Red & Blue Albums

[maul]

At the risk of further diverting the conversation, I think the whole story about This Boy being remixed into stereo for Oldies seems bunk. It seems like early on they were labeling mixes after their take number (since they were only making one/maybe two remixes per track still), and you can hear the announcer almost say RM15 instead of RS15. I think the Barrett tape for This Boy (and thus the released mix everywhere else) is actually a mix they made in 1963 along with RS17 of I Want To Hold Your Hand-- they both have sided vocals, after all.

I agree, I think that the standard remix is 1963 RS15.
Unused/lost for a long time, it was released only in few countries in '70's but generally it remained 'lost' until Past Masters (In Love Songs and Rarities EP Fake Stereo version were used in place)

[Track06]

When matched and aligned very accurately, the sync between different transfers should be jumping as opposed to drift if there are slightly different splices (no matter done physically or digitally), so you would have to cut or insert a few samples to keep them aligned before and after the edit. Also, adaptive azimuth alignment would get into trouble and more signal would be left at the edits compared to between the edits after oopsing. I guess pytapesynch could reveal this to, but it's been a long time since I was able to run it.
EDIT: I mentioned the wrong csnyfan tool.

[Lord Reith]

You can tell the stereo mix of This Boy is from the same day as IWHYH in 1963 because they are mixed the same way: the rythm section is on the left, the vocals and overdubs are on the right, and George's guitar (very unusually) is in the centre.

If it had been remixed in 1966 it would have had centred vocals like the 1966 Hand mix.

[Lord Reith]

As a followup to my analysis of Nowhere Man, I have also done an analysis of She Loves You.

First let me say that I think the whole thing about whether they used a 45 or not is a big non-issue. If they used a 45 they must have had good reason and they haven't actually denied it or confirmed it either way. This post is just intended to answer some questions about the various versions of She Loves You.

Fortunately, we know exactly where the splices were made in She Loves You in 1963 because the tape was transferred for the Heineken cassette using a stereo machine, and you can plainly hear and see all the edits as they come up because the splices were on an angle and so produce a distortion in the stereo field at those points. So that we know.

So the question is: did these splices break at some point and is that what went wrong with Past Masters in 1988? The splices were obviously always there but it wasn't until that point that several of them became startlingly obvious. I theorised the other day that the splices broke as it was being transferred in 1988, were re-cemented but were not done quite right. Track06 pointed out that if this were the case then the sound should go out of synch with an original single needle drop at those points... simply because it is not possible to repeat a splice with microscopic precision.

So that is what I did first: synch up the single from 1963 with the Past masters version from 1988 and see what we see. And lo and behold, while most of the splices seem unnaffected (and must therefore have remained intact) two of them throw the whole synch out:

single-past masters.jpg (207.84 KiB) Viewed 1076 times

The above picture shows that there were very tiny shifts made in the audio at the point where it goes into the first "oooo" before the chorus and just before it goes into "pride can hurt you too", which I'm saying were caused by recemented splices. But otherwise the sound of both the 1963 and 1988 versions (after some overall speed matching) remains totally in synch with no phasing.

Then I compared the 1963 version to mono foldown of the 2023 version. The first thing I noticed is that the sound phases in a 1.3 second cycle when the two are played together. 1.3hz is equal to 45 revolutions per minute... so we are talking about a slightly off-centre 45rpm record here. To further support this, there is no de-synch at 1m 02sec because there is no 1988 repaired splice present at that point. If they had used the tape (which has had a splice re-cemented at 1'02) then it would go out of synch. But it doesn't.

They also seem to have done two other things which I noticed when i first heard it: at 1'23" the section lasting until 1'31" has been very slightly sped up because that section seems to have been from a take with a slightly slower tempo. This also makes the transition less noticeable (a good change in my opinion). And then at 1'23" there was originally a slight lag in the sound at the splice point, and they have fixed this by cutting 779 samples (also good in my opinion):

single-2023.jpg (203.93 KiB) Viewed 1076 times

So there you go. It isn't exactly a crime to use a disc as a source, and I've shown the probable reason why they did it: because the splices on the tape are falling apart. Going back to a single was a way of bypassing the whole issue of faulty and recemented splices. And MAL probably liked working with that better. The off-centre wow is a bit of a drag, but it is pretty hard to hear. I am extremely sensitive to pitch wobbles and I can only just hear it.

So there you go. Hope you found it enlightening.

[Track06]

Thanks for the analysis. I'm not simply clicking the 'thanks' button because I read on another minor music forum your has/been thanked ratio is already a red flag, and I think the splices falling apart is nowhere near a good reason to use a source that's worse than any of the easily available existing transfers that could have been edited digitally to mimick the 1963 condition of the tape. It brings some excitement for the socks and sandals brigade however, but after the discovery of the canadian CD masters we regularly end up with some negative surprise unfortunately. None of that had a good reason and the only thing ever admitted, explained or fixed were the Capitol CD folddowns IIRC. Bringing up such issues may seem unthankful or nitpicking, when instead it just shows how much we care.

[20YearsAgo]

I liked your measured, studied analysis of SLY. Elsewhere, people are firing broadsides at Giles & Co for messing EVERYTHNG up, but here you've explained (For SLY, anyways) that they might not have had better options. Thank you.

[BDJ]

Just trying to understand; how do you get from a 1.3 Hz wobble to 45 rpm?

[Kwai Chang]

Thanks for the analysis. I'm not simply clicking the 'thanks' button because I read on another minor music forum your has/been thanked ratio is already a red flag, and I think the splices falling apart is nowhere near a good reason to use a source that's worse than any of the easily available existing transfers that could have been edited digitally to mimick the 1963 condition of the tape. It brings some excitement for the socks and sandals brigade however, but after the discovery of the canadian CD masters we regularly end up with some negative surprise unfortunately. None of that had a good reason and the only thing ever admitted, explained or fixed were the Capitol CD folddowns IIRC. Bringing up such issues may seem unthankful or nitpicking, when instead it just shows how much we care.

I thought that was just a very stuffed-turkey he was sending to Giles for Thanksgiving w/ extra cranberry sauce!
Sugar-plum red-flag...sugar-plum red-flag! I also see the precautionary considerations to be of obvious brevity despite the trivial properties of tape splicing science. BUT, that was a fascinating response to a fascinating explanation that will guarantee the NON-trivial appreciation of the man(Lord Reith) up at atmos headquarters, Westminster! That was more than I ever cared about She Loves You, but, it's the absolute sublime song to exact a few points re: ADVANTAGES. Your reply was the perfect way to emphasize the Slapping of the face by the hands of Time!
Thank you, Sir!
Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!
KC

[Track06]

45 rotations per minute means one rotation takes 60/45 (~1.3) seconds, that beeing 45/60(0.75)Hz. You don't end up with a signal at that frequency, but you will alternatingly end up with the groove passing the stylus too quick/too slow resulting in all frequencies modulating at that rate by an amount determined by how much off center the record is (both 0, ideally).

[csnyfan]

Hadn't bothered looking yet, but oh boy that is significantly off center. And a poor rip, too. Pure noise, no signal over 12kHz.
A total headscratcher.

Curiously, the rear L channel has the guitar isolation without the cyclic wow?! Really really strange.

Anyone have the transfer of SLY from a stereo machine?