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thkbeercan
I worked for the old Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab for 20 years until it's demise in 1999 (longer than any other living person). When MFSL embarked on its 1984 Stones LP box project, they required original masters with which to work, and got from ABKCO a list of their library of Stones "master" tapes. I still have a copy of this multipage, typewritten document. Included are all the UK and US LP's, singles, EPS, as well as the Hyde Park concert, a master tape for Necrophilia, and a couple of tapes worth of songs which ended up on bootlegs like "The Trident Mixes" and some Exile boots (a lot of those songs were written during the last days of the Klein era.) A few odds and ends exist as well, but not much. It was left to the MFSL engineers to sort through it all to find which tapes were really masters as opposed to copy tapes since the ABKCO people had no idea and were rather unclear about the whole concept of 'audiophile' recordings to begin with!!
Rehearsal tapes, multitracks of any mono-only LP's, etc are nowhere to be found on these pages. Nor would we have expected to find them, as these items most likely were left at the studios where they were orginally recorded (a situation typical for the times) or in the hands of the Stones themselves. Since they were not master tapes of intended releases, there was no legal obilgation to forward them to a record label or manager. The "Trident Mixes" and Exile material are there most likely as demos for verification of songwriting copyright and were not intended as finished, releasable material. Again, remember that in the 1960's this was standard operating procedure, and no one had any forethought of CD retrospective boxed sets in the 21st century.
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thkbeercan
technically, binaural recording is a one position mike recording with 2 mike heads, kind of like a human head with 2 ears....it gives spatial ambiance but not much in the way of instrument separation. "Satifaction" and some of those other songs are not binaural recordings, but rather "ping-pong" stereo, with complete separation of channels and no overlap of instruments or vocals.
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thkbeercan
As I said, I worked for Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab for 20 years. During that time, MFSL issued "Sticky Fingers" and "Some Girls" as well, so we had the unique opportunity of dealing on both sides of the Rolling Stones fence, so to speak.
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nick
It's 1.8 meg. By the way, do you have enough info to make a new revision to that kick ass SACD FAQ of yours?
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lukpacQuote
thkbeercan
I worked for the old Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab for 20 years until it's demise in 1999 (longer than any other living person). When MFSL embarked on its 1984 Stones LP box project, they required original masters with which to work, and got from ABKCO a list of their library of Stones "master" tapes. I still have a copy of this multipage, typewritten document. Included are all the UK and US LP's, singles, EPS, as well as the Hyde Park concert, a master tape for Necrophilia, and a couple of tapes worth of songs which ended up on bootlegs like "The Trident Mixes" and some Exile boots (a lot of those songs were written during the last days of the Klein era.) A few odds and ends exist as well, but not much. It was left to the MFSL engineers to sort through it all to find which tapes were really masters as opposed to copy tapes since the ABKCO people had no idea and were rather unclear about the whole concept of 'audiophile' recordings to begin with!!
Rehearsal tapes, multitracks of any mono-only LP's, etc are nowhere to be found on these pages. Nor would we have expected to find them, as these items most likely were left at the studios where they were orginally recorded (a situation typical for the times) or in the hands of the Stones themselves. Since they were not master tapes of intended releases, there was no legal obilgation to forward them to a record label or manager. The "Trident Mixes" and Exile material are there most likely as demos for verification of songwriting copyright and were not intended as finished, releasable material. Again, remember that in the 1960's this was standard operating procedure, and no one had any forethought of CD retrospective boxed sets in the 21st century.
Wow, thanks for posting. Do you have any more details about the digital transfers? We were told by Gregg Schnitzer that they were done somewhat under the table, while the tapes were on site for the LPs.
As far as multitracks go, somebody once told me that some were in Universal's vault years ago, and ABKCO clearly has access to some now. Sympathy For the Devil was remixed to 5.1, and I'm Free has been remixed for use in commercials, presumably from the 3-track tape. Additionally, Good Times and Think were remixed (with additional overdubs) for Necrophilia.Quote
thkbeercan
technically, binaural recording is a one position mike recording with 2 mike heads, kind of like a human head with 2 ears....it gives spatial ambiance but not much in the way of instrument separation. "Satifaction" and some of those other songs are not binaural recordings, but rather "ping-pong" stereo, with complete separation of channels and no overlap of instruments or vocals.
FYI, Satisfaction isn't even "binaural" by those terms - it is a left-center-right mix; there is no "hole in the middle".
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72stones
On another completely different point, Mick and Keith themselves have to have stashes of tapes from the '60s in their own possession as well.
