Heart "Barracuda" Isolated Tracks

A few weeks ago I posted the isolated vocal tracks from Heart's classic hit "Barracuda," which received a tremendous response. Today you'll hear the isolated band tracks from the same song. The song, off their Little Queen album, was a big hit for Heart in 1977, and it's still an classic rock radio staple. Here's what to listen for.

1. The interplay between the guitars. If you want to learn how to produce and mix two guitars playing together, this is a great example. The interplay between Roger Fisher and Howard Leese's guitars works for two reasons: when they're playing the same riffs or chords, the sound of the guitars are different, and sometimes they're either playing in different registers or counter to one another. You hear these examples throughout the song.

2. The effects on the track. There's very little in the way of effects at first except for a very small bit of slap delay on the left cleaner guitar, a touch of reverb on the drums, and a slow flange on the main guitar. That changes on the solo and again on the outro, where different parts have varying degrees of reverb and delay to change the sound and push them back in the mix

3. This was a song built for playing live. The only apparent overdub on the front half of the song is the guitar solo, where the right flanged guitar drops out, just like what would happen during a concert. Even on the more layered outro, it sounds like the song was captured on a gig, just with better acoustics and more effects.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Heart "Barracuda" Isolated Vocals

If there is a queen of rock, then it must be Heart's Ann Wilson. She truly has one of music's great voices and you hear it in all its glory on "Barracuda," the1977 hit from the album Little Queen. There are some cool things to listen for.

1. The vocal is pretty spot-on tuning-wise, which was unusual for the time. Most vocals of the era had many vocal imperfections, but you'd be hard pressed to find one here. It wasn't until the 80's that producers became more conscious of vocal tuning and took more care, so this song is somewhat unique in that regard. Of course, it again proves what a monster singer Ann Wilson was and still is.

2. There's a nice 71/2 ips tape delay on the vocal that's timed to the track with a vari-speed (which wasn't as easy as it sounds back then) and pretty loud in the mix. This was back before the days of electronic delays so it was still done with a tape machine.

3. The vocal isn't doubled, even in the bridge when sister Nancy joins in with the harmony, which again was somewhat unusual for the time. Once again, a testament to how strong Ann's voice is.

4. In between the vocal parts you can hear some of the isolated guitar parts as well. Listen for the acoustic guitar especially.


If you like these isolated tracks and song analysis, check out my Deconstructed Hits series of books. You can read some excerpts at bobbyowsinski.com.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Heart's "Barracuda" Isolated Vocals

Here's an interesting mostly isolated vocal track from Heart's 1977 hit and album radio favorite "Barracuda." The track sounds like it was isolated via phase cancellation since there are elements of other tracks that jump in and out as the song goes along, but that's okay since they're actually helpful in hearing some of the other parts. Here are some things to listen for.

1) Listen to the majesty of Ann Wilson's voice. One of the best voices in rock.

2) As with most songs done in the analog age, there are a lot of lip smacks and breaths (thanks to the hard compression) that couldn't easily be cleaned up in those days.

3) It sounds like there's an 8th note delay with a fair amount of regeneration on the vocal that's timed to the track and printed. The reason why I think it's printed is that you can hear a punch at about 12 seconds where the delay cuts off and then back in again.

4) The production on this song is state-of-the-art not only for those days, but now as well. Listen to electric rhythm guitar and acoustic guitar during the guitar solo at around 2:00. They're really tightly played with each other where it almost sounds like they were fixed by moving sliding them in a DAW, which of course wasn't available for about another 20 years. Also, the layering of the outro is great.

----------------------------------

Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating the music business.