LISTSERV mailing list manager LISTSERV 16.0

Help for ARSCLIST Archives


ARSCLIST Archives

ARSCLIST Archives


[email protected]


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

ARSCLIST Home

ARSCLIST Home

ARSCLIST  June 2015

ARSCLIST June 2015

Subject:

Re: Zombies classic

From:

DAVID BURNHAM <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

DAVID BURNHAM <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 24 Jun 2015 22:03:39 +0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (141 lines)

Hi Tom
I didn't mean to imply that ALL the Beatle Stereo recordings were recorded in this manner, only the very earliest.  My first experience with stereo Beatles was a European LP, (on Odeon if I recall correctly), indicating that these singles were being released for the very first time in Stereo, and they were all hard left/hard right versions.  It was kind of fun being able to pan one way and hear only the voices and pan the other way and hear only the instruments, but to my ears, listening in Stereo didn't give any feeling of a stereo sound stage.  I have a very strict personal criteria of what constitutes a proper stereo recording, (and let me be clear, this is personal, for me only, I don't expect everyone to agree with me and I don't impose my requirements on anybody else, except recording engineers who are working for me).  I require that every source of sound be clearly positioned between the speakers and located at an angle that corresponds to their position in the original performance, or, in the case of stereo constructions from a multi-mike studio recording in their intended positions.  Ideally, I like to be able to close my eyes and mentally visualize the sound stage without sensing that the actual speakers are the sources  of sound.  I particularly don't like the ORTF, (or the many "sort of" ORTF recordings); with those pick-ups, the speakers are always clearly the sources of sounds with very little accurate imaging between the speakers.  I once heard an ORTF recording of a solo viola and standing between the speakers, the viola clearly seemed to be coming from BOTH speakers.  I have little faith in "accidental stereo".  I have heard several such recordings of Toscanini and while they sound spacey and roomy, they aren't stereo.  Toscanini ALWAYS had his first violins on his left and his second violins on his right.  This effect cannot be created artificially so if you can't hear this division, it's not stereo!
db
P.S. Someone was mentioning earlier about the "LP" designation; as anyone who is sharp-eyed may have noticed, my rule, (and once again this is only me, I don't expect everyone else to jump in line), is that if it's a Long Playing record from any company except Columbia, it's an "LP".  If it's a Columbia product, it's an "Lp", just because that's the way they write it. 


     On Wednesday, June 24, 2015 7:11 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
   

 Hi Dave:

What you say isn't fully accurate. There have been volumes written about the Beatles, including a 
massive book about how they recorded their songs. Only for the first two years or so were they 
laying down music to 2 tracks. In those cases, you could say the stereo releases were about as you 
describe. After that, they were doing more complex things and the stereo mixes tended to reflect 
more what was bounced to where on the 4-track machines, or what was recorded last at the same time a 
track or tracks were bounced. The stereo spread is not hard-set in that era, up to The Beatles (the 
White Album).

After they evolved to 4-tracks and increasing amounts of overdubbing and bouncing, George Martin had 
to make stereo mixes out of whatever he could with the last 4 tracks standing. So sometimes bass and 
drums ended up on one side, sometimes vocals ended up on one side, etc. For the UK version of 
"Rubber Soul," Martin allegedly threw up his hands and didn't make the stereo mix (he did make the 
stereo mix released on the 1980s CD, which is different from the 1965 stereo master mixes, which 
were subsequently released along with the mono master in the Beatles In Mono CD box set). It's been 
widely written that the Beatles didn't attend most stereo mix sessions until around the time of "The 
Beatles" (the White Album), but I tend to think they weren't completely hands-off, just because they 
were so involved in all other aspects of their recordings. But, for sure, the mono master mixes were 
what the Beatles and George Martin slaved over and what they knew would be their face to the world 
via singles and radio play (and later, when they curtailed singles releases, they knew most people 
would buy the mono albums).

