah dooo.

Maybe neck fret midi sensor system ?

Edited March 26, 2023 by nilorius

[Beedster]

14 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

In some ways because of the types of music I was interested in playing, I was sometimes ahead of the curve. 

 

I bought my first electronic tuner in 1983 when they had just become relatively affordable (although it was still a lot of money at the time compared with something like an effects pedal), because in my synth band we were fed up of spending a minute before we played tuning the keyboards to a test tone off our backing tape (which the whole audience could hear too). 

 

In bands before that we tuned to whatever we had that was the most difficult or impossible to change the tuning of. For the DIY cassette band it would be one of our two reed organs. They had slightly different sounds and a different selection of chords, but were also tuned differently so the band's overall tuning would depend on which of the two we needed for the song in question.

Glorious stuff, love the creative approach to setting pitch, are you suggesting that you synths stayed in tune? 

[Beedster]

Our synthesist spent 80% of gigs in a completely different key to the rest of us 😀

[nilorius]

1 minute ago, Beedster said:

Our synthesist spent 80% of gigs in a completely different key to the rest of us 😀

Is it possible for You to share some records?

[BigRedX]

10 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Glorious stuff, love the creative approach to setting pitch, are you suggesting that you synths stayed in tune? 

 

We were only using analog synths live from 1983 until mid-way through 1985, by which time we had upgraded to a Yamaha DX7 and Casio CZ500 each controlled by a Yamaha KX5 keytar. However the idea that analog synths went out of tune a lot was mostly down to poor designed US-made models from the 70s. Once the Japanese had got involved, tuning stability was much improved. We hardly ever had problems with the Roland SH09 or SH101. The only one that generally needed tuning before a gig was the Korg MS20 and that was probably more down to the location of the tuning control than any inherent stability.

[Waddo Soqable]

In some experiment-y psuedo-electronic malarkey we did, (this would be about '79) we had a solitary Korg keyboard synth thing, one of the little ones with wooden sides and just a few up and down switches on the front edge, this could only play one note at a time. Anyway as luck would have it someone turned up with an identical one, wanting to "pass it on" I'm virtually certain it was nicked, and had a suspicion who from too🤔.. Still, needs must, and ironically the acquisition of the second one effectively doubled our synthesiser sound producing capability, in that 2 note chords now became possible 😁

[diskwave]

Talking about basics. My very first "studio" experience in 1977 was in a semi two up two down on a street which the owner had converted into a studio/control room....Prob broke every H&S rule in the book. Band setup downstairs in the knocked thru lounge with control room upstairs, again two bedrooms crudely knocked through...the bundle of cable snaking around the house and up the stairs must have been a foot thick....I always remember being amazed at the smooth recorded quality compared to how noisy and rough we sounded in the room......great days.

Second studio in down in Bournemouth was a huge step up. Sir Fripp had been in there the week before us finishing an album or something... I was so impressed..

[BigRedX]

My first experience in a "commercial" recording studio (i.e one we had paid for the privilege of using), was in 1980 at a 4-track facility in some "out-buildings" behind one of the music shops in Leicester. It was a fairly basic set up with a TEAC/Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel machine and an HH 4-bus mixing desk. The only effect available was some delay/reverb produced by running the signal out to a spare stereo reel-to-reel machine. At the time were still doing our home recording in the percussionist's parent's lounge and were used to all the high frequencies being absorbed by the soft furnishings and the fact that we were recording on compact cassette, so we didn't think to compensate for the fact that we were now playing in a far better acoustic environment and being capture by much better microphone (and that the results wouldn't have to go through two further generations of cassette tape before they reached our listeners). Therefore the results were a rather thin and overtly bright sound. That didn't stop John Peel from playing our songs when they were released as part of the "Angst In My Pants" double EP on Deleted Records.