The Beatles "Hello Goodbye" Isolated Bass And Drums

It's always good to get a Beatles fix and here's a great one with the isolated bass and drums from "Hello, Goodbye" off of the band's Magical Mystery Tour album. This one's a lot of fun to listen to because you just hear the stripped down rhythm section (except for the leakage), spread with the drums to the left and the bass to right, without any of the many overdubs on the song. Here's what to listen for:

1. The drums are extremely compressed and distorted. The various Beatle engineers used to use a Fairchild 660 on the drums, but on this song it was really cranked.

2. Take notice that Ringo actually doesn't play a lot in the song except for the kick drum, as the motion is mostly carried by a shaker. Despite that, this song is a perfect illustration of his excellent time and showcases his very unique tom fills.

3. The bass is pretty spot on and ever so slightly ahead of the beat. By this time, Sir Paul was overdubbing his bass towards the end of the production so he could better tailor the part to fit the song. This is a perfect illustration of that technique.

4. Listen to the bass part on the outro after about the 3:00 mark. This is something that I hadn't heard on the record before.

5. It's interesting to hear the piano, organ and percussion leakage on the left and the vocal on the right.

This video will no doubt be taken down soon, so enjoy it while you can.

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Ken Scott On The Jeff Beck Group

It's time for the first excerpt from Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, the upcoming autobiography by legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott, co-written by yours truly. This excerpt, which comes from a chapter about the other EMI artists he worked with besides The Beatles, is about Ken working with a more or less unknown Jeff Beck Group.

You can read more about the book as well as a chapter summary at AbbeytoZiggy.com.

By the way, if you're in Los Angeles, you can hear a lot more stories from Ken as he'll be giving one of his great presentations at Musicians Institute at 7Pm this Tuesday the 20th. It's free and all are welcome, but please RSVP on the event website.
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"Not too long after Magical Mystery Tour, I was assigned to do the first Jeff Beck Group album Truth, which featured soon to be superstars Rod Stewart on vocals and soon to be Faces and Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood on bass. They weren’t known at that point, but there was a great atmosphere and everything went rather smoothly, taking only about a week and a half, since most of it was recorded live. 

I was blown away by Jeff, of course, and the majority of Rod Stewart’s vocals were live and ended up on the master. He liked to use a hand-held mic so we accommodated him by wrapping a KM-54 with a lot of sponge to reduce the handling noise. The song “Morning Dew” also marked the first time I ever recorded bagpipes. I had no idea how to mic them up and I still can’t remember how I did it. I think I just listened around until I found were the sound came out and put the mic there.

During the first session when we were getting drum sounds, I remember thinking how good they sounded, only to discover after the fact that the drum mics had been moved from my standard positioning. And not just a little either. Someone moved the snare mic so that it was aiming at the shell instead of the head, which I never would have done. I have no idea if the mics were moved purposely or not, although I think they probably were since everything was placed a little too perfectly for it to be an accident. I left them placed where they were. It sounded fine, so why change a good thing?

Truth was supposedly produced by Mickie Most, who had previously produced hits for The Animals, Donovan, Herman’s Hermits and Suzi Quatro, but in this case he only came along for the mixes. The person that was there for most of the recording was one Peter Grant, who was Mickie’s assistant at the time. Peter later went on to become the high-powered manager of Led Zeppelin, but he didn’t have much to say in the producer’s role as he was there mostly to just look after the band. Many critics have gone on to say that the sound of Led Zeppelin was mainly derived from that particular Jeff Beck album, but it’s debatable whether Peter actually had anything to do with it."

You can preorder the book at AbbeytoZiggy.com.

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Digitally Remastered Beatles Catalog To Be Released

The digitally remastered Beatles catalog will be released on 09/09/09 in conjunction with the Beatles Rock Band game.

For Beatles fans this is pretty exciting since there hasn't been a technically up to date release of their work ever (at least after the original releases). And it's the entire catalog too - all 12 albums including the complete British release of Magical Mystery Tour as well as Past Masters Volumes I and II. Each CD will also have a short documentary about how it was made, as well as additional rare photos, expanded booklets and liner notes. The albums will be available individually or in a box set.

Perhaps what's most exciting about the remastering is that there's also an additional CD box set, The Beatles In Mono, containing all of the Beatles singles originally mixed in mono. For those who've heard the difference between the stereo and mono mixes, the mono mixes were always considered to be superior. Certainly the band's inner circle always thought so.

I'm always a little leery when I hear about new mixes or mastering of classic music since I've heard plenty of them that destroyed the original feel of the records we loved. Certainly the classic Who's Next remix was a total disappointment. I listened to the remixed/remastered version once and could never listen again. All the power of Glyn John's original mix was gone.

But there's some comfort in the fact that Apple Corp. has been working on this for 4 years, since they're known for their careful oversight and protection of the Beatles legacy. The fact that it was done at Abbey Road also gives you a warm feeling inside.

So let's all go buy the product yet once again. I'm pretty sure it will be worth it.