It gets interesting, though, because the US was by far the largest single Beatles market, and 
Capitol had their own ideas about how Beatles albums should be sequenced (up until "Sgt. Pepper") 
and how they should sound. Capitol pushed stereo albums on retailers harder than EMI seems to have 
outside the US, and Capitol made available stereo albums from the "Second Album" release (I think I 
read somewhere that "Meet The Beatles" was not available in stereo until several years after its 
initial Capitol release, nor was the material originally released on Vee-Jay). The Capitol mono 
albums often sounded somewhat to quite different from the UK first releases, based on what I've 
heard myself and what other Beatles enthusiasts have written. Capitol tended to hype the upper 
midrange and sometimes crunch the dynamics even more than they were already crunched on the masters 
(the Beatles and George Martin were not the least bit shy with dynamics compression, they wanted 
their songs to sound LOUDEST on the radio). And of course, Capitol vinyl was not nearly as quiet as 
EMI UK vinyl, and Capitol would sequence albums for 25-35 minutes total length whereas the UK albums 
tended to be 40+ minutes. In its defense, Capitol was also pretty good about scooping up singles 
into LPs that usually made musical sense like in the case of "Yesterday and Today" (and, to my ears, 
it was crazy for the Beatles and Martin to start the UK "Rubber Soul" with "Drive My Car" and to 
bury "I've Just Seen A Face" on side B of "Help").

Anyway, I've never bought in that the UK release sound and sequence is the SET IN STONE way everyone 
should learn about or listen to the Beatles, but it's how it's ended up because that's how George 
Martin and the surviving Beatles made it for the CD era. My point is, the US market was huge, 
Capitol sold millions and millions of their albums, and all of us "second listeners" came up with 
the Capitol albums, sound and sequences. In my iPod, I've resequenced all the songs to reflect the 
Capitol albums I'm used to, but used the MONO tracks through "The Beatles" (White Album) because 
they sound better in headphones/earbuds. I'll never prefer the UK sequence of "Rubber Soul" and I 
like the movie-soundtrack snippets in "Help," and I love the way the songs flow in "Yesterday and 
Today" even though it's a collection of "singles and scraps." For the early albums, particularly 
"Second Album" and "Beatles '65," I think the US sequences are more powerful, they cut it down to 
less than 30 minutes of music that leaps out of the speakers, and probably sounds more like a 
Beatles live show before they got famous. The early UK albums sometimes wander because they Beatles 
were still learning songwriting and were also trying to market themselves to different tastes. The 
result is too little focus in too many minutes. As you can tell, I'm not as down on Capitol 
executives' rethinking things for the US market as some "purists" are, 50 years after the fact.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DAVID BURNHAM" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 12:22 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Zombies classic


> When comparing the Beatles Stereo releases with the mono releases, it is often observed that the 
> mono versions are more satisfying. It must be remembered that many of the stereo releases aren't 
> stereo at all; they have the instruments on one channel, the vocals on the other and the rhythm in 
> the middle. These seem to have been designed for subsequent mixdown into mono and were not 
> intended to be listened to in stereo.
> db
>
>
>    On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:33 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Lou, thanks for posting both mixes. Someone my age (49) grew up mostly exposed to "greatest hits"
> compilations of the 60's British Invasion groups. As such, almost all of the exposure was to the
> stereo versions (because, by 1970s and 80s thinking, if it's stereo it's BETTER). The "first
> listeners" were almost always exposed to the mono singles, which was a different experience. I 
> think
> this is why the Beatles mono reissues resonated so strongly among some of us "second listeners."
> When I discovered the Beatles back around 1977, a kid in suburbia generally had one choice -- the
> Captiol USA stereo records (the Captiol mono records were long out of print by then, and mono
> records just weren't sold in the typical E J Korvette or Harvey Sound store). Totally different
> listening experience from the EMI monos!
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Lou Judson" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 8:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Zombies classic
>
>
>> Good post Tom!
>> Anyone who remembers the song (I do very well, owned the 45 as a teen) should compare the mono 
>> and
>> the stereo remix after reading the article:
>> Mono:
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXj16uy8qLg>
>> Stereo:
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3pAm_u0_5k>
>>
>> Ignore the stupid videos, it’s the music!
>>
>> Hearing tunes from our youth puts me back where I was then, remembering friends and places… Like
>> that Beatles song said…
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY7FDN4XWFE> again, ignore the pix.
>> <L>
>> Lou Judson
>> Intuitive Audio
>> 415-883-2689
>>
>> On Jun 23, 2015, at 3:14 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Not the flesh-eating kind
>>> http://www.mixonline.com/news/classic-tracks/classic-tracks-she-s-not-there-zombies/424710
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> 


  

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

Advanced Options


Options

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password


Search Archives

Search Archives


Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003

ATOM RSS1 RSS2



LISTSERV.LOC.GOV

CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager