Abbey Road 50th Anniversary Discussion. What Can We Expect?

No, thanks. I don't need any coasters with my Lennon discs.

 

The Psychedelic period: good way to cover this area

 

Yea!....Take that Magic Alex. LOL LOL

Actually John Stephens (who was a member of The Church Of Scientology and carried a gun around with him) discovered that 40 tracks was the maximum number of tracks one could jam onto two inch tape before quality went down. He tried 48 tracks but sound quality went sharply down. The very idea of 72 tracks on a two inch head stack is insane! I don't know why John Lennon couldn't see what a phony Magic Alex was? And even increasing tape width wouldn't help give you more tracks..

In 1979 (here we go again) The demented engineers at EMI built the infamous 3 inch 32 track prototype. But the machine only worked in the vertical position and not lying down. In the horizontal position the extremely wide 3 inch tape would skew over the heads during record or playback modes. The engineers tried everything to fix the problem but to no avail. The only solution was to make the tape twice as thick. Well that was never gonna happen! Even back in 1979 2 inch tape was expensive. Imagine the cost of 3 inch tape. Now picture 3 inch tape twice as thick. $300 for 14 inch reel of 3 inch double thick tape wasn't going to cut the mustard. And at the Pro Audio show there the thing sat with tape on the reels useless. MCI couldn't demonstrate the machine. Not in the horizontal position anyway. Most engineers had their multi-tracks lying down.

And so the MCI 3 inch 32 track Prototype disappeared into Professional audio history and was forgotten. And one ring to rule them all. Whoops! Wrong story...Sorry. Anyway you couldn't put 72 tracks on even a 3 inch head because of the problems with tape that wide.

32 tracks did become a professional format.
Stephens 2 inch 32 track. (The first)
Tascam 2 inch 32 track (By special order only)
The famous Otari MX-80, 2 inch 32 track. The MX-80 is a well built machine designed to last 50 years...When they are not giving me trouble at work.

 

What? Her Majesty originally was part of the medley? Mmmm....Interesting. I don't see where it would fit. Surely it would sound awkward no matter where it was placed. Maybe some kind member could enlighten this arthritic fat engineer.

 

Absolutely not. No box sets. Why? Because I can't afford them.

 

Well Giles is going to remix Abbey Road. And hopefully not compress the **** out of it. EMI should let Uncle Jack and I remix Abbey Road. I can promise your the final mix would sound nothing like the original album. LOL Maybe not such a good idea after all.

Forget Abbey Road. How about a Rubber Soul 2025 60 th album anniversary. Or better yet a 54th anniversary of Rubber Soul. That is one album that needs a remix real bad. But it should be center, hard left and hard right like 60's mixes were back then. The remix of Nowhere Man is good but the vocal tracks should have been panned wider. Just my Canadian nickel.

I know I am gonna get flack for this but I found the White Album demos to be lame and boring. Most are just acoustic versions of the album songs. How about two different stereo remixes of Abbey Road. One real modern with too much compression and other pointless junk and a real 1969 stereo remix. No compression or other modern garbage. And a REAL 5.1 mix. One that is 360 degrees from start to finish. Or rather a early 70's Quadrophonic style mix: Bass can be rear right. Piano can be half way left. background vocals rear left. Put tracks all over. In Sun King the kick that gets panned from left to right. Pan it 360 degrees around from rear left all the way around pounding to rear right. I am tired of weak*** 5.1 mixes that occasionallying put the odd track in the rear channels.

Any ideas on panning for the Abbey Road remix?

 

Send them to me and I'll organize a big party then!

 

I'd call this box set Summer Of (G)love. With the glove character from the Yellow Submarine film on the front cover.

 

I’m sure when the reviews come in some will definitely pan it.

 

I bet there will be an entire re-release of all the White Album re-release formats, with one change...an actual album title, just to confuse the marketplace. Deluxe, embossed cover with raised letters of the new title, right next to "The Beatles".

