Mixing "Let It Be... Naked"

In November 1969, it was agreed that a film would be released based on the January 1969 “Get Back” sessions, under the new title “Let It Be.” A soundtrack album would accompany the film. Although Glyn Johns — who had engineered and produced multiple versions of a potential album throughout the year — had been closely involved with the project, the Beatles’ new manager, Allen Klein, suggested bringing in Phil Spector to oversee the final production.

In January 1970, Klein succeeded in bringing Spector to London.

On January 27, 1970, John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band recorded the single “Instant Karma!” with Phil Spector producing. The success and efficiency of the “Instant Karma!” session gave John and George confidence in Spector’s abilities — enough to entrust him with the challenge of finally turning the January 1969 tapes into a finished album.

On April 1, 1970, Phil Spector supervised the recording of orchestral and choral overdubs for three songs: “Across The Universe,” “The Long And Winding Road,” and “I Me Mine.”

The orchestral arrangements added to “The Long And Winding Road” soon became a point of deep contention. Although Paul McCartney had once considered adding strings to the track during its original development in January 1969, he was outraged by Spector’s final mix, which featured lavish strings and a choir — elements Paul felt overwhelmed the song. He voiced his objections in a letter to Allen Klein on April 14, 1970, but no changes were made.

Decades later, the “Let It Be… Naked” project sought to present the album as originally intended, stripped of Spector’s “Wall of Sound” production. The project was initiated by Paul, who finally had the opportunity to remove the orchestration and choral overdubs from “The Long And Winding Road.” George Harrison had approved the concept prior to his death in 2001, and both Ringo Starr and Yoko Ono also gave their consent.

In February 2002, Apple Corps’ director Neil Aspinall contacted engineer Allan Rouse to revisit the original 1969 tapes and construct a new mix. Allan Rouse tapped engineers Paul Hicks and Guy Massey for job. Most of the mixing took place in August 2002. In addition to removing Spector’s orchestral embellishments, the team eliminated the informal studio chatter between tracks and dropped “Dig It” and “Maggie Mae.” In their place, they included “Don’t Let Me Down,” which had only appeared as the B-side to the “Get Back” single. Modern audio technology was employed to create a sonically polished and contemporary-sounding version of the album.

[…] In February 2002, following a chance meeting of Paul McCartney and the film’s original director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Abbey Road veteran Allan Rouse received a call from Apple’s Neil Aspinall asking him to take a stab at remixing the album. Rouse had acted as project coordinator for a number of Beatles remix projects, among them The Beatles Anthology, Yellow Submarine Songtrack and Lennon’s Imagine. While the task for those projects had always been to re-create the original mixes known to millions of fans using current technology, the charge for the Let It Be project was different.

“This was not an attempt to remaster an existing album,” Rouse says. “We were asked to make it sound the way the band had believed the finished album was going to sound.” This meant, for the most part, producing mixes that reflected only what the four bandmembers (or five, including Preston) could play live: no overdubbed guitars or vocals, and certainly no orchestras.

In addition, all of the between-song chatter, breakdowns, jokes and ditties — including “Maggie Mae” and the “Dig It” jam — were dropped. Says Rouse, “They just didn’t really fit in with an album of 11 songs and neither did the dialog. Those little bits were fine for a soundtrack album, which Glyn’s was, but they didn’t fit comfortably with the concept of a straight album.”

Rouse tapped two young staff engineers, Paul Hicks and Guy Massey, for the job. Both had worked on prior Beatles projects (and had, coincidentally, started at the studio on the same day in 1994), including the 5.1 surround mixes for the recently released The Beatles Anthology DVD set. […]

From Mix Online, January 1, 2004

At least in the past if you were gonna put strings on it someone would run the arrangement past me. And I’d say great, or not great, or fix it. It was not being consulted, then putting out what I thought was… crap.

Paul McCartney – Unknown source – From The Beatles Recording Sessions Update

Whereas Winston Churchill’s papers get older and browner and crinklier, with modern technology the Beatles’ music gets less hissier, gets shinier, gets more audible. And you’ve got these four guys – five with Billy Preston, at times – in this room with you know, sort of 5.1 [Dolby Surround Sound] and it’s quite uncanny, quite the opposite of how history normally goes. It’s getting better all the time. I Love it, because it shows you what The Beatles were like underneath it all. We were a great little band. I remember sitting in a rather bare white room in the Sixties listening to [the original master] and being almost scared by it because it was so naked and thinking, this is certainly unadorned and to put this out would be quite a break.

