fairportfan
fairportfan
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Ladies and Gentlemen - the next President of the United States...

Posted over 3 years ago

Sadly, this version has been mutilated (and it's the official CD version, at that); there used to be a spoken-word intro and then it began:
the time had come in '68to elect a president...

The clumsy way that they just snipped two words out of the first line is jarring.
But
some wear the sign of the elephantsome wear the sign of the mulebut we'll hold the sign of the beagle highand love will shine right through...
Call me a sentimentalist; call me a romantic...
But somehow the thought that it might be ... that if *could* be ... that it *ought to* be ... gives me tears in my eyes whenever i hear this song...
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Comments (11)

  1. fairportfan
    fairportfan says Incidentally, the beginning of this song is a classic example of mid-60s stereo mixing techniques - notice that it begins wih tthe instruments almost completely in the left speaker, and then brings in the vocals almost completely to the right... At the time, the mono mix was still the money mix; most studios had a box with a good quality 6x9 auto speaker in it that the producer could plug in to hear what the mix was going to sound like in mono in a car... The stereo mix was pretty much secondary, and was often handed off to s senior engineer rather than being supervised directly by the producer.
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  2. Spike
    Spike says It's interesting to learn about early stereo. Sometimes I wish there were more separation in the mixes since then.
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  3. fairportfan
    fairportfan says If you listen to early Beatles albums on CD - the ones there wa sa huge controversy over when they were originally released on CD in mono - you will realise that they *aren't* stereo - that is, simulating an auditory soundstage. in fact, those albums were supposed to be only mono from the beginning, and were recorded on primitive multi-track equipment (two or three tracks, maximum) mainly to enable martin to EQ the vocals and instruments separately. When label execs demanded stereo mixes, these were mixed to make "stereo" recordings by putting the instruments mainly in one channel and the vocals all mainly in the other. If you really listen to them and think about it, you have to figure that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison had Awfully Long Arms, since their instruments are apparenly all on the left side of the stage and they're apparantly on the right side... The Kinks fared even worse - along with a lot of other albums of the day, their tracks were reprocessed to "simulate" stereo. This often consisted of boosting the bass in one channel and the treble in the other and then adding a tape-delay reverb between the channels. (I remember searching for a couple of years in the mid-70s before a friend who worked in a used-record store fianlly found me a copy of *A Whiter Shade of Pale* in mono; all the others i could find were in fake stereo; there is no true stereo version of that album.) More recently, there are digital techniques that can recreate the original setup from mono recordings; some can even pull out sounds that the recording equipment used wasn't capable of reproducing.
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  4. Spike
    Spike says I was thinking of the Beatles' first US LP when you mentioned early stereo. Long ago I remember listening to it next to the speaker in my room that had McCartney's bass coming out of it and heard him play a wrong note. One of these days I'm going to have to find that note again. Listen to the split stereo in this beautiful early Guess Who track, "It's Just a Matter of Time." ~RkMEoMgtraZ.mp3~
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  5. fairportfan
    fairportfan says Two of the evillest stereo tricks i've ever heard assume that someone, sooner or later, will be listening with headphones on. ~jL15ZQ1GpDm.mp3~
    This is the last minute of *Steeleye Span*'s The Weaver and the Factory Maid from the Parcel of Rogues album. (Which, incidentally, takes its title from Robert Burns...)
    The very first time i heard this was on FM radio, with headphones. And All! Those!! Voices!!! were inside my head!
    I had a chance, a few years back, to ask *Maddy Prior* how many vocal tracks they piled up; she couldn't recall.
    ~0Slit7pGWQP.mp3~
    The Ramones, Journey to the Center of the Mind. Note the mono guitar bridge in the middle of the stereo main song. Suddenly Johnny's guitar is Right In the Center Of Your Mind!
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  6. Mike the Knife
    Mike the Knife says Spacy! (Snoopy as chief executive? Well, we have a poorly trained pet in the White House right now. We'd probably be better off with one that can think for itself. And remember that the beagle was a war hero, not an AWOL slacker.)
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  7. redtunictroll
    redtunictroll says The stereo mixes of the Beatles first four UK albums are still only officially available on vinyl (though you can find bootleg CDs that have been very finely remastered from LP). The stereo versions of the U.S. albums can be found in the two volumes of The Capitol Albums. Even after decades of listening to UK vinyl and the first round of CD reissues, the Capitol Albums CDs jarred me instantly back to the song orders and mixes that originally introduced me to the Beatles. Say what you want about Capitol's butchering of the original albums, they are the sense memory for millions of American Beatles fans. You can read more than you ever wanted to know about the Capitol albums here.
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  8. fairportfan
    fairportfan says As i say, there's not a true stereo version of at least the first two. OTOH, i have Disk 1 of the original UK CD version of *Hot Rocks*, which was mastered from the wrong tapes. (About 1987 or '88, i think...) It has four tracks which are stereo, even though they're labeled as mono on the disk itself. Klein raised hell and the UK version now has the mono tracks...
    Permalink posted 05/24/2008
  9. MoreMoose
    MoreMoose says Yeah, I remember fooling around with my best friend's stereo in '66 or so; we were listening to Day Tripper with the balance turned all the way to one side, and the vocals were completely missing on the first verse!
    Permalink posted 05/25/2008
  10. fairportfan
    fairportfan says Sometimes there's a reason for that sort of thing. Not in that case, i don't think.
    Permalink posted 05/25/2008
  11. indiepixie
    indiepixie says ur hilarious. i miss snoopy. brilliant idea for art.
    Permalink posted 05/25/2008

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