Red Mosquito

Dr. Van Nostrand wrote:

NancyBabich wrote:Of the great albums Sgt Peppers is easily the weakest.

I just love the feel of the album as a whole, id probably rank a lot of the songs a little lower then others(kinda like with rubber soul for me) but the overall album works for me

I'd agree with this. The thing that blows my mind with Pepper in particular is that it came out sounding so beautiful. The Beatles recording situation 1966-67 is fascinating to me. First, let's just cover this: four track tape. Four track fucking tape. Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields, Within You Without You, A Day in the Life, Lucy in the Sky....four track tape.**

It kinda blows my mind every time I think about it.

It just shouldn't even be possible, really. Constantly mixing instruments down to a single track to make room (thus eliminating the ability to manipulate that instrument further later on), the absence of click tracks for consistency or precision as they layer instrument over instrument over surrealist sound effect. A bunch of stoned motherfuckers, an open minded producer, and one of the best engineers ever to set foot in a studio. A giant room full of toys and a closet that doubles as a sound effect library for comedy albums.

The idea of guys in lab coats standing around in hallways holding pencils with Paul's effect loops wrapped around them for hours while the band screws around with faders on Tomorrow Never Knows, of Georges one and two spending untold hours bridging Indian and Western musical scales to get just the right backing track, of Paul laying down a series of keyboards that are both bouncy and mechanically exact in timing as the basis of Penny Lane, or of the collected lot of them building A Day in the Life in impossibly incremental fashion....all without ever ending up having to sacrifice the sound of part A for the sake of fitting part B into the mix, or having to start over because the new idea screws up the way the drums went into the chorus or something. Hell, even Mal setting off the alarm clock as a gag during the Day in the Life sessions ends up being an unexpected bonus, when they come up with a bridge section later on.

**Now, they sort of cheated by syncing up two four tracks to "mimic" eight track recording, but this is a deceiving statement because one of the four tracks had to be limited to reductions only, and by the time it was all said and done they still had to have the entire track mixed down to a single four track tape in order to master it.

McParadigm wrote:

Dr. Van Nostrand wrote:

NancyBabich wrote:Of the great albums Sgt Peppers is easily the weakest.

I just love the feel of the album as a whole, id probably rank a lot of the songs a little lower then others(kinda like with rubber soul for me) but the overall album works for me

I'd agree with this. The thing that blows my mind with Pepper in particular is that it came out sounding so beautiful. The Beatles recording situation 1966-67 is fascinating to me. First, let's just cover this: four track tape. Four track fucking tape. Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields, Within You Without You, A Day in the Life, Lucy in the Sky....four track tape.**

It kinda blows my mind every time I think about it.

It just shouldn't even be possible, really. Constantly mixing instruments down to a single track to make room (thus eliminating the ability to manipulate that instrument further later on), the absence of click tracks for consistency or precision as they layer instrument over instrument over surrealist sound effect. A bunch of stoned motherfuckers, an open minded producer, and one of the best engineers ever to set foot in a studio. A giant room full of toys and a closet that doubles as a sound effect library for comedy albums.

The idea of guys in lab coats standing around in hallways holding pencils with Paul's effect loops wrapped around them for hours while the band screws around with faders on Tomorrow Never Knows, of Georges one and two spending untold hours bridging Indian and Western musical scales to get just the right backing track, of Paul laying down a series of keyboards that are both bouncy and mechanically exact in timing as the basis of Penny Lane, or of the collected lot of them building A Day in the Life in impossibly incremental fashion....all without ever ending up having to sacrifice the sound of part A for the sake of fitting part B into the mix, or having to start over because the new idea screws up the way the drums went into the chorus or something. Hell, even Mal setting off the alarm clock as a gag during the Day in the Life sessions ends up being an unexpected bonus, when they come up with a bridge section later on.

**Now, they sort of cheated by syncing up two four tracks to "mimic" eight track recording, but this is a deceiving statement because one of the four tracks had to be limited to reductions only, and by the time it was all said and done they still had to have the entire track mixed down to a single four track tape in order to master it.

I agree that there is a great deal of mind blowing going on. But for the amount of greatest thing in the universe ever accolades it still gets years later there sure is a whole lot of With a little help from my friends, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (X2), When I'm Sixty Four and Lovely Rita going on. Almost half of the so called greatest album is pretty filler.

I am of the belief that Rubber Soul, The White Album and Revolver are all stronger albums.

I'm a fan of When I'm Sixty Four.

Sgt Pepper's is a weird album for me. I love it as a whole. It's obviously a great album and a game changer. But I find I don't want to listen to it very often. And I don't usually take songs from it to put on mixes.

I also wish it had taken the concept a bit further. It feels sort of safe now, decades later. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I'd been around when it first came out.

It's definitely my least favorite of the best albums.

Me too.

And I don't think Magical Mystery Tour gets enough credit. And it gets a lot of credit. Just not enough.

