Is The Ringo on Drums Version of "Love Me Do" on Past Masters at the right speed?

....nevermind....

 

That corroborates what I have heard--that Ron Furmanek supplied the 45 for the US Rarities LP--so it was not just from any old "collector."

Seeing as *both* the Ebbetts CD-R disc and the EMI legit CD were needle drops, it does not surprise me that there are speed differences between the two. One table perhaps running too fast, one table perhaps too slow. If that is indeed the case, typical bad quality control on the part of both parties, IMHO, but an easy mistake to make . . .

 

True, but Past Masters being an official release, one could have expected the people who did the transfer to take more care. And even apart from the speed issue, it's still a rather lousy-sounding needle-drop.

 

Agreed. I've learned to never expect care from EMI's Beatles releases, although there are pleasant surprises from time to time. The EP Box and the 25th Anniversary BOTR, to name a few. Ebbetts is inconsistent and, truth be told, if I am going to listen to needledrops, I'd rather listen to my own--heck, I'd rather listen to my LP's!

 

I actually prefer the Millennium Remasters. I don't know if the person behind the MR series takes more care than Ebbetts does, but I generally prefer the sound of the MRs compared to Ebbetts (with a few exceptions). It's just that there is no MR of the Ringo "Love Me Do" as far as I know. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Some of us don't have the privilege of owning all the best-sounding Beatles vinyl.

 

Good thinking, Raf! I don't have the original 45 of LMD (although I do have some Parlophone 45s) but I do have the US Rarities LP, so I can check this out.

At a guess the PM Love Me Do is about 22 cents too sharp so I dropped the pitch by 22 cents and then superimposed it on the Andy White version again. Here is the result, this time the Andy White take is on the left channel and Ringo is on the right channel:

Andy White vs Ringo (PM pitch lowed 22 cents)

Note that I only lowered the pitch of the PM version, the tempo is still the same as before. Paul's bass is slightly off (as might be expected) but the pitch of John's harmonica matches. I don't think that Paul got the intonation on his Hofner adjusted until 1964 (he may not have realised it was possible before then). Sounds great on "Veronica" and "My Brace Face"

Thanks to everyone who made positive comments about my first LMD comparison!

 

Excellent work, HMV! That does prove, IMO, that EMI speeded up the needle drop to match the tempo of the Andy White version.

 

Thanks, another side. The tempos are extremely close. It only takes a tiny bit of tweaking to make them sync exactly (which I have just done now to see if it was possible) so yes it does sound like somebody at EMI might have preferred the Ringo version played at the "Andy Tempo".

 

To follow your lead, I adjusted the tempo of the Dr. Ebbetts needle drop by 1.7% (the difference is speed between the Dr. Ebbetts needle drop and PM) and using your method I see that it matches pretty closely. I then adjusted the pitch of the Dr. Ebbetts needle drop, and I was not able to match it exactly, but it's between +0.1 and +0.2 (my pitch adjustment does not have hundreds).

 

After a bit more obsessive comparison, I now think that an adjustment of +15 cents for the Ebbetts makes for a more accurate match. That's a tiny fraction over a 1% speed increase.

 

No, Mr. Raymond Jones IS real. An article by Spencer Leigh for Mojo Magazine (pages 20-21 of The Beatles - 10 Years that Shook The World) tracked him down in Spain. Bob Wooler knew the man, and tipped Leigh off as to how to find him. Jones' photo is on page 20. Mr. Jones was given a copy of Brian Epstein's book as a thank you for tipping Epstein off to the Beatles. Jones still has the thank you letter and the book.

It's only Alistair Taylor who claimed Jones was fictional and was actually him (Taylor), and his claim came ONLY in his SECOND book, not his first one. It appears that Mr. Taylor was certainly "mis-remembering" the events.

Derek

 

Interesting, isn't it, another side? I kept the tempo the same when I dropped the PM pitch to make it easier to compare the versions. In fact, if I slightly increase the tempo of the PM version (by about 0.2%) then the tempo matches the Andy White take exactly and an interesting "stereo" version can be created with the Ringo take on one channel and Andy on the other channel. In fact the match is so close that it makes me think that the whole "Sie Liebt Dich" theory (the theory that says that it's based on a take from the original "She Loves You" sessions) may well be wrong. I mean, if a take with two different drummers syncs up (apart from the bass drum) then there's plenty of reason to see why a remake of "She Loves You" might just be coincidentally almost identical to the original.

Now I'm wondering: How did Andy White (and for that matter, Ringo) learn the "Love Me Do" drum part? Did Paul demonstrate the basic beat to them, or was it based on a drum part from another well-known song? Or did George Martin just pull out an acetate of the June 6 session (with Pete Best on drums) and say "play it like that, only good". OK, to be fair, Andy White could have listened to the Ringo take, and Ringo might have already heard the song played live, so maybe I've already answered my own question.

Since I mentioned it, this is my attempt at getting the Andy and Ringo versions properly synced up and pitch corrected to create the kind of fake stereo that Dave Dexter could only dream of:

Intro of Andy and Ringo Love Me Do in sync

Of course, if I was really Dave Dexter there'd be lots of reverb and ear bending EQ!

 

Nice work! I actually started to try that with the Ebbetts and the Andy White, but to synch the whole song, you'd have to chop up one of the tracks and time-shift the pieces (which you probably knew already). An editing exercise for another time ...

