Beatles A Hard Day's Night Blu-Ray

[seilerbird]

I just picked up the latest Blu ray edition of A Hard Days Night. I was unimpressed with the surround but I noticed something interesting during the credits. Right near the end of the credits it says in real small type something like "All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to people living or dead are purely coincidental. OK, if you say so. But then the very next frame says "John - John Lennon, Paul - Paul McCartney, George - George Harrison, Ringo - Ringo Starr. Now there is an amazing coincidence. What are the odds the four stars would share the first name.@:

 

[JonUrban]

Makes you wonder if the grandfather was in fact "very clean"

 

[rtbluray]

I just picked up the latest Blu ray edition of A Hard Days Night. I was unimpressed with the surround.

Well what were you expecting in terms of surround sound? All of those songs were recorded on 4-track tape, and some don't even use all four tracks, so obviously it's not possible to create immersive surround mixes for this film as there was for some of their other releases.

 

[4-earredwonder]

I just picked up the latest Blu ray edition of A Hard Days Night. I was unimpressed with the surround but I noticed something interesting during the credits. Right near the end of the credits it says in real small type something like "All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to people living or dead are purely coincidental. OK, if you say so. But then the very next frame says "John - John Lennon, Paul - Paul McCartney, George - George Harrison, Ringo - Ringo Starr. Now there is an amazing coincidence. What are the odds the four stars would share the first name.@:

Concerning the lack of a true surround mix, RT was correct. It was recorded, at BEST, on four track equipment so there was very little leeway for a discrete surround mix.

As for the end credits: it was tongue in cheek.....just like the movie.

 

[0tto]

Well what were you expecting in terms of surround sound? All of those songs were recorded on 4-track tape, and some don't even use all four tracks, so obviously it's not possible to create immersive surround mixes for this film as there was for some of their other releases.

c'mon, people can do stunning surround immersive soundfield from stereo tracks.
could be these four discrete tracks recording just have bad luck to got in wrong hands of someone without imagination.

 

[rtbluray]

c'mon, people can do stunning surround immersive soundfield from stereo tracks.
could be these four discrete tracks recording just have bad luck to got in wrong hands of someone without imagination.

Imagination has nothing to do with it at all in this instance. It's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to create an immersive surround mix from a 4-track recording which has drums, bass, and guitar all on Track 1, another guitar and percussion overdub on Track 2, and vocals on Tracks 3 & 4.
I'm still of the firm belief that the approach taken for this particular Blu-Ray release was the right one given the film setting and the limitations of the source material. As always, ymmv…

 

[alk3997]

Ah, Beatles multitrack discussions...

So, let's look at the title song, A Hard Days Night.

Track 1 - Drums, Bass, Guitars (plural) - basically the band recording on Track 1
Track 2 - Vocals
Track 3 - Double-track Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Bongos, Cowbell
Track 4 - Piano, Electric Guitar - The middle 8 solo, guitar at end and the piano in the opening chord all recorded at 1/2 speed in a lower pitch which when played back at normal speed became normal pitch

The open chord is spread across Tracks 1, 3 and 4.

So, if you want to make a "modern" surround mix, you'll probably want to move the vocals into the center front. Track 1 is in the front left and Track 4 is in the front right. So that leaves, well, nothing for the surround channels except maybe some of that good ambiance. If you don't use more modern "tricks" then that is what you are stuck with.

I could go up and down the A Hard Day's Night tracks and basically what you will find is very similar. With modern techniques bongos, cowbells (more cowbells!) and maracas could be separated. But that isn't exactly a fulfilling surround picture. Can't Buy Me Love gets a little more interesting but overall these are very simple songs with very simple recording techniques.

I think all of the AHDN songs used all 4 tracks of the multitrack and none of the songs needed bounce-downs (reduction mixes). Get "the band" on track 1, record the vocals on track 2, get the double-tracked vocals on 3 and then anything else that was needed went on track 4. Unless you can separate out "the band" on track 1 into separate tracks, you don't have too much to work with for a surround mix. Even then, it's still a very simple song instrumentation-wise.

It's not until Rubber Soul that the song instrumentation and vocals really get interesting and complex. It isn't until Revolver that the recording techniques got more complex (and yet Paperback Writer was recorded with 4 tracks total).

Andy

 

[blue.monk]

Track 3 - Double-track Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Bongos, Cowbell

And some more trivia for my fellow Beatle-obsessive friends out there - it was engineer Norman Smith who played those bongos:

I only ever played on one Beatles song, and that was A Hard Day's Night. I played the bongos. Ringo couldn't do it. I went down to the studio and showed him what to do, but he just couldn't get that continual rhythm. So I said, 'Okay, forget it, I'll do it.' WE overdubbed it, and I left my Tape Op behind upstairs to operate the equipment.

 

[seilerbird]

Well what were you expecting in terms of surround sound? All of those songs were recorded on 4-track tape, and some don't even use all four tracks, so obviously it's not possible to create immersive surround mixes for this film as there was for some of their other releases.

I was expecting truth in advertising. If you are going to advertise surround sound then it should be better than this. Most of it sounded almost mono to me.

 

[rtbluray]

I was expecting truth in advertising. If you are going to advertise surround sound then it should be better than this. Most of it sounded almost mono to me.

Well that makes perfect sense in that those Beatles recordings were designed to be mixed and heard in mono. Even then, the stereo mix was an afterthought, let alone the fact that surround sound was light years away when those recordings were made.
You might be disappointed in that this Blu-ray did not provide an immersive surround experience for you, but it's still a much better mix than the original stereo and mono mixes IMHO.

 

[0tto]

Imagination has nothing to do with it at all in this instance. It's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to create an immersive surround mix from a 4-track recording which has drums, bass, and guitar all on Track 1, another guitar and percussion overdub on Track 2, and vocals on Tracks 3 & 4.
I'm still of the firm belief that the approach taken for this particular Blu-Ray release was the right one given the film setting and the limitations of the source material. As always, ymmv…

well, with my humble unprofessional experience i was able to figure out that mixing music isn't an attempt
to put each instrument and voices as is, in particular corner of soundfield. and in fact imagination of mixers
has huge impact on how mix (doesn't matter stereo or surround) comes out.

 

[rtbluray]

well, with my humble unprofessional experience i was able to figure out that mixing music isn't an attempt
to put each instrument and voices as is, in particular corner of soundfield. and in fact imagination of mixers
has huge impact on how mix (doesn't matter stereo or surround) comes out.

For the vast majority of music mixing, you're absolutely right. It's both a creative and technical endeavor, and both carry equal weight in terms of creating a great mix. But this is something that is not possible when remixing the Beatles earliest recordings (up to around say 1965 or so) due to the limitations of recording technology at the time. Plus, it's not aesthetically appropriate either for these recordings to do 360 degree pans around the soundfield. (You could however do that with some of their later recordings that are more psychedelic and experimental nature.)

 

[ar surround]

The Help 5.1 mix is more immersive than A Hard Day's Night. Perhaps the 4 track mix was done differently for Help allowing for more creative surround sound? Or perhaps they employed some electronic wizardry?

 

[seilerbird]

Well that makes perfect sense in that those Beatles recordings were designed to be mixed and heard in mono. Even then, the stereo mix was an afterthought, let alone the fact that surround sound was light years away when those recordings were made.
You might be disappointed in that this Blu-ray did not provide an immersive surround experience for you, but it's still a much better mix than the original stereo and mono mixes IMHO.

Light years away? Excuse me, but Walt Disney's engineers invented surround sound in 1941 for the movie Fantasia.

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.aspx?p=337317

 

[seilerbird]

Today I listened to all the music in AHDN the new "surround" version. What a joke. There is nothing there even remotely sounding surround. I then played the 2009 Blu ray and even though the surround is fake it still sounded better. I have bought many versions of this movie going all the way back to the VHS and every few years they come out with a better sounding version so I have spent a fortune on this one movie alone. Of course you do not get credit for already having paid for the movie once. They keep raising the price and claiming it sounds better and charging you full price. What a racket. At least the video was cleaner but they should have cleaned up the video many releases ago.

I don't buy it that they can't do any better than this because it was only recorded on four tracks. I have Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper and they all sound much better and they were all recorded in 4 tracks. If people can do this at home why can't EMI do it with the master tapes in hand? I have a stereo version of She Loves You and Love Me Do that has only been released in mono for the last 52 years and they sound fantastic. People at home are doing much better than EMI can or will do. Of course what really ticks me off is that in a few years they will get around to making decent sounding surround mixes and then jack up the price so they can sell it to us again.