August 4, 1973
HUGO
(QUADFATHER)
MONTENEGRO:
After 3 LP's and
one year later
he has a greater
wealth of knowledge
on do's and don’ts
when doing
a quadrasonic LP.
By Eliot Tiegel
—————-
One year ago, Hugo Montenegro became the first fully involved pop arranger in the quadrasonic field and Billboard published a number of Hugo's tips on how to arrange for this new medium. One year later, the Quadfather, with three pioneering albums to his credit and further research into quadrasonic, offers fresh reflections on his own experi ences.
—————-
EVERYBODY'S BEEN TOO TIMID, including myself, in writing for quadrasonic. We've been a little pompous about exploiting the potential for fear of our work being labeled gimmick," Hugo today feels.
But it was the gimmick idea which broke open stereo in the late 50's. If we are only going to use one potential—spaciousness—feeling very squeamish about using mction and expansion and contraction-then we're not taking advantage of quadrasonic as a trigger for a new artform."
Montenegro sits in his cheery Palm Springs sun-baked living room, thinking about what mistakes or lessons he's learned. Behind him is a $4000 4-channel system provided by JVC, which several weeks before had brought him to Japan to do a series of promotional visits in a country where quad is well accepted.
Back home, 4-channel is still a mystery to listeners and to most record producers. But not to Hugo who now plans his recordings in a more knowledgeable manner, as he explains in this discussion.
"In terms of localization of instruments, I think there's a great deal more freedom and fewer restrictions. I don't believe as I did one year ago that bass should be in the center of all four speakers." Why I ask is he concerned about this?
He answers because he heard one of his songs from a 4-channel LP being played on AM radio and the bass had eight times more presence than everything else. The reason, Hugo explains, is because the sound gets combined from all the quad placements,
"and the strings sounded like they were coming from another room." If a quad album has to be mixed with AM airplay a major consideration, then no instrument should be placed on more than one center—the front center or rear center.
"A year ago I took the bass and placed it on the whole 'Godfather LP' on all centers so it was coming from overhead. If there had been facilities to hear it played back as a mono I may have realized how it would sound. I still love the bass in the center. If you’re playing it as a stereo you're getting a combine—you're adding the bass from the centers so you're getting maybe four times bass. In mono it's eight times so the perspective is way out of proportion.
"Since I've gotten a quad set in my house, I've listened to a complete LP from one position in the house and then from another position in the house and I've come to the conclusion that presetting an instrumental setup and then maintaining it through the entire album can become a source of monotony and irritation.
"If I'm sitting next to the left rear speaker and l've placed my guitar in that left rear speaker, and on every tune the guitar is hitting me from that speaker, it will bug me. So in the course of the mix, I feel rhythm instruments should be varied. What's more important is that the person listening is entertained and not irritated. If he's constantly hearing guitar, rhythm piano and background organ coming out of one speaker—especially in an automobile where he is stuck by one speaker, that's all he's going to hear all through his ride. So I would alter it.
"On one tune, put it here, on another, put it there, shift things around. The only thing I would keep constant is my bass and drums in front center because we expect it to be there.
I've tried putting them in the rear and it completely disorients the listener. My personal reaction is to want to turn around and face them. It's possible the next generation won't be front—oriented so it can accept sounds coming from the rear.
"I've tried placing strings in the back and solo colors up front and the strange thing is the strings have the same effect on me as the rhythm in the back--I want to turn and face them. So in effect what I'm doing is making the two rear channels the front.
"There's another problem--anything placed on the side centers will double up when played in stereo. You get double the energy because it's two speakers combined.
So l've avoided using any side centers and we will continue to avoid using side centers until stereo is phased out and it's all quad.
"There is a very minimal amount of front to-back leakage and that leakage kind of creates a very soft center so that has to be kept in mind when instruments are placed along a side wall. I would avoid placing a string section along one side and a brass section along the other side because if you had violins in the front right, cellos in the right rear, the little leakage between the front and rear will tend to make them appear more center.
"On the Neil Diamond LP, the most effective way I found—and I tried several setups-to get separation and not feeling disoriented was to place my strings up front, left and right and brass in the rear separated left and right. I used no ambience on the brass. I feel very strongly that the most effective use of ambience is on strings, voices, and woodwind colors where you want to create a spacious, depth feeling, where the repeat (the sound reflections) don't put a figure out of focus. I don't use ambience on brass except on long tones. . . . try to enhance my strings by adding the repeats to the rear."
