On February 3, 1967, Joe Meek inexplicably murdered his landladywith a shotgun and then turned the weapon on himself, thus ending acareer that led from promising beginnings to international fame and,finally, to oblivion. Along the way, Meek had a powerful effect on theBritish recording industry, fundamentally changing the way records weremade.
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In the mid-'50s, British recording engineers were, in fact,engineers, to the point that they wore white lab coats. Producers, onthe other hand, wore suits. Engineers executed standard procedures thatwere developed to record sounds with the greatest possible fidelity,whereas producers, who were charged with making the creative decisions,rarely understood recording technology. Equally important, both classesof professionals were employees of large studios and record companies.Truly independent engineers and producers were unheard of at thetime.
Meek changed all that. In the process, he provoked an industry-widebacklash that is difficult to understand from a modern perspectivebecause most of his innovations have been so thoroughly absorbed intocommon practice that they are hardly noticeable. Besides breakingnearly all the prevailing audio-engineering rules, he demonstrated thatan individual could engineer and produce million-selling records in ahome studio. Although Meek's gear seems downright primitive now, hisstudio techniques can be put to use in today's personal studios.
LONDON CALLING
Robert George “Joe” Meek, born on April 5, 1929, was aprecocious child. By the time he was 10, he had written, cast, andproduced theatrical performances by and for the children in hisvillage, and he had built a crystal radio set, a microphone, and asingle-tube amplifier. At age 14, he upgraded his rig and worked dancesand parties as a mobile DJ; at 16, he acted as musical supervisor andprovided sound effects for local theater groups. In the summer of 1953,he built a disk cutter that he used to cut his first record, asound-effects library.
Meek began his professional recording career in 1955, working as anengineer for IBC, the largest and most advanced studio in London. From1955 to 1957, he engineered dozens of hit recordings for major Britishstars, often adding sonic touches that distinguished them from otherpop recordings of the time. He tweaked the tape recorders to get morelevel on tape, placed mics close to sources rather than at the“correct” distance, and used compressors and limiters forcreative rather than corrective purposes. Perhaps worst of all, Meeksometimes intentionally distorted preamplifier inputs!
Many producers resented what they perceived as Meek's challenges totheir authority, but his recordings had a funny way of becoming majorhits; at the end of the day, that's what mattered to the artists andthe record companies. Because so many of Meek's recordings became hits,some producers, including jazz and world-fusion pioneer Denis Preston,refused to work with anyone else.
But Meek was not happy working within the confines of IBC. Thestudio manager and many members of the staff resented Meek's attitude— as well as his tendency to throw fits when he didn't get hisway — and they treated him badly. Much of that can be ascribed toprofessional jealousy, but it was no doubt exacerbated by the fact thatMeek was homosexual. Of course, that didn't keep the “rottenpigs,” as Meek called them, from trying to steal his“secrets.”
Meek left IBC in September of 1957 and a few months later helpedPreston found Lansdowne studio. Meek designed a 12-channel mono tubemixer with EQ on every channel (a luxury at the time), which he hadcustom built by EMI/Hayes. Meek also installed EMI TR50 and TR51recorders (see Fig. 1) and oversaw all of the studio's technicalarrangements. The engineers at IBC called Lansdowne “The House ofShattering Glass” because of its clarity of sound, and in 1959 itbecame one of London's first stereo studios. Meek remained there untilNovember 1959.
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT
While working at IBC and Lansdowne, Meek set a number of precedentsin the English recording studio. Besides being the first to putmicrophones close to (and sometimes inside) sound sources, Meekexperimented extensively with microphone selection, which gave him abroader palette of sounds.
He also worked with reflective surfaces. For example, he had trumpetsections play against a cement wall to record early reflections at IBC,and he sometimes used large movable Lucite panels to liven up the soundof a dead room at Lansdowne. Other reflective surfaces useful to Meekincluded those inside the echo chambers in both studios (see thesidebar “Delay, Reverb, and Echo”).
