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The 10 Most Technically Amazing Beatles Songs


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Technically Yes, I'd say they are all up there. I'm not sure I'd use his pecking order because the final results when combined with the music are all that matter.

I'd say Day in the life and I am a Walrus are a couple of my favorites because I like the music and the technical aspects. Revolution 9 isn't what I'd call music its more of a collage of sound effects so even though it may be technically interesting, I don't classify it as being music. Its more like a movie sound effects track to me. Its not something you'd whip up in the back of your mind as being a song.

 

Good Morning on the Sargent Peppers album is both advanced technically and a good tune to boot. It had some nice effects added and cool stereo panning which was new in its time.All you need is love was a big hit and had many interesting dubs added in on the very long fade out from 1940's big band stuff to cellos. I'm not sure how technically difficult it was but they were doing a film version to coincide with the album which can make things allot tougher to plan.

 

Paperback writer was earlier stuff but the things they did compressing the bass were very unique for their time. I read Paul would compress his bass at leat three or more times to get that sound. Allot can be learned today from what he did then. Hey Jude is another masterpiece and considering they only had 4 tracks to record with it its an amazing piece that pushed the limits of that technology and probably hasn't been matched by any band before of since.

 

There's nothing super notable technically I can think of in the song, but It does show how the bands adapts their creativity to the given technology. This is the biggest factor I see with many songs that band recorded. They pushed the limits of their musical creativity and recording technology. But hey, they were the Beatles. Its said the mixer made 25 lbs per hour and the studio only made 1000 lbs total. That's chicken feed considering the song was the biggest money maker for a studio ever and went gold in 3 weeks. That studio did make a butt load of money afterwards promoting that song had been recorded there. The song ran for 7:11 minutes which was the longest running single until 1999 when meatloaf did a song that ran 7:58. That was FM radio however which was a very different format.

 

The song did have a collage of editing parts in it but I'm not sure it classifies as being the most technical. Id say it was one of the toughest to record because the bands temperament was in bad shape

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John Lennon said that "Revolution 9" represented the future of music where producers would be stringing loops together instead of playing instruments.

 

I believe that "Hey Jude" was recorded on eight-tracks at Trident Studios. I like the way the vocal from the bridge is edited into the verse at one point in that song.

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^^^ You're right. The write up on Wiki was a little twisted. They did several 4 track takes at apple because thats all that studio had at the time and planed

on doing the full master at Trident. It would have been tough getting a 36 piece orchestra on a 4 track recording with the band, but even with 8 tracks its still and amazing work.

 

I'd like to hear the 4 track version thats on their Anthology 3 album that was from their Apple sessions.

 

My X has a bunch of albums from Japan that were likely made from those Tapes that were recently found. She was a nut on the Beatles

and had all these bootleg imports. Many had multiple takes of raw sessions with the band talking between cuts. I remember there were a bunch of

Raw Let it Be album tracks like My Me My, Two of Us, one after 909 etc and you could hear how they'd start a song stop then start over joking in between

the takes. It pretty much makes you realize they worked up songs just like every other band does. Plus when you compare the raw tracks to the masted versions,

you have an instant comparison to how much studio production was applied to make those songs sound as good as they did along with any additional effects.

 

Hearing Paul and John sing together with a dry mix is quite special because they did sing very well even without the additional effects.

The amazing thing is the basic tracks didn't have anything stellar about the sound quality you wouldn't hear in a raw studio recording today.

You realize It was their musical talent and music, and musical arrangements that made that band great. The studio stuff just just elevated

them from a great band to great sounding band. The truth is, if the talent isn't there to begin with, you got nothing.

 

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We are all fortunate that their music was recorded so well.

 

When the "Let It Be" movie came out I was amazed at how much like my own band they were. The difference being that they were very good but they were just four guys (five counting Billy) in a band.

