Mixing "Hello, Goodbye", "I Am The Walrus", "Your Mother Should Know", "Magical Mystery Tour"

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During this session, which lasted from 2:30 pm to 6 pm, stereo mixes of “Hello, Goodbye” and three songs from the soundtrack of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” TV special were created.

The first task was to create the stereo mix of “Hello, Goodbye“. Like the mono mix created on November 2, the stereo mix was made from Take 17, which contained the viola overdubs recorded on October 20, and Take 22, which contained all the other instruments. The same technique used for the mono mix was used again, requiring two four-track machines to run in sync.

Using this technique, Remix Stereo 1 to 2 were created, with RS2 ultimately chosen as the best and used as the stereo release of the song.

“I Am The Walrus” was the next song to be tackled. During the session to create the mono mix on September 29, a live feed from the BBC Third Programme’s radio performance of William Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy Of King Lear” was inserted into Remix Mono 22 rather than on the multi-track tape. As a result, it could not be duplicated in true stereo.

To solve the problem, a true stereo mix was used for the first 2’03” of the song and combined with Remix Mono 22 for the latter part of the song which contained the live radio feed, with a mock stereo effect applied to it.

If you listen to the end of the stereo mix where the radio comes in, it suddenly changes to fake stereo with the bass on one side and the treble on the other. This was because the part with the radio was done live as part of the mono mix and there was no other way to recreate it in stereo at the time. Years later when it came time to do the Love soundtrack, it had been discovered exactly which broadcast it was that Ringo had tuned into, and the BBC made it available so it could finally be recreated in proper stereo and 5.1.

Ken Scott – From “Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust“, 2012

The engineering team made seven attempts at mixing the track in stereo (numbered Remix Stereo 1 to 7), and finally settled on RS 6 to create the hybrid mix. The end result, created by editing RS 6 and RM 22, was named Remix Stereo 7. RS7 was not the released version though, as a last-minute change was done on November 17.

On August 22 and 23, 1967, The Beatles recorded a version of “Your Mother Should Know” at Chappell Recording Studios. On September 16, they decided to work on a remake of the track. However, the remake was eventually scrapped, and, on September 29, the Beatles returned to the original takes at Chappell to add more overdubs and finalize the track. On October 2, the track was mixed in mono.

On this day, two attempts at mixing “Your Mother Should Know” were made. Remix Stereo 2 served as the stereo release version of the track.

No phasing was heard in the final verse as was heard on the mono mix. The stereo landscape consists of the rhythm track and the bass guitar centered in the mix while the organ and tambourine are found only in the right channel. They got very adventurous with the vocals, however, having all lead and background vocals in the left channel for the first and second verse, then panned to the right channel for the third verse, then panned back to the left channel for the phrase “sing it again” just before the final verse, and finally centered in the mix for the final “da, da, da, da” verse. Very tricky indeed!

From beatlesebooks.com

The title track of the “Magical Mystery Tour” soundtrack was the last song to be mixed on that day. The track was recorded over the course of four days in April 1967: April 25, 26 and 27, and May 3. The mono mix (RM7) was done on May 4.

On this day, four attempts at creating a stereo mix, labelled RS1 to 4, were made. Of these, RS4 was considered the best. However, the following day, some last-minute additions were made to the track, which resulted in RS4 being replaced.

Last updated on April 21, 2023

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