Requesting EMI Deltas

[Spaniard in da Works]

This makes me realise more than ever than the myth that the stereo mixes were more hastily done and the stereo wasn't given attention rests solely on the shoulders of one album.

ONE.

And that's A Hard Day's Night, which was mixed entirely in a single day and with some extra sloppiness which I attribute to Norman and Martin realising too late that mixing a four track to stereo was as involved as mixing to mono.

EDIT: And of course, most of the haste was simply because they had a fixed release date to tie the album in with the film. If it had been an standalone album maybe they would have simply delayed it for a week or so.

[slane]

Right, so what you're saying is, the Take 10-12 reel was in both formats, spliced for both final edits, and the (delta) mono got bootlegged. Being 'delta' in the sense that it was from the live dub, not so much the live recording session. That does make sense although it's weird that for example Recording The Beatles doesn't seem to mention that 'second' form of the delta mix.

By explanation of the other albums properties I agree it must have been simultaneously mixed. That must mean then that either the LP master reels was the direct result of that session, or the stereo reel went undocumented?

Pretty much.

Taking I Saw Her Standing There as an example:

Takes 1-9 (the basic takes) recorded to twin-track. Either they knew overdubs would follow, and so didn't bother running the mono machine alongside the T/T. Or perhaps they did run the mono too, but discarded/recorded over that tape when subsequent overdubs rendered it obsolete.

Takes 10-12 (overdub takes) recorded to T/T and mono simultaneously. Take 10 was a straight copy of the Take 9 T/T (suggesting the intro splice was already planned), Takes 11-12 were a copy of the Take 1 T/T with added live handclaps. Though the T/T was the playback source for the overdubs, the results went to both formats.

Ideally, the Take 12 overdub could have served as the final master(s). There was a stereo version of this, and also a (delta) mono version.

But George Martin elected instead to tweak it a few days later. Using the Take 12 T/T, the tape was copied into Take 13 (adding EQ and compression, and maybe a touch of rebalancing). Just as with tape-to-tape overdubs, it went to both formats simultaneously and gained a take number in the process.

Take 13 (in both stereo and delta mono) was now the new master. The only thing it needed was the count-in intro originally on Take 9.

Going by the (mono) bootleg, it seems that the intro to Take 10 (the copy of Take 9) was spliced onto the front of the mono version of Take 13. We don't have the T/T version of Take 10, but presumably that was spliced onto the front of the stereo version of Take 13.

Take 13 (stereo and mono versions, with intro splices) were the final masters.

Same procedure for the other (LP) songs. Though none of the others had the added complication of splicing, and some didn't need overdubs. Only Misery and Baby It's You received dedicated mono and stereo mixes for some reason (curiously the two songs that Martin overdubbed keyboards onto, though I don't know if that's significant).

The singles tracks (apart from Ask Me Why) used on the LP are another story, as is From Me To You/Thank You Girl.

There are still some questions - such as how were these dual format tapes stored? As two tapes? Or (as has been suggested) both mono and stereo portions archived on the same reel?

[slane]

This makes me realise more than ever than the myth that the stereo mixes were more hastily done and the stereo wasn't given attention rests solely on the shoulders of one album.

ONE.

And that's A Hard Day's Night, which was mixed entirely in a single day and with some extra sloppiness which I attribute to Norman and Martin realising too late that mixing a four track to stereo was as involved as mixing to mono.

EDIT: And of course, most of the haste was simply because they had a fixed release date to tie the album in with the film. If it had been an standalone album maybe they would have simply delayed it for a week or so.

I think the stereo mix of AHDN is ok, considering everything. Though most of the work on the stereo PPM and WTB albums was already done during the actual recordings, AHDN was no more rushed than those. And Martin and Smith had already made stereo mixes of I Want To Hold Your Hand and This Boy (as well as early stereo mixes of some AHDN tracks) from 4-track, so they had experience. I think they mixed the stereo AHDN in a day because... they could. For me, some of the stereo AHDN mixes came out better than the monos.

[Spaniard in da Works]

I think the stereo mix of AHDN is ok, considering everything. Though most of the work on the stereo PPM and WTB albums was already done during the actual recordings, AHDN was no more rushed than those. And Martin and Smith had already made stereo mixes of I Want To Hold Your Hand and This Boy (as well as early stereo mixes of some AHDN tracks) from 4-track, so they had experience. I think they mixed the stereo AHDN in a day because... they could. For me, some of the stereo AHDN mixes came out better than the monos.

To be fair, I like it a lot as well. The only goof I wish they had corrected was the If I Fell thing where they muted the wrong vocal track (it seems that they remembered they had to do it in the mono mix to hide Paul's bad note but did not check out the result afterwards). And maybe it is because it's the version I grew up with but I prefer the unfixed harmonica in I Should Have Known Better.

Beginning with Beatles For Sale, however, I found very few tracks where you could say the mono version is objectively better.

[slane]

To be fair, I like it a lot as well. The only goof I wish they had corrected was the If I Fell thing where they muted the wrong vocal track (it seems that they remembered they had to do it in the mono mix to hide Paul's bad note but did not check out the result afterwards). And maybe it is because it's the version I grew up with but I prefer the unfixed harmonica in I Should Have Known Better.

Beginning with Beatles For Sale, however, I found very few tracks where you could say the mono version is objectively better.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Paul messed up on both vocal tracks - on one his voice cracked on ' 'vain', on the other he came in too early with 'was in...'

The mono mix fixed that by using only the vocal track with the better 'was in...' before switching to the other vocal track for 'vain' (without the crack).

That's why the vocals are only single-tracked at this point. The stereo mix simply used the vocal track with the cracked 'vain' and muted the one with the early entry of 'was in...'

