deodato superstrut, how close can you get the sound

[mr funky]

deodato superstrut, how close can you get the sound

hi all as said if you have any time to spare could you have a look at this please.
i can get the sound close but would not win a goldfish at the fair im afraid to say.
and i know the restraints of analogue, tape, studio and all that
but with the tools we have how close can you get it ?
if anyone can get it dam close can you post settings or patch please ?
there is a fat dullness to this as well as panning and a stereo wide thing going on
so your thought please ?
cheers if you can help...
heres the link

[Elias]

Sounds to me like the left and right channels are flanging independently back and forth quite randomly, so your brain thinks the source is moving. Impossible to get spot on with internal effects.

[Kaffimusic]

Do not worry so much about details like analog technology. It has to work live and feel good. You can never recreate the same situation on stage. Maybe they played that with 2 tracks and mixed that together. Anyway, no need for so much thinking about it.

1. Take the next closest EP
2. Apply the panner. Modulation speed according what you hear, panning amount not 100%. Maybe around 50-70%. Try, play around with it until it feels right.
3. Add chorus, slow modulation. Not too much, just enough to make the EP a bit creamy and stereo. Too much might cause the sound to loose it´s vintage vibe.
4. Add a bit of reverb. A shorter one, room-something.
5. EQ? Maybe. Depends on the EP, there you can do some drastic changes already, depending on your settings of the pianoengine.
6. It should work already with that. A ping-pong delay COULD be an additional sweet, but be very careful with timing and just a low amount. The delay heavily depends on the speed of the song and echoes can start to run all over the place wrong when played different than programmed. Reduce the high frequencies of the echoes to lower the peaks of the echoes. Allows for more "smear over the wrong timing".

With that you should have the sound that get´s the job done.

7.EDIT: One more idea came to my mind. Without listening so close into it, I think maybe they have used a leslie. Has been done more often back then. On slow settings it also makes the sound "go around" and pan. But it also changes the sound more drastically. However, could be an idea to play around with. Or... well, more likely not, doesn´t sound like it. But on the stage this is done super-fast, so no problem trying it out.

EDIT II: Just listened to it a bit more. This is just a panner. No leslie. So do not worry, the panner will do the main job, chorus and reverb the rest. You will get very close to the recording with that.
You may try to play around with some overdrive in the EQ section, to add some dirt to the EP. Just a tiny bit, hardly recognizable. It will sound more 70ties with that.

[analogika]

That piano is just a completely stock suitcase Rhodes, zero effects whatsoever except for a compressor.

The modulation is the built-in stereo tremolo, 100% width, pretty fast.

[Elias]

That piano is just a completely stock suitcase Rhodes, zero effects whatsoever except for a compressor.

The modulation is the built-in stereo tremolo, 100% width, pretty fast.

Agreed, and whenever one is in doubt about what effect is being used like this one, try listening to the song in mono. A straight stereo pan effect will sound like there's no effect at all unless left/right are not equally balanced or EQ'd - even then it will be more subtle and allow one to better hear other effects like a phase shifter or flanger.

[Elias]

A-ha! @Analogika is right. This helped:

...try listening to the song in mono...

My ears were fooled by the time delay created by one speaker being further away than the other.
(My earlier comment has been redacted.)

[WannitBBBad]

My ears were fooled by the time delay created by one speaker being further away than the other.

I haven't listened to it in mono yet, but agree that just putting a microphone in front if each speaker allows for some differences left and right being heard, especially if Rhodes Satellite speakers were used.

[Kaffimusic]

I do not recommend using panner 100% while playing on stage. With a PA this can have some quite unpleasant results, when you think of different (changing) situations. Depending how well both speakers are audible for the listeners, this can result in a pulsing sound with near silence in between. With lower values for the panner, when one channel is not well recognizable, you still have at least some tremolo effect, that makes the tone last uninterrupted, and when having a good stereo image, you still have a considerable good panning fx.

[mr funky]

cheers guys, i should of said, its not for live but for a track im recording.
yea the panning is extreme, as you can hear when you turn a left or right chan off
you can hear it disappear completely coming in and out, there is also some sort of chorus or flanging going on also
and of course a stereo wide thing which is a later process thing, prob at mastering stageits just extreme as its just the piano there.
al have a go at getting my patch up then if wanted you can just edit it and repost.
thanks for all your help,

[WannitBBBad]

cheers guys, i should of said, its not for live but for a track im recording.
yea the panning is extreme, as you can hear when you turn a left or right chan off you can hear it disappear completely coming in and out, there is also some sort of chorus or flanging going on also and of course a stereo wide thing which is a later process thing, prob at mastering stageits just extreme as its just the piano there.
al have a go at getting my patch up then if wanted you can just edit it and repost.
thanks for all your help,

I don't know the technique specifically used for this song, however the use of the Rhodes Super Satellite System would have allowed each satellite speaker to be in its own isolated room for the extreme left-right panning. Slight differences in room size/response, microphone placement, and/or microphone level/EQ would account for some tremolo still present in the mono version. If the Rhodes Suitcase model was used, microphones would have been placed in front of each speaker in the same room where some cross-bleed would have occurred. Attached is the intro in mono; I would suggest working on getting this sound with the amp/EQ section and then moving to the stereo panning desired. Good luck to you.

• Deodato Superstrut Intro in Mono.mp3