secret to ABBAs vocal sound

Moderator: JackD201

secret to ABBAs vocal sound

Postby jonas » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:08 am

can anybody tell me what this guy is talking about? its all greek to me. is it still a secret weapon or is it old hat already?


from the thread http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... msg_236036

"PS- Anyone know the secret to ABBAs vocal sound?
The secret weapon was an AKG C34 small diaphragm stereo mic set to cardioid, and placed between Agnetha and Frida who faced each other. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! is an example. Some solo vocals were also recorded using this mic.
Dbx 160 compression is another feature.
Sometimes they used the U47 FET as well for backing vocals, but Agnetha MAY have used one for the lead vocal on Thank You for the Music. I've seen later photos with everyone singing into U47 FETs for a special French version of The Winner Takes It All that sounds very similar to the original.
They used the U67 in the early days -I don't know about later on.

John Stafford "
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Postby JackD201 » Sun Apr 08, 2007 3:42 pm

Unfortunately there is no way to explain this in layman's terms jonas. I would recommend that if you are interested in recording techniques you get a subscription to electronic musician (more for amateur/home studio) and MIX (pro).

This is as simple as I can put it.

Small Diameter Mic: Not very warm sounding but can take high SPLs w/o breaking up. Normally large diaphram mics are used for studio recorded vocals because they give more "body" and are more sensitive to microdynamic inflections.

Stereo Mic: A mic with two capsules one on top of the other. These can be rotatedup to 180 degrees of each other.

Cardiod pattern: As the name would suggest Doc, this is a heart shaped pick-up pattern.

Image

Here as the source of the sound moves off-axis there is a drop off in spl. In this case -6dB at the 6 o'clock position.

With a stereo mic in cardiod this is accompanied by phase shifts.

example.

Play only one speaker and face it directly. Slowly turn counter clockwise and note how the sound changes in terms of tone and image specificity.

Your post suggests that the two Abba singers were positioned at either 12 and 6 o'clock where one would sound like the lead while one would sound farther away and diffuse or 3 and 9 o'clock where when the L and R signals are panned to center on the mix will make them sound like the harmony from their voices was coming from only one mouth but in a strange way sound like the polarity is inverted. This I believe is what you refer to as the "Abba" sound.

FET this refers to the phantom power (48V) source of the microphones.

Since mics are essentially speakers in reverse think of this as the FET or MOSFET poweramp with the attendant sonic signature being sufficiently fast, warm and smooth but lacking in inner detail and usually a tad dark and with a touch of electronic grunge.

All these are still in use today especially for movies and film.
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