kpnash
Electromatic
That's how it was back in the 50s.
Here's how it worked. A tape machine had its playback head slightly behind the recording one. Normally it was meant for sound engineers to monitor recordings. But in this case, playback head was used to capture delayed signal that was being sent to one more tape machine. I'm not sure about Sun Records though. Most Sun rockabilly songs I'm thinking of have dry guitar parts? But that technique was surely used by Owen Bradley and his guys.
An example would be this song that has a part where delayed signal is used to produce the beat of straight 8th notes, the same trick used in some other songs recorded at Bradley's, most notably Johnny Carroll's Hot Rock, the trick itself is explained here at 3:15 (no affiliation lol):
Now if we do some math, the tempo is AFAIK 118 bpm half notes, that makes 472 8th notes per minute. One minute is 60000 ms. That means it has to be delayed by 127 millis to produce an 8th note. On the original recording it's not spot on, those repeated 8ths feel a tiny bit faster, that's why I say 120. Another reference could be Gene Vincent's Double Talkin' Baby where delay was used... I don't know what for, they must have been trying to hide something
But at roughly 109 bpms, those repeated 8th notes feel a bit slower than you'd expect them to be...
In any case, this is what we can hear on those vintage recordings. For other stuff like neorockabilly etc. things might be different, so it's all about what kind of distinct bang you're after!
Here's how it worked. A tape machine had its playback head slightly behind the recording one. Normally it was meant for sound engineers to monitor recordings. But in this case, playback head was used to capture delayed signal that was being sent to one more tape machine. I'm not sure about Sun Records though. Most Sun rockabilly songs I'm thinking of have dry guitar parts? But that technique was surely used by Owen Bradley and his guys.
An example would be this song that has a part where delayed signal is used to produce the beat of straight 8th notes, the same trick used in some other songs recorded at Bradley's, most notably Johnny Carroll's Hot Rock, the trick itself is explained here at 3:15 (no affiliation lol):
Now if we do some math, the tempo is AFAIK 118 bpm half notes, that makes 472 8th notes per minute. One minute is 60000 ms. That means it has to be delayed by 127 millis to produce an 8th note. On the original recording it's not spot on, those repeated 8ths feel a tiny bit faster, that's why I say 120. Another reference could be Gene Vincent's Double Talkin' Baby where delay was used... I don't know what for, they must have been trying to hide something
But at roughly 109 bpms, those repeated 8th notes feel a bit slower than you'd expect them to be...In any case, this is what we can hear on those vintage recordings. For other stuff like neorockabilly etc. things might be different, so it's all about what kind of distinct bang you're after!
