Beatles Please Please Me (Stereo, No Mistake)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Timjosephuk, Mar 25, 2015.

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  1. Kim Olesen

    Kim Olesen Gently weeping guitarist.

    Location:
    Odense Denmark.
    No way (imo) would that have been better. The stereo version is not bad at all, and i'd rather have that than a fake stereo of the mono.
     
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  2. Paul H

    Paul H The fool on the hill

    Location:
    Nottingham, UK
    Really? You think a mix with bad sync issues and a dreadfully obvious vocal flub is better than something that most casual listeners wouldn't even detect? Not criticising your opinion, just offering my surprise at it.
     
  3. Kim Olesen

    Kim Olesen Gently weeping guitarist.

    Location:
    Odense Denmark.
    Yes really. And no offense taken :)
    For many years all i had was the stereo version. Mono versions was unavailable in 80's Denmark. And the vocal flub is so minor. When i was young i always thought the sync thing in the end was the engineer dialing in echo to make it more exciting. It never bothered me. Fake stereo on the other hand always bothered me. (Excepting the last half of IATW.)
     
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  4. Paul H

    Paul H The fool on the hill

    Location:
    Nottingham, UK
    All I had for most of my formative years of listening (until the 1987 CD) was the stereo and I noticed the vocal flub far more than I did the fake stereo of Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You.
     
  5. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    Yes, however it was recorded, the wrong take being used for the stereo could just be human error.

    But to expand on my previous post, let's say PPM was recorded in 15 takes. Let's say that the 'stereo' take was Take 11 (it doesn't really matter if this is correct for the moment), and Takes 12 & 13 were better, but had to be edited together for use on the 'mono' master take.

    Now, I don't believe that those two latter takes would be edited together before the harmonica overdubs were done. Rather, the harmonica overdubs would be recorded onto both takes (or the relevant portions of both takes), and then edited together.

    So let's say the overdubbed takes of 12 & 13 now became Takes 14 & 15. These could be then edited together for the final master, from which the mono mix was created.

    So if the above edited master now went missing, what would you do to create a stereo mix? I would go back to Takes 12 & 13 and sync those with the mono mix (for the harmonica). So why did they sync the mono mix with the unrelated Take 11 instead?

    In the above scenario (or something like it), I just can't believe that Takes 12, 13, 14, & 15 were all unavailable for the stereo mix, yet Take 11 (plus the master take of Ask Me Why) was available.

    Sorry for all the questions...;)
     
  6. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Ahh, you guys had it easy. In my formative years, all we had was a beat-up old plastic flexi-disc with slices in it. We didn't even have a turntable. Instead, we had to get up before dawn and walk 17 miles to the nearest library that had a phonograph, where we were charged $5 to listen to mostly static and low-frequency hums. And we thought we were lucky....
    ;)
     
  7. FrankenStrat

    FrankenStrat Forum Resident

    [OT] Timjosephuk, I love your avatar, that's the only Sutherland Brothers album I ever owned (and I still have it on vinyl) [/OT]
     
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  8. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    Yes, that had crossed my mind too. Plus, they did an ok job on the first 4 segments, but the last segment is a disaster. You can sync the mono mix with the backing track of the stereo mix MUCH more accurately than they did. I can't believe they left it like that without doing one more try.

    Sorry, it's a complete mess :cool:
     
  9. Kim Olesen

    Kim Olesen Gently weeping guitarist.

    Location:
    Odense Denmark.
    I did a lot of walkman listening while walking our family dog dog. (Nothings changed, now it's just ipod listening) Fake stereo is so obvious on headphones.
     
  10. Kim Olesen

    Kim Olesen Gently weeping guitarist.

    Location:
    Odense Denmark.
    It is. But it still doesn't bother me as much as fake stereo does :)
    If it had been all the harmonica pieces, or the whole song it would have been bad, but it is just the very (of the song) end after all....

    Oh, and we have an almost alternate take. What's not to like ;-)
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2015
  11. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    I guess so. But what's frustrating is that they could have synced that last part much better. Here's a quick attempt by me:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6sNDjbWVqjxU3RyMHpVWUFSSDA/view?usp=sharing
     
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  12. Kim Olesen

    Kim Olesen Gently weeping guitarist.

    Location:
    Odense Denmark.
    Working with tapes perhaps what they did was the very best attampt out of several. Syncing tapes in 63 a great portion of the end result is down to pure luck...
     
