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Most of what you want can't be done.

The early stuff--and in terms of recording technology, it was nearly *all* early stuff--can't be remixed. (To which I would add, thank goodness!)

IIRC (I'm sure there are those who remember better than I) the earliest stuff was done on 2-track machines. All the instruments were recorded on one track and the vocals on another. The intention was never the ping-pong stereo they foisted on us over in America, but simply to mix these to mono. Apart from that there's no remixing that can be done.

By the time of Sgt. Pepper's they were using 4-track machines but their music had become so complicated they needed far more. So they "bounced" tracks--that is, they laid down some instruments (premixed) onto one track, then when adding more instruments they played back the first track, mixed it with the new instruments and recorded it on the next. And so on (and on and on with some songs). Thus, the drums for instance, which were usually laid down first, may have been bounced several times by the time the final mix was arrived at. Therefore, you cannot change the level of the drums, nor even give them eq or other processing. We are stuck with how they sound.

Again, IIRC, the Beatles never had more than 8 tracks at their disposal. Even with this they routinely bounced tracks. You'll note that the writer's fuss about the remixes was all about the latest albums--there was nothing you could do with the early ones, but on the later ones (depending on the track strategy they employed on a given song) some remixing was apparently possible, and done.

I'd rather they didn't, for reasons cited previously. Though I'd be glad of a nice remastering job.


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  • Most of what you want can't be done. - markrohr 12:29:39 11/07/06 (0)


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