Not as good a fix as the mono, but not too bad. I don't really like the double-tracked intro vocals on the stereo mix though.

[Spaniard in da Works]

It's a bit more complicated than that. Paul messed up on both vocal tracks - on one his voice cracked on ' 'vain', on the other he came in too early with 'was in...'

The mono mix fixed that by using only the vocal track with the better 'was in...' before switching to the other vocal track for 'vain' (without the crack).

That Norman Smith had some quick fader fingers, hadn't he?
The bad 'was in' track has never booted, am I right? You really know your stuff!

I don't really like the double-tracked intro vocals on the stereo mix though.

Yup, that double tracking removes quite a bit of emotional power of what was supposed to be an early focal point of the song. If they ever get to do a new mix of AHDN for a deluxe set I expect that would be one of the first things they fix!

[slane]

That Norman Smith had some quick fader fingers, hadn't he?
The bad 'was in' track has never booted, am I right? You really know your stuff!


Yup, that double tracking removes quite a bit of emotional power of what was supposed to be an early focal point of the song. If they ever get to do a new mix of AHDN for a deluxe set I expect that would be one of the first things they fix!

It didn't need to be booted, it's on an official release!

Giles Martin's remix for the film inadvertently left the bad 'was in..' in the mix. He said he hadn't noticed...

[slane]

To answer the original question:

Does anybody know if there are bootlegs of EMI Delta reels of the Beatles. I'm sure I've read somewhere that EMI (knowingly or unwittingly) used the deltas for the Hits and Twist And Shout EPs.

More enlightenment on this topic would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks.

Kevin

The only bootlegged delta monos are these:

There's only the one for Misery, A Taste Of Honey, There's A Place, I Saw Her Standing There and Do You Want To Know A Secret. I don't believe they used any of the deltas but just made mono foldowns from the twintracks.

Oh they did use the count in for ISHST from the delta because it's missing from the tape.

But there are also some on official releases:

June 6th, 1962 - Besame Mucho and Love Me Do (on Anthology 1) are likely delta mono recordings. Lewisohn said in Tune In that the twin-track was supposed to be running alongside the mono but appeared not to have been used. Since we now know about the (twin-track) 'Geoff Emerick tape', the twin-track was indeed running. However, it was probably not referenced at all at the time (and subsequently scrapped but then retrieved by Emerick). The mono versions on A1 must surely be the delta mono mixes from the session (the edit on Besame Mucho notwithstanding, and LMD is from an acetate source).

September 4th, 1963 - How Do You Do It and Love Me Do from this session seem to have definitely been mono-only recordings, no twin-track running. In other words, the same process as delta mono (a live mono mix) but without the T/T element. Both songs received overdubs, which in this case must have been a mono-to-mono overdub.

September 11th, 1963 - PS I Love You, Please Please Me (early take), Love Me Do (LP version) - same as above, but no overdubs.

November 26th, 1962 - Please Please Me and Ask Me Why. Recorded to both formats. The latter is a definite delta mono mix on the single, notably different to the LP mix. Though delta mono was usually the exact same overall mix as that going to T/T, sometimes there were differences (see also From Me To You). In this case the reverb on the delta mono is lower than what was printed to T/T.

There's some uncertainty about PPM (lots of questions surround this), but I think it too is probably a delta mono mix. Or rather an edit of delta mono mixes (for the harmonica overdub parts).

February 11th, 1963 - as detailed above, most of the PPM album session was recorded to both formats, but only the session reel with overdub takes of ISHST, TAP, ATOH, DYWTKAS and basic takes of Misery has been bootlegged in its delta mono form.

As noted above though, the final 'mixes' of (most of) the LP songs were simultaneous stereo/delta mono copies of the T/T session tapes.

March 5th, 1963 - From Me To You, Thank You Girl, One After 909. This session was again recorded to both formats. After the tape-to-tape overdubs and various edit pieces, FMTY and TYG were edited together from their constituent parts using the delta mono tapes (for the mono masters) and the twin-tracks (for the eventual stereo versions). Unlike the LP sessions, 'there seems to have been no copying of the masters into a final 'mix'.

Whether by accident or design, the harmonica/vocal overdubs on FMTY were recorded to both tracks of the T/T. This proves that the mono has to be made from the delta monos (and this is what got me started on all this ), because you can't make the mono mix from the T/T. The harmonica will always be too loud (as it's across both tracks). Like AMW, this is an instance where the balance is different on the mono tape and the T/T.

The mono master of FMTY synchronised two tapes for the intro, the harmonica overdub and the vocal intro. This wasn't done on the T/T, which just stitched together the overdub takes and finished there. As Lewisohn noted when talking about the Collection Of Oldies album, the T/T edit went onto the album 'unmixed' (the same version had also appeared on the European Beatles Greatest).

Similar thing for TYG - the T/T edit just edited together two harmonica overdub takes. The delta mono edit was more complicated, using the undubbed tape for most of the song and only editing in some of the harmonica overdub takes.

Not sure about One After 909 (on Anthology 1). It was prepared for the Sessions album originally, and I would think that Geoff Emerick would have made some sort of narrow stereo version (like other Sessions mixes) if he'd had the T/T to work from.

[Tex]

When I rebuilt FMTY or TYG I noticed that one of the harmonica overdubs in the released version could not be matched to the session tape.

So it must have been physically cut from the session/SI tape and inserted into the master?

[slane]

When I rebuilt FMTY or TYG I noticed that one of the harmonica overdubs in the released version could not be matched to the session tape.

So it must have been physically cut from the session/SI tape and inserted into the master?

Not sure offhand.

But the transition to the edit piece at the end of TYG I recall being different on the mono and stereo. I think the stereo edits to the edit piece earlier, meaning the harmonica overdub on top of it is also different. I'll have to check though.