The important thing about using ambience, Hugo says, is that the level of the reflected ambient signal should be low enough so you still perceive the original signal to be coming from where you intended it to be localized.
In other words, strings, shouldn't sound as if they were coming out of there (he points to one of the speakers) and there (he points to another) and there (still another) too.
"I've found you can be very daring in the use of combination colors, for instance a synthesizer can be mixed with any color-brass, strings, woodwinds, vocals-and the combination suddenly creates a new color which has a third dimension of its own. The most effective placement of these colors is on a diagonal, like left front and right rear or right front and left rear."
Hugo speaks more assured of quadrasonics potential in terms of expansion and contraction, "from a small listening area to a wide space field," and in terms of motion and localization. He says he's only been working with space and localization.
"Motion, expansion ard contraction are not as subtle as space and localization; they are more likely to be called gim nicks, but who cares if it's done in a way that is musically valid."
Hugo plans making greater use of motion by moving sounds like percussion instruments. He tried having "floating clouds" of strings on "Song Sung Blue" in the new Neil Diamond LP but it was very subtle. "If you're going to use a device, give it impact. We've got to try and create something which satisfies us as artists and creative people, but we've got to try and listen with a consumer's ear."
A major problem is charting the instruments when the arrangements are conceived so that time is saved in the mixdown. "And this is the big problem with quadrasonic, it's taking time to develop experience and skillful techniques, so that the costs are out of line.”
How to cut costs? Hugo will try to use less instruments than all the grancoise numbers people relate to his orchestral sound.
Hugo says he hasn't followed his own concept about not over-arranging. "You don't need weight. If a device is imaginative it can be done with less instruments because the less you have going on, the less masking will take place."
Hugo says his studio costs of from $10,000 to $12,000 for a quadraphonic LP are one third the cost of the total. With the other costs, the combination makes it "almost impossible to recoup albums that come in at this price. We're going to have to do more with less."
On the subject of masking, or having one sound cover up another, when he tried to use a device, like motion or expansion or action within the sound fields, rhythm seems to take away from the device. "If you have a trick going on, it has to be conceived in a way that everything else stops and the device speaks."
After figuring out on his charts where he wanted his instruments to emanate from, Hugo found that in the mixing process he very often had to change the instrumental setup. "If the first eight bars worked but the second eight didn't I would mix the first eight, stop, make a change and then edit the whole thing together. A lot of songs have to be mixed in sections and edited together."
Hugo is considering de-emphasizing strings because they cost too much and you need a lot of strings to get a big sound.
"I've found the most effective use of strings is as a 'pad’—long chords that support melodic colors.
He recalls having problems using strings playing figures in rhythm-oriented songs and "I feel that probably the arrangement would have been more unique if I had used other instruments like electronic keyboards (clavinet, Fender Rhodes, Roxichord, several different types or organs) which can be fed through a phase shifter which changes the color or a synthesizer.
"I feel I'm going to begin emphasizing unusual colors with strong rhythm. I'll make the LP's more contemporary and reduce the costs."
When people first started talking about quadrasonic, ambience was always discussed as one of the major devices which created lent impact to the medium. "There is a way to use ambience effectively. I did it on 'Hurtin' You Don't Come Easy' on the Neil Diamond LP. I took the guitar solo which was very bluesy and increased the delay on the reflections and suddenly it's ambience but it's not—it's a completely different effect. Because whatever was played whizzed around the room.
"I don't think ambience has to be used in a concert hall style. There are other ways of using the delay machines. Very often the engineer will have to create the device. On slow ballads, ambience is still very valid if you want to create a spacious sound. When you eliminate the ambience you close in the sound field.
"If you want to create an expanded sound field, you've got to have ambience. Echo alone doesn't do it. Ambience is a tool like echo and equalization and it has to be used discriminately.”
The Quadfather knows.
