Comprehensive article on Beatles demixing

So much of this verrrrrry long article at the link below parallels the projects I’m in the midst of in demixing a bunch of 1965-1968 projects.

In some ways, I’m gratified to read the article because I had to “make up” similar steps when I began the projects with initial tape transfers in 1982. I too, hired a Cedar retouch system in the 90s for parts of my projects…small world…it’s nice to read the journey of the Beatle camp team…none of us anywhere on the planet…Beatles or otherwise…had a comprehensive guide for demixing effectively.

And the techniques are still in infancy…even with current software.

I’m currently dealing with a few dozen hours of just pulling hihats out of mono drum tracks…matching ambience around snares that are pulled out…manually finding/replacing thousands of individual hh hits…which only sounds correct IF I do it manually…same stuff that Jackson’s team claim they’ve effectively automated with their machine models…which I’d looovve to be able to test myself :slight_smile:

One of the 3-minute pop recordings I’m working on from 1966 (which was originally tracked in four slave bounces at the time on several quarter-inch 15ips reels) is now represented as 6gb of components on the ssd! The track was transferred a few years back…speed corrected with Capstan to eliminate wow/flutter (and force it back to correct pitch), hum reduced (hiss is intact…I don’t trust removing it during the creation of new multitracks…tempo corrected (just a little) and chopped/demixed into a billion pieces :slight_smile: …6gb! I know I’m not alone now :slight_smile:

Jackson’s team still admits being unable to demix a mono mixed Rick 6string from a Gretsch 6120 without artifacts…good…I can’t either…yet :slight_smile: At least they’re in the same boat as me on some issues.

At any rate, the article is a very long read…but infinitely interesting if you’re on the same trip as I am all these years…

4 Likes

Interesting read. Thanks.
I just got SL recently and have found the unmixing of old tracks, even decent ones is quite hit and miss. Usually failing to unmix bass, guitars and keyboards. I’m still getting to grips on how to work manually. It seems hard work but an area I’d like to get into.

1 Like

Very interesting read, thanks so much for linking!

1 Like

Jackson had it pretty easy with Revolver as he still at least has the multitrack so only a small number of instruments on each track to demix from. Most of the demix work I’m doing have no multitrack, I’m usually demixing from the mono and stereo master.

1 Like