what I can hear on Beatles records

[wolfgang]

Recently, it has become possible for everyone to use intelligent filters in the net to separate instruments and voices in fairly good quality. So, for analysis, it's becoming more and more irrelevant what was mixed for the original records. Therefore I have decided to end the series of "What I can hear on the Beatles' records" now.
But two things I want to tell are left:
1) "It's only love" from the Help!-LP: after John sings a very Scottish "brrright" I can figure George giggling heavily and almost misplaying his (simultaneusly recorded) guitar filling at about 0:56. Very charming. Good they didn't correct it.
2) "Hold me tight": It is reported somewhere in the literature that this song was already recorded during the recording session for the Please Please Me LP, but it could not be used at the time. My speculation: the continuous guitar signature figure was not properly recordable with the hard limiting EMI-compressors used at the time. Only after the introduction of a new type of compressor the song was recorded and released on "With the Beatles". No matter what others say, I like that song very much. It's nice how the song slows down and at the end the train comes to a stop at the station.

I was still nine years old, when I bought my first Beatles' record, "I want to hold your hand" in spring of 1964, sixty years ago.

Wolfgang

[wolfgang]

Addendum
sorry. but I can not resist:
The US Albums (Oct. 2024):
She loves you (disc2, track11 and track22): is not the version from 2023 (Red Album disk1, track 6 Nov. 2023), i.e. the edit piece has the well known brighter sound.
I call your name (disc2, track8): mono like the first UK mix. Available on the 2009-mono-CDs (disc 15, track 11).
I call your name (disc2 track19): stereo: like the 1976 stereo mix, available on the 2009-stereo-CDs (disc15 track11).
If you want my "ultimate" version take "The Capitol Albums, Volume 1" from late 2004 (disc2, track8 (stereo)) and combine it to mono.
At the moment I cannot say anything about the mixes of the 3 "Revolver"-songs on the Yesterday and Today CD (Disc 11)

Wolfgang

[wolfgang]

The US Albums (Oct. 2024):
Long Tall Sally:
as Doug Sulpy states in his books (still first choice for Beatles' outtakes and studio session mixes) the U.K. mono mix of Long Tall Sally (2009 mono CDs disc15, track10) has more (old-fashioned) reverb on Paul's vocals than the US mix (for The Beatles' Second Album, now on The US Albums, Oct. 2024, disc2 track7), so the stereo mix (also on The US Albums, Oct. 2024 disc2 track18) was combined to mono in those days.

And I love her:
the well known US mono mix was used (The US Albums, Oct. 2024, disc4 track8) which has
Paul's vocals (in contrast to the UK mix) without reverb, but reverb on the instrumental track.

The mixes of the 3 "Revolver"-songs on the Yesterday and Today CD (Disc 11) seem to be O.K.

Wolfgang

[wolfgang]

again Long Tall Sally:
all released versions of the song have a quite short fade out of the last chord, that is primarily the bass guitar.
But on the Canadion edition of "The Beatles' second Album"-LP called "Long Tall Sally"(mono), the song has a longer fade out (a so called banding error)
with a switching noise and a whisper hearable at the end (from Paul?), something like "he would have liked it...".
Can anyone verify this for me? My record player is retired. It is barely audible, but I heard it decades ago.
I look forward to your reply from Canada

Wolfgang

[wolfgang]

The Vox UL7120 hybrid guitar amplifier schematics:

this post is for the technician who can read circuit diagrams and is interested in the function of guitar amps' internals. I am sure there are 2 typing errors in the component values of the Vox sheet OS/117. This diagram is the transistor-pre-amp of the UL7120 and UL730 hybrid amps.
You can find the OS/117 in: " Vox Amplifiers: The JMI Years by Jim Elyea (2012) Volume2 The Schematics" or from "North Coast Music" or to download elsewhere in the net.
A bit of reverse engineering (although I had no UL7120 in my hands, trust me, I made my bachelor in Elecronics in 1982 in Hamburg/Germany ) led me to the following considerations: The capacitors C17 and C33 in the treble boost circuity of both channels should not read 2.2µF but 0.22µF (= 220nF) for proper functionality. This probably also applies, although without serious influence, to the coupling capacitors C1, C21 and C61.
It's not easy to find electrolytic capacitors of .22µF (maybe the originals were tantalum ones?), so just use any small modern film capacitors as a replacement.
The next (serious) typo concerns R9 in the distortion section of the Vibrato Channel. With the stated value of R9 = 3.3kOhm the second transistor TR2 is heavily underbiased in both modes, distorted or undistorted. For proper biasing it should read R9 = 33kOhm, there should not be a decimal point.
I think these typos were real and not intentional.
So have fun in building your own UL7120/UL730 replacement amplifier or stomp box.

Wolfgang

[bluewhale]

McCartney getting it with the Rickenbacker and what is likely a Vox 730?

Love that shot of Paul McCartney - thanks for posting.

[Kiddwad57]

I just read Barry Miles’ biography of McCartney and another of his books called, In the Sixties. They really opened my eyes to McCartney and what he was/is about. I like him even more now, and I’m a fan from, like, forever! Another thing I just discovered is that it was the rock and roll journalist Danny Fields who published John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” quote while he was the chief editor at the magazine, Datebook. He said he wanted to flick the Beatles some fecal matter and by gum, he did!