Paul McCartney – Unknown source – From The Beatles Recording Sessions Update

This is the band, this is us. No frills, no artifice, this is us. What you see is what you get and now in its unadorned form, there it is exactly as we made it, so that is the sort of shining glory of those events that took place then. It’s the music.”

One of the things that occurred to me while I was listening to it is that if you look into Winston Churchill’s old papers, they get browner and they get crinklier but the Beatles’ stuff, it gets shinier and newer with new technology. You suddenly, you’re in a clearer room with the guys and I’m right there with John right opposite me in the new mix you know and I think that’s what helps bring the energy right there. It’s almost scary, you know. You’re actually right there now. If we’d have had today’s technology, then, it would sound like this because that was the noise we made in the studio. It’s not as if we’ve now put everything, all the guitars through digital amps. They’re still through all the nice warm amps that they were through so it’s exactly as it was in the room but with modern technology you can, for instance, take the hiss off, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing because you didn’t have hiss when we played it. And we didn’t all sit around going ssss! You know.

So it just is more faithful to actually us in the room and I think that’s a very good thing.

Paul McCartney – From paulmccartney.com, April 2, 2013

I dunno. I started thinking about MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, don’t know why. But like I say, we’ve done with it. I love the idea that when you get a project like this then John is suddenly right there on that 5.1 and it’s exciting for me. Close your eyes and it’s exactly like being in Abbey Road making those records. Only, there’s no hiss. And you can’t argue with that cause there was no hiss in the room where we made it, so it’s taking it back to the reality in many ways. I haven’t particularly thought of revisiting anything else but an idea might come up. To anyone who’s worried – well then, get the original record. Be a collector, get the vinyl copy. Cause it’s all still out there, it hasn’t gone away.

Paul McCartney – Unknown source – From The Beatles Recording Sessions Update

It’s the de-Spectorized version. Same tracks, same people. I was listening to it recently, and it was really great. I’ve been away from it a long time too. It fills my heart with joy to hear that band that I was a member of. They were just great. And also, the quietness of the tracks: It’s a beautiful CD. Paul was always totally opposed to Phil. I told him on the phone, ‘You’re bloody right again: It sounds great without Phil.’ Which it does. Now we’ll have to put up with him telling us over and over again, ‘I told you.’

Ringo Starr – From the press release

I think because he had an experimental nature, [John] would have liked the idea of bringing out something different. The original is there, it didn’t disappear. This is not an improvement, it’s a different version. Paul did not get to do this version the first time around, and it is karmically good for all of us that we are bringing this one out now.

Yoko Ono – Unknown source – From The Beatles Recording Sessions Update

I liked the original but I’m looking forward to this one. I’m excited about hearing it and I’m glad they’re putting it out again. It was great for me, to be invited to play. And they treated me as a member of the band, which was fantastic.

Billy Preston – Unknown source – From The Beatles Recording Sessions Update

The following interview with Allan Rouse, Paul Hicks and Guy Massey, dated August 2003, was reproduced in Steve Hoffman Music Forums. The source is unknown:

Q: So when did this project begin, how did it all start?

Allan Rouse: Good question, we had a phone call from Neil Aspinall at Apple.

Q: How long ago was that?

Allan Rouse: About a year and a half.

Paul Hicks: The main mixing was done in August of last year. We were prepping it before that; actually we probably started properly the beginning of last year.

Q: And how long did the three of you work on it?

Allan Rouse: The first thing was that we knew we were making a new album. And therefore there was no reference made to the old album, because there was no point. So the first thing that Paul and Guy did was they went through all of the eight tracks and listened to every title and take and version of each title again, to make sure that we had the best.

Q: How many tracks was that?

Allan Rouse: It’s about 30 reels of tape, half an hour of tape; so it’s a few days of listening.

Q: What was it like working on, as you say, a Let It Be that is a new version?

Paul Hicks: I thought it was exciting; as Allan pointed out it’s a very intense process, because of the historical value of absolutely everything you have to be so careful. Normally you’re trying to make improvements but you can’t stray too far away because you have to be completely stuck to a rigid set of boundaries to work to. Whereas with this, we had absolute freedom to do whatever we wanted really, just to make it sound as good and as raw as possible.

Q: For someone who has heard the original album, what’s the basic difference between that and this?

