Sgt. Pepper: "Crude" Eight-track recording?

[Rangtangtang]

Also, I wonder if they had one of those 1920's player piano, but I am sure they had a melotrone, that flute sound on strawberry feilds. Meletrone are tape you know.


thoughts

[munchkin]

The Beatles would've had the use of session musicians to play different parts. The same as other successful musicians at the time. While we might try to emulate a string section using a sampler the musicians in the 60's and 70's would hire in musicians.

The recording side of life was less advanced but the actual level of musicianship and the complexity of arrangement could be very high.

60's & 70's musicians might've used 4 track recording but they didn't hold back on using the best musical resources available to them at the time. They had plenty to choose from as well because session musicians were in abundance.

Even what might seem like a basic disco track of the seventies would use a string/brass section, a drummer & live percussion players, synths and keys, guitars & multiple vocal parts. Not so simple and easy to emulate effectively on computer.

I think it can be just as difficult to record live musicians as it can be to create music on computer. The options are endless in both situations. IMO the difference between the motivation of the Beatles and someone sitting at home in front of a computer isn't so much about access to technology but about having a skilled producer directing proceedings and having experienced engineers and musicians to help things along.

[wrench45us]

madmen musician in the studio didn't really hit the peak with the Beatles

early psychedelic era
Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead first efforts in the studio were rather insane.
they basically took over the studio completely
and the engineers bailed and waited

on Aoxamaoxa Garcia and Leash basically mixed live tapes and studio work for hours and hours of very expensive studio time based almost solely on the hallucinations a given mix would generate

perhaps another case proving that certain limits are beneficial to the creative process

[MickGael]

The Beatles would've had the use of session musicians to play different parts. The same as other successful musicians at the time. While we might try to emulate a string section using a sampler the musicians in the 60's and 70's would hire in musicians.

The recording side of life was less advanced but the actual level of musicianship and the complexity of arrangement could be very high.

60's & 70's musicians might've used 4 track recording but they didn't hold back on using the best musical resources available to them at the time. They had plenty to choose from as well because session musicians were in abundance.

Even what might seem like a basic disco track of the seventies would use a string/brass section, a drummer & live percussion players, synths and keys, guitars & multiple vocal parts. Not so simple and easy to emulate effectively on computer.

I think it can be just as difficult to record live musicians as it can be to create music on computer. The options are endless in both situations. IMO the difference between the motivation of the Beatles and someone sitting at home in front of a computer isn't so much about access to technology but about having a skilled producer directing proceedings and having experienced engineers and musicians to help things along.

Great post. In a word: "craft"

[rpc9943]

Edit: wrong topic sorry

[kritikon]

If you were to compare what Sinatra had to record with at Capitol with what the Beatles had during "Please Please Me", you might be shocked that they did so much with so little.

Absolutely, but I was responding to the posts regarding Sgt Pepper...by which time the Beatles were somewhat bigger than a certain chap in one of the Off Topic threads at the moment (at least according to John Lennon) . And which most certainly was produced with top of the range gear. Would you compare the quality of the recording of Please Please Me directly with Sgt Pepper? Please Please Me is a direct example that shows that song quality is far more important than production quality - because PPM wasn't stellar production. In fact it was pretty dodgy...but it's a memorable song.

I do agree with Dark Side of the Moon though...That was immaculately produced and engineered. First time I heard that, I was gobsmacked...even on crappy vinyl, it shines like a beacon. Can't remember the exact year it was released (?1971 or 72?), but from memory DSotM was using quite superior gear than what was available to the Beatles only a few years prior. Synthesisers were available, 8 tracks would have been far more common...it actually shows how such a short time can move very quickly in music technology.

[Rangtangtang]

Ive got the flute from strawberry feilds.

[duncanparsons]

FYI
The DSotM was released in 1973.

Ive got the flute from strawberry feilds.

I should imagine that's quite valuable now. Was it just lying in the grass...?

DSP

[Scot Solida]

If you were to compare what Sinatra had to record with at Capitol with what the Beatles had during "Please Please Me", you might be shocked that they did so much with so little.

Absolutely, but I was responding to the posts regarding Sgt Pepper...by which time the Beatles were somewhat bigger than a certain chap in one of the Off Topic threads at the moment (at least according to John Lennon) . And which most certainly was produced with top of the range gear. Would you compare the quality of the recording of Please Please Me directly with Sgt Pepper? Please Please Me is a direct example that shows that song quality is far more important than production quality - because PPM wasn't stellar production. In fact it was pretty dodgy...but it's a memorable song.