Meek was the first engineer in the United Kingdom to use compressorsto create pumping and breathing effects rather than merely to controldynamic range. He also pushed limiters to the max to get the hottestpossible levels on tape and took advantage of analog tape's naturalcompression characteristics. It is also likely that Meek was one of thefirst engineers to direct inject the electric bass by plugging itstraight in to the mixer.
In addition, Meek began experimenting while at IBC withsound-on-sound recording using two recorders. According to veteranengineer and producer Adrian Kerridge, who worked with Meek at thetime, “He and [producer] Michael Barclay used to work what theycalled composites, which they made track by track by track. Whatthey were in effect doing was multitrack recording using the compositemethod. Nobody else to my knowledge in London, in fact, in Europe— I don't know about America — was working this way at thattime.”
Kerridge also reports that while at Lansdowne from 1958 through1959, Meek used two tape recorders to produce flanging, an effectusually considered to have been developed in the mid-'60s. “Itwas very successful,” Kerridge adds, “and we used it a lot,together with expansion, compression, and limiting.”
OUTSIDE THE BOX
Changing the way individual sound sources were recorded was only oneaspect of Meek's vision. Ultimately, he revamped the entire recordingprocess and arrived at entirely new ways of working. For example,British pop recordings made in the mid- to late '50s had a lot of“room” sound. Microphones were placed away from soundsources, and separation was achieved by keeping the musicians apartfrom each other. Meek close-miked sources, largely eliminating the roomsound, and then used compressor/limiters to tighten up the sounds andgive them more punch. Whatever ambience was lost because of theclose-miking technique was made up for by sending everything to an echochamber. That basic concept, though so common now that it's taken forgranted, was considered radical (and wrong) at the time.
Trad-jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton's “Bad PennyBlues” is one of the best-known examples of the way Meek'sapproach changed the character of recordings for the better. The songwas built around a rolling boogie-woogie piano bass line and pushedalong by a snare drum played with brushes. Meek compressed the dynamicrange of all the instruments far beyond what was usual for jazzrecordings, but he also made the brushes prominent and intentionallydistorted the piano bass line.
“It was Joe's concept,” says Preston. “He had adrum sound, that forward drum sound, which no other engineer at thattime would have conceived of doing, [and] with echo. And Joe createdthis at a time when I was [being] told that the rhythm section shouldbe felt and not heard. He was the first man to use what they thencalled distortion. I know what they call it now — now they buildit into gear! And that made a hit out of what would otherwise have beenanother track on a jazz EP. It was purely a concept of sound.”“Bad Penny Blues” made it into the Top 20 on the pophit parade.
INSIDE THE BOX
It was during his time at Lansdowne that Meek built his now famousblack boxes. One was a Pultec-style equalizer that Nigel Woodward, itscurrent owner, describes as “probably the warmest, smoothest,most transparent equalizer ever made.” Another of his black boxeswas a Langevin-style compressor/limiter, which Kerridge now owns (seethe sidebar “Meek's Black Boxes”). Meek left both units atLansdowne when he departed.
The third and most important black box was a spring reverb unit madefrom a broken fan heater. According to Kerridge, “It worked verywell, and Joe was very secretive about it. To my knowledge, this wasprobably the first spring echo unit of its kind. It produced a verytwangy and reverberant sound that he used to great effect on many ofhis recordings.” (That was a year before Alan Young developed theAccutronics Type 4 reverb unit for the Hammond Organ Company in theUnited States.)
SOUND EFFECTS
As a young man, Meek became quite skilled at designing originalsounds and at recording unusual sounds from his environment. While atIBC, he put those skills to good use. When vocalist Anne Sheltonrecorded “Lay Down Your Arms,” a song with a militarymarching beat, the producers wanted to add the sound of actual marchingsoldiers. Instead, Meek had Kerridge shake a box of gravel back andforth, producing the same basic sound. The record was a massivehit.
Also while at Lansdowne, Meek began making recordings at his tinyArundel Gardens flat. One of those recordings was a full-length LP thatemployed several unique recording techniques and featured anextraordinary variety of original sound effects.