Paul Hicks: From the people who’ve heard it, one comment came that was one of our main initial aims on it – which was everyone says `I can really hear everything, there’s so much clarity’. And that was one of our goals; when we were going through the tracks and listening there were so many elements. Like there’s some amazing playing from Billy Preston, some of his electric piano work is great and so we were just aiming to hear Billy more clearly and you can hear John’s guitar and you can hear George’s guitar. We were just trying to create some space, so you can hear it all. So that compared to the version that was previously released, you could say that in a lot of ways this version is dryer. As in not so much reverb, it’s a lot tighter. That’s what we wanted to do.

Allan Rouse: Now there’s a lot of people that think that remixing is the wrong thing to do. But we’re not remixing to change it, we’re remixing it to make it sound better. What’s happened here is that the difference between this and any other previous projects is that, whilst remixing it, we’re still trying to make everybody think they’re still listening to the same thing but they’re just hearing it better. But we treated this as a new project. And there were no guidelines.

Paul Hicks: One of the things when you listen to the original Let It Be there is that element of the fly on the wall thing, because you hear the tape starting up, you hear the comments. But our thought was that compared to all the other albums it was a bit like an extension of the film – but with this we wanted to make a really good album. As in these are the songs; we’re not going to have clapping at the end or whatever. It was just let’s just make this a really strong Beatles album to go with the
others.

Guy Massey: It was making something that people would want to listen to.

Allan Rouse: That’s just it. All three of us are Beatles fans, which is quite useful, and this is what we wanted. It’s like anybody who produces anything, it’s what the producer and the artist want. So as the artists have already done their work, now we’re going to do our little bit towards it and it’s what, as fans, we would rather listen to.

There’s no dialogue because people can get bored with hearing it; a song you can hear again and again and again and again – and like it. And if the DVD comes out you’ll get your dialogue on that.

Q: So you don’t have `Doris gets her oats’?

Allan Rouse: No, none of that. There’s no dialogue.

Q: So what did you essentially do with this album?

Paul Hicks: Really the thing is that most of the tracks are the same takes as what people have known before; the absolute obvious change is The Long And Winding Road – it was a very different version that Phil Spector over-dubbed on and when going through it all we discovered that the version that’s on the film, the one that they did on the last day, that we felt had a really good sort of sentiment and the emotion was just fantastic. Just the playing of the drums and Paul’s vocal on that are great and it really suits it. That’s the stand-out different one.

And because of the nature of when it was recorded, there are certain things on the tracks where if they’re not playing, they’re making noises and stuff. So one of the first things we did was to go through it all track by track and just clean it up; clean up the little pops or when they’re moving around between the takes you can hear on the original. We basically made every track completely clear.

Allan Rouse: In my view there’s two things about an album, there’s two experiences you get; you get the experience of the music and the songs, which you love, and you get the audio experience. And this is the one thing, the major alteration, that’s changed, the audio experience – to make it sound good anyway but also to extend its life because we all listen to things totally different from how we did 30 years ago. If you take the early Beatles recordings, a lot of people think it’s a great novelty to have a vocal coming out of the left speaker and the drums coming out of the right. But kids today don’t understand it. It’s `why?’ So all of these aspects of remixing the album which we’ve used for other projects, the whole purpose behind it in this instance was besides the fact that it’s a completely unique album, was to make all these improvements that Paul and Guy can do to make it sound like a much more exciting audio experience.

Q: Are all the tracks live, as in the take you hear is a complete take?

Paul Hicks: When we sifted through the tracks we basically took anything that was an overdub. It’s what they were playing. I Met Mine is an exception because…

Guy Massey: I think there was only two of them playing on the original take, I think it was just drums and guitar..

Paul Hicks: Another example is Let It Be; we used the original guitar solo that George did because he overdubbed the solo.

Q: That’s a fantastic solo, the original; just the necessary notes.

Guy Massey: Yeah, there’s no floweryness.

Paul Hicks: It’s the same one that’s in the film and he just looks like he’s enjoying it. I was explaining to someone exactly what we’ve done and I was saying that this now is a different version of The Long And Winding Road, and this person said `Well, why?’ And then I thought `Yeah, actually, why?’ But the basic thing is what Phil Spector did was he covered up on the actual version they used on the original album. If you strip it out you can see that he covered up on what was quite an early rehearsal take, the one they used, and there were many things that weren’t fantastic and it wasn’t that strong as a piece on its own. But that’s the reason why we changed The Long And Winding Road, because this is a much stronger basic performance. That’s what we were going for; we didn’t want to do any editing, but we were basically going for the strongest performances.

Q: So of the eleven tracks, how many are different takes from what Phil Spector used?

Paul Hicks: As a basic take, just Long And Winding….Actually, let’s go through the tracks. Get Back, that’s basically as it’s been heard before. But it’s a studio take and what they did on the original album was they added the audience and an ending to make it sound live. But Get Back’s essentially always been a studio performance. And, again to just keep the album feel of it and because it is what was on the original, we haven’t got the ending, the reprise, that you’d heard before. Now it’s compact. It’s two and a half minutes and just punchy and sounding exciting. And that was done by remixing and just cleaning it up, removing noise and hiss and the limitations of the speakers in those days. In cleaning up the tracks it meant cleaning up wind noise and some hum and also you have to remember that there were film crews around, they didn’t know if that would be the take so there were people making noises. In stripping it back we have had to do a few little edits, to avoid actually changing things.

So I’ve Got A Feeling is a mixture of the two rooftop performances; it’s a completely new edit.. We basically got the best out of both of the two takes that they did. That’ll be a field day for people to try and work out what it is.

Q: But as you were saying, it’s the album they could have made if they’d have made it now, with the technology of now.

Paul Hicks: Yes. Totally. It is embracing today’s technology. Dig A Pony…that’s from the rooftop, as was the original.

Guy Massey: Basically we just cleaned it up; there was lots of popping on the vocals. Phil Spector did some edits that we re-did, they made sense.

Allan Rouse: Apart from the four Phil Spector tracks in which the changes are obvious, if you know your Beatles well enough you’ll know there’s something missing. But if you listen to the other original tracks which have got nothing extra on them apart from maybe a bit of Phil Spector echo, the difference for a lot of listeners is subtle and it’s not the sort of thing that they would immediately recognize until they dug out their old version and heard the difference.

Q: The Beatles 1 album introduced The Beatles to this new demographic of teenagers that marketing people call `The 1 Generation’. If they were weaned on 1, do you think that the new Let It Be is a good introduction to the Beatles as a good rocking band?

Allan Rouse: I think it is now, yes. I think the concept of doing it this way has made it so.

Q: The new album certainly explains, now, Paul McCartney’s point about The Beatles being best at being a good little rock and roll band.

Paul Hicks: It certainly does, yeah.

Allan Rouse: I go back to what I said before; I know there are people who are opposed to remixing but this project couldn’t have been done without remixing, because the whole purpose was to remove things – so it had to be remixed. The argument exists as to whether anything else should be remixed but so far we’ve done tracks on Yellow Submarine and some hundred and twenty tracks on Anthology. And the simple fact is, perhaps a little bit more so on this album than anything before, we’ve tried to make it sound more `now’. We’re not trying to do away with 1969-70 but we’ve tried to make it sound a bit 2003.

Paul Hicks: With the 1 Generation, we want them to put on this album and then put on their other new stuff and there not to be too much of a difference in the sound; that was one thing we’ve always been thinking about with this project.

Allan Rouse: Once they invented the CD everybody put their CDs out straight from the flat tape, everybody did it because that’s all they thought was necessary because they thought CD reproduces everything so well, there’s no tape noises, no problem, and so we’ll just do that. And then people sussed out that they could remaster them. Now remastering is fine and in a lot of cases it’s adequate and good enough. And remastering is purely to enable the reduction of tape noise and to improve the sound and to make it more of an enjoyable audio experience. Remixing is just one more stage, a more expensive stage, up on that. Because that’s all we are attempting to achieve. Somebody could go to a remastering room and say they could do with a little bit more vocal, so you add some EQ to pull the vocal out. But you don’t just pull the vocal out; anything either side of the vocal in terms of the EQ will be affected by it. OK, if you want more snare drum so you add EQ to that – it’s going to affect other things. But if you do it in a remix, you want more snare drum, you have more snare drum. And that’s all there is to it – it’s the definitive way of remastering. And, fortunately in the instance of this album, we had no choice and we had to remix it. So it’s remastering by remixing.

Q: Which brings us back to `is this a new album?’

Allan Rouse: It is a new version of the album. It had to feel the same but it had to sound better. We were given very little information as to what was expected with this album, but I think we all knew what was wanted. And it could only really be achieved by taking a blank canvas and starting again. That’s basically the way it was. And that’s why, at no point, did we really reference to Glynn Johns’ mix or Phil Spector’s, because there was no need to. That wasn’t the purpose.

Paul Hicks: Back to the tracks….For Your Blue; that’s just a matter of getting more clarity, really. It was a really good recording on that one, actually; really clear and crisp and we took advantage of that and, like Get Back, just tried to make it as punchy as possible.