I do agree with Dark Side of the Moon though...That was immaculately produced and engineered. First time I heard that, I was gobsmacked...even on crappy vinyl, it shines like a beacon. Can't remember the exact year it was released (?1971 or 72?), but from memory DSotM was using quite superior gear than what was available to the Beatles only a few years prior. Synthesisers were available, 8 tracks would have been far more common...it actually shows how such a short time can move very quickly in music technology.

Gotcha. Yes, you are right, Pepper was much better gear (four tracks instead of three!), though Abbey Road/EMI's handling of such things might have compromised it a little (They suppsoedly took apart and rebuilt everything they got in at one point...why? I dunno. To learn, maybe. They also would send guys in lab coats down to supervise the poor fella who had to move the tape machine down thehall...). But the limiters, EQs and pres were still the old outboard things in many cases (most of which now fetch tens of thousands of dollars...a Fairchild goes for what? $25,000?).

The Dark Side of the Moon was a 16 track recording made on the very same TG board that the Beatles used for some of the White album and all of Abbey Road. This board was the first all-discrete board put into Abbey Road (1968. Up to that point, all the stuff was tube-based, and the TG stuff was the first major shift in recording technology for EMI). DSOTM, to me, the third pinnacle of recording excellence (the first being Van Gelder's work with Coltrane, the second being Sgt. Pepper). I still think that album sounds better than most anything that has come since. So much so that I spent a couple thousand bucks for a Chandler/EMI/Abbey Road TG2 pre-amp, even though much "better" technology is available.

As far as comapring Please Please Me and SGt. Pepper's, I think the biggest difference between them is in the engineering. The engineers responsible for each record had a different sound, and I think Pepper really represents the pinnacle of what might be achieved with that gear. One was recorded quickly and with the staid methods of the day, the second was at a time when the Beatles clout bought them far more time to experiment and perfect the tracks. They also had given up live gigs, so Sgt. Pepper was not constrained by what could be performed on tour. These, I feel, are the primary differences between the two records. Only the brilliant engineers and musicians involved on Pepper could have made such a difference out of what really amounted to one more track on the decks.

[Sascha Franck]

You folks should really read "summer of love" by George Martin.
Seems to be all true and even more...
There's stories of a large part of the London Symphonics waiting for hours, sometimes they would even return home without haveing played a single note... or techs being asked to "just bring us that second 4-track from the studio downstairs" - which was like the strictest no-no ever. And so on.

As kritikon allready said, they could just do about EVERYTHING. In case the 4-track was completely damaged - so what? They'd just buy Abbey Road 2 new ones instead.

And yes, munchkin is just right as well. "Oh, we *might* need a good piano player at some time. Let's call Nicky Hopkins and have him hang around for days, just in case...".

Apart from all that, George Martin was a genious at that time. Not only that he played quite some piano parts, no, it was him writing all the legendary orchestral scores (and conducting them as well).
Seriosuly, this dude REALLY deserves being called the 5th Beatle - a shame he's never got ANY compositional credits.

[liqih]

all true and more, but I love over all those
the dirty Rolling Stones albums of that time, <grin>

from Aftermath to Exile on Main Street,

each kind of music deserves the kind of production IMHO,

without all the colours and the Martin arrangements
the Stg Pepper songs are just tiny little nice pretty pop songs,

[nuffink]

without all the colours and the Martin arrangments
the Stg Pepper songs are just tiny little nice pretty pop songs

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. With a Little Help from My Friends
3. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
4. Getting Better
5. Fixing a Hole
6. She's Leaving Home
7. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!
8. Within You Without You
9. When I'm Sixty-Four
10. Lovely Rita
11. Good Morning Good Morning
12. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
13. Day in the Life

I think one or two of those songs might have stood the test of time if they had been produced by a stone deaf 3 year old.

[wrench45us]

l,
i just played the Stones 'Between the Buttons' CD over Xmas
what a wacky CD
like Mick got hold of a rhyming dictionary

but there are some truly wicked bass sounds on that album
a very odd off-center album effort for the Stones, but i really love that work.
'Aftermath' is really fairly dark and heavy for that era, but 'BtB' comes across as very light

must have been about the same time as 'Revolver'?
before Sgt P.

[MickGael]

Apart from all that, George Martin was a genious at that time. Not only that he played quite some piano parts, no, it was him writing all the legendary orchestral scores (and conducting them as well).

Seriosuly, this dude REALLY deserves being called the 5th Beatle - a shame he's never got ANY compositional credits.

Case in point: "Strawberry Fields Forever"

I would add Geoff Emerick as well.

[annode]

If it hasn`t been mentioned already in this thread,check out this link;
http://www.eaglevisionusa.com/html/music_d/music_d.html
I have a few of these dvd`s.
They`re excellent,and maybe rentable.
They go through the recording sessions of classic recordings by thre ppl that made them,and lots of background stuff too.