  13. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    True, but on the record, the synced harmonica part at the end starts very late...They got the others ok.
     
  14. Kim Olesen

    Kim Olesen Gently weeping guitarist.

    Location:
    Odense Denmark.
    Maybe they just got luckier on the other ones....
     
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  15. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    I just noticed that in 'Tune In', Lewisohn states that 'having decided to make an album' the PPM/AMW session was recorded in both mono and stereo to facilitate mono and stereo mixes for the album. However, he also mentions that the plan at this point was still for a live album (probably at the Cavern), so it's hard to imagine how these recordings would have made it to that particular LP.

    And his comment about the edit needed to 'tidy up' a vocal mistake still sounds to me that he thinks the mono and stereo versions of PPM use the same take, only the vocal mistake was fixed by an edit for the mono version. Which is not true.
     
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  16. Paul H

    Paul H The fool on the hill

    Location:
    Nottingham, UK
    Interesting. I'd have thought it more likely that they would edit the two takes together and then record overdubs to save John having to do it twice. I mean, why wouldn't you? You'd still end up with a twin-track edit from which you could make a "stereo" mix later. (This latter point is, of course, affected by how far the decision-making had gone about the use of these recordings on their up-coming album. If the plan was still to record them live at the Cavern, any recording of Please Please Me would presumably have been a live one and the studio recording would have been confined to the single, rendering the need for a future stereo mix obsolete.)

    The only problem occurs when that stereo edit goes missing for whatever reason. Then, you have the problem of how to create a stereo mix when all you have are the two (for the sake of argument) unusable parts from "Takes 12 and 13" or the handful of complete but unusable outtakes.

    It still seems more realistic to me that they edited the twin-track tape (to save time and effort) and then lost it than that they recorded to twin-track but chose to overdub onto a mono tape but that's just my view (and I write as someone who's never played an instrument, never been in a band, never set foot in a recording studio) and it's entirely plausible that they did choose to use the mono tape. (I'm guessing it would be easier to make a clean, unnoticeable edit).

    (I think the issue of the album is a red herring inasmuch as there was clearly no intention to release it in stereo. If that had been the case, surely they'd have used the four-track machine they had. The decision to issue a stereo version was only made after the album had been released and been a far far bigger success than they'd imagined when they made the decision to make it.)
     
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  17. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    John wouldn't have to do the whole song twice on harmonica, just the relevant portions that would make the final edit.

    But even if the 'master edit' was done before the harmonica overdubs, my point is that there would still be TWO versions of that in the library, the original undubbed version and another (via bouncing to another tape) overdubbed with harmonica. Even if they 'lost' the overdubbed version, why not sync the harmonica (from the mono mix) to the remaining undubbed version of the master edit? Why instead sync it to an unrelated take? Or was the undubbed version of the master edit missing too? That just seems unlikely when other stuff from the session wasn't lost, IMO.

    These questions are throwing up more questions than answers ;)
     
  18. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    There's only 1 documented session reel, E48382.
     
  19. Paul H

    Paul H The fool on the hill

    Location:
    Nottingham, UK
    Yes, good point. I think I've been thinking of the twin-track tape as being one on which overdubs were possible (like four-track) when I know this wasn't the case. So, let me get the permutations straight. There could have been:
    - Recorded onto twin-track, overdubbed onto mono (in which case it would not be possible to create a stereo mix with harmonica)
    - Recorded onto twin-track, overdubbed onto twin-track (in which case it would have been possible to create a stereo mix with harmonica, assuming the overdubbed tape wasn't lost)
    - Recorded onto mono, overdubbed onto twin-track (in which case the overdubbed harmonica would be on a separate channel to everything else)
    - Recorded onto mono, overdubbed onto mono (in which case it would not be possible to create a stereo mix with harmonica)

    Given the available evidence (that is, the presence of a stereo mix NOT made using any of the above), ALL options are possible if one assumes that "overdubbed onto twin-track" tape was lost.

    It is possible (but not reasonable, I don't think) that it was recorded onto mono and overdubbed onto twin-track (in order to get the balance of backing track/harmonica right in the final mix) but Martin really didn't like the harmonica on its own, so deliberately binned it once he'd got a usable stereo mix. I say "not reasonable" because Ask Me Why wasn't made that way.

