The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper 50th Anniversary outtakes only (Content and Discussion thread)

Not the stuff for serious info though is it?
Another bunch of "I was there" talking heads in front of already seen footage.

 

Hear ya just wanted to share it

 

I saw Pete Best was in the credits and had to check it out. Why is Pete Best in a freaking Sgt. Pepper documentary? Turns out, it was to tell the story about the medals his mom loaned out for John's costume, and his brief interview was actually very touching, and perhaps the best part of the whole thing. What a humble and nice fellow. The rest of the doc is pretty terrible though. When George Martin didn't pop up in front of a mixing board, it was kind of sad. The generic "Beatles" sound-alike music is pretty terrible, as is the fact that this documentary contains absolutely no music from the album that it's about. It was almost like a parody of bad Beatle documentaries, but not a parody.

 

The main 'Pepper 50' thread has randomly closed without any notice or explanation for some daft reason, so now I have to make this off-topic post:

This is not to knock the remix. I love the Pepper remix, and wish the whole catalogue was remixed instantly in this way. Someone was spinning the stereo 'Rubber Soul' a while ago for me, and I just can't listen to it any more. I never really rated 'Pepper' as top tier catalogue material until I heard the remix last year.

Though, I have a question for those who know all about the reduction bounces, different takes, overdubs, and such. The 'Pepper' remix uses a different bass take for 'Fixing A Hole' at a few points, most noticeable from 1:08 to 1:12. My hunch is that this weirdly timed original bass - which I also assume was played like that on purpose - was simply replaced with a more straightforward bass line from earlier or later during the final take. The question is, is it possible they (in 2017) simply missed some kind of bass edit done back in the 60's, did a wrong sync job, something like this? I was in the understanding it was as "simple" as syncing up all reduction takes.

 

The Beatles had tracked two separate basses which are playing simultaneously in the original mix--one played by John recorded at Regent, and a second one later doubled by Paul at Abbey Road. Both are panned to the left in the original mix, giving the bass a slight chorus and delay yet seeming as one cohesive bass track.

In the new mix, both bass tracks are again used but John's bass is hard panned left and Paul's bass panned right. Because of the newfound separation, discrepancies between those two bass tracks are no longer masked and can be heard more clearly.

 

Boom! Nice one, a clear answer, and so fast. Thanks. I was surprised they would've messed with the actual "takes", so I already had a feeling there was more to it, glad I asked.

 

Correct, though I seem to remember that at least one phrase of the original bass (Lennon) has somehow been 'repaired' in the remix.

 

Yeah that's what some people said, but some people were saying a lot of things about the new Peppermix...

 

Some "food for thought": does "Sea Of Time" utilise anything from the "Within You Without You" recording session (such as the tamboura drone, for example, and/or some of the score George Martin wrote for "WYWY")?

 

They could not get rid of John's bass entirely because it was recorded together with other instruments (I think drums for sure), but they did make it slightly muted in 2017 so the couple of flubs are less to stick out.

They did use slightly different bass line in Getting Better however in one place definitely, most noticeable from 1:16 to 1:35. I think it was also @soniclovenoize who pointed out that Getting Better also had two bass tracks recorded for this song. And in fact you can hear in that segment the 1987 stereo and mono versions used more simpler bass line while 2017 mix opted for more "jumpy" and with a descending little passage at 1:25-1:26. However you can hear this also in the original mixes but very very faintly.

 

No, the original bass part had its own track, the overdubbed bass shared its track with additional drums and harpsichord.

 

Getting Better

Original Tape – Take 7:
Track 1: guitar (George)
Track 2: Pianet electric piano (Paul)
Track 3: drums (Ringo)
Track 4: guitar (John)

First Bounce – Take 12:
Track 1: (contents of previous tape)
Track 2: additional drums (Ringo), bass (Paul)
Track 3: additional drums (Ringo), bass (Paul)
Track 4: tamboura (George)

Second Bounce – Take 14:
Track 1: (contents of previous tape Tracks 2 & 3)
Track 2: (contents of previous tape Tracks 1 & 4)
Track 3: lead vocals (John), backing vocals (Paul & George)
Track 4: lead vocals (John), backing vocals (Paul & George)

Third Bounce – Take 15:
Track 1: (contents of previous tape Track 1)
Track 2: (contents of previous tape Track 2)
Track 3: (content of previous tape Tracks 3 & 4)
Track 4: guitar, congas, handclaps, piano


Fixing a Hole

Original Tape – Take 1 (Regent Sound):
Track 1: harpsichord (Paul), drums (Ringo), maracas
Track 2: bass (John)
Track 3: lead vocal (Paul)
Track 4: lead vocal (Paul)

First Bounce – Take 2 (Regent Sound):
Track 1: (contents of previous tape Tracks 1 & 2)
Track 2: lead guitar (George)
Track 3: lead guitar (George), backing vocals
Track 4: (contents of previous tape Tracks 3 & 4)

Second Bounce – Take 3 (Abbey Road):
Track 1: (contents of previous tape Track 1)
Track 2: harpsichord (George Martin), bass (Paul), drums (Ringo)
Track 3: (contents of previous tape Track 2 & 3)
Track 4: (contents of previous tape Track 4)

 

Something wrong there. Paul sings lead on Getting Better

 

What Take 3 is on the session disc then? It has all sorts of flubs in the bass playing (and not in same places as Take 1).

 

iirc (I don't have the book or Lewisohn's near me) There's two Take 3s. Several takes originally at Regent, with the master assigned to Take 1 (with Take 3 as a bonus track you reference). Then later that tape was bounced twice at Abbey Road, each bounce given a new take number, with the final tape being a second Take 3.

Anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Don’t worry: they will.

 

It can't be because of 1) the tape edit and 2) Paul could not sing that high without hitting falsetto

 

It's a bit confusing in the 50th Pepper book - "This now left two tracks to record a double-tracked lead vocal and harmonies by John and George on 21 March". Yeah they sang the harmonies all right, but Paul is on the lead vocals.

 

I don't hear any falsetto on the lead vocal. Some of the backing is a bit on the high side. Paul absolutely sings lead

 

Was listening to this at my office using my Echo Spot and noticed something surprising. It displayed the lyrics for the outtakes, studio chatter and all. Someone actually transcribed all that.

 

Newbie question here. With all the bounces how did it not build up a noticeable amount of hiss?

 

That's a testament to the quality of those 4 track decks. While the SQ was clearly affected (last overdubs sound much better than the first instruments recorded), there isn't an insane amount of hiss.

Compare this to "I Want You" on Abbey Road. They did just one bounce on an 8-track machine, and the resulting hiss is VERY audible.

 

Wasn’t Dolby Noise reduction already in use by then? It was invented in 65 but i don’t know if Anbey Road used it. Trident studios was an early adapter of the system.

 

Didn't John program George's Moog to generate white noise on that track? That would be hard to distinguish from tape hiss. Lewisohn said it gave the Abbey Road engineers problems during the first round of CD mastering in 1987.

 

If you listen to the track with headphones, you'll instantly hear what I'm talking about.