 

They also thad the big money record machine behind every musical whim - where you or I might find a nice riff or some cool changes to groove on for while, quite often our ideas may be lost in a few hours or deemed (by ourselves) to be unworthy of a full blown production such as "Wild Honey Pie" or "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?".

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They also thad the big money record machine behind every musical whim - where you or I might find a nice riff or some cool changes to groove on for while, quite often our ideas may be lost in a few hours or deemed (by ourselves) to be unworthy of a full blown production such as "Wild Honey Pie" or "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?".

 

As long as those whims kept bringing money into the machine, they were going to be afforded all the "artistic license" they wanted. Had the experimentation of Sgt. Pepper been a commercial flop, I doubt there would have been much tolerance from the machine at all for things like the Magical Mystery Tour TV-special or the let's-jam-and-call-it-a-song experimentations on the double-LP "White Album".

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Not only were these songs so amazingly influential but the techniques used to record them as well.

Both the song writing and production techniques still stand as heights of achievement.

 

A revolution of sonics..

 

Geoff Emerick was one of the first to close mic a drum kit.

 

He needed to do it for clarity on "Tomorrow Never Knows" because by the time they got around to putting the drum track down there was already a lot going on.

 

 

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To be honest I do not know if I could pick 10. I love so many hits by them it is crazy!

 

I know what you mean.It's easier to pick the ones you DON'T like...And for me that's a minscule list..Not even a list really...

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Wow this place is dead.

 

I started reading the article but it's distracting to see things that don't quite make sense. For example, the vocal melody in "Because" is not an arpeggio. At least I don't think it's an arpeggio...

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That's why today's music, producers and musicians are not up to snuff to the music made between 1964 to 1992.

If an artist didn't do to good on a take, he would work things out with his band mates and hammer it out until it was perfect. Today, they just Cakewalk / Pro tool it ( glue and paste it ) to death, they just send the band out to play video games in the lobby or something ( Blink 182 much .... LOL !!!).

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the sessions for Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sergeant Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour or the White Album !!!!

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Wow this place is dead.

 

I started reading the article but it's distracting to see things that don't quite make sense. For example, the vocal melody in "Because" is not an arpeggio. At least I don't think it's an arpeggio...

 

An arpeggio or "broken chord" is playing the notes in a chord one at a time. Melody is usually made from elements of scales and/or arpeggios.

 

For the most part, the vocal melody of "Because" is based on the notes in the different chords being sung one at a time. The keyboard introduction is made up of arpeggios too.

 

HL_DDS_0000000000097295.png

 

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What made the Beatles so special' date=' it was their philosophy, that the sky was not the limit !!!![/quote']

 

I was helping mix an outdoor variety show this afternoon where one of the headliners had to hire a fill in guitar player. The fill in guy turned out to be really good and the thing I noticed was that all of his energy was directed to the songs. It wasn't about him or the guitar, it was about the songs.

 

I think what made the Beatles so special, if you could ever bring it down to one thing, was the songs and the way everybody dedicated themselves and their efforts to the songs.

 

George Harrison put his lead guitarist ego (if he ever had one) aside and brought in Eric Clapton because that's what "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" called for.

 

The idea of no limits fits nicely with the idea of providing the song with whatever it needs however unusual that may be.

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I was reading about Fuzz boxes the other day and read the Beatles were given a Maestro Fuzztone, Vox Toner bender and WEM Pep Rush fuzz pedals. I bought a Fuzzrite kit last week I built and have been using lately. These is something truly unique about the tones you can get from those old circuit designs and I'm surprised more people don't use them because they are really simple circuits.

 

I'd be curious to know what other drive pedals they may have used. Many of their recordings were obviously don with driven amps of various types, but some of the tones and drives may have used fuzz and other pedals to get those unique tones. The jamming leads at the end of the Abbey road album had several unique drives going. The white album was loaded with many different types of drive. Even the Rubber Soul album had some cool tones. The background guitar in the song The Word has that vintage 60's psychedelic Fenderish tone going that thousands of bands copied.