 

Thanks Raf! I thought of doing that, but you're quite right. There would be differences - particularly in the stop-start parts (like after "some one like you!") - that would mean I'd have to shift one of the takes around. Also, Ringo tends to subtly vary the tempo at times, whereas Andy is pretty rock-steady.

Ringo must have taken the hint about his bass drum playing, because he got a lot tighter pretty quick.

So, when the Beatles remasters finally emerge, who will be first to check "Past Masters Vol 1" (or whatever CD the Ringo "Love Me Do" shows up on) to see whether they've finally got the speed right? I'll bet it won't be right!

 

Which version of LMD appears on the Canadian She Loves You LP?

 

Erm, I don't think there is a Canadian "She Loves You" LP. Perhaps you mean the Canadian "Twist and Shout" LP that says "featuring She Loves You" on the front cover? It uses the same photo as featured on the UK "Twist and Shout" EP

Twist and Shout album details

There's a page showing the two covers here (the Canadian LP is on the right):

Twist and Shout, UK EP and Canadian LP


That would be the Andy White version of LMD on that LP.

 

I thought about that, but really to do the exercise you only need to do it for the first 30 seconds or so. That is up until the point where the harmonica comes in and Paul sings alone. That way once you got the pitch right, you would only have to match the timing of the song segment (if you wanted to do the whole song, you'd have to chop up one of the tracks into 30 second segments).

But there is one thing you're not considering. It is an inherent characterictic of magnetic tape that it will never play exactly the same way twice. The turning of the tape itself leads to oscillations in speed that are imperceptible, but would make matching two tracks of even the same performance impossible.

 

Please give me a quick Beatles background lesson. Until this thread I never knew that Pete Best had recorded with the Beatles and George Martin.

Martin signs the Pete Best version of the Beatles?
They record "Love Me Do" as their first single?
Martin doesn't like Best and ... is this when he's kicked out?
Martin wants to rerecord the song with Andy White not knowing that Ringo has been hired to join the band?
Did Pete record anything else with the Beatles before getting the Beatle boot?

 

True, plus one of the performances will also have slight additional subtle speed variations due to it being a needle drop (whether we use EMI's needledrop or the Ebbetts)...

Still, I'm sure it could be futzed with in the digital domain to "fix" it Although, now that I think about it I notice that some of those remixes on Anthology and the YS songtrack seem to go a little out of sync in places, so perhaps it's too hard to fix some of this stuff, or maybe someone at Abbey Road wasn't paying attention. I mean I assume they have to do a little speed correction when they seperate out the tracks from the various generations of multitracks, but I wonder how much attention they really pay to this

 

The chronology is:
June 6, 1962: The Beatles record their first session with George Martin, with Pete Best on drums. They record Love Me Do, Besame Mucho, PS I Love You and Ask Me Why. The first two tracks are all that survive this session. They both appear on Anthology One.

Sept 4, 1962: First session with Ringo. They record Love Me Do and How Do You Do It.

Sept 11, 1962: Session with Andy White on drums. They record Love Me Do, PS I Love You and the version of Please Please Me which was eventually released on Anthology One.

So it wasn't that George Martin wanted to rerecord Love Me Do because he didn't know Ringo had replaced Pete. It was because he was unsatisfied with Ringo's first session that Andy White was brought in.

 

czeskleba got in first, so I'll just add that after the June 6 recording date (which possibly was only an audition) Pete continued to play with the Beatles until August 15, and Ringo joined on August 18. They played a show with Ringo at the Cavern on August 22 and a portion if this still exists on film (you've probably seen a little bit of this - they play "Some Other Guy").

Curiously, after George Martin hired Andy White the "Love Me Do" single was released with the Ringo take anyway!

Yes, Pete did record other things with the Beatles before getting the "Beatle Boot" (sounds like a Cuban Heel).

The BBC recorded the Beatles with Pete live on June 11, three songs of which were broadcast on June 15 1962. Plus he also recorded with them for Decca back in January 1962 (some of the Decca audition is on Anthology 1). Also he backed Tony Sheridan with the Beatles on tracks recorded in 1961.

 

Yeah, I had a weird situation when I matched the PM version with the US Rarities version. It was perfectly in synch for about 15 seconds, then went several milliseconds off for almost a minute, then went back in synch again for the rest of the song. Obviously at least one of the needle-drops had a couple of very minor speed fluctuations. The thing is, with this particular situation, there are actually three needle-drops involved, because the Ebbetts LMD from the US Rarities is, of course, a needle-drop of a needle-drop. Anyway, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Personally, if I can trust that the transfer was done from a properly calibrated and maintained tape machine, I don't worry at all about speed variations. Any efforts to fix these very minor issues would require a lot of painstaking work, the result of which would be noticed by very few people, if any. Besides, it's just another kind of futzing that audiophiles and obsessive listeners hate.

 

I hate to beat a dead horse....

I just picked up the 12 inch 45 of Love Me Do, with the Ringo version on side 2. I compared it to my original red label Parlophone and noticed that the 1982 reissue was slightly faster. It seems to match the pitch that's on the Past Masters CD and Anthology DVD.

 

I don’t stand by that post from 14 years ago. Subpar equipment at that time.

My analog setup is out of commission, so I can’t even A/B even I wanted to.