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Gazza
Great stuff. Thanks sssoul and thkbeercan. Keep 'em comin'.
Intrigued by the 'unreleased Jagger Indian Music'. Never heard of that one before.
Would it be possible to repost 011? The info at the bottom is faded (it may be part 1 of 4 of More Hot Rocks, going by what it says on 012
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Palace Revolution 2000
What are those titles at the top of Page 18 ? At first I thought this is early stuff; maybe ALO Orchestra. Or some of those "Waving Hair" type medleys. But albums seem ROUGHLY grouped together, and those titles fall in between "Buttons" and "Banquet".
Good to see Bill's Black Box making the stand one more time.
This is a pretty incredible posting from Beercan; started out so quietly.
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thkbeercan
As I said, I worked for Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab for 20 years. During that time, MFSL issued "Sticky Fingers" and "Some Girls" as well, so we had the unique opportunity of dealing on both sides of the Rolling Stones fence, so to speak.
What happened with Sticky Fingers - that one doesn't sound right at all?
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Silver Dagger
And another revelation. Aladdin Story is down on these reference sheets as Aladdin Stomp so that's one title that will need revising.
And what are Panama Powder Room and Goodzi? Anyone know?
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nick
Just some comments and questions from the beginning of this thread. Those pages have distracted me plenty......
thkbeercan
"In addition to ABKCO retaining ownership of Decca/London material performance rights (the actual performances as heard on record) AND publishing copyrights on Jagger-Richards songs written thru 1970 (the end of their Decca/London contract AND the end of their managerial arrangement with Allen Klein)"
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The end of the contract with Klein was in 74. So the slutting of the catalog should had stopped there. Yet these War-WHOREses trickle out to 81-82. Jagger went to court in 84 to get regular payments on royalties he was stinging on and put a stop to those collections.
thkbeercan
"ABKCO was/is prohibited from altering the "artistic integrity" of the original releases, whether LP, EP or single. Such bonuses can appear on ABKCO's own creations (a la Hot Rocks, More Hot Rocks) but not on albums in their original form...which is why their CD re-issue program of a few years back was such a hogde-podge...attempting to be comprehensive, but unable to be thoroughly so."
2 questions: First, is this why they can use a different Satisfaction stereo mix for the Hot Rocks SACD and the normal mono mix on Out Of Our Heads? Second, Since all SACD instances of Ruby Tuesday are using a different mix with missing vocals in the chorus, is that techically an alteration of "artistic integrity"?
Gazza
"Klein passed on the running of ABKCO to his son Jody several years ago, so his death isnt going to make any difference. That said, there appear to be some moves afoot to release some unreleased material (an expanded Ya-Ya's for example) so it does appear that maybe there's been a thaw in relations in recent months, unconnected to the old man's demise."
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I'm thinking that thaw may have started with the Stones cooperating with some masters for the SACD project. Abkco might have froze it back up with a CD release of Rolled Gold. I'm confused as to how this got released...???
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nick
Just some comments and questions from the beginning of this thread. Those pages
I'm thinking that thaw may have started with the Stones cooperating with some masters for the SACD project. Abkco might have froze it back up with a CD release of Rolled Gold. I'm confused as to how this got released...???
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brokenhandsQuote
nick
Just some comments and questions from the beginning of this thread. Those pages
I'm thinking that thaw may have started with the Stones cooperating with some masters for the SACD project. Abkco might have froze it back up with a CD release of Rolled Gold. I'm confused as to how this got released...???
"Rolled Gold" was originally issued in 1975 on Decca. Technically, ABKCO can re-release any title that was issued by Decca. Yes, they expanded it (and used a crappy cover instead of the original artwork), but it's got all the titles that were on the original issue, so....
If ABKCO so desired, they could re-issue all those Decca cash in albums from the 70's, and nobody could say boo...
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thkbeercan
you are right about Satisfaction, the vocals are centered, however I maintain that none of those early Stones stereo mixes are binaural. The instruments and vocals are too isolated left, right, and in some cases center, but there is no bleed through from one channel to the next, whereas in natural human hearing both ears here some of the same sounds...which is what binaural recording attempts to recreate..
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thkbeercan
As far as the Stones digital mastering is concerned, MFSL did digital masters of each of the albums found in their audiophile boxed set for ABKCO. (I was not an engineer, nor was I in the A&R department-I was in sales. However, this company had fewer than 20 employees and when the original company folded in 1999, I was the executive vice-president. Few secrets, if any, were kept from me. I ended up buying the corporate assets from the federal bankruptcy court and sold the name, trademark and technology to its current owners...but that's another story.)