—————————
Here’s a link to the article with Hugo from the previous year:
Post in thread 'Exploring Billboard for Quadraphonic Information'
Exploring Billboard for Quadraphonic Information
HUGO
(QUADFATHER)
MONTENEGRO:
After 3 LP's and
one year later
he has a greater
wealth of knowledge
on do's and don’ts
when doing
a quadrasonic LP.
By Eliot Tiegel
—————-
One year ago, Hugo Montenegro became the first fully involved pop arranger in the quadrasonic field and Billboard published a number of Hugo's tips on how to arrange for this new medium. One year later, the Quadfather, with three pioneering albums to his credit and further research into quadrasonic, offers fresh reflections on his own experi ences.
—————-
EVERYBODY'S BEEN TOO TIMID, including myself, in writing for quadrasonic. We've been a little pompous about exploiting the potential for fear of our work being labeled gimmick," Hugo today feels.
But it was the gimmick idea which broke open stereo in the late 50's. If we are only going to use one potential—spaciousness—feeling very squeamish about using mction and expansion and contraction-then we're not taking advantage of quadrasonic as a trigger for a new artform."
Montenegro sits in his cheery Palm Springs sun-baked living room, thinking about what mistakes or lessons he's learned. Behind him is a $4000 4-channel system provided by JVC, which several weeks before had brought him to Japan to do a series of promotional visits in a country where quad is well accepted.
Back home, 4-channel is still a mystery to listeners and to most record producers. But not to Hugo who now plans his recordings in a more knowledgeable manner, as he explains in this discussion.
"In terms of localization of instruments, I think there's a great deal more freedom and fewer restrictions. I don't believe as I did one year ago that bass should be in the center of all four speakers." Why I ask is he concerned about this?
He answers because he heard one of his songs from a 4-channel LP being played on AM radio and the bass had eight times more presence than everything else. The reason, Hugo explains, is because the sound gets combined from all the quad placements,
"and the strings sounded like they were coming from another room." If a quad album has to be mixed with AM airplay a major consideration, then no instrument should be placed on more than one center—the front center or rear center.
"A year ago I took the bass and placed it on the whole 'Godfather LP' on all centers so it was coming from overhead. If there had been facilities to hear it played back as a mono I may have realized how it would sound. I still love the bass in the center. If you’re playing it as a stereo you're getting a combine—you're adding the bass from the centers so you're getting maybe four times bass. In mono it's eight times so the perspective is way out of proportion.
"Since I've gotten a quad set in my house, I've listened to a complete LP from one position in the house and then from another position in the house and I've come to the conclusion that presetting an instrumental setup and then maintaining it through the entire album can become a source of monotony and irritation.
"If I'm sitting next to the left rear speaker and l've placed my guitar in that left rear speaker, and on every tune the guitar is hitting me from that speaker, it will bug me. So in the course of the mix, I feel rhythm instruments should be varied. What's more important is that the person listening is entertained and not irritated. If he's constantly hearing guitar, rhythm piano and background organ coming out of one speaker—especially in an automobile where he is stuck by one speaker, that's all he's going to hear all through his ride. So I would alter it.
"On one tune, put it here, on another, put it there, shift things around. The only thing I would keep constant is my bass and drums in front center because we expect it to be there.
I've tried putting them in the rear and it completely disorients the listener. My personal reaction is to want to turn around and face them. It's possible the next generation won't be front—oriented so it can accept sounds coming from the rear.
"I've tried placing strings in the back and solo colors up front and the strange thing is the strings have the same effect on me as the rhythm in the back--I want to turn and face them. So in effect what I'm doing is making the two rear channels the front.
"There's another problem--anything placed on the side centers will double up when played in stereo. You get double the energy because it's two speakers combined.
So l've avoided using any side centers and we will continue to avoid using side centers until stereo is phased out and it's all quad.
"There is a very minimal amount of front to-back leakage and that leakage kind of creates a very soft center so that has to be kept in mind when instruments are placed along a side wall. I would avoid placing a string section along one side and a brass section along the other side because if you had violins in the front right, cellos in the right rear, the little leakage between the front and rear will tend to make them appear more center.
"On the Neil Diamond LP, the most effective way I found—and I tried several setups-to get separation and not feeling disoriented was to place my strings up front, left and right and brass in the rear separated left and right. I used no ambience on the brass. I feel very strongly that the most effective use of ambience is on strings, voices, and woodwind colors where you want to create a spacious, depth feeling, where the repeat (the sound reflections) don't put a figure out of focus. I don't use ambience on brass except on long tones. . . . try to enhance my strings by adding the repeats to the rear."
