The Beatles she's leaving home correct speed mono or stereo

Damn - wish somebody had thought of this back in '67 with "Strawberry Fields Forever"...

Oh, wait...

 

Neither take that was used for the finished "Strawberry Fields Forever" is in the recorded pitch - both are lower.

 

My arguments are perfectly logically sound. I encourage you to re-read them or consult a logician if you don't understand, at this point.

This is the second time in this thread someone has contradicted me when it's clear they are just not informed and not bothering to think critically. The quick draw to contradict without substance is really tiring around here. It's even more tiring that if you do succeed in defending your salient point, no one bothers to acknowledge this.

I can see why a lot of industry professionals don't bother to post here.

I have no financial incentive to promote Melodyne, for the record.

 

Ah. I spoke too soon on the lack of positive feedback. Thank you for a positive acknowledgment of my post.

Yes, this could be done for "Strawberry Fields Forever" too. It doesn't even matter if neither take is heard at the recorded pitch in the final mix*, because with the multitracks you can play it at the recorded speed before you input it into a program that compensates formants for pitch/tempo changes.

But it's worth saying that "Strawberry Fields Forever" sounds pretty cool as-is, so maybe it's best to leave well enough alone with that one (although the results would still be interesting).

*actually I thought the beginning take, take 7, is heard at the recorded pitch in the final mix... (?)

 

I was actually referring more to the aspect of manipulating tape speeds of each of the joined sections so that they would somewhat match in tempo and key, which Martin has documented was an incredibly painstaking process with the tools they had to work with at the time. Nearly miraculous that they were able to pull it off as well as they did.

 

John's voice sounds a little slowed down to me, not as much as after the edit of course, but a little (maybe 1%).

 

But it still won't be the piano as heard in the room, will it? It's an octave up from what George Martin played, for a start...

That is extreme, so going back to She's Leaving Home - if it's how I suggest, then the strings were recorded playing the song in E. That's the natural tone of the instruments as heard in the room. If this backing was then sped up a semitone for John & Paul to sing over, then their vocals would be heard in the key of F when they recorded them. Additionally, the vocals would be in a quicker tempo too.

So working with the 'natural' elements, we have:

Strings backing in the key of E, lasting 3.35
Vocals in the key of F, lasting 3.25

How can you match these up without altering both pitch and tempo of at least one of the elements? (Or the pitch of one and the tempo of the other?)

And if you have to do that, then the simple 'tape speed' linear method is much more preferable to altering pitch and tempo separately in any program.

 

I understand perfectly what you are saying, but I don't agree with the need for using pitch/tempo correction besides changing the speed of the four track sources. Doing this would allow the exact natural pitch of the vocals (whatever that is), leaving the instrumentals at (probably) the wrong speed. But would that really be objectionable? It seems to me that most if not all objections are to the sound of the vocals, not the instuments.

The problem is, I think, that there would never be agreement about what the natural speed of the vocals would be.

 

Boy - if this gets any more complicated...

I'm leaving this thread, bye, bye...

 

I'll take the stereo but played at the mono speed.

 

I have never claimed your arguments were not "logically sound". I said I didn't understand the point of your proposals.

I am informed regarding "She's Leaving Home" and I am thinking critically. That is why I am asking what the points of your proposals are - because the results certainly won't be any more "natural" than the extant versions.

I'm not sure where you think you are being "contradicted", unless it's just the fact that you think everything in the song needs to be put through celemony software and not everyone agrees.

 

Quite right. It is impossible for all the tracks to be heard at once, as they were heard in the room. I never said this, although its a reasonable point of confusion. I can see how someone might have come away questioning this, and I appreciate the specificity of your response.

To quote myself I said the stated goal was to "preserve a verisimilitude of naturalness". In using the word "verisimilitude", I wasn't just trying to throw in a big word for no reason. I was trying to be as precise as possible in a futile attempt to avoid being misinterpreted.

Let's look at the detailed example you provided (referring to "She's Leaving Home"). If we take the vocals in the key they were recorded in (F) and change them to E with the software, it would automatically adjust formants to produce a result that would sound as if Paul had sung it in E, in the room. He didn't sing it in E, but had he done so, he would not have sounded oddly slow-witted/druggy, like he does in E on the stereo mix. The timbre of his singing, were he to sing it for you in E, live, that same day, would have been quite close to how he naturally sounded in F (it's only a half-step difference), not exact, but very close. The value of the software I mentioned in this situation would be to provide a verisimilitude of his natural E singing.

I submit that if you don't believe in this distinction, then you don't believe in or understand formants, and are contradicting mathematics.

In the extreme "In My Life" example, piano played adjusted up one octave in the software could only seek to preserve the natural timbre of the lower octave, at the higher octave. Quite right that this is not how pianos really are; in fact, on pianos the timbre gradually (or not so gradually) changes from one end of the keyboard to the other.

But this is very substantially different from the much more drastic change of timbre resulting from a tape speed-up. Back to voice, if I sing in E and speed up the tape so that the pitch is one octave higher, I'll sound very inhuman, like a super extreme chipmunk. It's neither how I would sing "in the room" were I to actually sing at that octave, but, importantly, it's also not the timbre of my voice at the lower octave either, is it? I didn't have a chipmunk quality to my voice when I sang it in the room at the lower octave!

