Beathoven

Studying the Beatles

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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
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Introduction
Like many people, I often find myself frustrated with the lack of fine detail in Mark Lewisohn's Recording Sessions book. I can understand it though - he did have to make it readable after all. But for many sessions it would be really nice to have the full details on how a particular released track was constructed. From Me To You is one of those tracks. The only details that can be gleaned from Lewisohn's work is that on the 5th of March 1963 the Beatles recorded the song in "seven takes, then six additional edit piece takes". On the 14th of March, an edit of unknown take numbers was made and this was then mixed into both mono and stereo. I believe that there is a lot more to this story than that.

Twin-track Recording Method
During this era, the Beatles' EMI sessions were recorded on twin-track tape. In general they would record a basic rhythm track on the left channel and live vocals on the right. Additional instrumentation (such as harmonica) would have to be added by overdubbing, and the only way to do this with twin-track facilities was to make a tape-to-tape copy of the backing track while simultaneously recording the new sounds. The new recording would then be one tape generation away from the original and would therefore suffer from an increase in tape hiss - a side effect of analogue tape copying. For more complicated recordings, in order to minimise the number of tape generations (and therefore the tape hiss), they would often record additional overdubs as edit pieces only - new sounds added to only a small section of the backing track (for example say, the middle eight of a song). These small sections would then be edited in to the final master.

From Me To You is a good example of the Beatles' recording method on twin-track tape. It's also a good example of a session that is not detailed enough in Lewisohn's book. Fortunately the entire session has been bootlegged for us to listen to. And careful listening to the tapes can fill in the details that Lewisohn was unable to include.

Basic Track Recordings
The first part of recording this track involved laying down a basic rhythm track and vocals. This was done in the usual way of having the rhythm on the left and the vocals on the right. The following takes were recorded:

Overdub Recordings
Overdub Take 8 (onto Take 7) complete - best (intro vocals, middle eight harmonica, ending harmonica)
The next step was to add the opening "da-da-da da-da-dum-dum-da" vocals, middle eight harmonica and ending harmonica. This was done in a single overdub take, taking the recording to second generation. Interestingly, the overdubs were added to both channels of Take 8, making them appear in the centre of the stereo image. Usually such overdubs were added to the right (vocal) channel only.

Edit Piece Experiments
Lastly, the Beatles' experimented with a number of edit piece takes, and these are possibly the most fascinating part of the whole session. The key to the construction of the final master is in this section as well - because the available tape of edit pieces is incomplete! Let's start at the beginning.

Opening and Middle Eight Harmonica Experiment
Edit Piece 1, Take 9 (onto edit of Take 7) complete
The first edit piece is an extremely curious one. This is another go at overdubbing harmonica onto Take 7. This time to the beginning and middle eight only. Curious though is the fact that the harmonica is added to both these sections in one continuous go. It appears that they are adding it to an edited down version of Take 7 (an edit of just the beginning and middle eight - the take begins with the count-in and opening of Take 7 then switches immediately to the middle eight from Take 7. The harmonica overdub on top of this is totally seamless). Why would they do this? Perhaps to achieve a better (more consistent) harmonica sound between the opening and middle eight?

I'm calling this edit piece as part of Take 9 even thought it has no take number designation on the session tape.

Ending Harmonica
Edit Piece 2, Take 9 (onto Take 7) breakdown
Edit Piece 3, Take 10 (onto Take 7) complete
The next two edit pieces are attempts at overdubbing the ending harmonica again (seems like George Martin thought they could do better than the previous Take 8). In the first attempt John misses his cue. An important point now is that the second attempt has been cut out of the session tape! You can hear the end of the backing tape (Take 7) come up to speed again, but just before the harmonica would come in it cuts off abruptly. I therefore conclude that this edit piece has been cut out of the session master tape.

Hummed Intro
Edit Piece 4, Take 11 (onto Take 7) complete
The final three edit pieces are experiments with the song's opening. The first of these is a hummed version of the "da-da-da da-da-dum-dum-da" opening vocals.

Harmonica Intro
Edit Piece 5, Take 12 (onto Take7) complete - best
The next edit piece is again missing from the session tape, and again I believe it has been deliberately cut out. You can hear the take number announcement and then the tape cuts straight away to the first verse of the song (just after where the opening phrases would have finished). I believe that this would have been another version of the opening with harmonica overdubbed.

High Register Vocal Intro
Edit Piece 6, Take 13 (onto Take 7) complete
The final edit piece is a strange attempt at a vocalised introduction at a higher register. It sounds awful!

Editing and Mixing
So now we come to the mixing stage. We all know that George Martin and his engineers considered mono to be the primary version to mix for (with stereo only being given cursory attention). And we all know that in many cases the stereo mixes were sometimes done without much attention to detail. And From Me To You is a good example of such a case.

Mono Mix (from edit of Takes 8, 10 and 12)
The primary difference between the mono and stereo versions of From Me To You is that the mono version contains harmonica in the introduction in addition to the opening vocalisation. We also know that two edit pieces have been cut out of the session tape described above (Take 10 - ending harmonica and Take 12 - intro harmonica). I believe that these two edit pieces were used, along with the major part of Take 8, in the construction of the mono master. Normally the engineers would copy the edit pieces and takes for the master version, so as to preserve the session master tape. In the case of the mono version of From Me To You I believe they copied Take 8 as per normal but used the edit pieces from the session tape itself - hence their absence.

A special note about the opening of the mono mix: since the opening of this mix contains both the vocalised intro (from Take 8) and the harmonica intro (from Take 12) the engineers must have had both takes running in synch for the mix. Brennan notes a slight phasing effect towards the end of the intro as the synchronisation slips (see The Usenet Guide to Beatles' Recording Variations reference in bibliography).

Stereo Mix (from Take 8)
But what about the stereo version with only the vocalised intro? Given that stereo was of secondary importance in this era, I would have to concur with Brennan again, who says that the stereo version appears to be a virtually unmixed copy of Take 8 by itself.

And that's it. If you've managed to read this far I thank you. And I look forward very much to having my theory shot down in flames :-)

So fire away!!

Rohan Byrnes

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