SEVENTEEN (+ EP#1 & 2 + single)

[Lord Reith]

Thankyou very much guys. And it's kind of a nice coincidence that The Beatles themselves are wishing us Merry Christmas on the tape too. It's a shame we're one year off the 60th anniversary, but better late than never!

I did wonder at various points whether I was just kidding myself and this didn't really sound any better than previous efforts. I did listen to them all and compare. In the end I almost didn't hit the "post" button and was going to just put it aside, by thought what the hell. So I'm very relieved to hear that people like it. The bulk of the work was in evening out the vocals so that they are at a (more or less) constant level, because in all the other versions they go up and down "like the bleedin' Assyrian Empire". Also I "shrank" the size of the club by mixing out the most distant reflections which were muddying the sound. In the end I think that went a long way to making it more listenable. It's amazing to me still that things like this are now possible.
Heavens knows what Peter J. and his red hot sound guys will be able to achieve with the original reel... I wait in breathless anticipation.

Thanks LR! Should I delete the other previous versions of Star Club tapes?

Well until I do the whole tape, no.

Thanks! It's great how technology keeps on getting better and better. Who knows what the next few years will bring?!

I got a glimpse of that when I was isolating the chat between songs. I tried a "speech" algorithm and, wow, it suddenly sounded like Paul was speaking right there next to me. Unfortunately it is too patchy right now to use and doesn't work on singing but it did give me a premonition of what might one day be possible. Peter J. was talking in that podcast about hypothetically removing all the club ambience and making it sound like a soundboard. That is still in the future but if anyone can do it I think his guys can. Of course, you'd then face the challenge of retaining the clubish power and ferocity of the audience tape. But who knows... we shall see.

My only disappointment is that we didn't get upgrades to three of the songs that were unique to the Star-Club ~ Little Queenie, I Remember You and Road Runner.

Hopefully, time permitting you'll be able to do these in the future.

Queenie I had problems with or I would have included it. The other two are okay, they just didn't fit in due to their fragmentary nature. Later on I'll do another disc with the rest of the songs.

This is a great companion to Rockin' Roxburgh.

I listened to Stowe again and it is interesting to compare it, being so soon after the Star Club. The main difference for me is that the Vox amplifiers give a totally different and more Beatle-y sound (although I guess from the perspective of the original fans, Vox was a relatively late addition to The Beatles sound). I only begun noticing when I was demixing this set that there is something wrong with George's Fender amp. This also reminded me of a quote from Cliff Bennett in the RC article where he said he preferred to use the backstage practice amp because the stage amps were not in good condition through overuse. It sounds like either the speaker cone is slightly damaged or one of the valves is overheating, but George's guitar has a kind of buzzy, slightly distorted sound which is extremely atypical for 1962. Fender amps were then renowned for their very clean sound. As it turned out, this actually makes his guitar sound rather ahead of it's time and more like the kind of guitar sound bands started getting around 1965-66. But from his perspective, he was probably not happy about this in 1962. It may even have had something to do with his hatred of the tape, if it triggered a forgotten memory of having to put up with damaged equipment. Funnily enough John's guitar amp seems fine. It would be just like John to say, "Right, you can have the shitty one, George!"

Nice to hear the in between song banter so loud and clear too.

One thing I missed on the lyrics transcript that I noticed just now: after Paul sings "I know no kiss could bring to mind a taste of honey" John sings "A waste of money!" I think I read about that somewhere once but it's the first time I have ever noticed it.

[DaVa-67]

Amazing Sir!
I've never given this much attention as the audio quality always put me off.
I could never quite understand why some Beatles fans where hoping for a Jackson remix.
Now that I've heard this version, I have been converted! The clouds have evaporated before my ears!
Thank You.

[Rusty]

Later on I'll do another disc with the rest of the songs.

Whoopee, that'll be great. Thank you.

[Lord Reith]

This is a rough edged stage act. So much so that, even if Peter Jackson could make it sound like it was recorded today on modern equipment, any released version would have to be edited. Shitty. Sig Heil. Negroes. This is a rough edged act in the days when people took things like that with a shrug. I'm not arguing for any era over another, just saying that this recording from 1962 could not be released as is in 2024 without causing problems for the beloved Beatles brand.

