SH Spotlight EQ SUGGESTIONS FROM SH to help the sound of Canada Beatles "HELP" - "RUBBER SOUL" CDs

[size=-1]Gesundheit.[/size]

 

That was my reaction when the Pepper CD first came out: "too wide." The actual Beatle LPs have NEVER sounded like this on any system I've heard them on. The only exception was the Abbey Road MFSL LP, where I could hear the drum overdubs panned to different channels (on "Carry That Weight," I think) for the first time.

My Rubber Soul bluebox LP sounds wide, but there's still some sort of slight, warm meshing of the channels. Maybe it's simply the bass info being panned to the center a bit? Wasn't that standard even on the UK pressings?

 

It'll probably happen, but it'll be NR and compression city.


Evan

 

Trade it for your crappy one while she's not looking. Unless she's a collector she'll never notice.

 

Between the summed bass and the narrower separation of your phonograph cartridge, you had enough crosstalk to make a "soundstage" out of a record as left-right sounding as RS.

The first stereo Otis Redding albums are the same way. Very vocal-left, instruments-right, but with just enough crosstalk it still works. For me, at least.

 

Those were all recorded live, so there's some leakage. Plus, the echo return is in one channel, so some things will be in both channels - once directly, once via echo. Like Please Please Me, only without the tape delay.

 

Here we go:

Think For Yourself vocal overdub

 

Do you have any of that stereo Redding stuff on cd?
My kids comment on how weird it sounds whenever I play it.
Not much leakage on the cd!

 

I've got the early "Ultimate" CD which generally used stereo where available. I've Been Loving You Too Long is a good example. The leakage and echo is there...

 

Quick note, I just wanted to say after reading Steve's post and it was cool to hear him use the exact same word as I did after I first heard my copies of the DA CD's of HELP! and Rubber Soul..."They sounded THIN" those were my exact words and I'm sticking to them!!

No doubt some EQ would make these sound much better to your ears!!

 

Rob Bowman's book about Stax, Soulsville USA, says that Tom Dowd finally convinced Jim Stewart to install a two-track recorder around the time of "Mr. Pitiful," when Stewart quit his full-time job. Stewart only agreed to this as long as the mono recorder could be plugged in after it, so that the mono mix could be done on the fly.

When Stewart started, he had a pair of four-input Ampex mixers. That allowed for seven mics, with the eighth channel reserved for echo.

According to Bowman, this setup didn't change when the two-track recorder went in. They fed one of the mixers into one track, the other into the second. Whichever track they recorded the vocals on got the echo as well.

Stewart didn't care, because he figured that singles were Stax's bread and butter, and they were still mono. Atlantic were the ones who wanted stereo for LPs.

 

I feel like Robert Redford in "All the President's Men" here. Our very own Deep Throat has given us some equalization clues for side one, but where the non-movie songs on "Help!" are concerned, he has told us to "follow the money" -- er, we're on our own.

So let me try this way: would it be horribly wrong to give tracks 8 through 14 a similar treatment to the movie songs? I've tried it with "Act Naturally," and it seems quite a bit better.

Would it be off-base to try something between +3 and +4 at 10000 cycles on "Dizzy Miss Lizzie"? How about on "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"?

 

Isn't it "show me the money" . If it's the post I am thinking of, Steve didn't want to comment on other albums in the Beatles discography. Trade secrets. If he told us he would have to take a cyanide capsule.

 

I agree. But I like the sound anyway.

 

No, I'm pretty sure it was follow the money ... into his pocket.

I was asking about the second seven tracks on the oddball Canadian Help!

I've taken a stab at them anyway, but it just seemed that DML needed a bit more treble. I've got a couple of versions of it on the hard drive now, and I'll do some further listening tomorrow. In the meantime, there's a manuscript I didn't spend nearly enough time on today. Guess I'll be taking it home with me.

 

Okay, I'm intrigued. Anyone know of any decent (and free?) computer EQ programs? I haven't even thought about using one before, so i haven't a clue. Does it come with any of the basic programs like Media Player, iTunes, or Roxio?

 

GoldWave is a really good one you can use for free for a while anyway. Shareware it is called I think.

 

On my little tangent...my favorite bit from the Think For Yourself session:

George: Well it's hard to recognize it just from the chords, which line I'm up to really
George Martin: You're not hearing the words?
George and John: No!
John: God we've never heard them once you fool! No wonder we've been getting it wrong.
George Martin: I'm hearing them up here.
John: Wonderful...
George Martin: They're lovely!
George [under his breath]: Wonder if Ron Richards is free tomorrow.
[laughs]
[loud feedback]

 

The entire chat from that session is really funny. Lots of humour...surprisingly, perhaps it's because it's George's song...he really digs at John more than one might expect. The Ron Richard's line is priceless

 

Thanks for the heads-up, and profuse apologies if I sounded as though I were being greedy and/or unappreciative. Came back to "Dizzy Miss Lizzie" this afternoon, and on one of 'em I did go a little crazy with the treble. Tried again with a little less force; it does seem to benefit from a bit more, but not much. Won't worry about it too much, though. Not my favourite tune on the CD.

 

Slight sidetrack. It's generally acknowledged that the first four official Beatle albums suck on CD. To my non-mastering engineer ears, PPM sound closest to okay, BFS sounds Dull and With the Beatles and A Hard Day's Night sound much brighter than anything else in the whole catalog. Are they always like that, or is it exaggerated on the CD's? Where might you tame those two on the sonic spectrum?

 

Many believe that EMI UK accidentally pulled the "EQ'd for LP" master tapes for the first four, and quickly made digital transfers. Wouldn't surprise me. I think those first four were only released like that, because they were in a rush to make a street date. George Martin had given the stereo test cd's the thumbs down at the last minute. Even he seemed shocked that AHDN and BFS came out in mono. He had said he'd anticipated being allowed to remix them first. The fact that he did remix the next two only supports the argument that these were rushed out the door.

No, the mono LP's don't sound as bad as the cds. Even if they do come from the same tape source, the cd will sound inferior because of it's wider frequency response.