Everything you ever wanted to know about 'Butterfly'

[gee]

Well I've always enjoyed that '30th Anniversary' collection & thought Ron Furmanek did a pretty good job on his remixes !

It was great to hear many of the sixties 'B' sides mixed into stereo at last (most are still unissued in stereo in the UK - a fact that surprised Bobby Elliot when I chatted with him pre-show back in October 2007) and Ron gave us that mix of 'Man With No Expression' plus at last a  'I Can't Let Go' in better stereo that didn't 'go to mono' for a few seconds !

Ron's mixes of 'Bus Stop' (without checking my CD set - despite maybe a 'too deep/loud' bass intro ?) and 'Sorry Suzanne' made far better use of the stereo channels enabling us to enjoy far more in the band's performances than on the old EMI (UK) ultra basic (& cheapo) stereo versions too.

Simon's old Hollies fanzine; 'Look What We've Got' had an interview with Bobby where Bobby was quoted as saying those Frumanek mixes 'made him feel sick...' (!) - which, if true, was a bit unkind to say the least - anything that makes us reappreciate and enjoy Hollies tracks anew can't be a bad thing surely...?

Tony Hicks apparently does not like 'History re-writing' - yet since they have allowed 'I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top' to lose it's guitar part....and Graham's 'King Midas...' to gain a extra drum part (I have read apparently without Graham's knowledge, which I find a bit of a nerve...!) - alot of 'Hollies purists' objected to that - yet the criticism of the Ron Furmanek mixes (while upsetting some) was not any major crime in my view as he did not alter the original band performance in any way (just improved and polished up the sound as was done with those Beatles 'Yellow Submarine Songtrack' remixes)

Ron also brought out things not previously obvious and 'cleaned up' a few old errors & utilised stereo far better losing that awful 'cheapo' and totally false sounding: 'Vocals one channel / instruments the other' (with an odd lone instrument like a guitar solo, a bass guitar., or a harmonica ineptly 'divorced' from the rest of the group's instrumentation & stuck over on the other channel...etc) that EMI (UK) so often ruined sixties Hollies stereo versions by doing...

As we have discused before a COMPLETE sonic overhaul of the back catalogue & especially the sixties stereo masters is required - notably of stereo; 'In the Hollies Style', 'Hollies' (1965), 'Would you Believe ?' plus a decent revamp of both mono & a totally revamped better stereo mix 'Evolution' (while indeed The Beatles also need that too re their 1965 album 'Help !' in mono & stereo versions).

I do feel Ron Furmanek really led the way in his '30th Anniversary' mixes, re: 'reappraising' classic Hollies recordings without tampering in any way with the actual original group performances (so not 're-writing history' as they themselves have done a couple of times in recent years, but merely updating the sound & presentation of the old works, like "cleaning up" an old prize painting etc...)

...and a decent UK compilation collection of ALL the 'non UK' stereo versions of the mono only sixties 'B' sides from 1963 to 1970, plus any other rare alternate mixes (the overseas 'Mickey's Monkey' etc) and anything else they might now be able to create a new stereo mix of that previously was issued in 'mono only' such as EP tracks etc, would be a really worthwhile Classic sixties Hollies CD compilation...yes ?

[Stranger]

I remember reading from Furmanek about how he did more radical mixes (possibly brighter) of a couple of songs I think Carrie Anne and another one (possibly King Midas) Graham loved them but Allan and Tony veoted them!

Edited add in, this is from Ron Furmanek:

Good question!,....it has happened a couple of times,..our old friends The Hollies first comes to mind,..they wanted some of the "studio stuff" trimmed a bit,..no problem there,..but,..the one thing that still bugs me are the two songs "Carrie Anne" & "King Midas in Reverse",...on the very last day,..they pulled my two new mix's,..& stuck on those awful old left & right stereo mix's in there!,..if they would have at least listened to my reasoning, I would have strongly preferred the mono's go in there,.rather than those two old crummy mix's,......I still feel that there was no reason to dislike them,..Graham Nash was 100% on my side about what he called his "baby"(Midas),..the stereo version we have been hearing since 1967 is bad & wrong!,..for example,..the mono single has the whole intro sung by Graham in a beautiful single tracked vocal,...as where the stereo is mistakingly double tracked!!

