The Beatles Abracadabra: Beatles For Sale(Lord Reith Stereo Remix)

 

Abracadabra: Beatles For Sale
Lord Reith Stereo Remix

1 I Feel Fine
2 She's A Woman
3 No Reply
4 I'm A Loser
5 Baby's In Black
6 Rock And Roll Music
7 I'll Follow The Sun
8 Mr Moonlight
9 Kansas City
10 Eight Days A Week
11 Words Of Love
12 Honey Don't
13 Every Little Thing
14 I Don't Want To Spoil The Party
15 What You're Doing
16 Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby
17 I'm A Loser (takes 1-2)
18 Mr Moonlight (takes 2-4)
19 Leave My Kitten Alone (takes 4-5)
20 What You're Doing (take 11)
21 She's A Woman (take 5 no fadout)
22 She's A Woman (take 7)
23 I Feel Fine (takes 1-2)
24 I Feel Fine (take 7 single tracked vox and gtr solo)
25 Eight Days A Week (take 4 dry vocals)
26 Kansas City (take 2 dry vocal)
27 Rock And Roll Music (dry vocal)
28 Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby (dry vocal)

1 I Feel Fine
This has the same panning as the official stereo version because it just seems to work better that way, with Ringo's Latin drum rhythm on the left juxtaposing nicely against the syncopated guitars on the right. However this is mostly derived from Rockband stems so I could get more control over the sound, with less reverb.

2 She's A Woman
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. John on the left, piano and maracca and Paul's double tracked vocals on the right, with a double tracked George guitar solo in stereo.

3 No Reply
Drums and bass demixed to the centre, and the piano in the middle section moved to the right (with the other piano parts and some cymbals). I left the clapping in the centre. John and George's guitars are on the left.

4 I'm A Loser
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. John and George are on the left, with extra guitar from George and tambourine overdubbed on the right.

5 Baby's In Black
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. During the verses John double tracked his part of the harmony and this was panned very slightly to the right originally but I have moved it to the centre because it just sounds weird. The other double tracked parts are still on the far right. John and George are on the left, with extra guitar from George and tambourine overdubbed on the right.

6 Rock And Roll Music
Drums and bass moved to the centre, and the piano from centre to left. Both guitarists on the right.

7 I'll Follow The Sun
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. John on the left, George on the right.

8 Mr Moonlight
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. I love the drums on this one. Both guitars on the left, and lounge lizard organ on the right.

9 Kansas City
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. John on the left, George and what sounds like that Hammond organ again on the right (plus double tracked answering vocals).

10 Eight Days A Week
Drums and bass demixed to the centre, and the handclaps on the right turned down a bit. Both guitarists on the left, and some extra vocals on the right.

11 Words Of Love
Drums and bass moved to the centre, and one of George's guitar parts moved from centre to left, creating a cool stereo effect (the other being on the right). John is also on the right. I also turned the handclaps down slightly.

12 Honey Don't
Drums and bass moved to the centre, and tambourine moved from centre to left. Both guitars on the right.

13 Every Little Thing
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. John's guitar is on the left, and George on the right with some overdubbed piano, timpani and (during the solo) bass guitar.

14 I Don't Want To Spoil The Party
Drums and bass demixed to the centre, and the tambourine tamed slightly. John on the left, George on the right.

15 What You're Doing
Drums demixed to the centre, leaving the bass on the left. John and George are on the right, and some overdubbed piano and solo guitar in the centre. Ringo's bass drum is miked closer here than it would ever be again until 1967. In the Anthology video there's some audio grabs also of Paul talking about the unusual way he's playing bass (two notes at the same time, like a guitar power chord) and asking George Martin whether it 'sounds amazing or totally crap?" The answer was obviously affirmative because the combination of this and the heavy drum sound made for a highly effective hook.

16 Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby
Drums and bass demixed to the centre and the tambourine tamed slightly. John on the left, George on the right.

17 I'm A Loser (takes 1-2)
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. This had a whole different intro and outro.

18 Mr Moonlight (takes 2-4)
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. There was a lot of reverb on the vocal which I mostly pulled back. The screaming intro from take 4 was tacked onto the start of the remake.

19 Leave My Kitten Alone (takes 4-5)
The same demix as on Monolonger, but with the false start take 4 at the start.

20 What You're Doing (take 11)
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. Like most of the tracks they remade, one was nearly always heavy and the other softer. Ringo riding the crash cymbal and the edgy vocals show that they conceived of this song as a rocker. Luckily they had the brainwave of turning it into a softer and more wistful number because it doesn't really work like this. Still really interesting though, and they even double tracked the vocals and added a third guitar in the centre showing that at that time at least they thought it was going to be the finished version. Paul said in 1965 that he and John wrote this song and Every Little Thing during their 1964 US tour. One of the few times when a journalist actually asked them about their music!

21 She's A Woman (take 5 no fadout)
Drums and bass demixed to the centre. The same take as the single but without the fadeout. This was a really ragged rough mix so took a lot of massaging to get it sounding like the single.

22 She's A Woman (take 7)
Same panning as the old version but with the vocal more squarely centred. And what a vocal! John manages to use every lick he knows during his guitar solo.

23 I Feel Fine (takes 1-2)
No changes to the panning, just boosting and sharpening of the muddy vocal. The first take is in the key of A major, and Paul can be heard saying to John that it's too high and he sounds like he's straining. John obviously agreed because on the next take the whole song has been transposed down to G major (although since it's played with bar chords this wasn't that difficult). The revelation that it was composed in A gives a valuable insight into how the riff came about, because all guitarists know that noodling on an open A major or D major chord produces countless variations of the same riff, including The Searchers "Needles And Pins" which basically sounds like a slow version of the I Feel Fine riff. John's genius was to play it as a bar chord, something which gave it a whole different feel to if it had been played as an open chord (or maybe John just thought it sounded too much like Needles And Pins!)

24 I Feel Fine (take 7 single tracked vox and gtr solo)
Single tracked vocals and a single tracked guitar solo. The studio noise at the start is from the 1962-1966 album (did they do a special mix for that album?) This was the first time since 1962 that they recorded the backing track without the vocals and then overdubbed all the vocals. This would become the norm for a long time afterwards.

25 Eight Days A Week (take 4 dry vocals)
As issued this interesting outtake had vast amounts of slapback echo (or S.T.E.E.D. "Single Tape Echo and Echo Delay") applied to the vocals. Using a process I devised called P.E.E.L. this has been mostly removed.

26 Kansas City (take 2 dry vocal)
As with the previous track, this has had P.E.E.L. applied, and also been widened into stereo. The backing vocals I've removed because they belong to take 1 and not this take.

27 Rock And Roll Music (dry vocal)
P.E.E.L. applied to the standard commercial mix.

28 Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby (dry vocal)
P.E.E.L. applied to the standard commercial mix. The other cover version recorded this day (Words Of Love) can be found Peeled on Dry Baby Dry.

Link