Paul McCartney is Getting His Star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame

[sleepy]

And one more example of George Martin's contribution, he also produced McCartney on the James Bond theme, "Live and Let Die", so I do put some stock in the producers.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

George Martin sucked! Whew, makes me feel so much better to get it out in the open! He was a horrible rock and roll producer. I always detested his mixes... where bass, drums and background vocals would be mixed to one channel, lead vocals and guitar to another channel. It was like he was completely befuddled by this "stereo" thing that seemed so popular with the kids. Mind you, I do enjoy it when groups make fun of it, like in this Redd Kross song!

Saragon - Redd Kross - YouTube

My opinion is completely biased by my firm and unwavering answer to the Eternal Question, and that answer is the Stones... no ifs, ands or buts.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I'm not sure whether the arrangement to this song was the producer's doing or McCartney flexing his Wings.

No, it wasn't McCartney's doing at all. He hated... hated... Phil's production on the whole album, Long and Winding in particular. Fortunately, George and John weren't quite as pigheaded, which is why they made excellent albums with Phil like All Things Must Pass and Imagine and McCartney gave us... sigh... McCartney. I gotta admit, this attitude always puzzled me; of all the Beatles, the one I would figure to love the overblown orchestral wall-of-sound style would be Paul. But, based on the solo/Wings career I was forced to listen to during my formative years, I always figured he was a dope-smokin' moron, as the Replacements would say.

To give George Martin his due, he may have been one of rock and roll's worst producers, but he never put a cap in a bitch. :)

 

[Shockman]

Producers suck in general.

I think they should say, you got it, so do it, which is usually the case, or you don't so I'm not interested. But a simple phrase like 'a faster tempo' should get a bass amp thrown at any one of them.

I for one, even if the only one believes that these people at least had all the tools for the craft, and that outside influence never did a bit of good if it changed song, and in more cases makes it not as good. It's not at all like a composer conducting, It's a single opinion that is usually out of line. If a group is contracted to a performance, say a sound track to other media, that is of course different, but for a group building it's album, that's silly, unless needed. With the Beatles, it was not needed. That's why I like the 'garage' versions better than the masters in a lot of cases.

 

[Shockman]

...of all the Beatles, the one I would figure to love the overblown orchestral wall-of-sound style would be Paul...

He did. He is the one that took from the sound board, created the loops, drawn from this stuff.

It's a mistake to try to put either of them on any defining spot. They were actually both all over the place.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I think you gotta take it on a case-by-case basis. Spector did some mind-blowing stuff in the '60s with his wall of sound... Jimmy Miller's production was responsible for the Stones' golden period of Beggar's Banquet through Exile... Elvis Costello never put out a bad album that was produced by Nick Lowe. Of the last two examples the producers in question were musicians as well, which I think makes a big difference in collaborating with an artist and helping them realize the sound that they're trying to craft. And let us not forget the great Bruce Dickinson who uttered those two classic words to Blue Oyster Cult: "More cowbell!" :)

 

[LeeVanCleef]

He did. He is the one that took from the sound board, created the loops, drawn from this stuff.

Exactly! Every time I hear "Got To Get You Into My Life" I always think of it like a lesser Phil Spector production! I think, more than anything, Paul likes to be in charge, and Martin let him get away with that.

 

[sleepy]

But the mix left/mix right technique was about the theme of the song, like a Q and A sung in parts....wasn't it?
In those songs, the lads were not trying to be The Hollyridge Strings with a balanced Audio Fidelity Pro Three Channel Stereo Sound Field.
The Mamas and the Papas did the same thing, to emphasize the singing. Several artists duplicated the mixdown back then.

But it was The Stones who had an early career album release *in electronically simulated stereo*, by sending the mono low pass bass to the left channel and the mono high pass treble to the right.

On that note, Polished pro sounds are what is killing modern music, I think.

 

[sleepy]

Oh...Sgt. Pepper was also George Martin.
But was it Rock?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Oh...Sgt. Pepper was also George Martin.
But was it Rock?

