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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Van Halen "Runnin' With The Devil" Isolated Vocals

Here are the isolated vocals from the 1978 Van Halen classic "Runnin' With The Devil" from their debut album. Although David Lee Roth doesn't get many props as a vocalist, you can hear that he really does (or at least did) have a pretty strong set of pipes.

Things to listen for:

1) Check out the long reverb trail. It has a lot of the high frequencies rolled off so it doesn't get in the way of the vocal. This was a big part of the sound of early Van Halen records.

2) The doubled background vocals. They high part is louder on the right side, while the lower one is slightly louder on the left. You can hear at 2:30 when the release of the backgrounds is different on the left than on the right.

3) Listen to record punch on the scream at 1:23. This was recorded on magnetic tape, and the only way to keep the parts on one track was to punch in and out to fit the parts in.



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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Roth gets props from me, I think he was absolutely great! Particularly on the first two records, he is incredible. So much character (IMO, the hardest thing to find in a vocalist) in his singing, and he writes great hooks.

I love being able to clearly hear what the reverb is doing. I think I have learned more about mixing from listening to isolated tracks, than any other resource. Thanks for posting this!

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