deconstructing Dear Prudence

[pucho812]

I always find these so interesting... Makes me feel good about the sounds I get at the studio and how the sum of the parts is what counts.

deconstructing dear prudence.

 

[ruffrecords]

How do they do that? It is clearly not the original tracks.

Cheers

Ian

 

[pucho812]

I don't know, they may be the original tracks. hard to tell. I know the Beatles did a lot of bouncing back then out of necessity.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Could be the multitracks. This is one of a few recorded at Trident Studios on their 8 track though a Sound Techniques desk.

No Ringo on this as he'd left the band for a couple of weeks so, McCartney plays drums. The isolated parts on the vid do jive with what was recorded per each overdub so... ?

Cool anyway, thanks Pucho

 

[pucho812]

they do have a ton of beatles and other things. cool stuff to hear anyway

 

[volker]

https://multitrackdownloads.blogspot.com/2012/03/list-of-all-mogg-files.html
Those multitracks have been around for years, the blog entry is from 2012. They were ripped from the Rock Band Xbox game. Could be a different source in the case of this video, I don't know. But if you're interested in playing around with that they are out there easy to find.

 

[pucho812]

Not interested in playing around, justy found it nice to listen to.
I once talked with Geoff Emerick about the leaked sargent pepper multi-tracks. His take was interesting, especially when he noted how noisy they were and how the actual tapes even after all these years are not nearly as noisy

 

[Brian Roth]

This reminds me when a close friend/studio owner somehow got the tracks for "Bohemian Rhapsody". Perhaps they came from Guitar Hero or one of the other games. It was pretty amazing to hear Freddy soloed and hear a series of punchins before he sang a particular line...breath...breath.....sing!

We fought our best to recreate the ultimate mixdown ourselves. VERY complicated set of tracks with random parts popping in and out all over the tracks. Also, IIRC three tracks were bass guitar.....which struck me as odd since it was 24 track. It wasn't cut on a Stephens 40 track as has been widely mis-reported.

 

[pucho812]

This reminds me when a close friend/studio owner somehow got the tracks for "Bohemian Rhapsody". Perhaps they came from Guitar Hero or one of the other games. It was pretty amazing to hear Freddy soloed and hear a series of punchins before he sang a particular line...breath...breath.....sing!

We fought our best to recreate the ultimate mixdown ourselves. VERY complicated set of tracks with random parts popping in and out all over the tracks. Also, IIRC three tracks were bass guitar.....which struck me as odd since it was 24 track. It wasn't cut on a Stephens 40 track as has been widely mis-reported.

think that song was the inspiration for the 40 track Stephens

 

[Brian Roth]

John Stephens (RIP) deserves his own thread here! Until the past few years, I did some servicing on one (of two) 40 track machines originally owned by Leon Russell.

 

[pucho812]

John Stephens (RIP) deserves his own thread here! Until the past few years, I did some servicing on one (of two) 40 track machines originally owned by Leon Russell.

I only knew of one, and that was roy Thomas bakers. But cool to know there were others. Quirky machines for a quirky L.A. individual. nothing really in the machines. From the schematics I have seen, his discrete Audio circuit ran off a -24VDC and were pretty sparse.

 

[Brian Roth]

I was a "baby" when Ampex introduced the ATR-100 machines and was amazed....no pinch roller! I also saw the three transport control cards down under the transport chock-full of IC's and other parts, which I accepted as "that's how it has to be".

That same time frame, I saw a Stephens at an AES show and was amazed it had only two motors and a VERY small amount of electronics to make the transport function. Those machines easily handled 2" tape, yet were gentle in operation. An ATR-100 could (and still can) turn a piece of 1/4" or 1/2" (or in the case of a Mike Spitz 1" modified machine) tape into a broken stretched strand of spaghetti in a nanosecond <g> if the transport is in a bad mood.

Stephens machines were popular within the growing group of "studio audiophiles" back in the 70's. Studios such as Mama Jo's come to mind. The sonics were quite good.....no transformers, etc etc. If your studio was in LA, John would personally appear to do any tweaks and add his newest mods.

The audio circuitry was/is unknown since he buried the circuits into small, round epoxy "cans" with 7 (9?) pins at the base, as used by vacuum tubes. Obviously simple circuits because we didn't have audio IC's on SMD in that era. I think the audio rail was -39VDC....oddly the same with a different polarity as found in Ampex AG-440/MM-1xxx machines.

In the past few-ish years, I was amazed at how well the machines continued to reliably move tape requiring little or no maintenance, and Golden Ears in this biz continue to regard the sonic quality as excellent....even on a 40 track.

The construction of those machines bordered upon Mil or NASA spec in MOST respects. Yet, they were so light weight compared to a Studer, Ampex, MCI multitrack.

I have a few other (positive) experiences with a Stephens as collected over a few decades with the machines, as well as a few WTF! was he thinking?

I recall John did something that landed him in prison ...some personal thing (manslaughter???), not business. I heard he passed several years ago due to dementia. But I don't want to slosh unfounded rumors about an obviously brilliant engineer so any corrections are appreciated.

Bri

 

[pucho812]

I met John once, moons ago. A little off but who am I to judge, I’m a little off too. That being said I have seen his machines for sale and I have some schematics. They do fetch a pretty penny these days.

 

[JohnRoberts]

As I recall the Stephens 40T was SOTA for back in the day. I never saw one in the wild.

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

As I recall the Stephens 40T was SOTA for back in the day. I never saw one in the wild.

JR

Was that 40T on 2 inch tape?

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

2" @ 30 ips... 40-20kHz

JR

 

[Winston OBoogie]

The Stephens machines do sound great. Mainly because there isn't a whole lot in the signal path. Most folks are very surprised when they see how little there is inside a Stephens tape machine chassis.

I reverse engineered the little plug-in amp modules when Audities Foundation in Canada bought up John Stephen's estate and they're quite unlike gain blocks designed and used by others. Maybe this is because the genesis of John Stephen's amps came out of him working with American Nucleonics and J.P.L. to a different set of design considerations.

The amps were indeed run from a single negative rail which could be anywhere from -24V to -50V depending on application or desired spec.

Edit: Rest of post concerning prison time served by John removed for the sake of good taste.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Here's a link to a John Stephens designed plug-in amplifier that was sold by American Nucleonics, dated January 1967 :

https://archive.org/details/TNM_Amplifier_model_614A_-_American_Nucleonics_Co_20180304_0260

 

[Brian Roth]

There's quite a bit of Stephens info here with lots of pictures and his obit:

https://museumofmagneticsoundrecording.org/ManufacturersStephens.html
Also included at that site is a list of serial numbers and the names of the original purchaser (which is a bit of a "who's who" back in those days). After a quick search, I found one of the Leon Russell 40 tracks (Paradise Records). Quick look also shows a few more 40 track machines.

I've always been interested to learn what was inside the epoxy "cans" used in the audio circuits.

Bri

 

[pucho812]

I am sure you guys have seen this...

Stephens schematics