Abbey Road 50th contents, outtakes and sound quality thread .. only

Thinking about this conversation, is there a band with consistently drier records than the Beatles, especially 1966 on?

Even when there's a lot of echo ("A Day In The Life"), the overall recording doesn't sound wet. Certainly not the drums. There's reverb, I know, but overall they seem to have preferred a drier sound than most.

 

New Coke was a joke.

I think there will always be progressions in technology that allow old recordings to sound more like what was heard in the studio when it was played or when the original effect was first put on it, so new remasters years from now are probably inevitable.

Who knows what technology there will be in 50 years when the CD is dead and everything is "smart" with intelligent devices talking to each other and running on algorythms or AI-assisted record players and speaker systems that might require a different type of "surround sound" mix or something we can't even conceive of right now.

What's almost certain is that recording and mixing technology will continue to evolve and also become less expensive, so I think you'll have at-home mixers, Beatles fans and DJs and such with even more access to make their own versions of Beatles songs at home and then post them online or play them in a club for instance. Releasing all these outtakes gives people like that even more fuel for remixes.

 

I thought we were talking about a flat uncompressed original mix in high resolution. Is that what a normal CD copy or Spotify equivalent is?

 

Wouldn't that be for comparison to the 2019 remaster? So it would make a difference in comparison with the remix, as in someone's going to say the remix is better than the 2019 remaster, but not better than the uncompressed original in high resolution remastering?

Personally I think such a person barely exists. I think if someone prefers the original mix, they're going to prefer it to the new mix, regardless of mastering. Whatever they dislike about the 2009 remastering versus an uncompressed original, is going to go doubly-so for the remix.

There's going to be a relatively vast difference between the original and the remix, in comparison to the relatively minor difference between the two remastered versions.

 

Soon, the artificial intelligence (AI) avatars of the Beatles will be made and they can completely re-record Beatles music in whatever style is currently popular. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the bAItles!” If bossa nova ever comes back, we can have a bossa nova version of “A Day in the Life.” Of course it will be brilliant with the inevitable comparisons to mozAIrt and bAIthoven. They might even put in some AI-olian cadences just for the heck of it. The bAItles might even be able to write new music in the style of Ed Sheehan. Not sure who would get the royalties, but technology opens up lots of possibilities, and like the song says, “It’s getting better all the time!”

For me, I am excited about the new mixes and have already put my money down.

 

Will remixing the Beatles’ catalogue keep their music relevant in the coming years?

 

I happen to love the drier sound!

That way, it takes on the echo/room sound of whatever room you're playing it in... it's brilliant! YMMV, natch..

 

It's not a replacement mix! It's a modern mix. Last time I checked, both mixes of Sgt Pepper are on streaming services, and available for purchase online. Same for the White Album. Heck, even for Imagine, whose new mixes are labeled as "Ultimate", you can still listen to/buy the original! Of course the new ones are going to be more prevalent, because they're newer. Now, mono mixes on the other hand....

 

Are you kidding? Giles' remixes are loaded with cheap sounding digital trickery, the most egregious being his “stereoizing” of almost every element in the mix, turning everything into a smeary soup. Quite the opposite of the “clarity” they promise from going back to the multis.

 

I took another listen to the original mix with headphones as well as the new mix available on iTunes and the handclaps at the end of the Hi-hat are definitely there. They're just in mono and centered in the original mix. I also just listened to the isolated drums from Rock Band and the hand claps are also present.

 

The problem is tapes only last so long. There may not actually be (m)any more viable first generation tape transfers left in some of the 50s and 60s tapes (depends on the stock and storage conditions of course). A slight improvement in ADC quality may be offset by a larger degradation in source.

 

I liked his decision to add ADT to the guitars on Dear Prudence, it helps widen things up and prevents jangly guitar coming from 1 ear. I do think some mixing choices were a bit odd on the Pepper mix (Lucy is pretty loud) but the mix also made Good Morning Good Morning MUCH better imo. But he did learn from the criticism given from Pepper, and stated for the last 2 sets that he recreated the original stereo mix from multitrack tapes (which in itself provides more clarity as there's no bouncedowns) and made his mixing decisions from that point forwards.

 

That's quite a lot of hyperbole there!

But the stereo-izing is one reason I prefer the remixes. I think most react positively to how the mixes are brought further into the stereo realm, and is a big reason why the reaction has been so overwhelmingly positive.

I only wish he weren't so conservative!

 

“Are you a mod or a rocker?”

I’m a modular....

 

Handclap or hi-hat, it's an element recorded in mono and being turned into stereo with a short echo. What is throwing me is that it's a created element that I'm not expecting. I struggle also with the limits of what SHOULD be done when remixing.

 

Here what we know so far:

From Mark Lewisohn Recording Sessions:

A total of 23 takes of the basic track were recorded on this day, take 16 being `best'. This consisted of George Martin playing a Baldwin spinet electric harpsichord, John playing a repeated electric guitar riff and Paul adding bass. Ringo was there too, gently tapping out a beat on the hi-hat, but this was for the musicians' headphones only – it was not recorded on the tape.

"Ringo was our drum machine," says George Martin today. "Having done the backing track," he continues, " John, Paul and George sang the song in harmony. Then we overlaid it twice more, making nine-part harmony altogether, three voices recorded three times. I was literally telling them what notes to sing."

(George has described here the song after a 4 August overdub. On this first day just one of those three-part vocal recordings was made, between 7.30 and the 10. 30pm end of the session.)

 

Awesome info. Sounds like the instrumental take will be a real chill track.

 

Well, I guess you’ll save a lot of money by the end of September,then!

 

Does GM mean nine-part harmony, or simply three-part harmony triple tracked? I mean, I suppose they could have sung some of the harmonies in a different octave or something to create more than three notes, but this quote always confused me.

 

The former!

 

Funnily enough, what Giles did to the intro of Dear Prudence wasn't ADT, it was more like artificial real double tracking by taking one of the guitar parts from the outro and layering it onto the intro. That is the sort of trickery I'm talking about.

I find Good Morning Good Morning probably his worst mix, the ADT on those drum rolls is a real mess.

It isn't really hyperbole to say that his mixes have really indistinct stereo imaging and feature fake extracted stereo tracks from mono elements when it's the truth, is it?

Personally I think the reason most people react positively to the remixes is because they're buying into the hype, or simply for the fact it sounds different (not necessarily better) to what they've been used to for decades.

Especially if I listen to the box on my streaming services first to see if it's actually worth buying.

 

Wasn't the hi-hat in that section played by Paul, while Ringo was hitting the toms with his hands?

UPDATE: No - it was a Ringo overdub of hi-hat and cymbal.

(Everett, Walter (1999). The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver Through the Anthology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509553-7. - page 249)

Cheers,
Paul

 

Wow. The vocals mesh so well together it sounds like one sound, so for the untrained ear like mine, it’s so hard to tell. Amazing.

My wife always finds it funny I can’t sing harmony, but can otherwise hold a tune. If she and I are ever singing along in the car together and she starts to harmonise, I always end up singing her part and she finds it hilarious I can’t stay on my part ever. My ears don’t work man.

 

I think Martin meant three-part, tripled. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

 

I meant the latter! Sorry.