Paul Hicks: There’s really not much that can be said about that track; it’s hopefully a bit clearer. We noticed that Paul’s doing like a weird piano sound that he got by putting paper in it. You know that weird little percussive sound in it, that’s basically Paul playing the piano that’s been muted, so it’s got that percussive sound. Again, all we’ve tried to do is to get it so that you can hear all those elements….The Long And Winding Road, we’ve spoken about that; that’s the version from the 31st of January, the last day of recording.

Allan Rouse: Talking about The Long And Winding Road, one of the biggest problems we had was that the lyrics changed… It was only a small, subtle change.

Paul Hicks: Not `you’ll never know’ but `you’ll always know’…

Allan Rouse: Once we realized that the lyric had changed we then had this quandary as to whether or not this was acceptable now, because this was something really, really obvious. It’s one thing having a different take, but you expect the lyrics to be the same because otherwise God knows what people might assume. The conclusion we came to in this instance was that, because it was the very last take that he probably ever did, therefore it was probably more correct. So that’s how we resolved our problem, we figured that Paul had tuned his lyrics and that was probably what he really wanted. But then Phil or Glyn use the take that was done beforehand and, of course, that’s how those lyrics became set.

Q: It’s interesting that Paul still sings the Phil Spector version of his lyrics onstage.

Guy Massey: He did comment on that when he heard this album.

Allan Rouse: Didn’t he turn around and look at us at that stage?

Paul Hicks: Oh yeah, he did. He noticed.

Allan Rouse: Well he was obviously singing along and it went wrong…But he was happy with that.

Paul Hicks: But then, again, that’s the version that’s in the film.

Q: But so few people these days have seen or can remember exactly the film.

Allan Rouse: Very few people have seen it for a long time.

Q: Exactly, so for a lot of people who will be interested in buying this album it’s a case of `what film? `When’s that out?’

Allan Rouse: This reminds me that both Paul and Guy have used some artistic license in that, and The Long And Winding Road is a good example of this, the instrumentation which starts all at the beginning doesn’t necessarily start at the beginning in our version. In other words we’ve done little subtle things to build a song. Guy did the same thing in Across The Universe.

Paul Hicks: Arrangements…

Allan Rouse: We’ve arranged it, a little. So in other words if we felt it needed a build we wouldn’t necessarily have everything in from the beginning. Across The Universe is probably the best example. Guy did Across The Universe and he had a bit of a problem there, because he had two tracks. And that was all. On track one was guitar and vocal, John singing, and the only other thing that was played live was tambora. And that was it. Yoko’s heard it and thinks it’s beautiful, so that’s fine, but the point was that all that was running from beginning to end was John playing guitar, singing, and tambora. And that was it, all the way through.

Guy Massey: There was tom-tom as well.

Allan Rouse: But Guy has done various things to the tambora and changed the overall sound of the tambora throughout the structure of the song, to build it, to change the concept of it – because otherwise you’re missing so much from that song with just those two things going on. There were loads of overdubs on top of that. Not all of the songs were treated in that way, but some leant themselves to a build. Let It Be was another example of when that was done.

Allan Rouse: We actually spent a long time, the three of us, to get the right running order. It’s completely different and I think it makes you want to listen to the album more. For instance, One After 909 now starts within split seconds of the track before it. If you think about Beatles albums or any album recorded in the Sixties with the exception of albums like Abbey Road, there was always three seconds between each track. It didn’t matter how it felt, you just measured three seconds of white leader and stuck it in. But we didn’t do that because people don’t do that anymore, people use feel for when the next track should come in. All of this is slightly different to the usual Beatles album.

Paul Hicks: I personally think that these changes are good if only to show people that this is a different product. It’s instant, you can see and hear instantly that it’s something different.

Allan Rouse: You can probably see why we are rather excited by this album. It’s a privilege to be given a free hand and it is incredibly satisfying to think that in all probability this is the only time that it’s going to happen, you can’t do it with any of the other albums. It’s a privilege to be able to do it.

Q: And the rest of the tracks….?

Paul Hicks: Two Of Us, we’ve used the same take and not a lot of editing done on that, just a straightforward remix. I’ve Got A Feeling is an interesting track; I’ve Got A Feeling is the rooftop performance – the rooftop tracks, by the way, are I’ve Got A Feeling, Dig A Pony, The One After 909 and Don’t Let Me Down. I’ve Got A Feeling is actually quite different than has been heard before; that’s the one on which we did a lot of work to get the most exciting bits out of the two takes that were on the rooftop.

