The Beatles Abracadabra: Help! (Lord Reith Stereo Remix)

 

THE BEATLES
Abracadabra: Help!

Lord Reith Stereo Remix

01 Help!
02 The Night Before
03 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
04 I Need You
05 Another Girl
06 You're Gonna Lose That Girl
07 Ticket To Ride
08 Act Naturally
09 It's Only Love
10 You Like Me Too Much
11 Tell Me What You See
12 I've Just Seen A Face
13 Yesterday
14 Dizzy Miss Lizzy
15 Bad Boy
16 Yes It Is
17 I'm Down
18 That Means A Lot
19 If You've Got Troubles
20 Help! (CTS vsn in stereo)
21 Help! (EMI vsn complete)
22 The Night Before (single tracked vocal)
23 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (take 5)
24 I Need You (single tracked vocals)
25 It's Only Love (take 2,3)
26 It's Only Love (alternate ending)
27 Yesterday (take 1)
28 Yesterday (take 2 no strings)
29 Help! (single tracked vocals)
30 I'm Down (outtake)
31 That Means A Lot (Sessions mix in stereo)

Here is a more detailed rundown of each track:

1 Help!
Drums and bass moved from left to centre; vocals and tambourine remain in centre; John's 12 string acoustic and George's electric moved from right to left; George's electric lead guitar overdub remains on right.

2 The Night Before
The original stereo mix is very effective, so all I did was focus the bass guitar a bit more and dial back the reverb on the vocals to match the mono mix. Drums and bass on the left; vocals, double tracked electric guitar solo (in octaves) from George, and maraccas in centre; John's pianet on the right.

3 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Drums, bass and John's 12 string acoustic moved from left towards centre; John's vocal remains in centre with less reverb; tambourine remains on right; maraccas and George's acoustic guitar moved from centre to left.

4 I Need You
Drums and bass moved from left to centre; John's acoustic guitar remains on left; George's tone pedal electric guitar and backing vocals part A remain on right; George's main vocal remains in centre; George's second vocal and backing vocals part B moved from centre towards left. The vocal reverb has been dialed back here too.

5 Another Girl
The first instance I can think of where a song has two drum tracks. The main one is on the left but there's a second one in the centre. For this reason, there seemed little point in changing the panning so I've just dialed back the vocal reverb again. Drum track #1, bass on left; Paul's two vocals and drum track #2 in centre; John's acoustic guitar, George's electric guitar (playing only on the off-beat) and Paul's electric lead remain on the right.

6 You're Gonna Lose That Girl
John's electric guitar remains on left; drums and bass moved from left to centre; vocals remain in centre; piano, Ringo's bongoes and George's electric guitar solo remain on right.

7 Ticket To Ride
Drums and bass moved from left to centre; vocals remain in centre; John and George's electric guitars moved from right to left; tambourine, handclaps, Paul's electric lead guitar and some extra vocals in the coda moved from centre to right. Vocal reverb dialed back.

8 Act Naturally
John's acoustic guitar remains on left; drums and bass moved from left to centre; Ringo's vocal remains in centre; Paul's harmony vocal moved from right to centre; George's electric lead guitar and what sounds like spoons remain on right.

9 It's Only Love
John's 12 string acoustic guitar remains on left; drums and bass guitar moved from left to centre; John's lead vocal remains in centre; John's vocal overdub moved from right to centre; two electric guitars (one with tremolo and one without) and a tambourine remain on right.

10 You Like Me Too Much
John's acoustic guitar and the piano intro remain on left; drums and bass moved from left to centre; tambourine and vocals remain in centre but with reverb dialed back; Vox organ, piano and electric guitar remain on right.

11 Tell Me What You See
Electric guitar (probably John) remains on left; drums, bass and guiro (a hollow wooden tube with furrows on the outside across which a wooden stick is dragged) moved from left to centre; vocals remain in centre but with reverb dialed back; tambourine, guiro (played by tapping it this time) and pianet remain on right.

12 I've Just Seen A Face
Acoustic guitar and 12 string acoustic guitar remain on left; snare drum played with brushes moved from left to centre; Paul's lead vocal remains in centre; Paul's harmony vocal moved from right to centre; maraccas and 12 string acoustic guitar intro and solo remains on right.

13 Yesterday
This is a very simplesong so not much to do here, but it has always bothered me that the guitar is on the right and strings on the left. Traditionally, the first recorded tracks are always on the left in Beatles mixes, so I've swapped them around. Aside from this I removed the vocal bleedthrough on the side channels which makes the vocal very blurry on the original stereo mix, and tried to make it a little less boxy sounding and more like the mono mix.

14 Dizzy Miss Lizzy
John's electric guitar remains on left; drums and bass moved from left to centre; John's vocal, Vox organ, cowbell and George's electric guitar riff remain in centre; George's double tracking of the riff remains on the right.

15 Bad Boy
Drums and bass moved from left to centre; John's vocal remains in centre; John and George's electric guitars remain on right; Vox organ and George's electric guitar double tracking moved from centre to left.

16 Yes It Is
John's acoustic guitar remains on left; bass guitar and hi-hat moved from left to centre; vocals, maracca and George's tone pedal electric guitar remain in centre; George's second tone pedal electric guitar remains on right;

17 I'm Down
Electric rhythm guitar remains on left; drums and bass moved from left to centre; electric guitar solo moved from left to centre; main vocals and Vox organ (John) remain in centre; backing vocals remain on left and right.

18 That Means A Lot
This is based on John Barret's (very) rough cassette mix. Drums and bass moved from left to centre; two electric guitars remain on left; piano and maraccas remain on right; vocals remain in centre and on left.

19 If You've Got Troubles
Also based on John Barret's cassette mix, although this one wasn't nearly as bad. Drums and bass moved from left to centre; vocals and electric guitar solo remain in centre; two electric guitars remain on right; extra electric guitar remains on left. That's four electric guitars on one song!

20 Help! (CTS vsn in stereo)
The story as it is told: The Beatles first recorded the song Help! at Abbey Road but United Artists didn't like the recording because it had a tambourine and it was nowhere to be seen being played in the "darts" clip. So it seems the lads went down to CTS film dubbing studios (where they would later re-dub the Shea concert) and recorded a new vocal on top of the EMI backing track. Part of this recording was actually used for the mono Help album (with the intro from the EMI version tacked on) but the film promo contains the entire CTS version. Here I have isolated the vocals from this mono recording and added it to the stereo backing track recorded at EMI, creating a true stereo mix.

21 Help! (EMI vsn complete)
Same as the commercial stereo version but with vocal double tracking on the intro which was discarded in the final stereo mix.

22 The Night Before (single tracked vocal)
23 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (take 5)
Appeared in mono on Anthology, here in full stereo.

24 I Need You (single tracked vocals)
25 It's Only Love (take 2,3)
From Monolonger Vol.8

26 It's Only Love (alternate ending)
Same as Track 9 but the tambourine and electric guitar riff don't fade out at 1'43"

27 Yesterday (take 1)
With most of the bathroom ambience removed.

28 Yesterday (take 2 no strings)
29 Help! (single tracked vocals)
30 I'm Down (outtake)
Without the bathroom ambience.

31 That Means A Lot (Sessions mix in stereo)
Geoff Emerick's "wall of sound" mix, teased from mono into stereo.


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