 

In a perfect Pepper world, I'd take the mono-speed version in stereo WITH the additional few orchestral bars after each chorus which were edited out for the final version.

 

That theory doesn't sound right in my humble layman's opinion. Are we to suppose that when mixing the stereo tape there was no playback of the mono mix at all for reference of balance, etc.? That would surprise me just as a matter of practice. It's as if "well, I don't care what they did for the mono mix, I'm going to do this how I see fit." I'm not saying that's not what happened. Just saying that would be surprising and somewhat arrogant, though not unbelievable, given human nature is what it is. There are obvious differences between the two, such as this one, so who knows?

 

That seems a reasonable explanation -- not that he wanted to 'sound younger' but that perhaps he was having difficulty reaching the higher notes that day, so simply said 'sod it, slow the tape down' to lower the pitch, thereby making it easier to reach the high notes. [Think Robert Plant singing The Song Remains The Same like a chipmunk].

The other possibility I would consider is that they felt the actual (slower) speed dragged too much, so sped it up on the mono mix, but not on the stereo mix for whatever reason (e.g. the person who decided it wasn't there).

 

Like both versions.

 

While I appreciate the earnest attempts of slane to zero in on the finer points of misunderstanding, I find your fixation on being "certain" that using formant-aware software couldn't possibly be more natural than the tape speed adjusted mixes we already have to be very unhelpful, considering that you continue to provide no details as to how you are certain, and considering that I have explained, in excruciating detail, the whys and points of my proposal, from multiple angles.

It's admittedly a taxing affair to delve into the fine details that have been discussed--including for me. I certainly don't expect anyone to engage such arcane details. However, it's offensive that you keep piping in only with the same generalities and your attempts at ridicule, without any details as to how you are "certain" I am wrong.

If nothing else, it should be clear that I have earnestly tried to explain my proposed mix experiment.

To accuse me of "blaming slane" for the discussion of the "In My Life" hypotheticals (although I carefully explained the logical utility of that) or continually accusing me of only being concerned with the arbitrary application of software is obviously unhelpful. It can only conceivably serve to: waste my time, preserve your ego, and to try to appear "correct" to those who are just casually perusing the discussion. Unfortunately, this is becoming a familiar tactic for argument in recent America.

That said, I have enjoyed your posts in the past, generally speaking. So it is my hope that we can avoid this kind of unproductive back and forth in the future.

 

Let's be honest. None of the extant mixes are "natural". Using software on the tracks will also not somehow magically result in a "natural" mix because of the nature of the recordings. So that is how I am certain.

Your proposal is an interesting thought experiment, but I'm still not sure I see the point of actually attempting it to achieve something that would be "more natural".

At least the extant versions are approaching half-"natural". A mix made the way you describe would be even less so.

I'm also not sure what kind of "help" you expect. A petition to Apple demanding the use of that software the way you describe to make a new mix of the song? (Who knows: perhaps they already have attempted it)

The tracks are out there; why don't you just do it and hear what happens? Many may like the result, some may prefer it. But it certainly won't be any more "natural" then what was already done.

 

Yes, I understand. But in the end, I don't think the results would be any more natural at all.

Besides changing the key of the vocals from F to E, you would also have to change the speed of the vocals anyway (as these last only 3.25 and not the 3.35 that the strings are timed at), so you may just as well use varispeed. Would there be any advantage of changing the pitch and the tempo separately using software? Because both need to be altered, however you do it.

 

Ah, I always thought the stereo version sounded more natural, not saying that's better.

 

Given that Macca probably wouldn't remember and George Martin is no longer with us. Surely someone else that worked on the album, say Geoff Emerick, could be posed this very question.

 

I am going to state that the MONO album is the correct speed because it was mixed first, on March 20, 1967.

The STEREO mix was performed on April 17, 1967.

 

It's interesting to know/note the speed of "She's Leaving Home" that the Abbey Road crew used for the Rockband demixing/remixing project from 2009: it quite closely tracks the '87 CD version of "She's Leaving Home" once the faux count-in from the Rockband version has been taken off and the starting points of the '87 CD version and the Rockband version have been aligned.

 

These have been my findings too.

The mono vocals don't sound like Paul's natural voice to me.

At least we have a few baselines for this song, the new sessions takes on the box confirm that the backing was recorded at the same pitch as the '67 stereo mix plays at (they were recorded at 50 cycles)

The both mono mixes on the box play back at 53 cycles (the stereo mix played back at 106% speed confirms this)

The rockband multis and bootleg multis both play back at the stereo speed too.

It's interesting to note the small bit of chatter before RM1 (mixed at 53 cycles) on the box, John's voice sounds very high pitched for his normal taking voice. If you slow RM1 to the stereo pitch (94.34%) you'll find his voice too low pitched, so I too believe that the vocals overdubs were done somewhere between 51-52 cycles.

As far as my ears tell me, both Johns speaking voice and the vocals in the song sound naturally like their respective singing voices when played back at this speed.

A good comparison is slowing down When I'm 64 to hear the recorded pitch (or listen to the sessions take on the box). Paul sounds like Paul and not the chipmunk Paul of the mono She's Leaving Home.

 

John's vocals too. Both John's and Paul's voices sound unnaturally slowed down on the 1967 stereo mix, and slightly fast on the mono (or unnatural to those used to the stereo pitch). I am glad the 2017 remix corrects the playback speed error of the 1967 stereo mix.