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Post by dirtyfaz on Jan 23, 2018 0:41:13 GMT
Someone has put up on Youtube some Hollies new enhanced versions. He has done the same kind of thing with lots of other artists as well.
The tracks are I'm alive, Just One Look, Look Through Any Window, Carrie Anne and On A Carousel.
As part of the enhancement this person had added extra instruments and vocals to existing Hollies material and put a note to what he has done.
As an example with Carrie Anne he says:
"One thing I never liked was when a producer places the vocals on just one channel so I added some on the left channel to balance it out and make for a fuller vocal stereo effect. I added my 12 string acoustic on the left channel and more pronounced percussion, tambourine etc. I like the "wave organ" in the middle part with the clapping and some other instrument tricks. The Epiphone 6 electric gave the right channel more powerful guitar rift."
This is the link to Carrie Anne
from there you can see the others and read his notes.
Me personally, I don't like them but I understand his motivation.
I just thought I would share this so you all can see and make your own judgements.
Chris
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Post by eric on Jan 23, 2018 9:33:55 GMT
Chris, thank you for letting us know that these tracks exist.
it is interesting to see what people can do sonically with historic recordings. It could be quite fun adding bits and pieces to great tunes and feeling as though one is part of the band and helping them in the process.
The Hollies did a similar “enhancement” thing years ago, in 1997, by adding guitar to the then unreleased “Schoolgirl” from 1967. The Beatles also created new tracks from John Lennon’s home tapes in 1995 and 1996 with “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love” respectively. I liked what The Beatles achieved, and to a lesser degree “Schoolgirl”, but these "enhanced" takes of The Hollies classics sound awful to me. Anything to do with the talent on offer?
Some people may be frustrated with the old stereo mixes and, in the absence of a sonic overhaul of The Hollies catalogue, want to change things themselves for their own listening pleasure. That’s fine. However, apart from a curiosity factor to a prospective listener, there is no real need for them to share their hobby with the world!
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Post by cameron on Jan 23, 2018 19:42:12 GMT
Sadly I don't think we'll EVER see a proper sonic overhaul of the Hollies' back catalogue. Whenever they've tried to do it, the results have been disastrous: the new stereo mix of "King Midas In Reverse" a case in point and the ridiculously 'hot' mastering on the new tracks on the Clarke Hicks & Nash Years Boxset. I kind of understand "Schoolgirl" and why they did it, but they made the original track mono and Tony's new guitar solo (with a very 1990s polished 'twang') stereo which spoilt it. They should have mixed it to stereo the old fashioned way and merged Tony's new part better - or left it off all together. It clearly stated in the notes that it was an unfinished song. The fans don't need the Hollies to complete these takes as such.
I've done a remix of most of 'Evolution' but adding nothing and using only frequency separation techniques to alter the stereo image. And gave the whole thing a bit of a sonic clean in the process:
I think you should work with what's there rather than add to it. I could do it so much better with access to the original session tapes but that would never come to pass in a million years so this has to do for now!
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Post by eric on Jan 24, 2018 11:41:54 GMT
Cameron, you have shown respect to the band by not adding bits to their recordings. With regard to “Stop Right There”, your placement of the vocals in the centre and the overall freshness of the sound makes it a lovely remix. Well done!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2018 15:25:43 GMT
Now that CSN/CSNY are no more, i do wonder whether Graham Nash could possibly turn his attention to helping financially and otherwise in re-mastering some of the
Hollies back catalogue that he was involved with originally?
He does have the required skills in that he re-produced packages for his former band mates, Stills and Crosby.
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Post by Tony Wilkinson on Feb 3, 2018 16:19:49 GMT
Why for Christ's sake do you want anything remastering or messing about with, I just don't get this , just listen to the original brilliantly recorded music as it was meant to be.....