I love Magical Mystery Tour and listen to the remaster all the time.

durdencommatyler wrote:Sgt Pepper's is a weird album for me. I love it as a whole. It's obviously a great album and a game changer. But I find I don't want to listen to it very often. And I don't usually take songs from it to put on mixes.

Mixes love She's Leaving Home, Mr Kite and Within You, Without You.

I absolutely love Sgt. Pepper. "Fixing a Hole," "She's Leaving Home," and "Mr. Kite" is one of my favorite runs in their whole catalog. The second disc of the "Anthology 2" album has some tremendous versions of the Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour material.

zeb wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:Sgt Pepper's is a weird album for me. I love it as a whole. It's obviously a great album and a game changer. But I find I don't want to listen to it very often. And I don't usually take songs from it to put on mixes.

Mixes love She's Leaving Home, Mr Kite and Within You, Without You.

Anyone up for a pre-Help! top ten?

Things We Said Today
This Boy
I'll Be Back
All My Loving
All I've Got to Do
It Won't Be Long
Roll Over Beethoven
Tell Me Why
No Reply
Twist and Shout

No Reply is such a great song.

It is. I'm going to listen to it right now.

Kevin Davis wrote:Anyone up for a pre-Help! top ten?

Things We Said Today
This Boy
I'll Be Back
All My Loving
All I've Got to Do
It Won't Be Long
Roll Over Beethoven
Tell Me Why
No Reply
Twist and Shout

I Saw Her Standing There
She Loves You
Any Time At All
It Won't Be Long
Please Please Me
Every Little Thing
Tell Me Why
All My Loving
I'll Follow the Sun
Eight Days a Week

My love of Please Please Me really spiked from "that's alright" to "one of the best of the 63-65 era" when the remasters came out and you could finally hear that pulsing goddamn bass. The tongue in cheek childlike melodic simplicity of the bridge in Any Time At All, matched with the perfect break it provides in the song's otherwise driving energy, reminds me of the kind of playful schtick indie pop bands have been mining mercilessly ever since.

There's a Place
No Reply
Don't Bother Me
It Won't Be Long
You Can't Do That
All I've Got to Do
This Boy
Please Please Me
I Should Have Known Better
She Loves You

I think There's a Place probably cracks my top 10 Beatles songs regardless of era.

McParadigm wrote:I'd agree with this. The thing that blows my mind with Pepper in particular is that it came out sounding so beautiful. The Beatles recording situation 1966-67 is fascinating to me. First, let's just cover this: four track tape. Four track fucking tape. Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields, Within You Without You, A Day in the Life, Lucy in the Sky....four track tape.**

**Now, they sort of cheated by syncing up two four tracks to "mimic" eight track recording, but this is a deceiving statement because one of the four tracks had to be limited to reductions only, and by the time it was all said and done they still had to have the entire track mixed down to a single four track tape in order to master it.

The final "I Am The Walrus" 4-track was achieved by bouncing the master down to three tracks, transferring a mono mix of this to another 4-track, overdubbing that tape with various chorus & strings, and then transferring a mono mix of this back to the fourth track of the original tape, manually synchronized. This was done so that the final 4-track didn't have to be bounced again to add the three layers of orchestration. However, this "final" tape is lacking the radio sound effects in the last part of the song which were added during mono mixing. They were unable to make a stereo mix with these elements until the age of Pro-Tools (when they also took the time to re-synchornize the orchestration so that it is spread across three tracks rather than one).

Actually, I have a book right here called "Recording The Beatles" that details the reocordings on many Beatles songs. "I Am The Walrus" was recorded as follows:

TAKE 16:
TK1 - Drums
TK2 - Tambourine
TK3 - Electric Guitar
TK4 - Pianet

TAKE 17:
TK1 - Bounce Of Take 16
TK2 - *empty*
TK3 - Bass & Snare Drum Overdub
TK4 - Lead Vocal

TAKE 20:
TK1 - Bounce Of Take 17
TK2 - Brass & Clarinets
TK3 - Violins
TK4 - Cellos

TAKE 25 (Bounce Of Take 20):
TK1 - Take 17 (Carried Over)
TK2 - Vocal Chorus
TK3 - Brass, Clarinets & Violins (Bounce)
TK4 - Cellos (Carried Over)

TAKE 17 (Final Master):
TK1 - Bounce of Take 16 (Drums/Tamb/Guitar/Piano)
TK2 - Bounce of Take 25 (Chorus & Orchestra) - added manually
TK3 - Bass & Snare Drum Overdub
TK4 - Lead Vocal


And since they have all these tapes, a Pro-Tools mix can now be made with the following track layout:

TK1 - Drums
TK2 - Tambourine
TK3 - Electric Guitar
TK4 - Pianet
TK5 - Bass & Snare Overdub
TK6 - Lead Vocal
TK7 - Brass & Clarinets
TK8 - Violins
TK9 - Cellos
TK10 - Choral Singers
TK11 - "King Lear" BBC Broadcast
TK12 - Radio Effects (Electronically Re-Created)

That's pretty fucking awesome.

I'm still really hanging out for some remixes, providing they're done well.