Reproducing AC/DC's "Back in Black Tone"

[Stretchy]

Hey! I've been out a few days and BANG! I see a cool thread by my virtual Friend Fil (Solodallas). Great stuff... keep them coming. I love you blog too!

From Guy Provost, your YouTube pal

[SoloDallas]

Hey! I've been out a few days and BANG! I see a cool thread by my virtual Friend Fil (Solodallas). Great stuff... keep them coming. I love you blog too!

From Guy Provost, your YouTube pal

Ciao you "sound" brotha!

[Stretchy]

By the way... you were the main reason I got a 1987x... looking at your vids. Great stuff. Now... If I could only play half the way you do...

[leadguy]

Well, it's very good but sounds sort of smaller than the recording maybe due to the attenuators and room/mic types and positions studio processing etc differences and some bits are nearly there yet some bits aren't but Angus's playing plays quite a bit of a role in that as well.

Attenuators suck IMO and they do something to the tone, like make it smaller and more closed so it's really hard to judge 100% whether that's the gear but it is close, no doubt about it.

Recreating any tone (even a tone someone doesn't like) exactly is very hard because of all the variables.

[yngwie308]

In this issue there is an interview with Mike Platt, the engineer on Back In Black, check it out..
http://digital.premierguitar.com/premie ... 011_3#pg89" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Keep up the great work Fil.
Tell us more about these JMP heads you recently picked up, what years are they?
Apparently Neuman mikes were used on BIB and Angus used a wireless for his guitar as well!!
Dave yngwie308

[Roe]

In this issue there is an interview with Mike Platt, the engineer on Back In Black, check it out..
http://digital.premierguitar.com/premie ... 011_3#pg89" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Keep up the great work Fil.
Tell us more about these JMP heads you recently picked up, what years are they?
Apparently Neuman mikes were used on BIB and Angus used a wireless for his guitar as well!!
Dave yngwie308

nice interview. thanks! mentions old 50w and 100watters - essentially the same as what angus and malcolm claimed (1959 and 1992 for riffs; 1987 for solos; straight cabs). but platt is a little confused when it comes to speakers. he refers to some speakers which break up quite a lot - that would probably be g12Ms (the others prob. g12h and 65watters)

[SoloDallas]

Thanks again for your encouragement guys. I won't stop.
Leadguy, that is true. I too am not crazy about attenuators but my laboratory is now really small. Won't be able there to do without attenuators.
The attenuator I had used in that recording wasn't much of a thrilling thing either: the old Marshall Powerbrake.
I now have an Ultimate that sounds slightly better and an Aracom incoming. Will see. I will also go to a recording studio where I can blast the amps and re-record everything. I will do anything in my possibilities to get there.
Amps I own right now are a 1979 2203, a 1977 2204, a 1977 Super Lead, my JTM50 Metro and a David Bray modified 1987.
These are them. As for cabinets, I have three in working condition: a reissue 1960B loaded with 1977 G12Ms "blackbacks", an orignal 1973 1960B loaded with G12H30s in great condition and my older 1969 1960A loaded with original greenbacks G12Ms in great working condition.
The test was made with the latter cabinet and the Super Lead. Only one microphone was used there, and it was the AT4047.
I now have one more AT4047 and a Mojave MA200. Considering purchase of an U67. I also have a 1947 original Neumann U47 in mint condition (not working because of smaller internal damage, to be fixed). No mic pre at the moment.
Only using ProTools and its Mbox 2 Pro interface. Not much to match the MCI console, is it?

Dave, the article you provided was excellent: it is the only one which describes the microphone positioning. That is gold.
Now, what may be necessary - and one of the reasons likely my sound is smaller and rightly pointed out by Leadguy - to crank up the head(s) without an attenuator. Not much for the attenuator own sound distortion, which are evident anyways, but to make the speakers work to properly break up as needed.

SD Out

[somethin'else]

Aah, another one, big on the mad pursuit of the ultimate tone! Addictive!

SD, go ahead and send me the plane ticket, and I'll be right over to help you demo these fine toyz... I think I can squeeze out of here for a couple weeks.

[SoloDallas]

Hehe Dave, my laboratory is so small that the two of us wouldn't fit in there at once...
Anyway, I think the Schaffer-Vega Diversity System is the missing link to Angus tone on several albums/live.

Here's an excerpt of a little article I wrote on my solodallas.net:

(Tony Platt) We ran his (Angus’) rig wireless (Schaffer-Vega Diversity System, SD), so I had different setups in different rooms. There was a live-ish room down at the end of the studio and another setup in the main room. We just kind of blended the sound together in different combinations. He always felt more natural using a wireless, but in NYC (some editing took place there) we didn’t have the wireless setup so we had to try to match a few sounds.

The wireless has filtering in it, and it added quite an edge in the middle area. We had to tweak it a little to try and match, but I was always aware that it wasn’t quite the same sound.

