Why do Beatles recordings sound so much better than other 60's bands?

Actually mate I've always wondered why the American's were able to produce great stereo recordings from the 50's that sound way better than anything the Beatles ever did - your original question is flawed by focusing on the set of recordings that were inferior to the Beatles (the examples you give are clearly inferior I grant you this) but ignores all the recordings that are better.

Ever listen to Kind of Blue (1959), or Sketches of Spain (1960)? These albums blow away anything by the Beatles.
Ever listen to Herbie Hancock Takin' Off (1962) - smokes anything by the Beatles and has real stereo. The beatles weren't even recording when this came out, and when they did, their stereo was voices one channel, instruments another.
What about Kenny Burrell Midnight Blue 1963. I got a 192kHz/24 bit download from HD Tracks, this sounds as good as any recording in my collection. Including any audiophile half speed master heavy duty vinyl.

Its not like these were massive selling artists with huge recording budgets. They are just well recorded albums. Tell me Richie Snare, why didn't the Beatles sound as good as these, and why don't you care about it.

Come to think of it, Why did the Beatles Hamburg recordings in the 1961 sound way better than anything else they recorded, except maybe Abbey Road. What were those German's doing that George Martin didn't know about, tell me that Richie Snare.

BTW - The Beatles are my #1 band. Not knocking the Beatles. Just knocking threads which suggest that their recording quality was better than everybody else (it wasn't).

 

Listen to some of "The Pentagle's" albums from the sixties, they sound great, there are ton's of extremely well recorded albums from the sixties that sound as good or better than any Beatle's album. The songs may not be as good as the Beatles but there are many superior recordings. Love the "For The Lonely" CD

 

The Beatles recordings sound good in spite of them I think. The early stuff sounds shrill /cold to me, and the latter stuff (looking,tinkering for new sounds) is what it is. Different but not audiophile. I know I am biased with Elvis BUT his early 60's recordings (Bill Porter) blow away most (if not all) the rock/pop act recordings of the entire decade that I have heard... and then some. Listen for yourself if you haven't.

 

Is there a debate to be had there, or are they categorically "way better" by any measure?

 

Great thread!

I've often thought of this as well - why Beatles recordings sound so crisp and modern compared to the majority of 60's recordings. Some interesting reponses.

I read somewhere ages ago about how American producers would tear apart studios trying to replicate sounds The Beatles had produced.

 

Think i'll keep my mouth shut on this one!

 

Tea Breaks .....lots of them!

It's what made Britain - GREAT!

 

Kind Of Blue and Midnight Blue are very good examples of excellent recordings. They sounded great then and sound great now. I think the approach to recording jazz was different from recording a "pop" band. Jazz was considered a serious art form and was listened to by audiophiles even back in the day. Rudy Gelder aimed for transparent production. Pop was not really taken seriously and I doubt anyone thought people would be dissecting the recording technique used to record Please Please Me in 2013. If I'm not mistaken, I believe they even discarded a few early master tapes the Beatles had done. As pointed out, the technology existed for excellent high fidelity recordings, it's just that no one really bothered to record "here one day, gone tomorrow" pop music that way.

 

Well we can debate, I don't have scientific proof, just my opinion - I've got a German Polydor pressing of the Hamburg sessions, and a Japanese one as well, and I happen to think that they sound very very good. IMHO. What do you think of them? I'm not the first to mention the Hamburg tapes, but it is pertinent to the thread overall, because a lot of people are saying that the reason for the Beatles good sound was George martin, or Abbey Road or whatever, but the fact is that the Germans were making excellent recordings in 1961 - whether better than everything else by the Beatles is a bit moot, they are just excellent and that should be recognised as such.

 

I've said earlier that I'm not really an expert in these things, but I've read these comments before about the Hamburg tapes being better than anything George Martin captured, presumably for their ambience. I just think there may be lots of things Abbey Road did "better", such as capturing the drums in a certain way that RichieSnare likes, and it probably depends what you think good sound is.

 

Abbey Road
George Martin
Abbey Road engineers?

I generally prefer the Stones, but it's ridiculous how much better the Beatles' recordings SOUND, compared to the Stones' sixties output! I have no idea why, but I've always thought it had to do with the factors I listed above...

 

A lot of rock and pop music is basically 'manufactured' -- built up from individual tracks and work parts - bounces and dubs and so on until a final mix could be made. Band backed singers like Frank Sinatra and jazz groups were often recorded live, with mic's placed at key positions by engineers that knew what they were doing, and what sound they wanted to capture. I suspect many of those old time engineers had been doing it for decades in concert halls and theaters and just knew how to record something so it sounded like it did live. I remember reading an interview with Sam Andrew of Big Brother & The Holding Company, about the recording sessions for their debut album for the Mainstream record label. Apparently the engineers weren't used to recording rock music let alone rock music with amps turned way up, so loud the sound bled through the walls of the recording room. It wasn't just the learning curve involved with the recording of rock music. As we know, they also had a hard time getting stereo mixes 'right.' Again, this was music being manufactured or assembled, rarely recorded as it went down, live. I think it just took a while to figure out what to do and not to do.

Speaking of The Who and Pink Floyds early singles, anyone who's ever had their original UK singles knows how 'hot' they were cut. Its rather incredible. Lots of distortion. Thats just the way they sound.

 

Probably because of the best rock producer of all time.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, several RCA artists had excellent sounding recordings, and you probably hit it on the head with the mention of Bill Porter. He is likely the common thread with them all. Wonderful sounding, even 45-50 years later.

 

I have some theories lol. In no particular order:

Close mics: Rather than use a lot of distant mics and room sound, many Beatles recordings - especially after the 1st 2 albums, feature use of close mic'ing on drums, amps, etc. This leads to a more direct and less roomy sound. If a band records tracks with lots of natural room reverberation, this can lead to messy sounding recordings. The Beatles sound clean.

