THE DECCA DILEMMA (re-up)

[Ziggy C]

LR, I have been scouring the database trying to find your thread which consolidates all of what you've done so far into one main page. I'm going bonkers and cannot find it. Would you kindly post the link to that topic, please?

Thanks,
Z

[Lord Reith]

LR, I have been scouring the database trying to find your thread which consolidates all of what you've done so far into one main page. I'm going bonkers and cannot find it. Would you kindly post the link to that topic, please?

Thanks,
Z

viewtopic.php?t=1962

[rhino]

Thanks for another great listening experience Lord Reith!

[fvallejt]

thanks very much !!

[innergroove]

These sound really great. So many hidden details revealed. And the tracks have at last got some "body" to them. Wonderful.

[Lord Reith]

Thanks guys, glad you enjoyed them.

[dmh84]

Ah, love 'em!!
These have always been special, but now they're even more special--appreciate the work very much--and on my birthday, too!

[georgefromhenley]

Thanks guys, I'm glad I finished it off too. Listening to Three Cool Cats I think I like it a bit better now. Before it kind of sounded like George was bellowing into a garbage bin and that was what really put me off. The reverb certainly did nothing to improve their sound. One wonders what the guys behind the faders were thinking.

One thing still bugs me, and that is the nearly inaudible bass guitar on Besame Much, Crying Waiting Hoping, Love Of The Loved and Sheihk Of Araby. I hope to retrieve this using the same methodology I employed on the vocals on Stowe. But it will be a lot of work... don't expect it anytime soon! I also found that I was able to isolate John and George's backing vocals on Love Of the Loved enough to be able to hear what they are actually singing... hopefully these can also be retrieved in the not too distant future.

Thank you! This is so exciting, I had heard a new Beatles record was coming out that used modern technology to improve an old recording, and now I have it in my virtual hands. So am I right that Paul and Pete just overdubbed their parts this year? Thank you, Peter Jackson!

Ha ha! Yes, at the session there were fans outside shouting "Pete Best forever, Ringo never!"

Actually I hope you wont change this with additional bass from the BBC. Stowe was ok because it was "just" an anknown live recording. But Decca was studio and it is as it was.
Please leave it as such.
In my personal opinion I just would have one or the other song with louder backing track - but thats just taste.

[Guru-Deva]

Thanks for your work Lord Reith.

This version certainly has improved clarity. It's nice to be able to hear what notes Paul is playing on the bass (on most songs), rather than a rhythm-less low-end mush.
The vocals come across better as well.

Unfortunately Pete's playing still spoils every track for me.
He really is irredeemably lousy isn't he?
I'm a drummer myself and have spent many years trying to play with that swing and verve that Ringo plays with. Over the years, I've found the Decca session (or audition or test or whatever) increasingly difficult to listen to and it's down to Pete.
I know the boys aren't on best form, but it's Pete that is by far the worst.

Nothing he plays seems suited to the feel of the songs, he doesn't drive the band when it's supposed to be an exciting moment and he's jarring in the quieter parts.
Ringo is a wonderfully idiosyncratic player and effortlessly inventive with rock-solid timing.

Pete is equally idiosyncratic, but just in an awful way. I haven't heard another drummer play rolls between the snare and the hi-hat as Pete seems to.
He seems to be scared of playing the snare on the off-beat more than a couple of times in a row, instead chucking in loads of out-of-place snare hits that break up the flow even more than his rubbishy timing does, and I feel like I want to scream every time he plays that 'fill' of sixteen snare hits over half a bar that he seems to think belongs throughout every song ever written.

Just listen to the difference between Till There Was you with Pete and any version with Ringo. Rings is doing a swinging latin-influenced thing with the toms and Pete is just 1-2-3-4 all the way through, because that's all he could do.

And you're right Reithy when you say his hi-hat and cymbals sound cheap and nasty.

I honestly don't know how he survived as their drummer for as long as he did.

Because Pete is SO distractingly awful throughout the Decca tape, I have often wondered what it would sound like without him and with the timing massaged a bit to remove the worst of the speeding and slowing issues.
You could maybe leave a little bit of kick drum in, but remove the rest.

I think if Pete's drums were excised from the recording and the timing tightened a little, it would definitely be more enjoyable for me.
I know tightening the timing is altering the recorded performance, but the timing would have been better if it was a drummer-less show. Paul has great timing and would have been able to keep things solid without Pete dragging it down.

Does the technology allow a clean removal of Pete's noise yet?

Anyone fancy making a Japage 3 version of the Decca stuff?

[Gummo]

Guru-Deva, agree 100% about Pete Best's drumming! He speeds up, he slows down, he pitter-patters when he should be bangin' and is just plain not very good.

I remember either Paul or John once said that drummers were a rare commodity in Liverpool, so they were glad just to finally have someone who stuck around.

But I like that these tracks still have all the music that was on that tape, just cleaned & separated and with the added presence modern tech can provide. If the music itself is flawed, then that's what I want to hear.

Anyone else?