Paul Hicks: It was just block multi-track edits, just `that verse is better than that one’. On one of the takes the guitar was really distorted and very exciting, I love the excitement of I’ve Got A Feeling; with Paul just screaming away on it it’s a really good moment on the album. Next, One After 909 – again, taken from the rooftop which was also used on the original album but now one of the main improvements is the drum clarity. No edits there, it’s pretty naked. Next, Don’t Let Me Down – also from the rooftop.

Guy Massey: John fluffed his lyrics on one take….

Paul Hicks: But the other take had the correct lyrics.

Allan Rouse: One of the things that is very comforting for us in all of this, by the way, is that Ringo appeared to be really knocked out after he first heard the new album, he became very vocal about it. And then we heard that Paul was really knocked out too, so that made it all matter.

Paul Hicks: I Me Mine – again basically just the take from the original.

Allan Rouse: I think it’s important to recognize that it is the take with overdubs because some people might start saying `I thought this was meant to be without overdubs, but it’s got loads of overdubs on it’. But you have to understand that we couldn’t pare down what was there; it didn’t have a vocal anyway, the backing track if you like.

Paul Hicks: It would have just been drums and a guitar for I Me Mine.

Allan Rouse: And that obviously doesn’t work.

Paul Hicks: Because even the vocal was really a guide vocal and he overdubbed that on I Me Mine.

Allan Rouse: So it is important to realize that there was reason behind what we did and the reason was that in attempting to achieve what we’d done with everything else the only choice we had was to have left some of the overdubs there. Otherwise it would have sounded bare and it wouldn’t have worked. What track’s next? Across The Universe, what did you do with that, Guy?

Guy Massey: Well, there wasn’t a lot that we could do with it, really. We stereoized the tambora as it was building, we had it in mono first and then for the first chorus we opened it out so it was stereo. We did the same with the vocals, widened it out a little. And then Alan suggested why doesn’t it all fade into beautiful reverb at the end; so we all laughed, did it, and it sounded great. Originally we thought that was going to be the end track on the album, just a lovely thing to go out on, just disappear on it. But then when we did the running order it didn’t flow quite as well, so we put Let It Be last, which seemed to fit as well.

Allan Rouse: I was just thinking about the irony of that, we spend a year and a half getting rid of the sound of Phil Spector and then we go and put a tape delay and then a reverb right on the end of it. It’s just a little present to Phil Spector, so he doesn’t feel completely left out.

Q: Was Across The Universe recorded at the Let It Be sessions?

Allan Rouse: No. They did it numerous times. You would assume they were intending to put it on the album because it was rehearsed quite a few times within the (Let It Be) sessions, but the version that ended up on the album was recorded a year before. We were very worried that because this wasn’t recorded during the actual Let It Be sessions then maybe the track wouldn’t go on the album. But the way I saw it was that Across The Universe needed to be there in order to go with Paul’s Long And Winding Road. And, as I said, they rehearsed it numerous times during those three weeks.

Q: What did you do with Let It Be?

Guy Massey: Again, we just wanted it to build, so we started it as it does start, pretty quietly and then we just introduced bits and arranged it a bit more than it had been previously.

Allan Rouse: We made a bigger thing of the other Beatles in the “oo” section. It works, it’s nice, it’s much more ethereal as these lovely voices come out. They were always there but we just made it a little bit more.

Q: George’s guitar solo on Let It Be is different from what has been heard before?

Guy Massey: We loved that and we wanted to get that in. It’s only been heard before in the Let It Be film.

Q: But anyone who saw the film back in 1970 would not have heard it in such quality as this, in their local Odeon.

Allan Rouse: And in mono then.

Q: Now they sound like the songs you imagined they wanted them to be when they first did them.

Allan Rouse: Hope so.

Q: As with any Beatles project there is a contradiction of expectation in this one; over recent years there has been a move – probably started with The Beatles Anthology series – to cram as many minutes of music onto a CD as a disc can take, up to the last second. They did that with The Beatles 1.

Allan Rouse: The album length has hardly changed, despite the fact that we took Dig It and Maggie Mae out and all the dialogue, because Don’t Let Me Down wasn’t on the original album and that has made up the difference. This is the same length as The Beatles first four albums, practically. We were worried about that. When CD first came out and people realized they could put 80 minutes of music on a disc, I think some thought they had to put on 80 minutes, or at least 75.

Q: That’s a point that Neil Aspinall made with this album; he said “it’s a very listenable album”.

Allan Rouse: I think it is, actually. I enjoy listening to it.

Q: But it’s not just that the content is listenable, it’s that the whole, as a 35-minute album, is listenable. People can find 35 minutes in a day to hear music, whereas they can’t always find 80 minutes to spare.

