[78-L] Silent surface (a personal history) and a new question

[Michael Shoshani]

On Mon, 2008-12-01 at 23:55 -0500, Michael Biel wrote:

> Many cutting rooms use the same EQ and setting control amp, all the 
> controls have click-stops for accurate resetting.  There might be 
> specified level, tone, and even reverb to add or modify while cutting.  
> That's why some of the early Beatles albums sound different on 
> Parlophone or Capitol.  Abbey Road added reverb from their live chamber 
> which was different from the Capitol Tower chambers.  In fact, when it 
> came time to do the Beatles CDs, they had to try to recreate the Abbey 
> Road chamber because it had become a closet.  They had to try to find 
> replacement large ceramic sewer pipes they had used in the original 
> chamber that they had discarded. 

Two minor nits:

1. From around "A Hard Day's Night" until "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band", George Martin actually made separate, distinct mono and
stereo mixes for Capitol to use in the USA. But since these were
mastering mixes, they already had Abbey Road reverb on them - but that
did not stop Capitol from adding THEIR OWN reverb on top of that.  

Also, Capitol often did not use the mono mixes, believing that they
could make a superior product by folding in the stereo mix and using
that. If you ever heard the Capitol 45 RPM release of "I Feel Fine", you
will already have heard the ludicrous extremes that often resulted. 

2. The Abbey Road chamber recreation was only for the Anthology CDs that
came out around 12 years ago. Being very good engineers, the Abbey Road
staff added reverb and such in mixdowns - the session tapes are dry, so
when working with previously unreleased (*cough*) session material they
wanted to add a period-authentic acoustic reverb to the mix. Thus
engendered the recreation of the acoustic reverb that had not been used
probably since the mid 1980s...when, ironically, reverb of some kind
*was* used for new stereo mixes of "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" that were
made for CD release.

That's a lot of wordage for two minor nits.