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Post by cameron on Feb 3, 2018 17:14:30 GMT
Because you're improving how the music sounds. Look at how great last year's Sgt. Pepper stereo remix was, for example. Nearly all of the 1960s Hollies albums had awful unbalanced stereo mixes and mono just sounds flat to me. The mixes would benefit from pulling the vocals to the centre and splitting the remaining tracks over the stereo field to create a more balanced mix. The 'current' 1999 remastered CDs of the Hollies' back catalogue can't even touch the original vinyl, sounding very weak compared. 'Evolution' especially sounds very muddy and sonically poorly mixed. Ron Richards didn't have the ear for a quality recording like George Martin did, it wasn't until the Hollies went more self-produced and got Alan Parsons involved that things improved. But even then, Parsons was given the Hollies to practice with, and he made his fair share of mistakes early on. 'Gasoline Alley Bred' and 'I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top' are two cases in point, which the Hollies themselves were very unhappy with the sound of those tracks at the time.
That said, the Hollies don't have a good track record at all when it comes to remixing their back catalogue. They need a specialist involved, not just the staff at Abbey Road or Tony's son, Paul. The mix of 'Schoolgirl' was mono with a stereo guitar overdub stuck on it and don't even get me started on that awful remix of 'King Midas In Reverse'...
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Post by anthony on Feb 3, 2018 20:53:06 GMT
Why for Christ's sake do you want anything remastering or messing about with, I just don't get this , just listen to the original brilliantly recorded music as it was meant to be..... have to agree 100%.
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Post by dirtyfaz on Feb 3, 2018 23:37:18 GMT
There were what they were. It was how they did it in the old days. I have never had any problems with the way stereo was created in those days. You have to remember that they were still learning about stereo mixing in those days.
I have though, always thought it was funny how some of those early LPs were mixed better than others (Even happened to the Beatles). My guess it was a time thing. The UK might have had only MONO release after Stay but Germany was at the forefront of Stereo and wanted Stereo mixes so my guess haste was the issue.
There is a difference between remixing and remastering. Hardly anything of the Hollies has be remixed but there has been a bit of remastering done mostly to the detriment of the music and my ears.
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Post by cameron on Feb 4, 2018 1:43:42 GMT
Why for Christ's sake do you want anything remastering or messing about with, I just don't get this , just listen to the original brilliantly recorded music as it was meant to be..... have to agree 100%.
I took Tony's comment to refer to my remix above, I agree if it applies to the original point of the topic. Adding bits to recordings 50 years later is completely unnecessary, but if you're sonically improving what was already there and only what's already there, then there's no problem. The mixing and producing of Hollies records is uncharted waters really. Not much has ever been said or disclosed about it, other than it seems that Peter Brown was a fairly constant main audio engineer for the Hollies throughout the 1960s. Around 1970, a young Alan Parsons became involved, taking over fully on 'Romany' and carrying on through until 'Another Night'. But nothing much other than that. Ron Richards as producer was in charge of capturing the sound on tape. The engineer would be responsible for the technicalities of placing the microphones, setting up the compressors and determining the best way to commit the recorded sounds to tape. Ron would respond to what he heard and request the microphones to be moved etc... and it was always said that he balanced the Hollies' vocals himself at the mixing desk. Ron would have the final say in how the finished mix appeared, even over the Hollies in the early days at least. I understand that Ron personally oversaw all the Hollies mono mixes right through to 1969, just as George Martin did with the Beatles. When it came to the stereo mix, generally, this task would be given to a secondary producer/engineer, sometimes weeks or months after the mono mix, depending on which foreign record label had asked for it, or if success of the LP warranted it (remember, 'Would You Believe' didn't come along in stereo until almost a year after its release, and 'For Certain Because...' arrived in stereo just into 1967, apparently). Ron was very much a "get it in the can and let's go to the pub" kind of guy, so the less work he had to do, the better as far as he was concerned. His job along with his first engineer was to capture the best sound possible on the session tapes, which could then be very easily mixed to mono or stereo with little further amendments. Some of the really good second engineers would come in and mix the albums to stereo with a balanced mix and slight use of echo to gel it all together. Then some of the junior engineers would be allowed to cut their teeth on these early stereo mixes, hence their usual tendency to follow EMI's orders for a vocals in one channel, everything else in the other style mix, as it folded down to mono well in the days when EMI was pushing mono more than stereo - so I've heard. It's this long laborious process that leads to differing sounding mixes in mono and stereo. Though Ron Richards would have had to 'approve' those stereo mixes and sign them off before EMI would use them to press records. It's funny how George Martin has commented about the rudimentary stereo mixes a lot over the years, something he seemed quite passionate to improve wherever possible, whereas I don't know how Ron Richards felt about them. |
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