HEARING NEW WORLDS
In 1959 Meek recorded his “Outer Space Music Fantasy”called I Hear a New World. (The original recording was releasedon CD for the first time as an addition to my Creative MusicProduction: Joe Meek's Bold Techniques, published byMixBooks/artistpro.com in 2001. Previous CD releases contained adrastically altered version of dubious historical significance.) Therecording was not only made in his apartment but also recorded instereo. In addition to engineering the record, Meek composed all of themusic. His musical concepts were arranged by Rod Freeman and performedby a group called the Blue Men. How Meek was able to work in stereoremains a mystery, as nobody who was there at the time recalls seeingany stereo machines, much less a stereo mixer.
That largely neglected recording is interesting because it providesfascinating insights into how an early audio innovator, working at thedawn of commercial stereo, dealt with issues such as phaserelationships, imaging, and the juxtaposition of dry and processedsounds. Beyond that, Meek's use of signal processing, tapemanipulation, and tape loops put the record in a class by itself.
And then there are the sounds. In addition to bass, drums, andguitar, the instruments Meek used included a homemade steel guitar, atube-powered keyboard called a Clavioline, a piano with thumbtacks inthe hammers, and test oscillators processed in various ways. Meek alsoused his tape delay as an instrument by pushing it intoself-oscillation with over-the-top regeneration. Sound effects includedbubbles blown through drinking straws, a comb scraped across anashtray, shorted electrical circuits, and milk bottles played withspoons. Meek often processed sounds as they were recorded. Tapes wereprocessed by changing speeds, playing them backward, or splicingloops.
Meek wanted to go beyond the static stereo recordings that werebeing made at the time, by introducing motion into his mixes. On apromotional recording made in 1960, Meek remarked, “I've tried— and I've had to do it rather carefully — to create theimpression of space, of things moving in front of you, of a picture ofparts of the moon.”
Sometimes he did that by panning a sound from one side to the other.He also used the reverb and echo returns to create motion by panningthe dry sound to one side and the effect return to the other, or byhaving the processed and dry sounds on one side, but the effectbleeding over to the other side. On “March of theDribcots,” Meek made the sounds “march” from one sideto the other by continuously varying the balance of high and lowfrequencies for each sound.
On the title track of I Hear a New World, Meek used loops andother forms of tape manipulation to great effect. The core of the songis a repeating three-note bass line that is either a tape loop or avery steady bassist; the drummer syncs to the bass loop. The vocaltrack is sung in rounds of three, with different processing on eachround. Two voices in tight harmony sing the first line. The same line,with identical phrasing, then repeats with different EQ and effects.The voices on the third line are sped up to double time so that theyare pitched an octave higher.
The phrasing of the sped-up vocal follows that of the other twoparts. To get that effect, the vocalist sang at half speed and time(perhaps at 15 ips) and was recorded onto one machine while listeningto the backing track playing at half speed on another. When the slowtrack played back at the higher speed (30 ips), it was roughly in syncwith the original, though it was pitched an octave higher. The newtrack was then transferred onto the master recorder.
Now such techniques are used by nearly everyone. But in 1959, theywere truly revolutionary for a pop-music producer to be using.
304 HOLLOWAY ROAD
Although he couldn't play an instrument, was tone-deaf, and hadlittle sense of rhythm, Meek had been writing songs and lyrics foryears. Les Paul and Mary Ford had a hit with his “Put a Ring onMy Finger.” Meek used the money he received from that to co-foundTriumph Records, one of England's first truly independent pop recordlabels, in 1960. Besides producing albums, Meek acted as A&R man,choosing — and in some cases managing — the artists andbands that he recorded (a practice that continued long after Triumph'sdemise).
Meek resigned from his position with the label after only ninemonths and formed a partnership with a film company owner who helpedbankroll a new recording studio. Meek located the studio in athree-level flat above a leather shop on a busy street in a bleaksection of north London. He lived and worked at 304 Holloway Road forthe rest of his life.
