Beatles "Help!" Question.

For anyone who is interested, this is what I know from the bootlegs. It's really a repeat of what Luke has said with more detail. The boot used is Yellow Dog's Ultimate Collection Vol 3:

Takes 1-4 are incomplete. After take 4, George explains that the song is too fast for him to add the song's jangly guitar lines. It is agreed that John will tap his acoustic to keep a beat for George to add the part later. Paul mentions, quite clearly, that they have two tracks remaining on the multi for vocals.

Take 5 is a complete take of the rhythm track. Ringo on drums, Paul on bass, John on acoustic and George on rhythm guitar. The spot where the lead guitar will go is left open with John tapping a four beat measure.

The mix on take 5 of this bootleg has the drums and bass on the left and the two guitars on the right. This would seem to confirm that only two of the four available tracks have been used thus far.

Takes 6-8 are incomplete with take 7 making it about halfway through the song.

Take 9 is complete and includes vocals. John's lead is double-tracked and matches the stereo version. The tambourine is present but not George's lead guitar. This mix has the bass/drums left, acoustic and rhythm guitar right, vocals and tambourine center. They must have added the tambourine with one of the vocal tracks.

Take 10 opens with the engineer (Norm Smith?) saying "Four-track to three... to FOUR-track and is take 10." This is the first bounce and Paul's count in and the background noises are identical to take 9. You can also hear the generation loss! The mix is identical to take 9 as well and I don't hear anything new here. George's lead guitar is still absent, so I'm thinking this bounce was made to free up a track for that.

Take 11 is stopped about five seconds into the song. It is most likely an aborted attempt at an overdub.

Take 12 adds George's lead guitar to take 10, a bounce down of take 9. The mix is identical to takes 9 and 10 with George's guitar put center with vocals and tambourine. In the final stereo mix, George's lead would move to the right. It sounds like they may have put a touch of reverb on the lead guitar in the final mix.

Take 13, as Yellow Dog lists it, is not announced by the engineer. It sounds pretty much like the standard stereo mix and uses the same vocal.

So after all that, I have just listened to the mono mix, which I have not heard in a long time. The vocal is completely different, the background vocals may be different, too, or they are just mixed lower than the stereo version. George's lead guitar jumps out during the chorus and has no reverb. There is noticable tape hiss on the fade.

The first 12 takes listed above include the engineer announcing the take, so that confirms that Lewisohn's book is missing quite a bit of information. They obviously re-cut John's vocal if not the backing vocals, too. I did not compare those.

Lewisohn's book says mono and stereo mixes were first prepared April 18, five days after the song was recorded. He also says these were for United Artist to use in the film. There were three mono mixes and one stereo mix which he says were never issued on record. Lewisohn's next entry is for June 18 stating one more mono and stereo mix was made for use on the single and mono LP and the stereo LP.

If a twin-track stereo mix of the single version exists as Steve says, someone pulled the earlier take 12 and did the stereo LP mix from there or that April 18 stereo mix is the one they used. It must not have been possible for George Martin to make a stereo mix like the official one using the new vocals.

 

While I cant contribute anything to the technical side of this discussion, I would still like to say that musically the mono mix is nowhere near as good as the stereo one.
In stereo it just works!

Nice urgent vocal on it (the mono vocal sounds like a guide vocal by comparison), and everything seems "in the right place".
With the mono mix I feel like saying "whats all the fuss about?"
It's the Beatles on an off day to me.....

 

The purpose of the reduction mixes (takes 10-12) was to free up a track for the lead guitar. This involved mixing the two vocal track down to one track. They decided, though, that they wanted John's vocal in the intro *single* tracked. This had to be done in the reduction mix. Takes 10 and 12 do indeed mute one of the vocal tracks in the intro, but for take 11, Norman Smith forgot and left both faders up. The mistake was realized right away, and the take was stopped.

Yeah, sounds like the stereo mix to me. Never trust bootleg liner notes, just what you hear on the CDs themselves.

They are different, since they were cut along with the two lead vocals.

There was a remix done in the early '90s that sync'd takes 9 and 12, so there were 5 tracks to mix from instead of 4. This mix has the vocals split left and right. One track has lead and backing vocals, while the other track has lead and backing vocals plus tambourine. As mentioned above, these two tracks were mixed down to one for take 12, to make room for the lead guitar overdub.

It seems likely they didn't issue the mono version in stereo either because:

1) they didn't care
2) the extra reduction mix would mean all of the music except the lead guitar was in one channel

Of course, I don't think #2 ever stopped them before, so...

 

Er, what did I say above?



FWIW, the mono multitrack would have had the three instrumental tracks bounced down to two - the bass/drums and guitars tracks would have been mixed together, with the lead guitar overdub being left on its own. That would leave two tracks for vocals, and the ability to mute the backing while the lead guitar was playing its descending riffs. Note how on the stereo mix you can hear John thumping his guitar, while in the mono it is mixed out.

 

I think that's the sound John was going for (relaxed). The intro from the film mix (which sounds like the same take as the mono vocals - the mono single mix had the intro edited on from take 12) shows this much more clearly. John sounds like he's making a desperate plea for help, rather than yelling. It becomes "I'm emotionally put down, help me" rather than "I'm stuck in quicksand, HELP!".

I like both, myself.

 

Indeed, but a dub is better than no dub!

 

Where would I find this remix?

 

I'm not totally sure, actually. I believe it was made for a music video of some sort around 1992, but I don't know the details. I believe it has shown up on some bootlegs as well, including "Lost And Found".

According to a fellow in rmb, this is how the mix breaks down:

left: lead guitar
left-of-center: lead AND backing vocals
center: drums/bass
right-of-center: second lead vocal/second backing vocal/tambourine
right: acoustic/electric rhythm guitars

Both vocals are the stereo vocals.

 

Well, I see the long and winding "Help!" thread from the discussion group "rec.music.beatles" has finally matastasized it's way here:

And, once again I follow a Luke post.

Anyway, for the multitrack challenged I have put together the following graphical run down of takes and track assignments.

Recording of Help!

Corrections or comments welcomed!.

Lance Hall