Stones - Out Of Our Heads

[lukpac]

So, I've been listening to the ABKCO CD version of this a lot lately. What a mixed bag:

Mercy Mercy - Not too bad, not audiophile, but decent sound, anyway. Recorded at Chess.
Hitch Hike - Was this recorded in a cave?! I know it was done at RCA, but ****, this sounds *really* bad. What did they do to make it sound so muffled?
The Last Time - eh, The Last Time. Typical mono RCA Stones sound. Not very good.
That's How Strong My Love Is - As with Mercy Mercy. Not great, but pretty listenable. Ron Malo's Stones recordings always sounded better than Dave Hassinger's.
Good Times - A bit better than Hitch Hike, which isn't saying much. Pretty muffled. A shame!
I'm Alright - "live" recording by Glyn Johns. Not too bad. Not too good either, but...
Satisfaction - it sounds like Satisfaction in mono. What else is there to say?
Cry To Me - Slightly better sound from RCA. Not *quite* so squashed.
Under Assistant... - For Chess this really doesn't sound that great. Compare it to Time Is On My Side or It's All Over Now in stereo...
Play With Fire - average sounding.
Spider And The Fly - What happened here?! Still not "great", but seemingly a lot better than some of the other RCA tracks. Mick *almost* sounds alive here!
One More Try - Doesn't really sound like the typical RCA recording. It sounds like the version on this CD is either *very* narrow stereo or very narrow fake stereo.

The question then is, why do these tracks sound like this? Why does Hitch Hike sound SO bad? Do other issues sound better? Can anything be done to help it? Do those RCA multitracks still exist? I know remixes are generally looked down upon here, but it seems to me this album (and other early Stones tracks) could use it. I wonder if stereo mixes were ever made of the Chess material here - most everthing else has shown up in stereo from there, yet these tracks haven't.

[John Oteri]

God, how I hate the sound of that RCA Stones stuff. As Steve Hoffman has said about these tracks many times in print: "I don't have enough knobs on my equipment to make something sound THAT bad!"

From talking to Mr. H. about the "RCA years", he noted two things of interest:

One of the Stones RCA engineers (who shall remain nameless), ALWAYS filtered everything at 7,500 cycles during "bouncing" to deal with tape hiss. No top end at all. Dreadful. This same RCA sound can be heard on Monkees songs like "P.V. Sunday"; no top end on the voices, etc. Just terrible.

The second thing that Steve mentioned about these Stones RCA masters, is that when RCA sent the tapes to England, they were REDUBBED, on a stereo machine, played back in mono. If you are a forum regular, you know what that means. OUT OF PHASE! Listen to "Hitch Hike", perfect example of a song that was dubbed incorrectly. Then, the song was redubbed for American London, sent to Bell Sound in New York, and redubbed AGAIN by Bell (for the billing, Steve says). So, how many copies down is that, made from an out of phase tape to begin with.

Wasn't anyone listening back then?
:eek:

[lukpac]

Originally posted by John Oteri
God, how I hate the sound of that RCA Stones stuff. As Steve Hoffman has said about these tracks many times in print: "I don't have enough knobs on my equipment to make something sound THAT bad!"

Well, the thing is, for as bad as the original recordings were, they weren't *that* bad. The stereo mixes, while not great, do show that those recordings had *some* life to them. Heart of Stone is a good example. I was blown away when I finally heard the stereo mix of that. "I never heard *that* before!"

[John Oteri]

Oh yes, there are some great sounding Stones RCA masters. The entire "Aftermath" album for an example. Listen to "Out Of Time" (import CD version of course), great sound.

But is this the same studio that recorded "Hitch Hike"?

Yikes, one can sound so good, and one can sound like an acoustic Victor from 1917 (worse actually). Too weird!

[Bob Lovely]

All,

Looking back, there is definite observation to be made here. Most of the "British Invasion" material doe not really sound all that good. The Stones saga is not an alone. Capitol felt compelled to re-format the Beatles catalog and add all that reverb. Epic felt compelled to add reverb and issue re-channeled Stereo versions of the Dave Clark Five catalog. To this day, we do not have the DC5 hits in true stereo on CD eventhough fine sounding true stereo masters exist. The Beatles earlier catalog could sound a whole lot better. Because the rights to the Stones early catalog rest with ABKCO in the US we are stuck with poor sounding versions of their catalog. The Stereo versions of Time Is On My Side and It's All Over Now are good-sounding exceptions. Even the Beatles 1 was no-noised and nose-shaped (in pristine 24 bits, of course).

There may be several factors at work:

1) a lot of early British invasion material was "Joe Meek-ed" to death when it was recorded and mastered. This may have been simply a trendy recording technique in the UK at the time.

2) few of the British invasion hits were originally released in the US under the same label ownership as their indigenous British counterparts. The Beatles on Vee Jay and Swan?..too many "leased" masters during that era.

3) American labels felt compelled to "process" many of these hits even further for 1960's AM radio airplay (lots of compression and reverb).

So many of the domestic recorded and released versions of Top 40 hits from the same era sound much better (exceptions noted, of course).

I can only hope that some day we get to hear the Beatles done right, the Stones from first generation master tapes or re-mixed multi-tracks and the Dave Clark Five in true stereo.

In 2002, there are not legitimate excuses for these vagarities!