The studio was on the third floor and could be reached only byclimbing several steep flights of narrow stairs. The stairs are nearlyas legendary as the studio itself: musicians who angered Meek wereroutinely thrown down them, followed by their gear. The recording area,which measured approximately 18 by 14 feet, was at the front of thebuilding, with two large windows overlooking the street. The11-by-12-foot control room had no direct view of the recording area;Meek had to run back and forth between the two rooms to communicatewith the musicians.
“The studio windows were insulated, and then boards werenailed over them and acoustic tile and drapes [were placed] over theboards,” says Dave Adams, who helped prepare the studio.“We heard very little outside sound.”
Meek described the studio as being “the size of an averagebedroom. No larger. I've covered the walls with acoustic tiles …all the walls except one, which is covered with a thick curtain. Thishas very good absorbing power, and the studio is extremely dead. Thefloor is carpeted, and the ceiling is completely covered in tiles. Onewall has some tiles missing, and this gives me a certain amount ofbrightness. But basically it's completely dead.”
Meek also claimed that he had converted a small room directly abovethe control room into an echo chamber. Unfortunately, nobody cancorroborate the story. Nonetheless, the sound of an echo chamber can beheard clearly on nearly every recording made at 304 Holloway Road, so aroom was used for that purpose — very likely the bathroom. Infact, sometimes Meek had vocalists sing in the bathroom to get an echosound.
MEEK'S MACHINES
When trying to determine the gear that Meek used at 304 HollowayRoad, it is important to remember that during a period of six years,lots of equipment that was not documented may have been used in thestudio. In addition, simply knowing what gear was present in the studiodoesn't necessarily offer much insight into the Meek sound, because hemodified practically everything that he owned.
Those two points notwithstanding, two documents throw quite a bit oflight on the subject: an RGM Sound (Meek's production company)equipment list showing capital expenditures for equipment during theperiod from September 19, 1960, to May 12, 1964, and an auctionmanifest of equipment compiled after Meek's death. A handful of photosof the studio control room taken at various times show important piecesof gear.
When the studio opened in 1960, Meek's main recorder was a LyrecTR16 twin-track (see Fig. 2), an extremely high-qualityDanish-made machine widely used within the film industry. It ran at7.5, 15.0, and 30.0 ips and accepted reel sizes as wide as 11.5 inches,including cine spools. A stock TR16 did not have synchronizedrecord and playback heads (an overdub on track 2 would therefore be outof sync with track 1), but Meek modified his machine for that purpose.Meek also had two EMI recorders: a two-head TR50 and a three-head TR51,both full-track mono machines. By late 1962, he had added a three-headVortexion WVB, which he used to produce tape delay (see Fig. 3).By early 1963, he'd acquired EMI BTR2 and Ampex Model 300 professionalfull-track recorders.
In the earliest days, Meek's primary mixer was a 4-channel homemadedevice with variable top lift (a British term for high-frequencyboost) on each channel. Small line mixers were also used to sumline-level feeds from various sources. By September of 1962, Meek hadadded a broadcast-quality Vortexion 4/15/M 4-channel mixer. Together,the two units provided a total of eight high-quality mixer channels— four with EQ — that could be combined in various ways.Although he added a 6-channel stereo mixer in late 1964, most 304Holloway Road recordings were made using the two 4-channel monomixers.
Meek also had several preamplifiers with multiple inputs that heused as auxiliary mixers. Included was a modified RCA Orthophonic hi-fipreamp/filter unit that he referred to as his cooker. TheOrthophonic provided three inputs, had simple tone controls, and couldbe easily overdriven into a smooth and musical distortion. The devicewas most often used to fatten up lead vocals, but it also served as abacking vocal submixer (see Fig. 4). At some point, Meek alsoacquired RCA and Dyna preamps, which he could have used to add inputsor tone coloration when necessary.
