They can play the covers well but need a larger venue, like an outdoor stage, better mics, and an audio engineer. I did "Listen to the Music" (Doobie Brothers) and there was a banjo guy. "The Chain" had a different crew with three women and they sounded a bit better.
The instruments are good but the vocals need some clarity .. or my ears need cleaning
There are albums, tracks, and mixes on Tidal. 296 tracks in total.
I can relate to having heard this sound many times, and I felt I knew what you were describing. A quick listen and indeed, that is the sound.
I believe it was the damped recording space, combined with post-mixdown bandpass filtering, treble padding with an equalizer and the compressor settings. Analog compressors were different sounding than what is used today.
I’ve heard some period gear with a touch of that sound, too. Not to imply they were necessarily rolled off on the extremes like those recordings, but tilted down in the treble and some compression effect.
Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (1970) tried to have lush orchestration, but the recording suffers from high distortion.
"Arthur Fiedler And The Boston Pops Play The Music Of Paul Simon" (1972) got the "lush orchestration" sound right.
BTW, I bought these records used at a time when most people were getting rid of records.
Ed
"Arthur Fiedler And The Boston Pops Play The Music Of Paul Simon" (1972) got the "lush orchestration" sound right.
BTW, I bought these records used at a time when most people were getting rid of records.
Ed
While reading through all the responses, I'm thinking this thread might be conflating some mostly-unrelated things that happened around the same time. For one thing, the "unique piece of gear" of the early 1970s might be actual string quartets and orchestras, as opposed to the mid-late 1960s when the Mellotron was widely used for its violin family of sounds on whole albums by the Moody Blues and King Crimson, and many hits such as The Left Banke "Walk Away Rene" and David Bowie "Space Oddity." Even though the Mellotron is essentially a tape playback machine of actual violins playing each note, its tone is easily recognizable in most of the recording where it's used.
It seems that in the early 1970s the trend was leaning back more toward "real" instruments, such as the string quartet on Linda Ronstadt's "Long Long Time."
I am adding The Partridge Family Album (1970) to the list of recordings with the early 1970s sound.
A common denominator may be The Wrecking Crew studio musicians.
Ed
A common denominator may be The Wrecking Crew studio musicians.
Ed
Somewhat unique sound or 1970-1980 ... Cowbells
https://www.kerrang.com/the-13-greatest-uses-of-cowbell-in-rock-and-metal
https://www.kerrang.com/the-13-greatest-uses-of-cowbell-in-rock-and-metal