Part of the deal struck with ABKCO was that, in addition to being able to license the Stones material for a boxed set, MFSL would provide ABKCO with digital masters they could use for their own CD's...This was in 1983-84 and 'digital' was a buzzword throughout the industry-everyone wanted to produce CD's, and getting free, high quality CD mastering was a bonus for ABKCO. MFSL was a privately held corporation, and the majority stockholder-the president-did as he pleased and was not bound to consult with or obtain permission from any other employee, engineers included, about the licensing deals he struck with anyone. It is possible that MFSL engineers were not privy to all the details of the ABKCO agreement, but the fact remains that digital masters were made and provided to ABKCO. The only difference in any of these digital masters was the Hot Rocks title which featured stereo mixes that ABKCO had refused to allow MFSL to use on its own audiophile LP's.
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Gregg Schnitzer
Life is indeed funny. Now, twenty years later, I finally know what happened. I developed a heart problem while working at MFSL. The first incident was right after the first cassette production run when 10,000 pieces were manufactured in real time with the right/left channels reversed. I had proofed the entire system and gave it the green light.
In the bloody meeting that followed the discovery of this gaff, Gary Giorgi admitted that he had come in after hours the night before the production run. He said that he had to do some analog to digital transfers and figured that this would be the best time to do it as everything was calibrated to a razor's edge. When he finished his dupes he reconnected the digital mastering machine with right/left reversed (accidentally).
That was at the same time as the Rolling Stones masters were in house and this transfer was done in the dupe facility and not in the mastering suite. So, all that could've been done was a direct transfer. All of the Stones master tapes were in his office the next morning and when I inquired as to why they weren't in the vault he replied that he was packing them for return to Europe.
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lukpacQuote
thkbeercan
you are right about Satisfaction, the vocals are centered, however I maintain that none of those early Stones stereo mixes are binaural. The instruments and vocals are too isolated left, right, and in some cases center, but there is no bleed through from one channel to the next, whereas in natural human hearing both ears here some of the same sounds...which is what binaural recording attempts to recreate..
Right. My point though, was that there were not "binaural" in the sense that many people use the term either. That is, twin-track, a la The Beatles' first two albums. I'm not saying it is correct, but "binaural" is often a term used for twin-track. Which Satisfaction is *not*...Quote
thkbeercan
As far as the Stones digital mastering is concerned, MFSL did digital masters of each of the albums found in their audiophile boxed set for ABKCO. (I was not an engineer, nor was I in the A&R department-I was in sales. However, this company had fewer than 20 employees and when the original company folded in 1999, I was the executive vice-president. Few secrets, if any, were kept from me. I ended up buying the corporate assets from the federal bankruptcy court and sold the name, trademark and technology to its current owners...but that's another story.)
Part of the deal struck with ABKCO was that, in addition to being able to license the Stones material for a boxed set, MFSL would provide ABKCO with digital masters they could use for their own CD's...This was in 1983-84 and 'digital' was a buzzword throughout the industry-everyone wanted to produce CD's, and getting free, high quality CD mastering was a bonus for ABKCO. MFSL was a privately held corporation, and the majority stockholder-the president-did as he pleased and was not bound to consult with or obtain permission from any other employee, engineers included, about the licensing deals he struck with anyone. It is possible that MFSL engineers were not privy to all the details of the ABKCO agreement, but the fact remains that digital masters were made and provided to ABKCO. The only difference in any of these digital masters was the Hot Rocks title which featured stereo mixes that ABKCO had refused to allow MFSL to use on its own audiophile LP's.
Interesting. This is what we were told...perhaps it will ring some bells:Quote
Gregg Schnitzer
Life is indeed funny. Now, twenty years later, I finally know what happened. I developed a heart problem while working at MFSL. The first incident was right after the first cassette production run when 10,000 pieces were manufactured in real time with the right/left channels reversed. I had proofed the entire system and gave it the green light.
In the bloody meeting that followed the discovery of this gaff, Gary Giorgi admitted that he had come in after hours the night before the production run. He said that he had to do some analog to digital transfers and figured that this would be the best time to do it as everything was calibrated to a razor's edge. When he finished his dupes he reconnected the digital mastering machine with right/left reversed (accidentally).
That was at the same time as the Rolling Stones masters were in house and this transfer was done in the dupe facility and not in the mastering suite. So, all that could've been done was a direct transfer. All of the Stones master tapes were in his office the next morning and when I inquired as to why they weren't in the vault he replied that he was packing them for return to Europe.
Have all of the tape sheets been posted yet? I'm wondering where those stereo tracks came from.