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

I appreciate the humor ...

 

I'm glad it's gone from the final mix. I never liked it.

 

Can someone please let me know what is at "natural pitch" in this Take 9 (besides the vocals)?

 

One of the surprises for me is that When I'm 64 outtake shows that there is guitar doubling the bass for much of the song before the nice jazzy fingerpicking in the last verse. That must mean that the part was very well worked out. I wonder if it's John or George playing that guitar.

 

Don't talk back!

I haven't heard much of this set yet, but I did listen to the fast SFF, wow, that really is fast.

 

It sounds TOO fast to have been recorded that way. Certainly the orchestra part was recorded at a slower tempo and sped up later. The vocal also sounds like it was recorded at a much slower speed and then sped up. I'd like to slow it down to the correct speed as it sounds far too unnatural. There's just no way the orchestra would have pulled off this high tempo feat at that speed.

 

I think the new Pepper remix makes Satanic Majesties Request a perfect album.

 

Since no one seems to care on this in other the other thread:

On the Super deluxe set, it lists "Lucy [...] (Take 1 and speech at the end) but there is none.
On the 2 disc set, there is an abrupt speech section pasted at the end with a random note starting it and a voice announcing "take 2". But after that it crossfades to the exact same speech from the beginning of take 5 from the 6cd set. Wha?

"Strawberry Fields (Stereo Mix - 2015)" & "Penny Lane (Stereo Mix - 2017)" are normalized lower in volume on the 2cd set. Supposedly so they don't stand out to the rest. On the 6cd set they are around 3db louder. (mastering is the same)

On the 2cd set, "Mr. Kite" fades into "Within You Without You" . On the 6cd set both tracks are complete without crossfade.

Some tracks have better DR on the 2cd set (especially "Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26)") while others have better DR on the super deluxe set.

Other tracks are around the same DR but have differences in their waveforms.

What has happened here ?

 

Where's the 50th anniversary edition of Satanic Majesties? Since the Stones were always copying the Beatles according to John, surely they won't let them take all the acclaim with Pepper when there are 8 CD's of outtakes of Satanic out there!

 

It is indeed very strange if they are not taken from the same files.

 

Also at the end of (I think) "With A Little Help From My Friends (Take 2)" from the super deluxe set, there is a random sound at the end (the tape messing up ?). It isn't there on the 2cd set.

 

Yes, but this thread is about the outtakes only.

 

Did John re-record his vocal for this take 26 at some point?

There is an acetate or some kind of mix where he sings it from the very beginning. Is the vocal in that mix possibly a completely different vocal take?

If it is, could it be that after they decided to combine it with take 7 they wiped that vocal take, and only then re-did it with the tape running slow, so it wouldn't sound as ridiculously slow when combined with take 7? If so, that would also explain why didn't bother to sing from the beginning (knowing it wasn't going to be used).

An aside, have you ever wondered if George Martin's story about the extreme luck of take 7 and 26 combining together so effectively as a happy accident was just creative storytelling? Perhaps they planned the combining of the two versions before the string score was even created?

 

At what time does that come in? On the mono bonus track, right?

 

1) Yes (one of the two vocals at least),
2) That's a possibility I've also considered.

 

That's what I've been thinking. I don't think they ever recorded orchestra parts for the first two verses. It seems George Martin made up elements of his story.

 

The orchestra is there from the start.

 

Where can that be heard?

 

Does anyone know why there is a bass guitar part on Anthology for the Reprise (take 5), but no bass for this Reprise (take 8)?

 

On the outtakes portion of this new set. "Take 26." It's on both the 2cd and the 6disc set.

 

It was flown in from the master on A2.

 

But Take 26 begins when John sings the chorus the second time. What I am saying is that it doesn't appear that an orchestral part was recorded for the first verse.

 

Those bounders! Those cheats!

Well, at least things are above board on this new set, in that regard. I wonder if anyone has tried to remove that bass part from take 5 using some kind of special software to get a pure take 5.

 

The mostly instrumental beginning section has glimmers of the "Living is easy with eyes closed" verse.

So I take that section as the 'first verse'. I guess I assumed that for this version they reverted back to the original song construction where the song does not begin with the chorus. In this way, take 26 is more like take 1 or take 4.

They added an extra chorus at the beginning to start the song for take 6 only (which then formed the basis of take 7).

It is curious that they would apparently revert to the earlier song construction. It does make me wonder if the real reason was that they knew they wouldn't need the extra orchestral writing, because they didn't intend for it to stand on its own.

It's too bad we didn't get any of the takes between 9 and 23. It would have possibly helped us to get an idea of what their intentions were in embarking on the new approach.

Incidentally, I am very happy with the set overall. I don't think I posted my general opinion yet. I figured yet another voice offering an opinion similar to many others wasn't necessary. The short answer is I like the remix with a few reservations, and I'm really happy with the vast majority of the outtakes.

But the handling of Strawberry Fields Forever is one of the sore spots for me:

- Others have mentioned the lack of introduction noodling for take 1. Yes, that ruins it a bit.

- I'm glad the take 1 background vocals are there but they are too quiet for my taste.

- And what really bugs me is how take 4 and others (take 1 and take 7 both I think?) unnecessarily and unmusically fade out early. Just let them play so we can have one definitive version, rather than having the bootlegs still be superior in some regards, geez!

- The lack of previously unbooted SFF takes is another sore spot (as previously mentioned).

- Finally, the 2015 mix is awful 'loud' (maybe worse than the album remixes), but we won't go into that here.

 

If the plan was to always combine the two versions you'd think they would have used the same key and tempo on the orchestrated version so it wasn't so difficult to put them together. Why there isn't a complete first verse vocal is strange though.