It’s easy to understand that this may be an important component.

I believe it could be simulated, even because we know from another interview (with Eddie Van Halen) that the unit had a built in compressor (probably to avoid sudden increase of signals to destroy equipment) and we know from Angus himself that… (from a Steve Rosen Interview):

Yeah, I use the Schaffer-Vega. I’ve been using that since ’77. On the receiver you’ve got like a monitor switch you can boost the signal and in the transmitter you’ve got the same sort of thing. You can really give a guitar hell with ‘em. I have used the remote in the studio and it worked really good.

It is evident to me that this unit is the missing link.
Now, "all it did" was to boost volume. It had a compression on board (Eddie Van Halen mentions this) and a volume boost.
The unit had its own unique sonic circuitry and it would affect the sound (Platt calles it "filtering" in fact).

There. Now let's find one?

Post Scriptum: since I am extremely serious about this, I am really looking for either A Schaffer-Vega Diversity System OR a later unit (branded CETEC-Vega or Vega). I am going to offer HIGH money for this (i.e., a complete system, transimmter and receiver in great working condition: lots of junk on ebay). I mean, a LOT. If you - the reader - can locate one, know of one, please get in touch with me. Reliable, flash payment.

[SoloDallas]

Tried a whole different attempt, new approaches:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_so ... ID=9808140" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[somethin'else]

not bad SD, are you using that wireless system? Did you score it?

I had to really turn it up to really enjoy it!

guitars sound good, but I'd say the drums are a tad overdone. . . ringing snare too much, guitars could be louder.

are the guitars pretty much straight in now? do I hear a hint of chorus? or is that the natural effect of the two guitars together.

nice though, nice recording.

rock.

[SoloDallas]

Thank you SE, no, not yet (wireless). I did found a similar one, but a later model. It seems very similar, same features.
What I did here, was to use a volume boost (on Angus' guitars only) to boost the mids and the volume (tone control on the unit was on the mids, but it's not the same as a mids boost: this is a volume boost principally). Ultimate attenuator on a 1976 JMP Super Lead MkII on all guitars. Two microphones used: what you may hear as "chorus", might be the phase of the microphones. I did place them very closely, trying to capture the same position Platt describes in the provided interview above, but Platt is Platt, I am a newbie
Re-listening to it now - taking a chance with your comment - I would point out the same things you did, but would probably be less generous than you were. Tone-characteristics wise, it is still a mess.
As an equalizer, this time I used the Sonnox plugin, which is reviewed as the most qualitative for ProTools.
Drums are a loop. The only loop I could find, provided in stereo mix: can't do much to make it better.
Next attempt, I will be using Ocean Wave samples played on a midi track. This should also give me better control on the individual drums instruments.

Basically, this track is so gorgeous and hard (to play: the playing is even more difficult than the post processing) that one has to go down to the individual components and try to simulate them. No surprise: it's the best selling rock album of all times, for a reason!

Thanks again,

Fil

[bulatovic]

Fil,

great thread you have going on here!!! Really enjoy reading and listening to your playing man! Awesome! You really got the Angus' groove as Dave said - the vibrato, the energy! Awesome!

I am as well in favour of - keeping it simple and use the fantastic gear you have there to get the tone, avoiding digital eqs.

I'm no recording engineer, nor a player half as good as you are, but i guess a comment won't do any harm
The last clip was in my opinion an improvement - the guitar sounds more organic and - well, "guitarer" than the first one, but i find the tone a bit too "closed", too much bass and not enough hi mids and highs overall. What i'd try to do is to get presence a bit up (i know Angus had it on 0 or sometimes 1, but i do feel that the tone needs to be a bit more present). Also try with the mic positioning - a bit closer to the cone centre...
Presence wise- i get you have your Superlead stock and that the bright cap on volume pot is there and presumably the same value as the one that was used to record BiB?

Listening to the 180gr BiB vynil through my old Marantz - i really get the sense that Ang's tone is really trebly and present, maybe a bit more than usually - to me that's quite obvious even in those "rhythm scratches" he does, right before the song starts - reminds me of standing right in front of my 1960A box with G12H30 55hz blackbacks from 1979 that are a bit sharp and somewhat cold in mids when standing in front of the box - so i'd definitely try to get the mic more "in" the speaker for that tone...

Well - i haven't said much new stuff or much clever stuff, but i hope i provided some help - if nothing, a review...

Best regards, and wish u all the fun while working on achieving what probably is the best noise in the world ever recorded!



Luka

[spaceace76]

another interview with Platt, doesn't seem to reveal much

http://digital.premierguitar.com/premie ... 011_1#pg47" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SoloDallas]

Thanks space. Well it does reveal something actually, something very important: microphone positions.
Since this interview, I have been able to place the microphones a little better, as in this picture:


(basically, one mike on the far edge - left - of the cone, the other slightly off center on the right)

THAT is very important. My positions may not be exactly what he did, but it's a great starting point!