Maybe the official title will actually just be officially (re-)named, "The Beatles' White Album[/I]...extra $75 upcharge on every edition. (That's as in, "$75 for adding a damn apostrophe")
(also, the new, newer, newest! edition will include a demo of the unfinished song Yoko and John worked on, explaining the intended apostrophe, but never finished, because only Yoko's vocal track was laid down at that point)

 

I've been listening to the Winter of Discontent sessions, and something just struck me: If Bob Dylan can get away with releasing the 18-disc Cutting Edge set, Apple might be able to release a set of a similar size, containing all of the music from Jan '69. If they get rid of all the non-music (i.e., the twenty-minute tracks of dialogue), it could make for a great set and could be done in a much smaller amount of discs.

 

Oh no. Please keep these things affordable for everyone including poor people (like me)!

 

There would, naturally, be more convenient releases. Keeping with the Dylan's Cutting Edge theme, perhaps a 2CD 'Best of' and a 6CD deluxe edition.

I wouldn't be able to afford a 20+ disc set either, but I'd rather have it released than not.

 

Original place for it was between Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam.

 

I'm most curious about the tracks that could be on the fence here. Paul's AR-era demos for "Goodbye" and "Come and Get It," and "You Know My Name Look Up the Number" Do we get some version of these tracks or no? None of these were ever intended for the album, but is that really the rule for these releases when we got loose jams and covers on the WA50 box?

 

I just listened to all of A/B Road. All 90 something hours. It took me over a month. My suggestion? Release all the multi-track recordings, and a SMALL selection of Twickenham tracks.

But if you do release the whole thing, removing all the dialogue and playbacks misses the point...

 

Keeping all of the dialogue would almost certainly kill the release. Would make it too large to market to a slightly bigger audience.

 

I don't think I could sit through 90 hours of A/B road but I've never attempted it. Beatles sessions are one thing, rehearsals are another. Aside for a handful of historical Twickenham things most of it should be saved for the Blu-ray video and keep the audio a lot more focused.

 

I was recently given (Given!) a UK 1st pressing of Abbey Road from a record shop that I occasionally frequent. It's not mint but it's certainly good to very good (at least) and it plays nicely after a good clean. Misaligned apple / no 'Her Majesty' on label or sleeve etc / correct label design. All that's missing is the black paper inner sleeve.

Colour me delighted..!

 

Yep. It still has the ending of the previous medley part (Mean Mr. Mustard) at the beginning.

 

It was originally placed between Mean Mr Mustard and Polythene Pam................

 

There is an early vintage “rough work in progress” mix of the medley floating about in cyberspace. Here you can hear how it was originally.

I think they were right to cut it out. It kills the flow of the medley.

 

From the book "Many Years From Now" by Barry Miles:

"The little fragment known as 'Her Majesty', which Paul wrote in Scotland, was originally placed after 'Mean Mr Mustard' but Paul decided it didn't work there and asked the tape operator John Kurlander to edit it out and throw it away. Following normal studio practice, he attached a long piece of leader tape to it to identify it as separate from the rest of the tracks and tacked it on the end of the reel. When an acetate was made of the medley, 'Her Majesty' was accidentally included. Paul liked it in its new position, and it was allowed to remain. This accounts for the long silence which precedes it, and the decaying chord with which it opens, which is in fact the last chord of 'Mean Mr Mustard'. Paul: 'That was very much how things happened. Really, you know, the whole of our career was like that so it's a fitting end."

From the book "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions" by Mark Lewisohn:

John Kurlander:

"We did all the remixes and crossfades to overlap the songs. Paul was there, and we heard it together for the first time. He said, 'I don't like Her Majesty, throw it away,' so I cut it out – but I accidentally left in the last note. He said 'It's only a rough mix, it doesn't matter,' in other words, don't bother about making a clean edit because it's only a rough mix. I said to Paul, 'What shall I do with it?' 'Throw it away,' he replied.

I'd been told never to throw anything away, so after he left I picked it up off the floor, put about 20 seconds of red leader tape before it and stuck it onto the end of the edit tape."

 

What's more likely: Inclusion or exclusion of "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" outtakes?

 

Inclusion! Absolutely! Like "Old Brown Shoe"