With the mix that George Martin did, Pepper is not rock... it's the longest and most irritating novelty record ever produced (A Day in the Life being the one exception)... one of the reasons the album sounds so dated today. I recently downloaded a 24-bit remaster of Pet Sounds which sounds more stunning than any version I've heard before... mostly because Brian didn't give in to that horrible type of mixing that Martin and many other groups (like the Mamas and the Papas) did. (He'd wait for Smile to do that) This could very well be a matter of "to each his own", but, for me, the Beatles are almost completely unlistenable on headphones, except on the rare occasion where the wacky, novelty mix actually works for the song (Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said, Rain). So many great artists and albums of the '60s managed to embrace stereo without making it sound so much like a dated carnival ride (Bob's masterpiece Blonde on Blonde leaps to mind).
For me, it's more the "everything up front", sometimes flat, productions geared specifically for the dated mp3 format that bring so much of modern music to its knees. If only I could have a record collection with 13,000 instantly-accessible songs (many of which were cough free), then the problem would be solved. What do others around here find to be most listenable? mp3, FLAC, mp4, good ol' fashioned WAV? I remember back when I started downloading mp3s on my (then gigantic) 10 gig hard drive... songs culled from newsgroups where it was often "320kps or bust" and soon finding space to be a luxury... the same thing happened when I downloaded my first FLAC albums some years ago. Am I right to convert them to mp3 files? Should I quit being a pussy and buy a bigger hard drive and start a FLAC library? And then, what the hell do I listen to it on? 'Cause it sure as hell won't be my Itunes or Ipod!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

well--

a couple times i had started to write a reply but quickly lost enthusiasm and bailed. that in turn left me a little empty and a little frustrated because i do enjoy these types of interesting topics, do like to help keep things moving and, well... chatting with you two is always a great time.

still, the reason i lost enthusiasm is pretty obvious to me- not only are the beatles an integral part of my childhood but they're possibly, maybe probably, the rock band i most respect and admire in the world. so despite wanting to be as open-minded as possible, i think i may just be a little too touchy on this topic to entertain some of the recent criticism. not so much as a sacred cow / sacrilege kind of thing, because i believe reason and rational thought is king, but because i genuinely adore an album like sgt pepper. so you can see where my reactions would lead on that...

on point- i try to avoid getting into anything more complicated than 128K MP3's. the quality is quite decent, i'm not an audiophile, and i need a lot of things in life to be simpler rather than more complicated. actually, youtube has become a great way of downloading decent-quality MP3's. here's my latest download:
greta garbo by peggy lee bali ha'i - YouTube

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Nic, you pussed out on me... I really wanted to get into a Beatles vs. Stones internet fistfight! My brother and his wife are both Beatles fanatics, so I'm used to living amongst the Philistines. In fact, my earliest memory is of my brother playing "Hey Jude" repeatedly on his old fold-down phonograph... one of those ones where you had to tape nickels on top of the cartridge when the needle started sliding across the record. Myself, I was mostly born out of time. The music I most identified with growing up were the Beach Boys, the American Graffiti soundtrack and more Elvis than was probably healthy for a 12-year-old boy in the '70s.
Ever since I've started to listen to my mp3s on headphones, I've started to notice a lack of quality in some of my older downloads. I'm not sure if it's the bitrate or the source that the person posted from. You'll be proud to know I did download the FLAC Beatles remasters and burned my favorites (Hard Days Night soundtrack, Abbey Road) right to disc to get the best possible sound but... on the whole, I'd probably have to get a whole new hard drive if I wanted to start storing Flac files, and that's pretty much out of the question.
What are you using to convert the Youtubes to mp3? I really want that Peggy Lee song!

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I'm a little late getting into Peggy Lee. As many times as my brother made me listen to Hey Jude is close to the number that my mom made me listen to "Is That All There Is?"... so I'd had enough by the end of the '70s! I'm reassessing that stance now. Here's one of my favorites.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

bill, i like and respect the stones too much to ever get into that kind of fight. but maybe you could send a life-size suit of your brother to wear and i'll see what i can do?