Bob :eek:

[lukpac]

Originally posted by Bob Lovely
1) a lot of early British invasion material was "Joe Meek-ed" to death when it was recorded and mastered. This may have been simply a trendy recording technique in the UK at the time.

2) few of the British invasion hits were originally released in the US under the same label ownership as their indigenous British counterparts. The Beatles on Vee Jay and Swan?..too many "leased" masters during that era.

So many of the domestic recorded and released versions of Top 40 hits from the same era sound much better (exceptions noted, of course).


Keep in mind the Stones material we're talking about was cut at RCA in Hollywood!

The Stones' US output was on London Records, the US arm of Decca in the UK (which, BTW, was NOT the same as Decca in the US).

[lukpac]

Originally posted by John Oteri
Oh yes, there are some great sounding Stones RCA masters. The entire "Aftermath" album for an example. Listen to "Out Of Time" (import CD version of course), great sound.

But is this the same studio that recorded "Hitch Hike"?

Well, even Aftermath doesn't sound great. Yeah, it's better, but it still sounds like RCA Studios. Not much high end, squashed sound, etc... I'd be happy if all of the RCA material sounded like that (and most of it probably could), but...

[John Oteri]

Originally posted by lukpac


Well, even Aftermath doesn't sound great. Yeah, it's better, but it still sounds like RCA Studios. Not much high end, squashed sound, etc... material sounded like that

Well, one can't blame RCA, just the technicians, right? I mean some great sounding Henry Mancini things came out of that studio, and all of the Living Stereo stuff recorded in LA in the 1950's. Different engineers though, and that's the key, right? :rolleyes:

[Bob Lovely]

Originally posted by lukpac


Keep in mind the Stones material we're talking about was cut at RCA in Hollywood!

The Stones' US output was on London Records, the US arm of Decca in the UK (which, BTW, was NOT the same as Decca in the US).

Regardless of where the original recordings were recorded, my point is that there was a certain "UK sound" versus "US sound" in the mid 60's and that the original multi-track masters were owned by an off-shore company and leased back to a US company for release, more often than not. There are exceptions to all my points that are more about general observations versus specific criticisms.

Bob :)

[lukpac]

Originally posted by Bob Lovely
Regardless of where the original recordings were recorded, my point is that there was a certain "UK sound" versus "US sound" in the mid 60's and that the original multi-track masters were owned by an off-shore company and leased back to a US company for release, more often than not. There are exceptions to all my points that are more about general observations versus specific criticisms.

Well, in the case of the Stones, they'd record at Chess or RCA, mix there, then lease the masters to Decca. That's why ABKCO owns everything now - the Stones never had a regular record deal with Decca, they had a master lease agreement. Whether London got copies from Decca or the group I don't know, but...

I believe Chess retained the actual multitrack session tapes, which were thrown out in the late '70s. Luckily the majority of tracks were mixed to stereo in the late '60s. I don't know where those RCA multitracks are, if they still exist. Anyone?

I've heard rumors that at one point ABKCO ordered all Stones multitracks (in Polygram's vault, I believe) destroyed, but I guess some employees either took them or didn't thrown them out. I'm not sure on the details, nor what tapes were involved.

[lukpac]

Originally posted by John Oteri


Well, one can't blame RCA, just the technicians, right? I mean some great sounding Henry Mancini things came out of that studio, and all of the Living Stereo stuff recorded in LA in the 1950's. Different engineers though, and that's the key, right? :rolleyes:

Well, Dave Hassinger. Same thing with the Jefferson Airplane...

[Bob Lovely]

Originally posted by lukpac


Well, in the case of the Stones, they'd record at Chess or RCA, mix there, then lease the masters to Decca. That's why ABKCO owns everything now - the Stones never had a regular record deal with Decca, they had a master lease agreement. Whether London got copies from Decca or the group I don't know, but...

I believe Chess retained the actual multitrack session tapes, which were thrown out in the late '70s. Luckily the majority of tracks were mixed to stereo in the late '60s. I don't know where those RCA multitracks are, if they still exist. Anyone?

I've heard rumors that at one point ABKCO ordered all Stones multitracks (in Polygram's vault, I believe) destroyed, but I guess some employees either took them or didn't thrown them out. I'm not sure on the details, nor what tapes were involved.

You have supported one of my points quite well! The legal issues, ownerships rights, etc. affected the quality of the sound and how we hear those recordings today!

Sad, really!

Bob

[John Oteri]

Originally posted by lukpac


Well, Dave Hassinger. Same thing with the Jefferson Airplane...


Since you named names, uh yeah, him! :( :( :(

[Oatsdad]

Back in the mid-Eighties, I owned ALL of the import Stones CDs. Alas, I eventually decided I didn't need such a large Stones collection and sold all of them except Let It Bleed, Aftermath and Hot Rocks. I had no idea that Allen Klein essentially rendered them non-existent at any point.

Boy, do I regret this! I decided to pick up a new copy of Between the Buttons last year and remembered how much I liked that album - dunno whatever possessed me to sell it. But the sound quality was ATROCIOUS!

So what do people think? I didn't remember the import sounding so bad, but maybe it did. Is the old import of BTB significantly better than the ABKCO one? I'm still screwed anyway you look at it - not like I can find the import anywhere, at least not for a reasonable price - but I'm curious to hear opinions...