Re: EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER WANT TO KNOW ABOUT PJ's "GET BACK"
Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:26 pm
This is a great read. Thank you Lord Reith and Beatles4you!
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That's what I thought so I am a little confused. How many Nagra rolls have been bootlegged? I've only ever collected the compilations. Maybe there was a change in tactic after a certain point? The section about Peter Suttton suggests that the whole process was highly experimental. I like the bit about how they planned to turn the cameras towards Peter and get him to do the clapperboard at the start of each shot, but gave quickly up. No wonder it took PJ's guys a year to synch the film up to the sound. Imagine trying to synch all that audio to a much smaller amount of film with no indication of what goes where. Nightmare.Doug wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 1:31 pmThis suggests they were using the two recorders in tandem to avoid missing audio (which would make sense), but anyone who's listened to the Nagras knows that isn't true.Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:27 am - the Nagras didn't roll at the same time except for an overlap of about one minute, where Peter Sutton would start rolling the second machine a little bit before the first one ran out (except for one particular day when he recorded different things on each).
There's an explanation of that bit. Apparently Peter was experimenting with recording setups.BDJ wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 2:00 pmAnd there are also times when the 2 recorders both run but record different microphones.Doug wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 1:31 pmThis suggests they were using the two recorders in tandem to avoid missing audio (which would make sense), but anyone who's listened to the Nagras knows that isn't true.Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:27 am - the Nagras didn't roll at the same time except for an overlap of about one minute, where Peter Sutton would start rolling the second machine a little bit before the first one ran out (except for one particular day when he recorded different things on each).
Remember the talk about the 126 CD from Germany on BZ about 10 years ago? Beatles4Ever got it and tried to sync A and B rolls from that. He posted a sample which had lots of diginoise.
Yes. That's right.Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:26 pm Just to clarify the synch process as I have come to understand it (correct me if I'm wrong):
- the camera sent a beep to the audio channel of the Nagra when it started up, to indicate the position of the first film frame (however, there was no indication on the audio which piece of film it was). This was recorded on the audio track(?)
There's a sync pulse on the Nagra. That's why Apple needed the original tapes back, instead of using the bootlegs of them.Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:26 pm - as the camera rolled, it also sent a continuous synchronisation pulse to the other channel of the Nagra, to keep the two synchronised. This has bugged me for decades. Tape recorders don't keep synch without some sort of synchronisation pulse, and yet this is the first time I have ever heard it mentioned in relation to LIB.
They were mono recordings and, yes, of course the bootlegger ignored the sync track. I can't figure out why they would have experimented with different mike sources for the material recorded on the third - if they needed to intercut the audio recordings that would have made the material quite useless.Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:26 pm - Presumably when the bootleggers dubbed the Nagras, they just took one channel of the stereo and ignored the sych track.
I think the Nagra A rolls were more like the audio equivalent of a "master shot" - perhaps there only to pull audio from if they really needed to.Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:26 pm However, they talk about some audio not having a synchronisation pulse because the two Nagras operated in overlap mode while the two cameras each sent their synch pulse to a different Nagra. Now that I come to write this down, it seems completely mad. Surely the point of having two nagras was to have one for each camera? Why in heck would they devise a system to send a synch pulse to a recorder they knew would only be on half the time?