The important thing about using ambience, Hugo says, is that the level of the reflected ambient signal should be low enough so you still perceive the original signal to be coming from where you intended it to be localized.
In other words, strings, shouldn't sound as if they were coming out of there (he points to one of the speakers) and there (he points to another) and there (still another) too.
"I've found you can be very daring in the use of combination colors, for instance a synthesizer can be mixed with any color-brass, strings, woodwinds, vocals-and the combination suddenly creates a new color which has a third dimension of its own. The most effective placement of these colors is on a diagonal, like left front and right rear or right front and left rear."
Hugo speaks more assured of quadrasonics potential in terms of expansion and contraction, "from a small listening area to a wide space field," and in terms of motion and localization. He says he's only been working with space and localization.
"Motion, expansion ard contraction are not as subtle as space and localization; they are more likely to be called gim nicks, but who cares if it's done in a way that is musically valid."
Hugo plans making greater use of motion by moving sounds like percussion instruments. He tried having "floating clouds" of strings on "Song Sung Blue" in the new Neil Diamond LP but it was very subtle. "If you're going to use a device, give it impact. We've got to try and create something which satisfies us as artists and creative people, but we've got to try and listen with a consumer's ear."
A major problem is charting the instruments when the arrangements are conceived so that time is saved in the mixdown. "And this is the big problem with quadrasonic, it's taking time to develop experience and skillful techniques, so that the costs are out of line.”
How to cut costs? Hugo will try to use less instruments than all the grancoise numbers people relate to his orchestral sound.
Hugo says he hasn't followed his own concept about not over-arranging. "You don't need weight. If a device is imaginative it can be done with less instruments because the less you have going on, the less masking will take place."
Hugo says his studio costs of from $10,000 to $12,000 for a quadraphonic LP are one third the cost of the total. With the other costs, the combination makes it "almost impossible to recoup albums that come in at this price. We're going to have to do more with less."
On the subject of masking, or having one sound cover up another, when he tried to use a device, like motion or expansion or action within the sound fields, rhythm seems to take away from the device. "If you have a trick going on, it has to be conceived in a way that everything else stops and the device speaks."
After figuring out on his charts where he wanted his instruments to emanate from, Hugo found that in the mixing process he very often had to change the instrumental setup. "If the first eight bars worked but the second eight didn't I would mix the first eight, stop, make a change and then edit the whole thing together. A lot of songs have to be mixed in sections and edited together."
Hugo is considering de-emphasizing strings because they cost too much and you need a lot of strings to get a big sound.
"I've found the most effective use of strings is as a 'pad’—long chords that support melodic colors.
He recalls having problems using strings playing figures in rhythm-oriented songs and "I feel that probably the arrangement would have been more unique if I had used other instruments like electronic keyboards (clavinet, Fender Rhodes, Roxichord, several different types or organs) which can be fed through a phase shifter which changes the color or a synthesizer.
"I feel I'm going to begin emphasizing unusual colors with strong rhythm. I'll make the LP's more contemporary and reduce the costs."
When people first started talking about quadrasonic, ambience was always discussed as one of the major devices which created lent impact to the medium. "There is a way to use ambience effectively. I did it on 'Hurtin' You Don't Come Easy' on the Neil Diamond LP. I took the guitar solo which was very bluesy and increased the delay on the reflections and suddenly it's ambience but it's not—it's a completely different effect. Because whatever was played whizzed around the room.
"I don't think ambience has to be used in a concert hall style. There are other ways of using the delay machines. Very often the engineer will have to create the device. On slow ballads, ambience is still very valid if you want to create a spacious sound. When you eliminate the ambience you close in the sound field.
"If you want to create an expanded sound field, you've got to have ambience. Echo alone doesn't do it. Ambience is a tool like echo and equalization and it has to be used discriminately.”
The Quadfather knows.
—————————
Here’s a link to the article with Hugo from the previous year:
Post in thread 'Exploring Billboard for Quadraphonic Information'
Exploring Billboard for Quadraphonic Information
