Talk:Wonderwall Music

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Replacing cited quotations with uncited non-quotations

A statement published on a CD liner was removed. That was Derek Taylor, the Beatles' press officer, quoting George Harrison. It was replaced by an uncited statement that contradicts it:

"the Indian portions were recorded live to two-track stereo"

George Harrison specifically is quoted as saying the Indians used a "big EMI mono machine". Zephyrad, your change needs a justification. If you have a better source, what is it?

Also, the statement that (also a quote from George Harrison) that they'd "get spoiled working on eight and sixteen tracks" is more specific than the other (uncited) statement which you replaced it with, which is only that a multitrack machine was used.

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 23:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

While the tracks recorded in England were made on multitrack recording machines and remixed, the Indian portions were recorded live to two-track stereo.

[edit] Reply

The cited statement is incorrect. The fact that the Indian tracks appear in stereo (just play the disc) contradicts Harrison's statement that EMI Bombay had only "a mono machine". (mono = one track; stereo = two tracks) Can't cite this as O.R. and I am looking for a citable source. In the meantime, do you want to insist on keeping a wrong "fact", just because it has a cite, or an inaccurate quote likewise?

Also, sources like The Beatles Recording Sessions make it clear that the Beatles were not working with "eight or sixteen tracks" at the time of the Wonderwall sessions. (They only began to record on eight tracks later in 1968.) Beatles interview recollections such as this are sometimes a notch off on details (misremembered dates, locations, gear); again, can't cite this, but it's a factor one must sometimes deal with. Zephyrad (talk) 00:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, good, so two things. It hadn't occurred to me that The Beatles Recording Sessions would have Wonderwall info, but in fact it says specifically "The sessions in Bombay, recorded on quarter-inch two-track mono and stereo tapes". (p. 132) The reliability of that reference seems better than a secondhand quote, but it might be worth qualifying it by noting that Harrison has been quoted in print differently. Since it is possible to record mono on stereo tape recorders, there's still the open question of whether anything in Bombay was recorded stereo. (There was a lot of remixing to make mono sound like stereo going on with the Beatles at that time.)

Harrison's quote about "eight and sixteen tracks" is a different problem. As you say, a four track machine was definitely being used on Wonderwall at EMI (p. 133, from above), so what Harrison may have been talking about is that there were effectively eight to sixteen tracks...including overdubs, mixdowns. So the nub of his statement, the "import", might be that the Indian sessions were being largely recorded live, and not so much piecemeal.

So, how about working the quoted sources together? Pointing out just exactly the kind of discrepancies we've been noting, here.

When I first got to Wiki I was tagged a few times for quoting something I'd heard straight from the person's mouth, or which I'd seen with my own eyes. I don't have any special knowledge of these recording sessions...but if you do...say, you know one of the recording engineers...it might be worked in without too much "original research" feedback...saying something like..."Engineer XYZ remembers working on a four-track recorder for the final mix." The less controversial that information, the less likely someone will object.

Regards, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 01:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you might be aware of this, but to expedite discussion...reasons to record only mono, when a recorder can do stereo might be: a) preference of recording engineer (Geoff Emerick was very talented with mono, for example), b) lack of other supporting equipment (e.g., not enough microphones to both do stereo and capture Indian instruments, which are challenging to record), c) the simple expense of recording tape or lack of availability in India. (The BBC is known to recycle tapes to save money.)

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 02:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Since it is possible to record mono on stereo tape recorders, there's still the open question of whether anything in Bombay was recorded stereo.

No, there is not an "open question" to this. The recordings were stereo, and done live. Have you listened to this album yourself? Yes, it is possible to record mono on a stereo machine, but not the other way around. (Even in digital, there's only so much you can do with "revectoring" prerecorded sounds. The audio on the CD is the same as it was in the stereo LP, which I have in several versions.) In 1968, the best they could do was "fake stereo" with EQ and reverb, going from a mono source. When you listen to the recordings, you hear the tamboura(s) in one spot, the sitar(s) in another spot, the tablas in another spot, and so on. That could not have been faked. (If you wear headphones, it's even possible to guesstimate the dimensions of the room they were in.) It is not that "challenging" to record Indian instruments, if you know what you're doing; a simple "stereo pair" in the middle of the musicians captures them nicely, as much now as it did back then. I expect knowing that Harrison was coming to Bombay, to record Indian music with well-known native musicians, EMI in India would have given him every available resource, including microphones and tapes. (He could also have easily brought as many of both as he needed.)

I do not believe Harrison was referring to reduction mixes (or overdubs, or mixdowns), when he mentioned "eight or sixteen tracks". (Even George Martin, in discussing the ones they made in All You Need Is Ears, said they only got "up to nine" tracks by doing so, and they were compromising the crap out of the audio by doing so. The Indian tracks were recorded live; no overdubs were mentioned in any source I have ever seen, and you'd hear the hiss if they had, from the noise buildup.) Trident, Olympic and De Lane Lea (one of my sources says Harrison worked there) may have had eight or sixteen, but the Beatles' sessions at those studios were few and (essentially) far between, and they always brought the tapes back to EMI for mixing and mastering. I think he simply misremembered, twenty-plus years after the fact.

I am a trained and certified recording engineer; part of my education involved listening to the Beatles' recordings (including their solo works) critically, from an engineer's standpoint. "Engineer XYZ" in India probably never said or wrote anything regarding the technical details of the sessions, and by now he's either likely dead, or too old to remember or care. (And if I "knew him"... that's right back to the WP:OR problem.) Lack of documentation does not cancel out simple facts. If you want to try to "qualify" something, good luck, but I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill, and the only "controversy" I see about it is the one you've chosen to raise. Sorry. Zephyrad (talk) 02:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)