bass Guitar Mistake

bowser2533 · Post by **bowser2533** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:55 pm

On the Byrds 1st album Mr Tamborine Man on the 3 verse of Spanish Harlem Incident is that a bass guitar mistake? Been wondering about that for 48 years now, If so, how could a great producer like Terry Melcher let that slide. Just wondering. Gary

teb · Post by **teb** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 3:41 am

It would almost have to be. It sounds like he plays a really sloppy F# on the low E string in that spot and it should have been a G, either on the D string as in the other verses, or dropped down to the 3rd fret on the low E string for a low G. Either that or his low E string was tuned way flat and when he went down to hit the low G, it came out F#-ish. As to why it was left on the track, that is a curious one. I don't know if they were still recording on four tracks or had more, but anything with that many vocal and instrument parts back in those days required a lot of mixing down and after that, there was no way to go back in and fix individual parts. Even so though, if your basic track had bass, drums, one track of 12-string (right side) and a rhythm guitar (left side) you would think that when they reviewed the basic to see if it was adequate to mix down and build on, the goof would have been really obvious - and reason enough to either ditch it and cut another basic or punch in a line on the bass track before moving on to mix it down.

I suppose you also have to consider that record companies tended to be pretty low budget on first albums in those days. You were given a limited amount of studio time and they often weren't at all happy if you needed more time. It could be that they just had to get it done and didn't have time to go back and fix it.

iamthebassman · Post by **iamthebassman** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 4:24 pm

Just reading the title of this thread I knew exactly what it was gonna be about.
Chris has stated, yes it's a mistake but it was decided to not bother "fixing" it.

That one's on our "to do" list, and you can bet I'm gonna play it as recorded!

www.theearlybyrds.com

JakeK · Post by **JakeK** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 5:04 pm

The bass sound of the whole Mr. Tambourine Man album has a rubber-bandish sound to the bass. Almost sounds like Hillman ran his bass through McGuinn's recording setup. I does not have the thud and thump that would come to be of the albums that followed. I know Hillman had a Fender Bass VI for the MTM album, and the sound is trebly, but I've never really played a Bass VI to experiment with getting that sound. Later switched to a Guild Starfire bass in the summer of 1965.

8mileshigher · Post by **8mileshigher** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 7:43 pm

I recall studio musicians played on the single "Mr Tambourine Man" with only McGuinn of the actual Byrds playing... and producer Melcher kept the other band members off the single. But what about on the MTM album ?? Were studio musicians invovled or was it Hillman, Crosby, etc. on the rest of the album's songs ?

JakeK · Post by **JakeK** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 7:45 pm

8mileshigher wrote:I recall studio musicians played on the single "Mr Tambourine Man" with only McGuinn of the actual Byrds playing... and producer Melcher kept the other band members off the single. But what about on the MTM album ?? Were studio musicians invovled or was it Hillman, Crosby, etc. on the rest of the album's songs ?

Aside from "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "I Knew I'd Want You", which were the band's debut single and featured The Wrecking Crew playing, the rest of the album featured Crosby, Clark, HIllman and Clarke playing their respective instruments

bowser2533 · Post by **bowser2533** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:20 pm

All great answers. My opinion is thats its a mistake and they were to far into the recording to correct it. I guess we will never know for certain. Thanks Gary

opticnerve · Post by **opticnerve** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 9:31 pm

My old band The Longhorns used to cover this song, bum note & all!

Hell, we also used to cover a Count 5 song, "They're Gonna Get You Someday" & we used to re-create

a skip that always occurred at the same place on my vinyl 45!

bowser2533 · Post by **bowser2533** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 9:41 pm

Very cool to hear about learning the song with the skip in it. Iv done it to back in the days of the ALBUMS. Those were the good old days. Wish they were back sometimes. Gary

opticnerve · Post by **opticnerve** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:31 pm

Hear, hear! Those were the days Gary!

teb · Post by **teb** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 3:33 am

The influx of new music itself was incredibly exciting back in those days, and I doubt we'll ever see anything remotely like that again. On the other hand, having recorded back then in everything from little podunk 4-track studios to Elektra Records in Los Angeles, I certainly don't look back at recording technology and wish I was there again. There were some things about the good old days that weren't all that good.

jimk · Post by **jimk** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 9:19 pm

teb wrote:... I certainly don't look back at recording technology and wish I was there again. There were some things about the good old days that weren't all that good.

I certainly agree. Although my recording history doesn't stretch back much before 1984 I do remember recording to tape, and how things were literally spliced together.
JimK

jps · Post by **jps** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 9:38 pm

I used to do quite a bit of tape editing by splicing. Once I finally had a nice machine to do it on (Ampex ATR102) it was pretty fun, actually.

teb · Post by **teb** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:04 pm

Yeah, I remember slowly spinning the reels with your hands as the tape moved past the heads, listening for the low growl that was the start of the next note, so that you knew where to cut the tape for the splice. Four-track recording did present a rather interesting puzzle at times, trying to figure out which parts would be combined on a single track during a mix-down to free up a track and make room for new parts. As I remember, after the summer of 1971 we always had sixteen tracks or more for recording, which made things a lot easier. It would have been really fun back then to walk into the studio with my current Korg 16 track laptop-sized digital deck and say "Hey guys, look what I have."

libratune · Post by **libratune** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 4:27 am

From Wiki:

"At any given point in the recording process, any number of existing tracks can be "bounced" into one or two tracks and the original tracks erased, making more room for more tracks to be reused for fresh recording. Beatles producer George Martin used this technique extensively to achieve multiple track results, while still being limited to using only multiple four-track machines, until an eight-track machine became available during the recording of the Beatles' White Album."

MTM was likely recorded on 4-track machine. Once you commit to a bounce, the bounced tracks aren't saved on a 4-tracker.

The "mistake" could have been fixed in the digital remasters but wasn't.

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