 

I may have to build myself one of those Tone benders next and see how many other tones I can nail in their songs. The Fuzzrite has given me several which are very usable. I was using it with my Rickenbacker the other day and I can definitely dial up some tones they got. I need to record some tracks however and see how it sounds in a mix. Its hard to judge the sounds when you're performing. When you have a recording you can A/B the sound against others more easily as a listener and see how close those tones actually are.

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McCartney's electric guitar seems to have a comb filter of sorts. It makes it easy to pick out the bits where it is him playing the lead.

 

Back in the '70s I was playing a Les Paul through a Master Volume Twin and the guitar was able to drive the amp nicely. When I picked up an old strat I found that the guitar did not have enough balls to drive the amp like the Les Paul did so I started to experiment.

 

I bypassed the reverb springs and connected the reverb send directly to the reverb return to get a foot switchable overdrive but the gain was so high (I never thought to build a pad) that it was unusable.

 

I ended up taking the circuit out of a cry baby pedal and putting it in the reverb loop in place of the springs. This allowed me to fine tune the gain with the wah circuit. It was great for playing Santana's "Europa".

 

When we played "Fixing a Hole" I was able to nail McCartney's guitar tone with the strat.

 

I find a lot of the solid state overdrive from that era sounds dated but the tube stuff's more "organic" sound seems to better stand the test of time. "Happiness is a Warm Gun" certainly sounds like germanium fuzz.

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I was reading about Fuzz boxes the other day and read the Beatles were given a Maestro Fuzztone, Vox Toner bender and WEM Pep Rush fuzz pedals. I bought a Fuzzrite kit last week I built and have been using lately. These is something truly unique about the tones you can get from those old circuit designs and I'm surprised more people don't use them because they are really simple circuits.

 

I'd be curious to know what other drive pedals they may have used. Many of their recordings were obviously don with driven amps of various types, but some of the tones and drives may have used fuzz and other pedals to get those unique tones. The jamming leads at the end of the Abbey road album had several unique drives going. The white album was loaded with many different types of drive. Even the Rubber Soul album had some cool tones. The background guitar in the song The Word has that vintage 60's psychedelic Fenderish tone going that thousands of bands copied.

 

I may have to build myself one of those Tone benders next and see how many other tones I can nail in their songs. The Fuzzrite has given me several which are very usable. I was using it with my Rickenbacker the other day and I can definitely dial up some tones they got. I need to record some tracks however and see how it sounds in a mix. Its hard to judge the sounds when you're performing. When you have a recording you can A/B the sound against others more easily as a listener and see how close those tones actually are.

 

 

the Beatles used at least 10 different fuzz sounds during their time (this is based on ersearch of Henry the Horse, member of TGP)

1. Starting with a Maestro FZ-1 in 1963,

2. a Tone Bender Mk.1 for Rubber Soul.

3. Lennon used a WEM Rush PEP fuzz pedal for "Paperback Writer" rehearsals, in April 1966.

4. McCartney is spotted using a Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk.1.5 (some say it's a Mk. 2) with his Casino into a Bassman amp in a picture shown in the first page of Mark Lewisohn's "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions". That picture was taken at Abbey Road studio 3, where most of Revolver sessions took place. It is from early 1966, so it could be the early edition of Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk.2, I believe it's the Mk15

5. George probably used the built-in fuzz of his Vox 7120 amp.

6. they used Vox 730 amps with built-in fuzz and

7. a Selmer Zodiak amp with built-in fuzz.

8. In February 1968, for "Hey Bulldog"/"Lady Madonna" sessions a Vox Conqueror amp with built-in fuzz was used.

9. By mid 1968 the overloading REDD desk fuzz technique was used for Revolution.

10. In 1969 George used a silicon Arbiter Fuzz Face.

 

 

 

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I was reading about Fuzz boxes the other day and read the Beatles were given a Maestro Fuzztone, Vox Toner bender and WEM Pep Rush fuzz pedals. I bought a Fuzzrite kit last week I built and have been using lately. These is something truly unique about the tones you can get from those old circuit designs and I'm surprised more people don't use them because they are really simple circuits.

