The Beatles 50th anniversary editions in Mix magazine

Not on Tascam, but everything I recorded from 1959 on until I was using synchronized machines around 1975 consisted of ping ponging between twin machines, then submixing to dual selsync machines....like everyone I knew did it (except Motown not so much) and finally filling up a Scully 284, bouncing to a second 284 etc etc around 1969. I indeed kept all reels. My motto has always been, never punch-in and never erase.

Personally, on the vast past projects I've transferred to daw, I've never done a varispeed approach as you describe Giles doing.

I transferred roomloads of multitracks to daw, use the ridiculously-priced Capstan program on each track after-the-fact, and then hand-nudge tracks into place. I also have to often deal with 3 minute pieces of tape that may only be a lead guitar overdub from 1965. Freewheel that into the computer, "capstan" it (capstan now being a verb .....and nudge into place where it goes with the rest if the tracks.

The varispeed idea....sounds too weird for me to do....I like the quick way Capstan takes care of wow/flutter/speed deviations...and optionally lets you yank everything to a known pitch ref....so useful, organic, and magic .

But time consuming. I would've killed for these tools in 1962 .

But yeah, I kept all the tapes and I'm glad I did.

 

Plug-ins

 

Oddest username/comment match ever.

 

If I understand what they did, it would only work if you have common elements on both tracks you're synching, right? You could hear the common elements going off center (off phase) and move them back into phase. But if you are synching a mono drum track to a mono guitar track, that obviously wouldn't work.

 

They were synchronizing the original recordings, which were mixdowns, with the original tracks from before the mixdown. Presumably only the elements that were in both would phase.

 

I`ll solve that problem for you: simply don`t buy the remixes.
(ok, it IS a problem if you just want the outtakes)

 

You load the original mix on a mono or stereo track. I should say "I".

With headphones on, I'll load reel 6b onto one of the tape machines of say song x that's spread between 12 reels of tape from 1966. 6b has a submix bounce, a piano overdub that was done while listening to that reel submix at the time....a short chaka chaka guitar part that was overdubbed, and the entire lead guitar solo...all on 6b.

I ignore the submix....because after all, it later became part of the final mix....which is sitting now on the daw (from step 1).

With headphones on, I position the daw to where the original mix lead guitar break is, advance reel 6b to the same general area, hit record on a daw track and record JUST the incoming isolated guitar solo from 6b onto a mono daw track.

Then nudge the guitar track to where it's playing in sync with the original headphone mix. When I hear phasing, I know I'm in the general correct spot.

And then on to loading in other slave reel elements until I have them all under the original mix. Then tweak the element positions, then mute the original mix and begin creating a new mix.

If I have to snip areas of say, the lead guitar break to microscopically slide here and there etc, piece of cake.

No varispeed although I've simplified how I do it.

In practice, I pre-transfer all individual elements off the baziillions of recordings on bazillions of reels to computers before rebuilding. That way, everything can be speed corrected before the eventual new multitrack build.

 

You probably forgot, but Abbey Road in particular was in a desperate need for a remix. Such an iconic album and almost unlistenable... until Giles and the team came and saved it for us and future generations. In the name of George Martin, Geoff Emerick and everyone else involved. Who in their right Beatles mind would have thought it could sound this good? Amazes me every time.

 

I wonder what “bigger and fuller” mean exactly. If it means compressing the recordings to the point where most instruments and vocals are competing to be heard along with boosted and disproportionate bass levels, then the agenda was overwhelmingly achieved in my opinion. I wish the ‘Yellow Submarine Songtrack’ had been used as a template for the recent remixes.

This is a fascinating and very educational thread by the way!

 

I've done similar stuff, about 15 or 17 years ago. Although, I was able to move up to 4 tracks at a time. As long as one of them [in each transfer] is the drum track it's not bad.

Although my process was to copy all the tracks over, then slide each group to line up the start of the drums, then check for drift and make tiny [in the range of several milliseconds] stretch or shrink pieces to keep them in sync. I guess now that I think about it, it's not the same process at all... But I had enough "levels of undo" that I didn't have to worry too much about screwing it up. And the stretch/shrink parts are short enough to be inaudible [like manually editing out clicks or pops].

In a couple of instances where the drums were not isolated, I had to go with the track that had the drums "most prominent" instead, and that was a bit more of a challenge but also doable.

 

>>>>>>I would screamingly disagree with your suggestion that "Abbey Road" was "in a desperate need for a remix and almost unlistenable".
Where do you get this stuff?

Millions of Beatles fans disagree with you.

 

The Beatle album that's in most need of a remix in my opinion is Revolver...and that's not because it's a bad sounding album...simply put, the limitations of the technology of the time don't do the instrumentation and arrangements justice. In second place would be Rubber Soul..but if I had to make a choice, it would be Revolver. Abbey Road sounded very good already. The remix improved some parts but didn't do so much in others, IMO (and in still others, the original sounds better).

 

What

 

I think he was kidding.

 

I sure hope so. His post is in this weird limbo where you can’t tell if it’s satire or just bat**** insane

 

It appears your usage of this has confused the local wildlife.

 

do you really think he cares what ppl think?...it's all perfect because he did it. LOL...

 

I may be the only one who doesn't care or want to know the details...; )

 

As long as Paul, Ringo, Yoko, and Olivia were happy (hint: they were because the product exists) I'm sure Giles will be fine.

 

You aren't.

 

well that's comforting! ; )

 

unfortunately...he should have never been hired...

 

If not him, then someone else who also would not have been George Martin or Geoff Emerick.

 

but hopefully much more qualified...I can think of a few...if not for Daddy he would not have made it through the door...

 

The over-riding his far more talented Dad's work after he died will never sit comfortably with me. Neither will versions of original Beatles albums that George, George and John never heard replacing ones they did and approved.