Metropoulos Forum

Interesting insight vid into the studio...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... piZCV5iUU4

Thanks for posting. One of the people who commented on the vid said the track sheet for was VH2. It shows two SM57s on Ed's amp, looks like in a separate room ? They show two faders for Ed, so I guess the guitar tracks were recorded, mixed, and then bussed in mono to the reverb chamber through the Altec Lansing A7 afterwards. Good stuff.

A couple of screen grabs:

I just logged in to post the same thing, Pretty wild man. Check out the related vids where the girl does a one take eruption and they do running with the devil and other gems.

You can hear the studio sound its freakin unreal. I love it. Just think you could go their and book an hour as a bucket list hit. Would be priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfpb9ghBVs8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CHkq3je0ZY

Not much to it now we get the real skinny.
That chamber was delayed though. Would like to know the delay that was used for that.
Lag deck from tape probably?

(Disregard-they said tape slap further into vid so yes lag deck fo sho)

Diggin its two simple cheap ass obtainable sm57's. The old standby workhorse.
One cab and no hocus pocus really.
Wonder more about the actual validity of the 10band.
Eye witness account of who was there?
Theres the gain boost then

But its finally makin sense and comin out of the speculative fog machine.
Cool we get to see this finally.

But in a way sad too. All the awe and wonder and that feeling of wild magic about how it was dies just a little bit.
Kinda like exhuming a tomb really

Yes, so the track sheet must have been for VHII (it's dated 12/78, and AVH has octabans), but according to the liner notes, that album was mixed at Westlake Audio. That makes me wonder if the reverb chamber might have been printed to the tracks? I also wonder if one of the mics on EVH's cab was for the reverb chamber?

I say this because I recently learned that on some older recordings, in was standard to use 2 mics on the same source, sending one to the chamber. It was claimed to have a bit of a different sound that sending the same signal to an "Echo Send".

* The photo of the band recording was just a photo session, and I doubt they actually set up like that. They probably even found a garbage bag and spread the contents around to add some "character" to the photo.

The pictures were staged regarding the trash and shit laying all over the floors. However, as for the gear and mics and di boxes and and layout, I doubt they went in and set up all that gear just to take some photos? the diagram and the photo are exactly the same. even the mics listed.

Got to say the layout plan and pic are pretty much the same, but there's no way anyone would draw those boxing in lines around the drum kit. So I'm of the opinion those movable panels behind Ed's stack were used to block out the bleed from the guitar onto the drums.
There are a few more pics online that show more cabs on the right side so I think the stack has been staged for the pic, would of looked pretty poor just seeing the single cab for a band with their reputation!

Pretty humbling to see a kid who is not even old enough to drive just flat lay down Eruption like that. I sure don't sound that good and I have been playing for about 30 years. I think it is incredibly good news that we have young musicians who love the kind of music that we do, the history, and put in the work to get there.

The studio was magic, but so were the engineers and the producer on those early VH albums, not to mention the band members. I think a lot of the crazy theories about Ed's equipment is because we just can't that fat sound no matter what we try or buy. Ed and the studio were using some pretty basic tools back then. But they were pros and knew how to make the most of the gear. Those guys were mixing and mastering with analog for analog. It is just different than we we start crunching everything down to 1s and 0s so we can share via the net or use our digital gear.

redozzman wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 06, 2017 11:28 am

The pictures were staged regarding the trash and shit laying all over the floors. However, as for the gear and mics and di boxes and and layout, I doubt they went in and set up all that gear just to take some photos? the diagram and the photo are exactly the same. even the mics listed.

I think they just brought in extra cabs, and moved things around for the photo shoot. The idea is obviously to make it look like they "just bring the stage into the studio, maaan". As the guy above noted, there are large sound panels behind the cabs, and the layout appears to indicate AVH was surrounded. The cabs are also blocking out almost all of the window to the control room.

Anyway, that was just an aside, I'm more interested in what might have been done at Westlake, whether it's actually the Sunset Chamber on VHII, if they may have printed any of the chamber reverb to tape then mixed it at Westlake, and if the 2nd mic on the cab may have been used just to feed the chamber (from the desk).

Was VHII recorded at the same studio on Sunset Sound as VHI?

Bannny wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 06, 2017 1:29 am

* The photo of the band recording was just a photo session, and I doubt they actually set up like that. They probably even found a garbage bag and spread the contents around to add some "character" to the photo.

redozzman wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 06, 2017 11:28 am

The pictures were staged regarding the trash and shit laying all over the floors. However, as for the gear and mics and di boxes and and layout, I doubt they went in and set up all that gear just to take some photos? the diagram and the photo are exactly the same. even the mics listed.

A few years ago I had the chance to talk to Gene Meros who was assistant engineer on W&CF and Fair Warning ... they did set-up like that. By using close mics and proper baffling it is not a problem. That was very common in the '60s and '70s.

Mats A wrote: ↑

Wed May 01, 2019 9:59 am

Was VHII recorded at the same studio on Sunset Sound as VHI?

VH2 was recorded at Sunset Sound but in Studo 2 which is a bigger room (wider, and much higher ceiling). VH1 was done in Studio 1.
http://www.sunsetsound.com

Studio 1:


Studio 2: