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The original single was, of course, in mono, which is totally plausible in this light. However, the album version is in stereo, and one can very clearly hear the guitar in the right and the drums in the left during the song's opening. This would of course be impossible using a single mono cassette recorder. The way I see it, there are only three ways to explain this discrepancy:Quote
Charlie Watts
Street Fighting Man was recorded on Keith's cassette with a 1930s toy drum kit called a London Jazz Kit Set, which I bought in an antiques shop, and which I've still got at home.
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FreeBird
Street Fighting Man was mostly recorded on a mono Philips compact cassette recorder, as can be read here:The original single was, of course, in mono, which is totally plausible in this light. However, the album version is in stereo, and one can very clearly hear the guitar in the right and the drums in the left during the song's opening. This would of course be impossible using a single mono cassette recorder. The way I see it, there are only three ways to explain this discrepancy:Quote
Charlie Watts
Street Fighting Man was recorded on Keith's cassette with a 1930s toy drum kit called a London Jazz Kit Set, which I bought in an antiques shop, and which I've still got at home.[*]Two or more cassette recorders were used, but this leaves us with the question how on earth their recording and playback could ever have been synchronized properly.
The second options seems the most likely, but it's still not very satisfying (Charlie wasn't the only one saying his drums were also cassette-recorded). Does anyone know more about this than I do?
[*]Charlie was mistaken - his drums were actually not recorded on cassette.
[*]Somehow, they managed to make a stereo recording using a mono recorder.
I'm interested in hearing people's views.
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71TeleQuote
FreeBird
Street Fighting Man was mostly recorded on a mono Philips compact cassette recorder, as can be read here:The original single was, of course, in mono, which is totally plausible in this light. However, the album version is in stereo, and one can very clearly hear the guitar in the right and the drums in the left during the song's opening. This would of course be impossible using a single mono cassette recorder. The way I see it, there are only three ways to explain this discrepancy:Quote
Charlie Watts
Street Fighting Man was recorded on Keith's cassette with a 1930s toy drum kit called a London Jazz Kit Set, which I bought in an antiques shop, and which I've still got at home.[*]Two or more cassette recorders were used, but this leaves us with the question how on earth their recording and playback could ever have been synchronized properly.
The second options seems the most likely, but it's still not very satisfying (Charlie wasn't the only one saying his drums were also cassette-recorded). Does anyone know more about this than I do?
[*]Charlie was mistaken - his drums were actually not recorded on cassette.
[*]Somehow, they managed to make a stereo recording using a mono recorder.
I'm interested in hearing people's views.
I think additional drums were overdubbed at Olympic.
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His Majesty
Although Charlie certainly gives the impression the big loud drums are via this recording and the toy set, it is impossible imo for them to be on that recording, be so clear and also be in opposite speaker from the distorted guitar/sitar. He's clearly overdubbed them via more usual studio means.
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Mathijs
Actually I have the same feeling with Brian's sitar and harmonica. I have made many cassette recordings myself, and you basically can do two things: record at a low recording level in order to get more than 1 instrument loud and clear, or record at a high recording level and overdrive the limiters to get that raw, distorted sound. If you do the latter with several instruments you end up with a distorted mushy mess.
In my opinion Brian's sitar and especially his harmonica are just too clean and neatly recorded to be recorded on the same machine that has its limiters overdriven by an acoustic guitar at close range. Drums could be, but on the released versions of all tracks there sure are normally recorded drums present, so these where overdubbed.
Mathijs
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His MajestyQuote
Mathijs
Actually I have the same feeling with Brian's sitar and harmonica. I have made many cassette recordings myself, and you basically can do two things: record at a low recording level in order to get more than 1 instrument loud and clear, or record at a high recording level and overdrive the limiters to get that raw, distorted sound. If you do the latter with several instruments you end up with a distorted mushy mess.
In my opinion Brian's sitar and especially his harmonica are just too clean and neatly recorded to be recorded on the same machine that has its limiters overdriven by an acoustic guitar at close range. Drums could be, but on the released versions of all tracks there sure are normally recorded drums present, so these where overdubbed.
Mathijs
The sitar is right in there with the distortion, what Keith says regarding the sitar and the positioning of the people doesn't really go against what is heard on the track. Are you thinking of the tamboura!?
The sound on Parachute Woman is far cleaner than the others, but yeah I agree the main harmonica heard throughout was probably an overdub, the harmonica at the end definitely so.
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Mathijs
Any idea by the way what Philips recorder he had? There where two at the time -a recorder using cassettes that could record mono, and tape recorders that actually had two tracks so you could record stereo (although you could not separate the tracks).
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alimente
Dont take musicians by the word, in particular if recollection many years after the fact may be a bit hazy.
I am pretty sure they did not RECORD anything on this particular cassette player. They were most probably just using the great sounding compression by micing the acoustic guitar (and possibly the sitar too, but at a later stage) into the tape recorder and feeding the signal from the tape recorder output to the conventional mixing desk and multitrack tape.
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skipstone
Come ON. Keith used the tape recorder to RECORD THE GUITAR. He has never implied otherwise that I've ever read.
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skipstone
"He specifically mentions both Brian and Charlie as being part of the Philips tape machine recording."
That's all that says. That doesn't mean the entire track was done on it. "Being part" of it could mean many things, one being that they helped maintain the tempo. Regardless, 21 or everything's OK, the Philips guitar track is what we hear and the song was built around it.
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skipstone
Alright. My interpretation of what Keith has said was that only his guitar was recorded through the Philips, not the drums. But whatever. The fact that Charlie used a tiny drum set for it is hilarious all by itself.
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skipstone
No no no. It's just that it's been talked about so many times over the years and who knows what drink or drug Keith was on - or not on - when some of the interviews were done!