Interesting Abbey Road observations

[lukpac]

This will probably only be of interest to the likes of Xenu...

1) George's lead vocal is mixed at about 2 o'clock on Here Comes the Sun, something I never noticed before.

2) During the "sun, sun, sun here it comes" break, the acoustic guitar moves from left to center, then right, then all the way left, then center, then back left. Never noticed this either.

3) The drums on I Want You seem to have been recorded in stereo. They are mixed very strangely, though. For the first portion of the song, the "left" track seems to be hard left, while the "right" track seems to be left of center. After the edit, the "left" track moves to the center, while the "right" track moves to the right.

4) At 1:46 of I Want You there seems to be an edit - possibly the cut between two of the original takes? The drum sound shifts to the left a bit here.

5) At about 1:04 ("resting our head") in Octopus's Garden (on the stock CD), the sound shifts, possibly from a tape alignment problem. The left channel loses a bit of high end. Is that on other versions (don't have them here at work at the moment)?

Sorry...been listening under headphones today.

[dudelsack]

Hmm...once I get moved I'll have to check out my UK LP.

[lukpac]

At home I've got the Toshiba CD (CD-R), as well as a couple of MFSL needle drops (Dr. Ebbets maybe?). I think I listened to those once (the needle drops).

[krabapple]

I htought this thread would be about the *studio*.

[lukpac]

You don't like the album?

[CitizenDan]

There are a lot of weird little mixing/placement vagaries on that album. It's been years since I listened to it, but I recall the tambourine on "Mean Mr. Mustard" being potted up late, the acoustic guitar on "Polythene Pam" swooping from the left to the middle (I think), the band being out of tune with the orchestra on "The End," etc. They sound less like production touches than outright mistakes.

[lukpac]

The guitar thing on Polythene Pam is definitely a production thing. It starts out in the middle for the solo strums, then switches to the left when the drums and guitar come in. Then back to the middle for the solo strums, and back to the left again.

Fun with stereo.

[CitizenDan]

I bet you're right, Luke. But I get the feeling that a lot of the mixing (on the Side 2 medley especially) was done in a hurry. Elements drop in and out and move around the stereo spectrum throughout that whole stretch of the album.

[lukpac]

I'm guessing a lot of it was intentional, but yet at the same time somewhat sloppy.

Kind of like the "dropout" in Day Tripper.