1)The song and the vocals was what producers wanted and perhaps that hasn’t changed much. Bands were recorded with live vocals back then. Even overdubs were a band thing. Much of the signature of both the British or American sound were the vocal harmonies. Same today.
2)It was only practical to record as a band, as a group. They rarely used a click, except for TV & film scores. The “groove”, as today, was important, but it was a little less rigid. It sometimes meant MANY band takes with different tempos and stylings.
3)Arrangements were often written in stone. It was cool to walk in with a working rehearsed arrangement. Sometimes professional arrangers were hired. The fewer the instruments, the easier it is to make each one sound great. They ‘featured’ instruments by writing musical rests for the other parts rather than moving a fader. Big and powerful dynamics could mean more players, more chairs.
4)The mixes were critical because the word re-mix wasn’t created yet. Remember, each “bounce” had to be a real mix and these submixes were the basis of the final mix. This is where they EQed most. Part of the British sound was dipping a bit between 200 Hz and 1K on some instruments . It was the “proper” way to clear space for each instrument. Bass was hinted as the secret of rock and roll. Part of the American sound was both the bored union engineers and the young rookies. There wasn’t much gear so they stretched it and pushed it hard. Simple shelf EQs and filters were the norm and “bell curves” were rare until the mid 70’s. However, they sometimes had 5 to 7 band graphic EQs. They could and did cut tape so they mixed in sections and spliced - no automation.
5)Not much effects in dem days; tape slap, live chamber reverb and/ or EMT plates. Some were OK and some were plain bad. They did focus more on creating an acoustic space with the mics. It wasn’t until 16 track that it became fashionable to focus on separation and dead rooms. Then we heard a lot of overdubs and double tracking and we got the 70’s sound.
6)DI boxes and synths were very rare, percussion was normal, “unusual” instruments were cool. Song “structure” often leaned toward a few standard patterns (ABABCAB). It was a more innocent era but more likely to be censored. On the other hand, the phrase “politically correct” would have been viewed as a joke, an oxymoron.
Some of these techniques may be useful to you whether you are attempting to resurrect the 60s or the get the cool grunge of the 90’s. Some tricks like the editing of mix sections can be transposed to workstations with all the advantages of both. It sure can be a better alternative to an long automated homogenized mix. Limiting overdubs may inspire getting that perfect band groove and may spur creativity. Limiting yourself to shelves and filters or old gear may be a silly way to get the 60s sound. When you want to lean on shelves, the Massive Passive EQ shelves and filters are about as good as it gets. In other words, an old analog engineer will feel right at home - well “hear” right at home”. Now if you could just remove that computer screen.......
Individual Sounds: There just isn’t a general EQ that works on all snare drums, or kicks or vocals. Too much depends on the player, the instrument, the room, the mic, and a hundred other variables. We heard of one producer that insisted on cloning a guitar sound he once got by insisting on using this elaborate chain that he had documented of amps, mics, several vintage compressors and several old EQs. There were 3 problems. This producer insisted that only the exact settings he had so carefully noted were used. It was a different studio with different individual units, like mics, like rooms, consoles, engineers.
The last problem was that they only had a few weeks to shout at each other. Avoid that technique. You gotta be creative, play it by ear, use your own variation if it works out that way this time. Only the final result counts. There are many ways to get a killer sound and too damn few that work every time. You may know most of this already.
General Suggestions: If you are recording acoustic instruments, the most important first step is going out to the studio and listening, evaluating and memorizing. Next step, if there is a way you can fix a sound physically, like changing a drum skin, or tuning a tom, this is the time and place. If you can, you should attempt to improve the mic choice and positioning. There’s always room for improvement, but most often the obstacle is “available time”. EQing is usually faster than experimenting with mics unless the producer wants “perfection”. EQ is maybe more dangerous though and a poor substitute for great mic technique.
Vocals: There is something that makes EQing vocals very difficult. Human beings have evolved hearing fine tuned to other human’s voices. Not many people know precisely what a drum sounds like but almost everybody can recognize when the vocal sounds weird or natural. Another common factor is the goal of making a mediocre vocal sound awesome through the miracle of electronics. The toughest one is when the singer deeply desires to sound like their idol and thinks that the only difference is the gear and settings. With luck, you may work with a great singer and discover you need no EQ and it sounds incredible. Same is true with spoken words. Some of the best paid guys are those professional voices that do narration, voice- overs and character voices. They don’t do it with EQ, it's in the voice. If the singer is having headphone adjustment problems, try flipping the phase of the mic and asking the singer which they prefer. Some mics are out of phase with some people’s bone conduction or the headphones are 180 degrees out, but there seems to be 50-50 odds that flipping the phase will sound better to them and about 99% likely it will sound the same to you (until you put on their phones talk into the mic and check it out).
We commonly chop off the lows while recording voice to kill room rumble and “pops”. Some use a HP switch on some mics, some angle the mic so its not directly facing the mouth, some use the mic pre filters and some use their console EQ. The Massive Passive HP filters are as good or better than anything you have been using for filters. The other most common technique is boosting highs. Part of this is because somebody used a dull mic because it was advertised as “warm”. The other reason to boost is a bright, airy voice may be needed with massively over-dubbed, over-synthed mixes just to get above the track. Watch out for boosting too much esses as you try to get it bright. Conventional high shelves (even if set for 16K) will boost the esses and possibly the mids. The Massive Passive was designed to not have that very common problem and allow some unusually gorgeous highs. Some engineers, avoid EQing to tape while recording, but use it in the monitor or mix channels as needed. This way, they still get a good working mix and may hear if headphone leakage will end up being a problem. On the other hand, as the tracks add up, some engineers find it more practical to EQ tracks while recording, so that speedy fader mixes are simple for the months of overdubs. In the mix, if you find yourself wanting to boost a lot of highs, try dipping the mids and boosting the highs less. If you still need a de-esser use it as the last processor in the vocal chain in the mix. Wanna know one of the least expensive and best de-essers? “A bit of chewing gum or wax filling the gap in the singer’s front teeth.”
