Tom's Early Studio

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RockmanCentralBob
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Tom's Early Studio

Post by RockmanCentralBob »

Since there was some inquiries lately regarding the Compressors Tom used back in the day, I thought I'd dig around some old articles I have, found this one and thought it might help....

Lexicon Delta T 102 Digital Delay

Alison Research Kepex Compressor/Expander modules

Loft Series 440 Digital Delay Flanger
DBX 160 Compressor Limiter
Urei 1176 Peak Limiter Compressor

Urei 527-A Graphic EQ
Ashly SC-50 Peak Limiter Compressor
Ashley SC-66 Parametric Equalizer
Eventide FL201 Flanger
Urei 530 (maybe 527A?) Graphic Equalizer

DBX 4 Channel Noise Reduction System
Urei Compressor Limiter
Countryman Phase (Shifter?)
Phase Linear Noise Suppressor
Eventide H910 Harmonizer
Crown Electric Crossover
Urei Graphic Equalizer
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RockmanCentralBob
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by RockmanCentralBob »

And for those looking to record their Marshalls the way Tom did, here's a couple of nice shots showing the mic placement in relation to his cabinets.
Notice there are 2 cabinets both facing towards the mic....
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rbc
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by rbc »

Bob,

Thanks for posting this. It's very interesting. I've been kind of curious what kind of feature sets Tom Scholz sought in equipment. With the compressors, the controls seem to wind up being compression ratio, attack, release, input and output. I just picked up the MXR M87 Bass Compressor. It has the very same controls:
MXR-M87.JPG
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Sunburst
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by Sunburst »

Where are the darn 1/4" jacks on these 1970s compressors?!?
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Sunburst
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by Sunburst »

Bruce,

FYI the MXR Bass Compressor and Studio Compressor are the same pedal with different graphics. I have one of each in my MXR guitar and bass effects setups. Gotta keep Bob Cedro in business!!!

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rbc
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by rbc »

I'd heard that the only difference is the paint job. I'll probably wind up with both though. The first one was for my bass.
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RockmanCentralBob
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by RockmanCentralBob »

Note how many compressor limiters he used, and that is on top of all the tape compression he records with.

I heard a story where Dave took one of the tapes to a studio to add some tracks, and when the engineer fired up the tape, all the needles pegged.
He freaked and said, "Something must be wrong!" and Dave said, "No, that's just how he records."

The rhythm guitars definitely have a lot of compression on them to keep the dynamics flat so that he can control the balance of the mix. Pretty important because of how many tracks he layers up.

But the irony is that in some of the songs such as the interlude before "Longtime" and "The Journey", there are so much dynamics going on with the levels. There are places where the Hyperspace effects and such are so quiet in the mix, yet they come through so clearly, especially if you have it cranked up. I think a lot of the is the heavy compression to even out the dynamics of the effects so they are pretty flat and then playing them softly in the mix against the keyboards.
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rbc
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by rbc »

That's really interesting to hear. It makes sense given Tom Scholz's focus on overall production. I could see how keeping the dynamics of individual tracks even would make mixing simpler at the end.
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rbc
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by rbc »

RockmanCentralBob wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 9:44 pmI heard a story where Dave took one of the tapes to a studio to add some tracks, and when the engineer fired up the tape, all the needles pegged.
He freaked and said, "Something must be wrong!" and Dave said, "No, that's just how he records."
So I guess he was running high levels to keep the signal to noise ratio higher?
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RockmanCentralBob
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Re: Tom's Early Studio

Post by RockmanCentralBob »

Tape compression!!!