PROCESSORS AND MICS
His selection of outboard gear was quite limited. At first Meek hadonly a few dynamics processors, including a 30-year-old BBC limiter anda homemade compressor. In February 1963, he acquired Altec 438A and436B compressors, and by September he added several Fairchild dynamicsprocessors: a Model 660 limiting amplifier, a Model 663 compactcompressor, a Model 661 Auto Ten, and a Model 673 Dynalizer. Heobtained a second Model 673 four months later and a Model 655 afterthat. Around 1966 Meek also acquired a Fairchild 658 professionalspring reverb, which is pictured in photographs of his control roomfrom that period (see Fig. 5).
Equalizers were equally scarce. In early 1963, the selection inMeek's possession was limited to a tone-control unit and a midliftcontrol, both probably homemade. According to Ted Fletcher, who workedwith Meek in 1963 or 1964, some of Meek's other EQs were “thingsin tobacco tins, with little inductors and capacitors solderedtogether.” Meek also added EMI 843 and 844 passive equalizers andan IBC CU-3H active equalizer to the studio at some point.
Meek's main microphones were two Neumann U 47s, which he usedprimarily on vocals; six AKG D 19/60 dynamics for instruments; and twoReslo ribbon mics — one for vocal groups (working both sides ofit) and a heavy-duty model for kick drum. He also had a Neumann SM 2stereo condenser (which broke continually), and HMV 235CH and WesternElectric ribbon mics that he used less frequently. By the end of hiscareer, Meek had added Telefunken NSH, Elam models 250 and 251, Beyermodels M61 and M23, and RCA variable impedance and dynamicmicrophones.
Because he was creating mono mixes, Meek monitored on a singleTannoy Red, a popular reference speaker used in recording and broadcaststudios throughout Britain and Europe. The Red employed Tannoy'sdual-concentric speaker design: in this case, a high-frequency drivermounted at the center of a 15-inch woofer. Meek powered the systemusing audiophile-quality Quad preamps and power amps.
The wires that connected Meek's gear snaked across the floor or weresuspended in midair. Many, if not most, of the wires had no plugs onthe ends; Meek just twisted the wires together. But cables weren't theonly things that covered the floor: tape boxes were piled everywhere,and discarded bits of edited tape reportedly rose to ankle height.
EARLY RECORDINGS
In November of 1962, Meek recorded himself walking around hisstudio, describing his gear and the way he used it. The following is anexcerpt:
“The main machine is a Lyrec [TR16] twin-track. I usuallyrecord the voice on one track and the backing on the other. The otherrecorder is [an EMI] TR51; this I use for dubbing. The artist has hismicrophone, a [Neumann] U 47, in the corner of the studio, screened offfrom the rest of the musicians. He can sing his heart out withoutanyone taking notice of him. He's going on a separate track [of theLyrec]. The bass is fed in direct, the guitars have microphones infront of their amplifiers, [and] the drum kit has two or threemicrophones placed around it.
“Then, I dub the artist's voice on again. I listen to thetracks that we've already got. … Sometimes they're good enough,but as a rule, [the vocalist] wears headphones and the track's playedback to him, and it's dubbed onto my TR51. So we have voice and rhythmtracks.”
Notice that Meek does not record the voice onto the second track ofthe Lyrec, as he had the guide vocal cut at the same time as the rhythmtrack. Instead, he mixes it in real time with the rhythm track fromtrack 1 of the Lyrec, straight to the EMI TR51, saving a generation oftrack bouncing. Meek continues:
“Sometimes [we] use four strings, never any more: fourviolins, perhaps a French horn, and a harp. Sometimes a choir, perhapsthree girls. The method I use for recording strings is to have amicrophone pretty close to them. The four of them sit [in opposingpairs], and then I delay the signal with the [third] head of theVortexion. I feed this back in again, which adds a reflection thatgives you eight strings. On this I put my echo-chamber sound and alsosome of my electronic echo. After I've finished, I've ended up dubbingfrom my TR51 onto [one track of] the Lyrec. [And after recording theorchestra on the Lyrec's second track] I have the extra orchestra onone side, and the voice and the [rhythm] track on the other. And that'sall I do at my premises. I then edit out the best takes, [and] go alongto IBC and mold them together.”