Paul Hicks: I just think that if any artist records 17 songs and eight of them are good, why not just release the eight good ones? As a record buyer, I wouldn’t feel cheated if I got eight or 10 really good songs on an album, as opposed to getting 17 and half of them aren’t so great.

Q: So, was this a good project to work on?

Paul Hicks: It was very satisfying.

Guy Massey: It was an honour. To do something like this with a free rein, but treating it with respect, was great.

Allan Rouse: There’s always that worrying moment when you send a CD out and, in this case, you know that two, sadly only two now, of the biggest musicians in the world are going to listen to something you’ve done and you want to know what their reaction will be. The least you expect `Well, yeah, it’s good, but I wonder if perhaps you could just do a bit more vocal on this’ or `maybe the bass wasn’t quite as good on this as it was on that’. But the fact that we’ve actually not changed anything since the first pressing of the first CD was sent out to them, we hoped that we were satisfying them and it appears that we have. And that is a huge kick.

Unknown source – From Steve Hoffman Music Forums

From Mix Online, January 1, 2004:

The following is a breakdown of what was done to each Let It Be…Naked track (in running order, along with the mix engineer’s name in parentheses):

• “Get Back” (Hicks): While Johns and Martin used a master recorded on January 28, 1969, for the aborted LP and released single, Spector had used a recording from the day before, and the same master is used on this album. Notably absent is the song’s coda, which appeared on the single. “It turns out that the coda had been recorded as an edit piece four or five reels later,” explains Hicks. “Since it wasn’t on the original session recording for the song, it wouldn’t have represented what actually took place in the studio during that take, so it was decided to leave it off.”
• “Dig a Pony” (Massey): Those who’ve heard bootlegs of Johns’ mixes know the song originally featured an “All I Want Is You” intro and outro, which Spector removed for his LP. “The tuning is particularly bad in the beginning,” says Massey, prompting the decision to eliminate them in the new version, as well.
• “For You Blue” (Hicks): Using the same master as Spector used, Hicks mainly focused on keeping the sounds bright and clear. What was interesting, he says, was learning about the unique sound McCartney got out of his piano. “It’s a fuzzy, metallic sound, which he did by putting a piece of paper in the piano strings, causing them to vibrate against the paper when struck. You can hear on the session tape Paul’s fiddling around, trying to get the right sound.” And because McCartney is playing piano, he does not play bass on the song. “The bass comes from the piano,” says Hicks, with McCartney playing a bass line on the keys. George Harrison’s vocal, it turns out, was one of the few overdubs used. “We took out his live vocal, which was basically a guide vocal. It wasn’t a complete take, really, and I don’t think it was ever intended to be used.”
• “The Long and Winding Road” (Hicks): Perhaps the greatest achievement on the album is the improvement to this track, easily accomplished by removing Spector’s overblown orchestra. Actually, though, the master on Let It Be…Naked is not even the one used by Spector; it’s the only take on the album that was changed in its entirety. The group returned to the Apple basement the day after their rooftop show to record three more songs, this one among them. Says Rouse, “Spector had used one take recorded five days earlier.” “This version, recorded on January 31, we felt was a stronger basic performance,” says Hicks. “There’s also a slight lyric change,” adds Rouse, who suggests that, this being the later recording, it represents McCartney’s final lyric choice.
• As a listening experience, it’s a first for Beatles fans to hear them play the song instead of an orchestra. The recording features McCartney on piano, Harrison playing lead guitar through a Leslie speaker, Lennon on a newly acquired Fender Bass VI and Ringo Starr keeping light time with his hi-hat.
• “Two of Us” (Massey): The same master used by Spector, also from January 31, 1969, features Lennon and McCartney on acoustic guitars, Harrison on electric and Starr providing a simple bass drum/snare/tom beat. By the way, Starr’s drums were typically recorded onto a single track, precluding mixing them into stereo. Small amounts of de-essing and rumble filtering were also performed.
• “I’ve Got a Feeling” (Massey/Hicks): A rooftop recording, this song was edited by Massey before being mixed by his colleague. Massey used the best of each of two rooftop takes of the song, creating a version, Hicks says, with the most energy. And while Johns had opted for a studio recording of the song for his version of the album, there was no beating the live performances. Notes Hicks, “I don’t know if it was just the fact that they were playing live and knew it or just because they were so cold, but there was just so much more energy in the live recordings.” Sonically, he notes, the live recordings — minus the wind and pops — are not much different from their studio counterparts, making a surprisingly good match when listening to the album.
• “One After 909” (Hicks): Another rooftop performance, though, interestingly, the team did consider using a studio version. “We did research to see if there was another version,” says Hicks. “But it was just much slower, and it had a completely different feel. There was no contest, really. It’s one of the more up-tempo numbers, so we went with the live one.” Hicks is proudest of his drum sound, bringing Starr out to the fore. “We found so many details we wanted to bring out, which we tried our best to do. Everything is a lot more focused.”
• “Don’t Let Me Down” (Hicks/Massey): Though not included on Spector’s album, this song was a product of those sessions. A studio version from January 28, 1969, was released as the B-side to the “Get Back” single. This version, however, is an edit of the two rooftop versions. The Beatles recorded a second take because Lennon forgot the lyrics during the first take.
• “I Me Mine” (Massey): This song was not originally recorded at Apple in January 1969, though Harrison is seen in the film playing it briefly at Twickenham. In January 1970, Harrison, McCartney and Starr recorded a studio version of the song, with Harrison playing acoustic guitar and singing a guide vocal, McCartney on bass and Starr on drums for the master take. Electric piano, electric guitar, lead vocal, backing vocals, organ and a second acoustic guitar were added as overdubs. The recording was a brief 1:34 in length, so before adding his orchestra, Spector lengthened it by repeating one of the verses, resulting in a 2:25 final master. The Naked team decided to leave in the overdubs — which made the recording complete as The Beatles had envisioned it — and Spector’s edit. “We were originally going to do it unedited,” says Massey, “but if you listen to it at that length, it’s just far too short.” Jokes Rouse, “That was our one concession to Mr. Spector.” Massey also built up the mix as the song progressed by adding elements of the mix as the song enters the second verse.
• “Across the Universe” (Massey): Again, while no studio recordings of this song were made at Apple, Lennon is seen playing the song at Twickenham in the film. “Across the Universe” was actually recorded a year earlier, in February 1968, at the same Abbey Road sessions that produced “Lady Madonna” and “Hey Bulldog.” The basic track featured Lennon on acoustic guitar, his vocal and a tom-tom (all recorded onto one track), with Harrison playing a tamboura. At the time, George Martin had added background vocals and animal sound effects. Spector’s version removed the latter two parts, as well as the tamboura, replacing them with an orchestra and a choir. The new mix features Lennon’s guitar and vocal, Starr’s drums and the tamboura. “Again, because the concept was whatever the guys could play live onstage, we took everything else away,” says Rouse. The ending has been given a spiritual touch, with a building echo (via real Abbey Road tape delay) added.
• “Let It Be” (Massey): another recording from January 31, 1969, the day after rooftop, with McCartney on piano, Lennon on Fender Bass VI, Harrison on lead guitar (through a Leslie), Starr on drums and Preston on organ. Three months later in April, Martin added a new electric guitar lead from Harrison, and in January 1970, added backing vocals from McCartney and Harrison, brass and cellos and yet another pass at a Harrison lead. Martin produced the single release of the song, issued in March 1970 (pre-Spector), featuring the April 1969 guitar solo. Upon Spector’s arrival, the song was lengthened by repeating a chorus and issued featuring the January 1970 guitar lead.

