SON OF ZUBE! (Hey Zube 2022)

[Chroma63]

Thank you Leaping Armadillos.
Thought I'd missed this. Yours is the only 'Live' link!

[Lord Reith]

Lord Reith!

I noticed you list Chains as Take 4 - is that correct? The 'book' notes 4 takes were done that day, and Take 1 was chosen as the best, given a faded ending on the 25th and used for the final mix of PPM.I would have assumed since Take 4 was not used - it was have a faded ending. Can you check and tell me which is which??

It's tk1 but I just misunderstood what Lewisohn wrote. I see now that they did four takes but chose the first.

I must admit, I was hesitant to listen to these remixed concepts of the PPM sessions at first as I stuck by the concept that I should have the sessions as they were recorded....but after listening to your mix centering the vocals and drums...it dawned on me how more pleasant the listening experience had become and that explained why I never really liked listening to these in their original recorded form, because there is a harshness and awkwardness I discovered that depending on where one sits in the room, either the vocals overwhelm or the instruments in the other speaker overwhelm if one sits on the opposite end of the room! I GET IT!

Cool, glad you enjoyed it. I am aware that many people will not listen to this stuff on principle, which is why i always try to be as unobtrusive as possible and not do anything that couldn't have been done at the time. So i try to mix it as I imagine they would have if they'd done a live stereo mix in the traditional sense.

I then compared your latest mix to that Spectral Mix source that was also available and discovered your mix so much smoother and puts the drums more centered than this spectral mix does...that allows the instrumentation (guitars) to be heard better without their volume being raised and becoming harsh. Sort of solving the problems of the recorded mixes are always fighting among themselves to dominate.

Oh yeah I think that is actually probably one of my old ones. I am very upset about these old obsolete mixes circulating now. They are just confusing the hell out of everybody.

Of course we know once those final mixes were created on the 25th, I see why George Martin likes the mono mixes better. He always intended to move the vocals to the center, but during the recording sessions, needed them separated as much as possible to make that possible and I guess because he knew a stereo mix would be requested...

Yeah it's a half stereo-half twintrack mix he did. Good enough to use as a twintrack source for mono, but also presentable enough to release as a "stereo mix". The reason he didn't remember mixing the stereo album is because he never did. It was mixed live, and the songs were probably just cut straight out of the session tape - 1st generation recordings banded into an album master.

Well I hope what I have wrote makes sense - and I wanted to thank you for your hard work! I'm a fan now! I have been wanting to improve my early session collection for a long time. You made that happen!

Cool, we aim to please...

Found something with Misery session sources starting with Take 7 - note Take 7 is the last take that we get to hear George picking his electric during the 2 middle-eights which eventually got scrapped. Since we never hear discussion in between these takes, we don;t know when the decision was made to tell George to no longer pick his electric during those sections. Take 8 broke down and never got to the 1st middle-eight to see what would have been played.

But now with Take 9 - a piano is FIRST HEARD PLAYING during those 2 sections replacing George's guitar. So....is George Martin trying out a proposal that piano would sound better there then electric guitar? You see, that playing is pretty similar to the piano overdubs recorded later on Feb 20th during Takes 12-16 (Take 16 was the take used for the final album mixing).

That leaves us with a missing Take 10, and then seeing the logic in reconstructing Take 11 - as knowing piano overdubs on Feb 20th started at Take 12 - it would appear that they had to play a complete run-through of the song with NOTHING in those 2 sections and that was what the reconstructed Take 11 would have sounded like for that purpose.

Maybe Take 10 was a false start or something...who knows...but in any case - what peaked my curiosity was hearing well established piano parts in Take 9 that would have seemed to me to have been too early to be hearing a piano. I would think Martin would have REHEARSED his piano proposal and actually recorded a Take including it, knowing it would be overdubbed later and now he just needed them to record a full run-through leaving those sections empty for the base track and Take 11 was it.

any ideas?

It seems they had a lot of problems with that song. George initially did his little guitar run just fine, and actually take 1 was perfect aside from John's out of tune "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoo" at the end which they could have done as an edit piece. They then gradually murdered the song in stages, with George going down an octave and Ringo adding new drum fills, then the drum fills are dropped but George stays down an octave for take 7.