Meek was fanatical about separation, as difficult as it was toachieve in his Holloway Road flat. When miking guitar amps (which wereusually Vox AC30s), he'd place an AKG D 19 right against the grille andthen throw a heavy blanket over it. Similarly, he'd place a Resloribbon mic in front of a bass drum and put a heavy blanket over it,taped to the toms. The latter technique became commonplace a few yearslater, but Fletcher and others believe that it originated withMeek.
Meek made hundreds of recordings during his first couple of years at304 Holloway Road, but two of them are particularly significant:“Telstar” and “Johnny, Remember Me.”
JOHNNY, REMEMBER ME
Recorded in middle 1961, “Johnny, Remember Me” isconsidered by many to be Meek's most impressive recording, and it wasalso his first No. 1 hit. The record was a death disc about aguy who hears his dead lover's voice calling to him from across themoors. Meek's seance-loving partner, Geoff Goddard, claimed thatspirits helped him write the song. In fact, Goddard and Meek believedthat regularly they were visited and assisted by the spirit of BuddyHolly.
The song is still impressive, with its sweeping sonic grandeur andotherworldly authority. At the time it was released, however, it wasabsolutely revolutionary.
When interviewed for the Meek documentary on the BBC programArena, vocalist John Leyton remembered the session this way:“When I recorded ‘Johnny, Remember Me,’ I was in thesitting room behind a little screen, and the rhythm section was in theroom with me. The violin section was on the stairs, the backing singerswere practically in the loo, and the brass section was underneath, onanother floor altogether. And there was Joe next door, playing hismachine like another musical instrument. It was quite bizarre. We didit over and over. Joe wanted plenty of exciting atmosphere in it, andit was a really exhilarating sound with the galloping, driving beat.[Joe] was getting all excited, slapping his leg and combing hisquiff.” Elsewhere, guitarist Reg Hawkins relates how they had toplay the track repeatedly for an hour, after which his hand bled.
Brass and strings may be on the recording, but if so, they are hardto distinguish. The predominant instruments are the acoustic andelectric guitars, bass, hi-hat-driven drums, and either a harp or asped-up piano. Other sounds emerge in some places, but they are mostlywashes of sustained tones with little harmonic definition. Meekcombined and submixed the sounds in the same way that a synthesistlayers patches from several synthesizers and treats them as one sound.He brought the sound cluster in and out as it suited him. He also addedfairly long delays on a few keywords here and there, which at the timewas quite novel.
It is estimated that “Johnny, Remember Me” has more than30 tape splices. Unless they were of the rhythm tracks, Meek probablybounced vocal overdubs to blank tape (along with the backing track)until he had enough usable bits to work with. Then, when he edited thebest parts together, the rhythm tracks already would be in sync, makingit more difficult to detect the splices.
TELSTAR
“Telstar,” inspired by the satellite that ushered in thetelecommunications age, was Meek's biggest hit. It spent two weeks atthe top of the U.S. charts in December 1962 and reached similar heightsthroughout the world.
From a recording perspective, “Telstar” is fascinating.It has so many overdubs that the underlying layer of sound,particularly in the low mid frequencies, is little more than a sonicblur. There are several drum parts, two bass parts, a triple-trackedClavioline (spanning three octaves), a sped-up piano playing harplikearpeggios, and a gorgeous solo guitar during the breaks.
An abundance of speculation has surfaced regarding the sound effectsthat open and close “Telstar.” One common theory is thatMeek recorded a flushing toilet and then reversed the tape, but if youplay the record in reverse, you will not hear any obvious flushingsounds. What you will hear are sounds reminiscent of those found onI Hear a New World, which were almost certainly produced thesame way.
