White Albums Dry Vocals

I think it's tied to the capture, the space, and the player first. I don't that the space is very bright or open, he was probably surrounded by gobos.

Figure 8 with the guitar in the null for the vocal is really helpful if you want the vocal to be right there, front and center. Another on guitar is nice, but if you want stereo, an XY where the bleed from the voice sounds good works really well.

Pay attention to how the player is sitting and move the mics to them.

Then...don't add reverb/

Abbey Road is big too so little or no early reflections and it has large moveable dampening panels, so you can I guess dial in whatever degree of natural ambiance you want ?

Here's "Blackbird" as it happened!
boingboing.net/2022/05/12/watch-this-clip-of-paul-mccartney-recording-blackbird-in-1968.html

The lore is always u48’s with the Beatles vocals. Makes me wonder if that’s truly the case after seeing that. I’m sure that was nowhere near any sort of real final take.

Anyway - whatever mics we’re used on stuff like Blackbird and earlier Eleanor Rigby, etc. just defines what I think old 47’s/8’s should sound like. It’s the most gorgeous midrange and not an ounce of sibilance. None. It’s the sound you hear when someone’s right in front of you. Obviously, so much of the allure is from the band, the singer, the song etc…but as far as capturing the performance, that (what I think is) Neumann is the perfect sound. It’s not modern hi-if like we’re hearing in the 24bit world…but again it’s the richness of the midrange. I’ve never been able to duplicate it.

As many have mentioned the room and the recording stuation. I would agree with that. Plus the complete chain is rather unanimous thruout the production. I was just yesterday tracking a song, everything is tracked pretty much with thought thru homogeneously chosen hardware and miking. Without the first plugin added itb the sound is already there and everything including vocals sit right where they should, no need to try to blend it in. The beatles played and sang together like a well oiled and tuned machine, that is probably the greatest factor… then the recording chain.

Ps. I think that factor of great playing bands recording live in a great studio with a few takes has become a rare thing. You can see a great comeback i think in Nashville rca studio’s for example where these methods are used for amazing productions.

That’s what it looks like, and according to the engineers that worked there, was frequently used in situations like this.

Does anyone make nickel capsule mic anymore?

You think the final vocal was on a 56? Wouldn’t shock me if he played and sang it at the same time. That would put a dent into some of my 47/48 worship lol.

But a very small diameter dent😎

^ Confirmed. “Blackbird” was 1 day, 32 takes, vocal and guitar together live, no bounces. “Rocky” was live vocal/acoustic, drums, and bass (John) for the basic.

Both of those tracks were REDD 5.1 and tracked to 4-track tube (J37, I think?) machines.  “Blackbird” is only one generation down on the final mixdown.  “Rocky” had at least one round of bouncing and overdubs, possibly two. [Edit: the bass and drums were re-recorded after they got the keeper vocal/guitar on take 9, bounced down, and then harmonica, piano, and backing vocals were added to the newly opened tracks.]

And yeah, White Album is fascinating because you have that mix of all 4-track and tube-gear recordings like the ones above side by side with 8-track solid state production that were still tracked through the tube desks…except the 8-track ones that were tracked at Trident.