    Given that Ask Me Why (in both mono and stereo) was made using the twin-track tape, I find it hard to believe that the mono tape was used for Please Please Me. That being the case, I also find it hard to believe that they then hooked that twin-track machine up to one of the mono machines and recorded onto that. Perhaps the workaround needed to use the twin-track machine as a recording device was such that it was just easier to overdub onto a mono machine but this still just seems odd. As Luke points out, though, it can't be dismissed.

    Ask Me Why - it may be worth noting - was recorded very simply with no edits or overdubs required. I still think it possible that the reel on which it appears was kept long enough to make a stereo "mix" a few months later but that bits of it (the portions needed for Please Please Me) were cut out and combined into a second tape and it is that second tape that was mistakenly destroyed when the mono mix of PPM had been completed, thus rendering the creation of a stereo mix impossible without resorting to using a different take/takes.

    Yes, point taken. Perhaps I should have said "tapes (perhaps edited together onto one session reel)".
     
  20. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    These questions are making me throw up.... ;)

    No, seriously, the discussion here is great. I wish I could add something insightful to the conversation, but I'm a novice when it comes to all the technical stuff. Still, I really have been entranced by the theories being proposed here. Keep it going.
     
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  21. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    Yes, they're pretty much all the permutations there are for the recording. I think the first two (bolded) are most likely (as it currently stands, anyway).

    Regarding number two on your list "[- Recorded onto twin-track, overdubbed onto twin-track (in which case it would have been possible to create a stereo mix with harmonica, assuming the overdubbed tape wasn't lost]" -

    As I've said, even if the overdubbed tape was lost, the basic performance would still exist in it's undubbed form on the original tape. So why wasn't that tape synced with the mono master when trying to create a stereo mix? Even though it still wouldn't be perfect, surely it would have been better than syncing the mono mix to an unrelated inferior take for the stereo mix?

    I'm sounding like a (badly synced) stuck record...:p

    Thanks, you asked for it! ;)
     
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  22. Dinstun

    Dinstun Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle Tennessee
    I see your point about multiple copies of the twin-track "best" take used for the single, with and without harmonica. Why would both have been removed to create the single master on Nov 30? And why on earth would everything not have been returned to the session reel?

    Anyway, here are a couple more wild speculative theories, to further confuse the issue...:)

    The harmonica overdubs were recorded only to mono on Nov 24 (as you have suggested), from either twin-track or delta mono, to another mono machine, so the harmonica parts never existed on twin-track. On Feb 25, they were forced to sync the mono harmonica mix to a twin-track take. But they did not remember which take was used for the mono master, or chose a different take for whatever reason, even with the single take available. This theory involves no missing tape.

    -or-

    Instead of all takes being recorded to both mono and twin-track, some were recorded only to mono (including the take used for the single version), and others were recorded to twin-track (the album version). Or, for whatever reason, the take used for the single was never recorded to twin-track.
     
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  23. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    That's the line I'm currently following. But to add to that - maybe the takes used for the mono version were only partially the best takes, which after overdubs, were edited into a 'best' composite mono mix. Whereas for the stereo version, they just chose what was deemed the best complete basic take, just for convenience, and synced to that (though if they went to the trouble of syncing the harmonica, couldn't they have recreated the 'best' composite for stereo?)

    Another blind alley? Probably...
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2015
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  24. jeighson1

    jeighson1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ann Arbor, MI
    Is it possible "A Beginning" was meant to be synched with "Please Please Me"? ;)
     
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  25. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    I honestly can't figure out how Winn came to this conclusion, unless there's documentation of some sort that I haven't seen. Neither Recording Sessions nor Chronicle have session sheets from that day, and Barrett's notes are fairly ambiguous. Winn indicates certain songs are mono or stereo mixes, but for the most part there's no such differentiation in Barrett's notes.

    I don't understand the whole "no stereo mixes" thing either. It's not like the WTB stereo "mixes" were any different in that regard, other than, say, something like Money. And it's pretty clear that Martin created fake stereo mixes of Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You, as well as the stereo PPM, so I don't think anyone can really say he had nothing to do with the stereo release.

    It's also worth noting that the documentation at those early sessions seems fairly spotty, both in terms of what was noted at the time and what has survived. The line between "takes" and "mixes" seemed to be blurred sometimes, with, for example, mixes being given the number of the take they were derived from (take 15 becomes RM15, for example). Wynn notes Please Please Me was "RS from takes 16/17/18", but Barrett's notes simply indicate "TK16-TK18"; it seems possible/likely those were sync-up attempts from an unspecified basic take and the mono mix.
     
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