From Mix Online, January 1, 2004

“Let It Be… Naked” was accompanied by a 22-minute companion disc titled “Fly On The Wall“ — a collage of music and conversation drawn from the January 1969 “Get Back” sessions. Compiled by BBC producer Kevin Howlett and engineer Brian Thompson, the disc features material recorded in mono by the film crew during both the Twickenham and Apple Studio rehearsals.

Session activities

1. Get Back

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • DDSI.27.63

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

2. Dig A Pony

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • DDSI.30.11

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

3. For You Blue

   Written by George Harrison

   Mixing • DDSI.25.47

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

4. The Long And Winding Road

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • DDSI.31.40

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

5. Two Of Us

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • DDSI.31.13

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

6. I've Got A Feeling

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • DDSI.30.06/30.13

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

7. One After 909

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • DDSI.30.08

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

8. Don't Let Me Down

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • DDSI.30.05/30.16

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

9. I Me Mine

   Written by George Harrison

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

10. Across The Universe

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

11. Let It Be

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • DDSI.31.64/31.65

    AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be... Naked

Staff

Production staff

Going further

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions • Mark Lewisohn

The definitive guide for every Beatles recording sessions from 1962 to 1970. We owe a lot to Mark Lewisohn for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - the number of takes for each song, who contributed what, a description of the context and how each session went, various photographies... And an introductory interview with Paul McCartney!

Buy on Amazon