weird overdubs

Deltadrummer

Platinum Member
I was listening to Zep's Out on the Tiles and I noticed that into the second verse somebody says "STOP." I thought it was peculiar but then I played GFR's I'm Your Captain and I noticed after the second "I'm You Captain" I hear "okay stop." These must be editing directions embedded in the recording, no?
 
Cant say about Grand Funk, but I know for a fact that a in lot of Zep recordings, JB recorded islolated drum parts that were later edited together.
 
It was strange because I just picked out about ten tunes to listen to, and put these two at the top of the list, and they both had the same editing cue.

The digital remastering often reveals the multi-track technique. Like Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, in which you can hear the other vocal tracks for the verse each time the verse comes back. That's a very common occurrence. you could even hear that a lot on the vinyl. They must have just recorded that piano progression for Low Spark and then sequenced it. The piano bit actually comes from an early Coltrane recording with McCoy Tyner. Not surprising, huh?
 
I was listening to Zep's Out on the Tiles and I noticed that into the second verse somebody says "STOP." I thought it was peculiar but then I played GFR's I'm Your Captain and I noticed after the second "I'm You Captain" I hear "okay stop." These must be editing directions embedded in the recording, no?

I just listened to I'm Your Captain and I hear an "alright"..
 
My favourite is to listen for bleed-through on remastered recordings. My copy of 'A Love Supreme' (kindly donated by a member of this forum a couple of years ago) has obvious bleed-through on 'Resolution' and a few other parts. It's like pre-delay but exaggerated. A lot of that has to do with incorrect storage of tapes and the remasters being done a decade or two later. It still shocks me the way that some of the most important master tapes of the last three generations have been stored so poorly.
 
Pink Floyd always has cool little tricks up their sleeves. The most random overdub.. it has to be in Somebody to Love by Queen. On the recording, it's at about 2:50. Freaking Roger Taylor.. you'll hear it. It's this high E flat he hits.

On this Youtube video it comes in at around 2:53. Gotta love Queen.
 
Top A's (tenor) without using falsetto are also a lot of fun...
 
Pink Floyd always has cool little tricks up their sleeves. The most random overdub.. it has to be in Somebody to Love by Queen. On the recording, it's at about 2:50. Freaking Roger Taylor.. you'll hear it. It's this high E flat he hits.

On this Youtube video it comes in at around 2:53. Gotta love Queen.

I always thought that was a guitar. :)

How much is bleeding also poor recording technique because I know a lot of bleeding was also on the vinyl?
 
I was listening to Zep's Out on the Tiles and I noticed that into the second verse somebody says "STOP." I thought it was peculiar but then I played GFR's I'm Your Captain and I noticed after the second "I'm You Captain" I hear "okay stop." These must be editing directions embedded in the recording, no?

sounds like plant saying it....
 
Put headphones on and listen to the Beatles "Come Together." You'll hear a whisper-like voice saying "Shoot me" during the instrumental parts. This is quite disturbing considering what happened to John Lennon.
 
I always thought that was a guitar. :)

How much is bleeding also poor recording technique because I know a lot of bleeding was also on the vinyl?

Different kinds of bleeding.

'Bleed Through' is purely a process that occurs on old tape or tape that has been stored incorrectly. Essentially, the magnetic particles on one side of the tape affect the magnetic particles on the next reel around. So one layer magnetically alters another (because tape obviously is a series of differently charged miniature magnets). When tape is stored, it should actually be unwound and rewound on a reasonably regular basis - at least a couple of times a year - to prevent the magnetic fields from altering each other over time. That's just one example of incorrect treatment. The same can occur in cassettes to a much lesser extent. The accuracy of the transference between the layers can be remarkably clear and there is no way of editing out when remastering old tapes.

Bleed on recordings is microphone picking up another source during recording. A classic example would be a live recording where the guitar microphone (acoustic or amp) picks up some of the drum kit. This happened a lot more in the days of vinyl when bands were often playing live in the studio before individual multitracking became more popular.
 
Put headphones on and listen to the Beatles "Come Together." You'll hear a whisper-like voice saying "Shoot me" during the instrumental parts. This is quite disturbing considering what happened to John Lennon.

You don't need headphones.. although I never thought of that whisper as "shoot me", I thought it was just like.. "shoop".
 
Doing some research I noticed that Jim Gordon is the drummer on Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, song and album. I should have just checked his entry on the main page. He's also on Welcome to the Canteen. I didn't know he played with Traffic during those years. (The piano is from Impressions.)

MFB thanks for the info. I would guess that some of the vinyl albums that I have may have been mastered from an aging tape. Pays to get a first issue. Years ago someone in a vinyl shop in NYC told me that he got a lot of calls for first pressings because many of the masters were either no longer extant or too far deteriorated. so often CD's were made from vinyl recordings rather than masters. I don't know that that is true; but it is certainly interesting.
 
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It's actually true, indeed. Tape does have a tendency to deteriorate and there was a particular period when the tape being made by (3M I think) one company actually had a manufacturing flaw that meant that it deteriorated particularly quickly. I think one of the glue layers had a flaw and it meant there was separation between them. Those tapes had to actually be baked in an oven to be playable and then they would only work a couple of times - so quite a lot of tape has actually been lost and vinyl mastering has been the only option.

A lot of really old records (think Django, etc) were actually cut straight to vinyl - which is fascinating to me - and it wasn't until the mid-50's until tape started taking over as it was far more reliable. Until then, the tape was far too crude and inconsistent.

Going full circle, the band Portishead's second album (Called Portishead) went through and interesting mastering process, making heavy use of vinyl. If I recall correctly, they mastered to tape, then mastered to vinyl and then mastered back to tape from the vinyl - so if you listen to the record, it has a dark, grainy characteristic. It sounds great - but not something I'd use all the time. The album is incredibly dark; so it works.
 
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