Before take 9 you can hear John mumbling to Macca about Martin being present at the piano. GM plays along on piano but (despite what people are prone to saying) he was no pianist of note and stumbles over the piano phrases. Then the tape runs out (either the bootleggers tape or the actual master now that they were suddenly running at 30 inches per second rather than 15). I gather that take 11 had no piano at all because that is the version Martin used to overdub piano at a later date.

I may have found the answer to my question about Takes 9, missing Take 10 and 11....

http://www.beatlesebooks.com/misery

This source claims the Feb 11 sessions ended Misery at Take 9 which was a FULL RUN THROUGH WITHOUT ANY PIANO or GUITAR in those parts.

THEN on Feb 20th, the Beatles were not present - I'll copy and paste the text for the rest -

George Martin experimented with adding piano overdubs onto "take nine" (this is the common INCOMPLETE take 9 most sources use) but, upon listening to The Beatles performance, decided that the first half of the song was flawed in various ways, such as a speeded up tempo at the end of the first verse and a flubbed bass note from Paul at the beginning of the song.

George Martin decided to perform an edit of two different "takes" to get the finished master of The Beatles' performance; the first half of "take seven" and the second half of "take nine." Upon listening to the original recordings of both "takes," it appears that the main edit occurs just as the third verse begins (at the word "shend") while George's guitar run in the first bridge of "take seven" must have been edited out as well. With this complete, George Martin went back to work in performing his piano overdubs onto what was now "take 11," playing the exact riff that Harrison was playing on the guitar, only in octaves and, of course, with perfect timing. He also played a piano arpeggio on top of George’s introductory guitar chord and added two accent notes in between the lyrics in the final two measures of each bridge. It took five takes for him to complete these overdubs to his satisfaction (takes 12 through 16).

So kool!

PS -
SO this RECONSTRUCTED TAKE 11 - I notice the bass notes in the intro are not out of tune! you must have known this. So technically you can have 2 Take 9's - the incomplete one you with the out of bass intro, and George Martin testing the piano and you could reconstruct a FULL Take9 without any of the piano and make a similar second half that's empty of piano and guitar to complete it.

have fun!

steve

No, they got that wrong I'm afraid. The thing is that when that take 9 first appeared on TAKE IT OFF, the guy spliced his incomplete tape to the commercial version so it wouldn't end abruptly. So it was a bootlegger thing, not an edit Martin did. The commercial version is just a piano overdub over tk11.

[millerTEK]

Read your replies! thank you so much.
I haven't had so much fun with these sessions in a long time!

Thank you for your replies - if you do one for With The Beatles, I'll be on the lookout! I'm loving how technology let's us reconstruct things like this and even make improvements. I had a small project some time ago trying to reconstruct the Glyn Johns multitrack reels from the Get Back Sessions and that wore me out...so I have a lot of respect for your efforts and the contributions you have shared.

Have a good rest of the weekend -

steve

[millerTEK]

What was the purpose of

I Saw Her Standing There [Edit Of Takes 2,3,5] ?

I don;t see any references to it officially - anyone know the story behind it's purpose?

thanks

steve

[Lord Reith]

Read your replies! thank you so much.
I haven't had so much fun with these sessions in a long time!

Thank you for your replies - if you do one for With The Beatles, I'll be on the lookout!

Well, what's left of the WTB sessions is part of Volume 2 of Abracadabra (in this same section).

What was the purpose of

I Saw Her Standing There [Edit Of Takes 2,3,5] ?

I don;t see any references to it officially - anyone know the story behind it's purpose?

thanks

steve

That is how it would have appeared had they decided to go with tk2 instead of tk1. 3 and 5 were edit pieces to correct mistakes in 2.

[Gringo557]

Finally got around to loading this up on my iPhone so I can listen to it on headphones and in the car. Great listen, beautiful mixes! Thank you for sharing!

[Lord Reith]

Finally got around to loading this up on my iPhone so I can listen to it on headphones and in the car. Great listen, beautiful mixes! Thank you for sharing!

Thankyou my good man.

[Lon Chaney III]

Beatlegdb, the gift that keeps on giving!

Thanks for this Lord Reith. Great stuff!!!

[v0les]

Here is a link in FLAC: https://bit.ly/3AIkias

Thank you very much!

[littlevillage]

Thank you Lord Reith for the wonderful gift.

I have only one question.
I Saw Her Standing There [tke 10] is missing?
It is included in MasterJedi's "great scott!"

cheers