I recreated the mono mix to a tee,...(not to mention syncing up 3 four track tapes!!),..my new mix is a revelation,with voices & sounds coming from all over the place!,..like I said,..Graham loved it!,..but,..the others I think actually got scared of it!!,..in the end,...while discussing the kind of hogwash I went though on this set with Mr Nash,..he pretty much said,."well Ron,..thats part of why I left the band"!!

[gee]

I'd say it was a  LARGE part of why Graham Nash left The Hollies....and probably a big part of the reason Terry Sylvester later left too...!
(each being frustrated and  tired of 'banging their heads against a wall' re musical policy)

The group  were about as 'conservative', 'set in their ways', and reluctant to try something bold as it's possible to be at times...

On Nash's 'Reflections' box set there is a glorious song; 'We Breathe The Same Air' which Nash felt would be perfect for The Hollies
- guess what ? -  'Allan & Tony vetoed it...'

post Nash the band often seemed 'sluggish' at best, later after Sylvester quit I've heard of them 'dillying & dallying' about re possible projects and in the end nothing emerged - just look at some of the superb songs that were left 'in the can' unissued, and the way songs such as; 'If it Wasn't For The Reason', & later 'If The lights Go Out', 'Laughter Turns To Tears', and 'Shine Silently' either were never released, or escaped overseas only...or were relegated to mere 'bonus' tracks on 12 inch singles etc....


Famous Recording Engineer Ken Scott (David Bowie, etc) spoke of how he was keen to work on a project for The Hollies, a band he'd loved for years...yet each time they set something up they found a reason to postpone (kids holidays, etc) till in the end the entire thing collapsed


John Miles ('Carrie') was working with them circa 1981, as was Bruce Welch ('I Don't Understand You'), nothing productive came of the sessions with 'Carrie' only finally released much later on in 1988...

I've heard Roy Wood was supposed to be writing material for them when Carl Wayne was with them...again it came to nothing

It's pretty clear that on so many occasions The Hollies have held themselves back alot, and while they were massively successful in the sixties, you can't help feel, given the band's obvious strengths vocally, instrumentally, and creatively,  they really could & should have done so much more...

[stuball]

Aug 18, 2013 19:00:30 GMT gee said:

The group  were about as 'conservative', 'set in their ways', and reluctant to try something bold as it's possible to be at times...

And I suppose along the same line could be added the 1978 episode where Tony ditched new potential lead vocalist Alan Merrill and a chance to record in L.A. with producer John Boylan, for the 'safe' option of a returning unhappy, frustrated Allan Clarke, and dragging aging producer Ron Richards out of retirement, to produce a lethargic, largely uninspired '5317704'.

[infinity]

Aug 13, 2013 14:47:28 GMT gee said:

  

'Butterfly' has differing effects on Nash's voice presumably due to the mixing, most notably at the ending where in stereo his voice sounds more 'robotic' (a poor word but probably accurate) given an electrical effect than in mono...

The outro vocals of butterfly has an interesting effect applied to Graham's vocal as you mentioned. Any idea what type of audio device/technique was used to create this effect?  I've tried different types of reverb plugins but haven't had any luck nailing it.  Anybody have any ideas how to accurately reproduce this sound effect? Thanks in advance.

[cameron]

It's just reverb but bear in mind that in the 1960s, reverb was created using a speaker in a room rather than a console or plugin. It' confusing that Abbey Road technicians call it the "echo room" or "echo chamber" when in fact, it produced reverb, not echo. For those reading who don't know the difference, echo delays the sound and duplicates it, so that it repeats itself milliseconds apart to make it appear to have more depth. Reverb captures sound bouncing off the wall to make it sound more lively and realistic. Echo was created using tape machines to delay the signal whereas Reverb was created by placing a speaker in a large room that would play the desired track of the session tape during mixing to the final master. They would capture the sound from the speaker and the ambience of the room on a microphone that could be placed closer to the speaker for a drier sound or further away to give the illusion of space.

I believe for 'Butterfly', they just mixed it live in conjunction with the "echo room", sending the vocals to the speaker as well as the dry vocals to the master tape from the session tape. When the time was right, the fader would have been pulled on the dry vocals and raised on the microphone in the "echo room" to send the desired vocal to the master tape. It would have been a difficult effect to achieve, given the equipment they had access to at the time.