 

I'd be curious to know what other drive pedals they may have used. Many of their recordings were obviously don with driven amps of various types, but some of the tones and drives may have used fuzz and other pedals to get those unique tones. The jamming leads at the end of the Abbey road album had several unique drives going. The white album was loaded with many different types of drive. Even the Rubber Soul album had some cool tones. The background guitar in the song The Word has that vintage 60's psychedelic Fenderish tone going that thousands of bands copied.

 

I may have to build myself one of those Tone benders next and see how many other tones I can nail in their songs. The Fuzzrite has given me several which are very usable. I was using it with my Rickenbacker the other day and I can definitely dial up some tones they got. I need to record some tracks however and see how it sounds in a mix. Its hard to judge the sounds when you're performing. When you have a recording you can A/B the sound against others more easily as a listener and see how close those tones actually are.

 

The Maestro FZ-1, WEM Pep Rush, a couple of Tonebenders (probably a Mk1 and a Mk1.5) and a Fuzz Face on some of the later stuff are the main fuzz pedals that they apparently used. A lot of their "dirt" came from overdriven studio preamps (Revolution) and rack processors, and certainly a lot came from various amplifiers. Rubber Soul would have been the last of the "all tube" album insofar as guitar amps. Revolver used tube (Fender Dual Showman / Bassman, and possibly Vox AC-series amps too) and hybrid tube / solid state (Vox 4120 and 7120) amps which had built-in fuzz / distortion circuits.

 

Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour saw the first significant use of Vox solid state (Conqueror and Defiant) amps, which had built-in distortion and MRB (midrange boost) circuits. Paul also used a Selmer Zodiak on some cuts. Abbey Road and Let It Be used even more Fender (silverface Twins and a Deluxe) amps. And just because they got new amps didn't mean they always completely stopped using the older ones, although sometimes they did. You really have to dig a bit to get an idea of what they used, and even then, it takes further research to see what they used on specific songs, and the recording session setups are far more accurately documented for some songs than they are for others.

 

 

PS As far as The Word, I don't think there's any backwards guitar on it... there is a absolutely wicked bass part though. Maybe you're thinking of another song? :)

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the Beatles used at least 10 different fuzz sounds during their time (this is based on ersearch of Henry the Horse, member of TGP)

 

5. George probably used the built-in fuzz of his Vox 7120 amp.

6. they used Vox 730 amps with built-in fuzz and

 

 

 

From what I've read, I'd say he's pretty accurate, although I would drop his total by one - my understanding is that the fuzz in the 730 and 7120 are the same circuit - both used the same preamp boards, and the primary difference between the two amplifiers is in the power amp sections, with the 730 featuring EL84 power tubes and 30W of power, and the 7120 utilizing KT88 power tubes that delivered 120W.

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PS As far as The Word, I don't think there's any backwards guitar on it... there is a absolutely wicked bass part though. Maybe you're thinking of another song? :)

You misread, It wasn't Backwards, its was Background.

 

Its a 7th chord, possibly played with an upstroke and played on the back beat that along with the snare beat. along with McCartney's mole bass tones and sustained organ notes its gives that song that 60's Mod tone dance beat.

 

It sounds like a Rickenbacker treble pickup with the high pass cap giving the guitar its treble edge. It may just be amp drive, room reverb and recording gear that captures it. Its a cool mix however with highly compressed dry bass tones following the drum breaks. I think there's a second semi hollow part following the bass during the chorus.

 

I haven't listened to it in a long time. Its isn't a super special song but it does have that cool hook with a definite signature Beatles mix with the vocals way up front.

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