Steve: Doors question

[Grant]

Somewhere I posted a question to you about the recorded speed of "Light My Fire". In the thread you stated that they slowed it down during mixing of the final LP version.

Does this mean that the faster 45 version is closer to or the correct recorded speed?

[Steve Hoffman]

The tape is still faster than the single. But the single is actually more than one speed changed, because of the varying tempo changes in the song from the beginning of the solos to the edit. So, from the "edit" point on (at the end of Robbie's solo), they had to slow that end part down a bit more to match.

Bands always speed up...


Make sense?:eek:

[Grant]

Thanks. I tried to find the original thread without success.

So, when I recreated my single edit from CD I did not notice the speed shifting. When I synched up the 45 to the CD when attempting to get the correct speed I noticed the single kept drifting, but I thought it was just in the master tape.
I noticed something was wrong when on the movie "The Doors" with Val Kilmer, the long version of "Light My Fire" was faster than the LP or CD.

So, this means that all those people who couldn't understand why I preferred the single's pitch because it was "too fast" are actually listening to it too slow. Cool!

[Steve Hoffman]

Yeah. It's just that most people haven't heard the single version in 34 years, whereas the LP version is played over and over again.

Amazing that they oopsed like that in the movie, not slowing the song down to the correct "release" speed.

Well, they did on the Quad remix as well....

[Matt]

In the recent issue of Stereophile, they mentioned how "Layla" and "Caroline, No" were sped up (I think during the cutting); "Layla" during the coda because the band thought it was dragging a bit, and "Caroline, No" through the entire song to make Brian sound younger. Were these ever mastered like that for CD?

[Steve Hoffman]

They wouldn't have done the Layla stuff at the cutting. That was done at the mixing stage.

The "Caroline No" thing, maybe.... They would have wrapped a piece of masking tape around the capstain a few times to speed the machine up. Then, they would have made a tape copy of the speeded up version and razor blade the original. Yikes!!!!

Anyone know if the 45 matches the LP version? If so, then they really DID razor blade the original slower mix...:(

[Andy]

The "Caroline No" thing, maybe.... They would have wrapped a piece of masking tape around the capstain a few times to speed the machine up. Then, they would have made a tape copy of the speeded up version and razor blade the original. Yikes!!!!


That's enough to make you tingle in places you might not want to tingle.:D

[dbryant]

Hmmm...so the "original speed" version on the Pet Sounds Sessions box would have been a slowed down version of the sped up copy...

Funny, I always felt cheated that they only did the bridge once on that tune. Then I heard a cover version where it was repeated and thought, no, that's too much. Hearing that "original speed" version, it finally came together for me. The proportions were just right.

[Angel]

If there is an "original speed" version, it's probably the original. In this case, they must have saved it somewhere. Good for them!

For anyone who cares, the sped-up version was actually done at Capitol instead of Western! A little Beach Boys tidbit for you. ;)