The Beatles - Pitch Shifting

Greetings.

I am looking for a list of every Beatles song that they altered the pitch (sped up or slowed down) on after they recorded it, like in "When I'm 64," or the mono version of "She's Leaving Home"

After a quick search on the forums and Google, I am unable to find this. Can any of you help me?

 

Don't Pass Me By. Both the stereo and mono versions are sped up... just by different amounts. Across The Universe has been pitched a few different ways as well.

 

Rain would be one, along with I'm Only Sleeping. The classic example, of course, would be Strawberry Fields.

 

IIRC these things are covered in Mark Lewisohn's "The Beatles: Recording Sessions".

 

I was surprised to learn from Robert Rodriguez's "Revolver" book, that massive chunks of that album were NOT recorded at the speed we're hearing them. Great book.. goes into a lot of detail.

 

what are some of the disparities on Revolver? Share....

 

Real Love. John sounds like a chipmunk.

 

The version of "Only A Northern Song" on Anthology 2 was sped up.

Why?? Joe Brennan says: "it is speeded up just over 2 per cent for no stated reason".

Scroll down on: http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/beatles/var-1967.html

Arnie

 

'Across The Universe'

Slowed down for Let it Be album

 

And sped up for the Wildlife version.

 

Is the Anthology 2 version at the right speed? Arnie

 

LIBN is supposed to be the correct speed for the originally released take. A2 sounds correct to me, but not sure.

 

Pretty sure it's all detailed in "Recording The Beatles".

 

There's a difference between a finished recording being sped up or slowed down during the remix versus a vocal track being vari-speeded during recording.

Vari-speeding a vocal requires the singer to alter how he sings. For example Paul would have had to extend his phrasing to fit the slowed down backing track.

 

Not really, only if he was pulling a David Seville.

 

Yes really, obviously not to chipmunks degree.

 

So, from reading that, am I right in assuming all the work (speed, mixing) on the A2 version happened in the 1990s? Also, I had forgotten that was a different lead vocal.

Finally, I've never been clear on this: when Brennan writes that take 3 was mixed down to take 12 and then parts of take 3 "wiped," does that mean certain elements are gone forever? I've wondered about this since reading Lewisohn in the 1980s.

 

Both mono and stereo "She's Leaving Home" are pitch-shifted, just in different ways.

The piano solo in "In My Life" was played slow and then sped-up to sound like a harpsichord.

 

The one I always hated was The End on Abbey Road. When the vocal comes in it shifts and if you are playing along, learning the song or simply wanting to play side two with the boys it ruins the end, pun intended.

 

A few songs from the Help! album (eg. "Ticket to Ride", "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away") are somewhere between a quarter-step and a half-step below standard tuning.... but I've never seen a definitive answer about whether this was due to tape speed adjustments, or if the instruments were just tuned down slightly.

 

When I was trying to learn TtR, I was mildly annoyed that it was not in standard tuning, but interestingly enough, I found a video of the Beatles lip syncing to TtR that was dead nuts standard tuning. I was happy to find it, but it left me scratching my head to explain why.

 

I think many other songs were pitch-altered for the final mix

If you happen to play on guitar, for example, 'Strawberry Fields', you'll find that is NOT exactly an A

 

Actually it sounds to me like the original was slowed down. But woith all the varispeeding going on in 66/67 some/all of the tracks may have been recorded at different speeds.

 

I remember reading somewhere a George Martin quote saying that the song which got the most altered speed elements in it was "Lucy in the sky". He said something like "there's not one element in it that is played at the original recording speed".

 

Could be accidental. The 4 track running ever so slightly fast and the machine they recorded the mix to running slightly slow. In tape enviroments it does not take much for the final product to be out of pitch.