The music I most identified with growing up were the Beach Boys, the American Graffiti soundtrack and more Elvis than was probably healthy for a 12-year-old boy in the '70s.

you know, i discovered those things a little later in life, but they all feel like the homiest of homes to me. i wish to hell i understood the whole situation better.

one of the things that makes it frustrating to live in the 20-teens is my being so entranced with 50's and 60's cool. i think today's conception of cool is so crude, obnoxious and infantile that it makes me want to give up on the whole generation, even though i know there are many excellent, smart member of today's gen.

What are you using to convert the Youtubes to mp3?

still using SUPER, which marty schulz (sp?) first recommended. not a tool for people wanting direct youtube file conversions, but an excellent all-around tool for media conversion.

re: peggy lee,
thanks, excellent! my toddler memory feels some memory of that...

 

[sleepy]

Something got in my throat there when I read your replies, but right there my chords went dry.

 

[sleepy]

When I'm stuck waiting for something to start, in a waiting line, etc., I often hum Hey Jude to myself.
Hey Jude is a 7 minute song and I will hum it two or three times, actually, I play the record verbatim in my head from start to finish, to while away the 15 or 20 minute waiting time.

Sometimes I hum both, or opt for Stairway to Heaven, and on rare occasions I use White Punks on Dope.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

bill, i like and respect the stones too much to ever get into that kind of fight. but maybe you could send a life-size suit of your brother to wear and i'll see what i can do?

LOL! That just might work! Remember when Swingers came out in the '90s? Who didn't wanna be those guys? They could listen to Sinatra, party in Vegas and still squeeze in some mind-deadening Sega NHL? Seems to me that our current generation has a lot of the video game idiocy without any of the cool factor. Lousy punks!
Took a glance at SUPER. It may be just the kind of converter I'm looking for. Is it able to convert mp3s to lower bitrates? That's what I usually do to trim down the size of the 320kbs mp3s. Unfortunately, I can't get my old bootlegged copy of Roxio to work anymore.

@arne: when you're singing "Hey Jude" in line, does anyone else around you join in on the nah-nah-nah-nahs? You could turn it in to a Beatles flash-mob!

 

[sleepy]

Oh man, no. I only sing Elvis in waiting lines.
The Beatles I hum silently to myself.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

re: frog,
hehe. what kind of mic setup is that? i tried recording a reply on my camera, but the sound is too dreadful.

re: swingers,
never saw it. i'm so behind on my movies. finally finished watching the special edition of the right stuff last night, and it wasn't really any improvement on the (excellent) original. otherwise just trying to catch up with pawn stars these days since the STTNG well ran dry recently.

re: SUPER,
tested it just now converting a song from 128k down to 64k. worked fine, and lets you do a whole list at a time, of course...

 

[sleepy]

That was just a plain vanilla SoundBlaster Live! mic using M$ Sound Recorder.

Was it That Good?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

it captured a range and a depth that this camera mic doesn't seem capable of. i'll have to see what else i have kicking around here...

and you should record some karaoke. :D

 

[sleepy]

Karaoke when my vocal chords are not running dry.
Gargle with a teaspoon of vegetable oil or something, for the hydration.

The mic was just as bad as any out of the box generic mic. Singing straight in to it sounds tinny and harsh.
I held the mic about 18 inches away from the frog and 90 degrees perpendicular to it (pointing left, though pointing right does the same), not straight line at all.

Holding the mic perpendicular prevents wind pops, the sound of "blowing" or gusting on the mic.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

yea, one discovers pretty quickly that singing straight into a mic without a wind screen does not get the best results.

extra virgin olive oil is real good for vocal chords and circulation. plus it may help alleviate sugar cravings IIRC. i have some in a small plant mister which i spritz on food, air-popped popcorn, and occasionally, vocal chords.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

ah, bill- i skipped a step there which may or may not be of use to you, but here goes:

first i use the "unplug" FF extension to capture the video as FLV if i want to keep it as a video, or MP4 if i want to convert to MP3. my theory is that MP4 format will preserve better sound and FLV will make for more efficient video size. *shrug*

if there's some problem with unplug then i use another FF extension, "downloadhelper", which does the same thing. there are probably a hundred+ variants of this, of course...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

wow, i forgot how catchy this song was and how cute the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnHu-WLvY5U



...even john lennon liked it according to WP