Good mics: Abbey Road had some really good quality mics (and they probably kept them in good shape) that could capture the full range of drums, amps and vocals.

Time: The engineers probably took the time to get a good sounding recording and mix. Other bands might have had limited time and recordings and mixes might have been sub-par if rushed

Tasteful use of reverb: Some bands in the 60's soaked their recording in a lot of reverb - either because they recorded in big rooms with lots of natural reverb, or they went overboard on use of echo chambers. I can't think of any Beatles songs where mixes sound messy with too much reverb. Also, my suspicion is that Abbey Road might be a drier or at least more neutral sounding studio

Good sounding instruments: Were the Beatles recording with crappy sounding, out of tune guitars, old guitar strings, out of tune drum heads, beat up cymbals, or out of tune pianos? I don't think so. Other bands didn't always have good sounding instruments in the studio so it makes sense that some recordings won't sound as good.

Getting the EQ right the first time: good engineers with good ears will get the sound right when it is printed to tape. This is important because if they don't and they have to add aggressive EQ after print, this amplifies tape hiss, making the mix hissy and soft - especially when there are lots of tracks where EQ had to be boosted after the fact. Next, consider that the Beatles did lots of bounces on later recordings (especially on Sgt Pepper). If the EQ of the original recordings were off and they had to correct this at each bounce down, the hiss would have made recordings sound bad. Noise reduction technology was either non existent or in its infancy in the 60's.

I/4 Inch 4 Track Tape: Someone already mentioned this, but the noise floor and dynamic range of the tape the Beatles recorded to had a higher fidelity than other bands might have used

Engineering skills: Poor mic placement and mic selection can result in all sorts of problems making mixes sound bad - even in good sounding studios (phasing problems, low fidelity of tracks, etc.). I suspect the Abbey Road engineers were well trained and knew how to avoid mishaps

George Martin and his team were perfectionists: They had a good ears. They knew how an instrument was supposed to sound, or better put, how they wanted it sound and when they got that sound.

Avoiding tape saturation: When recording each track, I sense that the Beatles engineers avoided unintended distortion and clipping that occur when instruments are recorded too loudly.

Those are just a few observations I have about how they got their recordings right.

 

And one could say that was by design or for lack of skills. Depends how one approaches it, I suppose.

 

Good practical answer!

 

A near perfect post. Just one correction, they used 1 inch 4 track tape for the majority of their career (studer j37 tape recorder). Mixes were made on 1/4" tape, either 2 track or full track mono. Each of the individual tracks on the 1 inch multitrack had the same fidelity as a full track 1/4" tape, this no doubt had a lot to do with their very dynamic and clean sound.

 

I was going to type this, but you did, so thanks!

The beatles actually said they were trying to get bass sounds like they heard on american recordings. I have heard them say that British engineers thought bass would make 45s mistrack, and cut back on the bass because of this.

Also, producers almost never move or place microphones. That is what the engineers do, and it is quite complicated. Even if you set up drums in the same room everyday, depending on a huge variety of factors, including drum sizes, tuning, cymbal sizes and pitch, placement in room, volume of other instruments in the room, humidity, temperature, strength of drummer, ect. the mic placement changes.

The beatles had great engineers who had plenty of time to get mic placement right.

 

That would be the engineer mastering it to the lacquer. I'm pretty sure they were compressed/cut loud on purpose. Very typical for singles of the era.

 

They don't.
You cite "Good Vibrations" as a comparable recording, but that song was recorded in multiple studio's over a 6 month period. Other, even older Beach Boy's material sounds great. I have the MFSL of "Surfer Girl" and it knocks my socks off for a 1962/63 recording. I also have multiple recordings from the 60's that sound great: The Turtles "Happy Together" is one. Nat King Cole records from that period were awesome, as were Sinatras' records. There were a lot of amazing engineers back in the 60's and they didn't all work for the fab 4.

 

Interesting topic. I used to discuss this with a good friend of mine back in the '70s.

In particular, I was really disappointed with the sound of the Who's "Sell Out" with something comparable of the same time, such as "Pepper", but what's interesting is that Pete Townshend had very good recording and technical skills. Listen to some of his demos from the time, especially in the next year or so with "Tommy". I believe he had a pretty good skill set as a musician/engineer than Paul or John.

I found that the '95 remix of "Sell Out" really cleaned up a lot of the harsh sound of that album.
I'll probably get lambasted for it, but that '95 remix is clean.

I believe a lot of the bouncing down of tracks really contributed to some of that "60s" sound, with the lows and highs cut, and really, doing it properly is where I think George Martin was a master. Placing the right combination of instruments on one of four tracks and balancing it properly was one of Smith/Emerick strengths.

 

Puddin's post just about says it all. The only other things I might add is that the type of music the Beatles played really meshed well with the recording style of George Martin. The strong back beat and the vocal harmonies really shine through. The recording techniques really compliment the music and the music really compliments the recording techniques.

In contrast, I don't think a band like The Who would have sounded so good with George Martin and Abbey Road. They would have had a cleaner production, but it might have been too clean for their style of music. (I cannot imagine hearing a song like "My Generation" or "Substitute" with the Abbey Road treatment. Whereas a band like The Hollies, who were quite similar in style to The Beatles (maybe a little too similar if you asked John Lennon), benefited greatly by being at Abbey Road. Having a very similar production as The Beatles really helped their music have an instant appeal.

 

You took the exact words i was thinking. I'm sure The Beatles helped but ya gotta give it up for George Martin. I'm sure he hired all the tech's too.

 

The original poster and others may want to purchase the book "Recording The Beatles". Very thorough read.