Recording of 'A Day In The Life'/8-track vs. 4-track quality, Motown, etc.

Interesting piece on the recording of 'A Day In The Life'

Barry Miles - Many Years From Now (p328)

If there was ever an example where up-to-date equipment would have improved a recording, it is 'A Day In The Life'. Because EMI was still using antiquated four-track equipment, nine years after American record companies such as Atlantic had switched to eight-track, George Martin was constantly forced to transfer one track to another in order to record the next layer of sound. As well as taking up a tremendous amount of studio time, each transfer multiplies the signal-to-noise ratio, introducing tape hiss: two copies creates four times the amount of hiss but a third copy increases it by nine times, so George Martin was constantly juggling tracks and worrying about keeping a track free. There is a lot of hiss and noise on 'A Day In The Life', as a pair of decent headphones will show. George Martin and his engineers did a brilliant job considering that they were working in a museum, but the sound quality would have been better had it been recorded on modern equipment. It was typical of EMI that when they did finally decide to upgrade, they opted for an eight-track instead of buying one of the sixteen-track machines that had already become standard throughout the industry. By then, however, rock groups had become accustomed to using top-of-the-line equipment in the independent studios, and EMI had to replace the eight-track with a sixteen within a year.

 

I believe that the British tended to be more conservative and not embrace the new technology until they felt the bugs were ironed out.

Am I right that EMI's 4 track equipment was sonically superior to the 8 tracks that were being used in the US at the time? (Obviously you lose the advantage of four extra tracks and less bouncing)

 

Yeah, The Beatles 4-track stuff actually sounds less hissy than a lot of 8-track music from American studios around the same time, despite the bounce-downs. In fact, you really can't hear any tape hiss on Beatles recordings until they went 8 track (e.g. "Martha My Dear"). Also tape hiss seems prevalent on "Abbey Road" in general.

IMO none of The Beatles' albums have objectionable levels of hiss. I guess the guy who wrote this could never listen to any of John and Yoko's 'Unfinished Music' albums or some of Hendrix's more hissy tracks. I'll take the hiss, it beats NR any day.

 

Sure, Atlantic had 8-track in 1958, but they were the only ones. Columbia and Motown didn't get 8-track till 1965, and I think they were pretty alone in the game for at least another year or two.

As far as hiss goes, the Columbia 8-track recordings have very little hiss on them. Do you hear much hiss on any of those Byrds recordings? Didn't think so.

 

I think Steve meant that Abbey Road 4-tracks that were bounced a lot (Hello Goodbye, etc.) STILL are pretty much hiss free.

Atlantic's 8 track machine (to me) sounded pretty bad, with our friend tape hiss almost overwhelming the music at times. Probably because Mr. Dowd followed his Ampex instruction manual to the letter (lower levels to avoid tape overload, etc.)

At Columbia they probably ignored the Ampex spec sheets and instructions and did as the British did: Slam the meters, use EQ going in to recording, and limited everything before it hit the heads. I can hear all that on Byrds records, and most other Columbia stuff from that time. Can't you all?

[Agreed! - SH]

 

Maybe less hiss, but not hiss-free.

More importantly, there is generational loss of highs.

Loss is loss, and it isn't a good thing.

 

Just wait 'till those new Smokey Robinson & The Miracles remixes from 3-track come out next month in their new 2-disc anthology.

 

Are you serious??

 

Thanks Ken!