If you have ever plugged a microphone into a tape echo and crankedup the regeneration while making plosive and other vocal sounds, you'llrecognize much of what you're hearing on “Telstar.” Meekran the source sounds — whatever they were — through aspring reverb and a tape delay, with the tape regeneration set so highthat it went into self-oscillation. You mostly hear the sound of theoscillating tape delay and not the source sound. He also captured aspring sound by knocking on his reverb device, and a tapping soundprobably produced by tuning a pair of test oscillators close enough tothe same pitch to cause beating. Those sounds were edited together andthen reversed by turning the tape around.
BTR, TOO
Royalties from “Telstar” provided Meek with enough moneyto buy some impressive new gear. He was unable to get satisfactoryresults mixing the Lyrec's two tracks down to mono on the TR51. As aresult, he purchased an EMI BTR2 professional full-track recorder inFebruary 1963. Having two pro machines to work with made signaldegradation from track bouncing much less of a problem, letting himmodify his recording technique.
According to guitarist and recording engineer Peter Miller, whoworked with Meek then, “[Meek] only had two machines. He wouldvery often get the band recorded onto the Lyrec, which was usually hisfirst machine. He would put the band on one track and put the vocal onthe second track. The vocal track would also include maybe a guitartrack or solo sax or something else — whatever lead instrumentwasn't playing at the same time as the vocal. And then he would mixthat onto his EMI BTR2 mono 1-track. And at the time that he'd do themix, he would add on anything else that he wanted — eitheranother track or effects processing.”
Fletcher describes a modified version of the same technique.“The technique he used most of the time while I was there was tolay down the backing track on the full track of the BTR2 so that therecording occupied the full quarter-inch in mono,” he says.“He would then remove the tape and put it on to the Lyrecmachine, where he would erase one half. There would still be theoriginal backing track on the one half of the tape, and he would add tothat either the lead voice or backing vocal on the other half of thetrack. He would then mix the backing track and the vocal track togetherlive while he was recording another part and send the three elementsback to the BTR2, in mono on full-track. If he had everything he wantedby then, he would do a final mixdown with additional compression andEQ.” In both cases, Meek might add an additional track in realtime as he mixed down to mono, with additional processing at any pointalong the way.
A month after getting the BTR2, Meek purchased an Ampex Model 300,another professional full-track mono machine. Having two profull-tracks gave Meek increased recording options. For example, bybouncing between them, he could build up a rhythm track using the fullwidth of the tape and only have to go to half-width (on the Lyrec)once. Meek also purchased an Ampex 351/2 twin-track at some point,giving him 2-track bouncing capabilities, and an Ampex twin-tracksemipro model called a PR10 (see Fig. 6). It is rumored thatMeek also had an Ampex multitrack in 1966, but the evidence isinconclusive.
LAST RIGHTS
In 1964 Meek had his final No. 1 U.K. hit with “Have I theRight?” by the Honeycombs (featuring female drummer“Honey” Lantree). The tune went to No. 4 in the UnitedStates and topped the charts in Australia, Japan, South Africa, andSweden. “Have I the Right?” is best known for its“stomping” gimmick. To generate a really big kick-drumsound, Meek placed microphones below the wooden studio stairs and hadseveral musicians stomp along in time with the music. But that wasn'tall.
“On the final mix of ‘Have I the Right?,’ we werejust sort of tickling it up and getting the master ready with Joe lateone evening,” Fletcher recalls. “The ‘come rightback’ line still wasn't heavy enough for him. He tried all sortsof things to get this right: we kicked cardboard boxes, hit cardboardboxes with sticks, and in the end, he said, ‘No, Guy [Fletcher'sbrother], it's not loud enough. What you've got to do is this.’And he put an AKG D 19 microphone on a little short stand on the floorand gave a tambourine to my brother and said, ‘Hit the microphonewith the tambourine.’ So my brother gently tickled themicrophone, and Joe said, ‘No, no — hit it, hit it, hitit!’ During the takes, my brother was smashing this tambourineonto the top of the microphone so hard that he completely destroyed themicrophone and the tambourine. There's a horrible cracking noise on therecord, and if you listen carefully, you can hear it.”
