How did they record live shows in the early days of rock'n'roll?

[KokoTele]

I just watched the youtube video of the Beatles at Washington Coliseum and realized that I had no idea how they recorded it. Obviously, it would have been easy to record from the PA, but there were no mics on the drums or amps.

Anyone know what kind of recording techniques they had before they started running the whole band through the PA?

[PapaBeef]

There are some clips on the You Tube from a Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band concert at Widner College in Chester , Pa. that I attended back in 1974 or 75.
I didn't notice anyone recording anything. And they didn't have the small video camcorders back then. So I must have been pretty wasted not to notice someone walking around with a camera the size of a VW Rabbit.

[drb1346]

They filmed in the '50's & '60's. Then used video tapes in the '70's & '80's.

[ScottJPatrick]

as far as I know, when the Stones recorded the 'got live if you want it' ep's , they simply hung a couple of mikes off the upper circle in the auditorium.

[jonal335]

The first studio I recorded in, about 1967, had two a two track recorder and an eight channel stereo mixer. We recorded one track with the engineer riding the levels of one to eight mikes, then played that track back and added bits and pieces here and there with up to eight mikes on the second track, mixing the two tracks together for a mono 45 single. I think they used the same equipment for live recording but with two tracks with four mikes each. Live recording was pretty rare and primitive where I was...

[soulman969]

How??? Very badly if you listen to most of it. We never ran anything direct to the PA early on so the only way to record was with ambient mics hung over the stage or around it.

[dwlb]

It was probably recorded like classical or live jazz was: with one or two mics pointed at the stage, maybe with a couple of audience mics mixed in live to tape.

[horsespatoot]

Well, in the early days ......

[eddie knuckles]

The Dead cover band I'm in was just discussing this last night. Those big Portable Reel To Reel Universal Transistor Tape Recorders were "small" by those days standards.

http://pimall.com/nais/pivintage/universalrecorder.html

Oh to have an old tube recorder.... ooohhh....

[vjf1968]

Depends on who was doing the recording. Some of the old Ampex machines had killer mic pres and by just choosing the right mic you could get a decent live recording back then. Some folks even managed to do soundboard recordings in the 60's like this release

The Beatles Washing DC perfromance was actually video taped becuase it was CCTV'ed to other location so people who couldn't get in to the Colisiuem could watch the concert from another location. I believe that shotgun mics were used to try to cut down the screaming.

[Post Toastie]

Originally Posted by ScottJPatrick

as far as I know, when the Stones recorded the 'got live if you want it' ep's , they simply hung a couple of mikes off the upper circle in the auditorium.

No wonder it sounds so bad.But it was the only way to get the song "Fortune Teller".

[vjf1968]

Originally Posted by drb1346

They filmed in the '50's & '60's. Then used video tapes in the '70's & '80's.

Ampex came out with the first professional video recorder in 1956, the first portable Ampex VR came out in 1967.

[Rhomco Guitars]

The fact that early recordings were not stereo and certainly not multi track? The whole objective of recording back then was to capture what is heard directly in front of the band at an optimal distance away. Something like you would hear if you were sitting in the best seat in the audience. I am not referring to the ancient stuff before rock & roll either. Stereo records were not even common place until the mid/late 60's. It became popular for bands in the 60's/70's to take a good quality stereo reel to reel tape recorder to important gigs and record directly from microphones at a tabe in the audience or sometimes at stageside.

[garrett]

Originally Posted by soulman969

How??? Very badly if you listen to most of it. We never ran anything direct to the PA early on so the only way to record was with ambient mics hung over the stage or around it.

That sounds right to me. I remember hearing a tape of live early Beatles and thinking somebody copied it from a record that had seen better days. Turns out the loud hissing was just the crowd going insane the whole time.