Sound of Hollies Recordings

So, I just picked up the 20 Golden Greats CD. Haven't listen in great detail much yet, but I do have a few questions:

- why do those early backing tracks sound like *that*? Kind of squashed. The Beatles' stuff doesn't sound like that. It sounds like you're hearing the sound of monitor bleed into microphones during overdubs - like how the backing sounds in parts of the Think For Yourself overdub session.

- why are most of those 65/66 mixes hard left/right? The earlier stuff is spread out fairly nicely, or at least as nicely as it can be.

- why does it seem like the music was always only on one track for that early stuff? The Beatles almost always used at least 2 tracks for the band. Did they just bounce everything onto 1 track from another tape?

I just wonder why everything sounds so different/weird/worse compared to the Beatles recordings of the same era.

 

Two words:

Ron Richards.

He liked that thin oversquashed sound. So much compression that the earphone music bleeds right through at full volume.

The 65/66 mixes are hard left/right for the same reason that the Rubber Soul era stuff is hard left/right. A decree from George Martin trickling down to Ron Richards.

The Beatles had clout and used it in the studio. The Hollies had four hours to do three songs. No time for bouncing and being too creative. One track for the music, three for the vocals and overdubs. On to the next song.

 

Don't forget all that bad EQ that was added during mixing.

 

Angel,

I have noticed a lot of original UK recordings from that period sound excessively bright. Was that attributable to the "dreaded" EQ or the fact that they were not RIAA?

Bob

 

The dreaded EQ.

If a CCIR tape is played back on an NAB machine (in other words, if an old Abbey Road tape copy is played back on an American NAB machine), there will be a little EQ weirdness, but not like THAT.

No, that's the choice of a producer to "cut through" on a cheap little British phonograph.

Now a great mastering guy like Steve H. would know just how to fix that. Give a listen to Steve's "Gerry And The Pacemakers" Gerry Cross The Mersey" CD. Ahhhh, now that's more like it!

 

I have it and I really enjoy it!... a great remastering job!

Thanks for the tech talk.

Bob

 

One more thing Bob, lest I give American engineers a bad name.

If a tape comes in from England (now or way back when) and is marked CCIR EQ on it, it would have been played back correctly in America with the proper EQ setting. No mastering engineer in this country that collects a steady paycheck would play back a CCIR (British EQ Curve) tape back on the American NAB setting.

At least I HOPE not.

 

Angel,

I will share with you that I have some late 50's and early 60's UK 45s and when played back today they sound very bright. I assume they were mastered using the CCIR curve. I wonder if in some of the early on CD mastering this was taken into consideration or am I simply hearing an EQ-ed LP master than was used for the digital transfer?

Thanks!

Bob

 

You are hearing an EQ'd LP master transferred to CD. The first four Beatles CD's for example.

Look on your MoFi Beatles box, see in the photos of the old tape boxes the stamp "Equalized And Compressed version" right on the front of the old tape boxes?

Well, there you go. Right on the master tape. Some people LIKE that sound, and think it should be on the CD. Others don't.

It's true that you can't change history, but it can be modified a bit so our ears don't bleed every time. So, on the Gerry And The Pacemakers CD: "Thank you Steve H.!"

 

As the late, great Rick Nelson sang in Garden Party, "You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself" and it is definitely true.

 

One more comment - I think Long Cool Woman on 20 Golden Greats is the best I've ever heard it. It has some snap that's missing on every other version I've heard. And that includes Rock Of The 70's Vol. 5. The vocals are a tad more harsh, but there's less hiss and murk.

 

Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)

Steve,

Didn't you master that on a compilation?

Bob

 

Steve,

As I recall it is notated as "original UK mix" or something close to that....

Bob

 

I was at a local Circuit City and saw a 3 cd box set from England. "The Hollies at Abbey Road". It was $22.99. Great price so I bought it. Big mistake! Peter Mew took every ounce of life out of the recordings. How could EMI release this kind of crap. Your better off with the 2 cd set of "All the Hits and More" EMI - CDS7908502.

 

I enjoy listening to the U.S. version of the Hollies 30th Anniversary Collection 1963-1993 digitally transferred from the original British master tapes by Ron Furmanek and digitally remastered by someone named Kevin Reeves at Capitol Recording Studios. I don't have any "original" Hollies stuff to compare this to, but it sounds pretty accurate, crisp, and transparent to me, especially the stereo stuff.

 

Er...most/all of that set was remixed. Doesn't sound like the originals... They didn't even try.

Yes, Steve's Long Cool Woman is on Rock Of The 70s vol 5. Don't recall anything about "original UK mix", but... Did you in fact use the same British master tape for that Steve? I would have figured you had used a US tape for that.

Yeah, I'd say my biggest complaint with 20 Golden Greats is the harshness. In some ways I really like, say, Long Cool Woman, but those vocals do wear on one after awhile.

 

I'll just add that the album from which LCWIABD appeared, "Distant Light", had a "unique" production style, quite unlike what had come before it. Vocals bathed in echo and a very atmospheric, "distant" feel to the sound. Maybe not hi-fi...but unique nonetheless. It was also their first album recorded at AIR.

 

The digipak original UK album reissues are just as bad. Mew has committed just about every remastering sin possible on these. So much No-Noise (and subsequent re-eq'ing) that they're virtually unlistenable, IMO. Pretty packaging aside, a real bummer.

What sucks even more, is that here you have the engineers with access to the absolute original EMI (or AIR) masters, and this is what we now have to endure with as the "definitive", sanctioned remastering.

The problem is, that previous CD reissues of some of the albums had their own problems. The BGO reissue of "Distant Light" sounds like it was taken from a sub-par tape. The US Epic CD issue of "Distant Light" sounds like a brightened up cutting master. When will they get it right? Probably, after I'm dead....lol!