LEGACY
It is commonly held that Meek was a casualty of the British Invasionand that he got further and further out of touch as the '60sprogressed. Critics point out that he had practically no hits in 1965and '66, suggesting that the music simply wasn't up to par. That may betrue generally, though he made some extraordinary recordings duringthat period, many of which were never released.
Regardless of how you assess the value of Meek's later recordings,another factor must be considered when pondering his demise: Meek was atextbook paranoid schizophrenic, and his condition worsenedsignificantly toward the end of his career. He believed that almosteveryone was out to get him. He also was subject to wildly erratic moodshifts, including violent outbursts that eventually made successfulinteractions with others nearly impossible for him. Apparently, whenMeek pulled the trigger on that fateful February morning in 1967, hebelieved that he had run out of options.
Barry Cleveland is the author of Creative MusicProduction: Joe Meek's Bold Techniques (www.artistpro.com). He also plays guitar in theimprovisational quintet Cloud Chamber (www.innerviews.org/inner/cloud.html). Visitwww.barrycleveland.com for moreinformation.
LISTENING TO MEEK
Nearly all of Joe Meek's major recordings were mixed to mono. Nowpeople tend to think of mono as the same sounds coming out of the rightand left speakers with no stereo separation, but Meek mixed usingone speaker. Remember that, during Meek's entire career, mostpeople listened to music on one speaker. Meek's records were targetedlargely to teens, most of whom listened on inexpensive phonographs andeven less expensive transistor radios. So if you want to hear therecordings the way they were intended to be heard, you should listen tothem on a single speaker.
But don't listen to a Meek record through a cheap speaker. Althoughmost people at that time listened on inexpensive systems, Meek mixedusing a Tannoy Red driven by a Quad preamplifier and power amp combo,all of which were state of the art at the time. The best way to gleanhis intent is to listen to his recordings using the highest-qualityspeaker available — preferably a studio monitor with a flatfrequency response.
DELAY, REVERB, AND ECHO
The terms delay, reverb, and echo are often usedinterchangeably when describing Joe Meek's sound. However, theyindicate three distinct effects.
Delay in the '50s and early '60s meant mechanical delay. It wasachieved most commonly by using a three-head tape recorder (see Fig.A1). A three-head machine has a gap between the record and playbackheads. Consequently, if the playback head is on at the same time that asound is recorded onto the tape, there is a short delay while the tapetravels from one head to the other. The delay time is adjusted bychanging the tape speed.
Reverb was not a common audio term in the 1950s. By the early '60s,the term had largely come to mean spring reverb (see Fig. A2).(Plate-reverb technology had been developed by the late '50s, but noevidence suggests that Meek had access to it.) Spring-reverb units aredevices with transducers connected to the ends of a group of springs.Sound passes through the springs and comes out the other side slightlydelayed, with a characteristic spring sound.
In the late '50s and early '60s, echoes were produced using an echochamber, which was a highly reflective room with a speaker on one sideand a microphone on the other (see Fig. A3). Sound was sent tothe echo chamber by amplifying it and playing it on the speaker. Themicrophone picked up by the sound as it echoed around the room and thenreturned to the mixer, blending with the original, dry sound. Any spacewith reflective surfaces could be converted into an echo chamber, andad hoc chambers were created from stairwells, closets, parking garages,and bathrooms.
MEEK'S BLACK BOXES
Meek built several pieces of gear that eventually became known asthe black boxes, the most famous of which was a spring-reverbunit. Meek reportedly constructed the reverb unit from a brokenHMV-manufactured fan heater during late 1958 or early 1959. He kept theunit taped up and carried it with him so that no one could examine itand discover how it worked. Meek put the unit through several revisionsas he experimented with different types of springs and perfected theelectronics.
While at Lansdowne, Meek also built a compressor/limiter based onLangevin designs and circuitry and a black-box equalizer based on thePultec model (see Fig. B). Nigel Woodward, who now owns theunit, describes Meek's equalizer as “probably the warmest,smoothest, most transparent equalizer ever made.”