Yeah, the big obstacle is that while to audiences of 1960-62 this was The Beatles that they knew, in 2024 it will sound alien to even the baby boomers. It hasn't been on the market for 30 years and even back then was not widely known. The swearing etc is not so much a problem in my view as the almost total lack of hit songs. Only really I Saw Her Standing There and a handfull of the covers would be familiar to people.

Fingers crossed though. Who'd have thought we'd have like six hours of new Get Back stuff? Not me. Miracles are possible.

[zaval80]

There was no way I'd wait till Christmas with this in hands what you did to those tapes is phenomenal. It's as if they are to carry your personal fingerprint from now on, even in the case of PJ succeeding with making a MAL version available. My heart naturally bleeds from the knowledge that many deserving tapes from many other deserving bands which would gain much from the similar approach are destined to be left in their current sorry state just because a Lord Reith is needed for those tasks and not somebody else.

On the overall, the sound is fabulous. It's understood, though, that certain songs or certain portions of songs may differ in quality. IMO the whole set of Hamburg tapes is asking for this treatment; if some songs are not to this standard, it's not a problem. But, I'd suggest you had another listen, probably there are some spots on this almost spotless release which would gain from further fine-tuning. Like, track 14, "I'm Gonna...". At 2'09", there is a sharp injection of hiss in right channel, decreasing but still noticeable for several seconds. Hopefully you could fix this with some hiss reduction. (Also, a couple of moments in some track within TR 09 to 13, don't remember now, will have another listen tomorrow - not hiss, but probably the remnants of something not deleted by your algorithms.)

[zaval80]

Yeah, the big obstacle is that while to audiences of 1960-62 this was The Beatles that they knew, in 2024 it will sound alien to even the baby boomers. It hasn't been on the market for 30 years and even back then was not widely known. The swearing etc is not so much a problem in my view as the almost total lack of hit songs. Only really I Saw Her Standing There and a handfull of the covers would be familiar to people.

It depends on whether the people in their organization are able to recognize the worth of the legend. The stuff is outright legendary, but folks who realize this had to make do with the (meager) knowledge offered by the "Authorised Biography" back at their time.

[Lord Reith]

On the overall, the sound is fabulous. It's understood, though, that certain songs or certain portions of songs may differ in quality. IMO the whole set of Hamburg tapes is asking for this treatment; if some songs are not to this standard, it's not a problem. But, I'd suggest you had another listen, probably there are some spots on this almost spotless release which would gain from further fine-tuning. Like, track 14, "I'm Gonna...". At 2'09", there is a sharp injection of hiss in right channel, decreasing but still noticeable for several seconds. Hopefully you could fix this with some hiss reduction. (Also, a couple of moments in some track within TR 09 to 13, don't remember now, will have another listen tomorrow - not hiss, but probably the remnants of something not deleted by your algorithms.)

The thing with that song is I had to use the Lingasong version as a source, which is just horrible quality. Other spurious noises are from the vocal tracks, because the more distant and nebulous the vocal the more dirty it is when isolated. The most frustrating thing is that the two songs with loud, strong vocals are not even sung by The Beatles but by the Faschers! But when J,P & G sang they frequently leaned off mike or turned their head away from the microphone to look at their fingering. I spent endless hours putting back the lost syllables at the ends of words where they turned away in the middle of a lyric. So there you might get some artefacts because the second half of the word might be boosted by 9db or something. But in the end that is better than... silence!

EDIT: I see you are actually talking about the end of track 14. I don't hear any noise in the right channel! The file is mono so it must be some sort of glitch in your own copy?

[jamesbond]

Who is playing the organ on "Red Hot"

[zaval80]

So there you might get some artefacts because the second half of the word might be boosted by 9db or something. But in the end that is better than... silence!

But, but...could you do some hiss reduction just on those seconds, and just in right channel? the result, whatever it'll be, surely won't be closer to silence I've mentioned that some portions of some songs don't sound as good as some others, so IMO it'll still be better than this current injection / intrusion of hiss, which is pretty much one spoiling moment for the whole fine release.

[Lord Reith]

But, but...could you do some hiss reduction just on those seconds, and just in right channel? the result, whatever it'll be, surely won't be closer to silence I've mentioned that some portions of some songs don't sound as good as some others, so IMO it'll still be better than this current injection / intrusion of hiss.

No, see my edited post above. I just checked the zip file I uploaded and there's no noise at 2'09" The fact you are hearing it in only one channel means there must be some kind of glitch in your file or player. Give me a second and I'll upload just that one song for you.