Re: LAL recording techniques

[mleaman@sccoast.net (Mark Leaman)]

>   Here's the classic set-up; honestly, I've seen seen, nor heard of, it being
>done much of any other way (for guitar, anyways): Pete's heads are connected to
>his wall of speaker cabs, as usual.  The cabinets are miked (as you can see in
>the pictures in the LAL booklet).  The mike signal goes to the mixing board, 
>which, in this case, would be feeding to TWO places: the P.A., and the
recording
>equipment. 

Mike:
That is certainly the way it is done, however I have to wonder if they send
the signal from the miked cabinets to the recorders or just to the P.A. It
seems to me that it wouldn't do any good to send it to the recording
equipment; the signal is already there uncorrupted from the preamp. If you
were looking for a more "live" sound (and I wouldn't say that this is the
case for LAL, since it sounds as good or better than most studio recordings
of that time), it would be a lot more efficent to place mikes out in front
of the band (I've done this before) and add it to the final mix in the
studio to add atmosphere.

 This is the exact same way guitars are typically recorded in the
>studio; amps (their speakers, to be more precise) are miked and sent to the
>board.  Almost nobody plugs their guitars straight into the board, except
>for punk bands who value the simplicity of this arrangement, and to whom the
>crappy guitar sound you tend to get from this method is irrelevant, or even
>desireable. 

As you say, in the studio (and often baffled). In a controlled environment,
which a live show is not.

>   I think where we may be getting our wires crossed here is the difference
>between Pete's speaker cabinets, and the hall speakers.  The sound from the
>hall speakers (and, in this case, the recording equipment) is controlled by the
>mixing board.  The guitar sound going into the mixing board comes from mikes
>placed in front of Pete's speaker cabinets, which are controlled by Pete.
>   I hope I've explained this lucidly enough.  I just assumed that, barring
>some weird set-up particular to the Leeds recording, that it was a given 
>that this is THE way you record guitars.  Is there anybody else on the 
>list here who actually plays guitar live that would like to jump in here with
>me on this?  I could, of course, be wrong, but I'm 99% sure that I'm not.  And
>thanks for paying attention to my rambling discourse!  Whew!

The tour I worked was recorded and parts of it released the following year
(WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS etc.), and as I said A) the guitar speakers were
not miked B) this was in `74, and technology was in flux about then...so it
might have been different. I will also admit quite readily that the sound
quality cannot hold a candle to LAL.


              Cheers                              ML