THE BEATLES
No. 3 ABBEY ROAD NW8 - DEFINITIVE EDITION
Remasters Workshop RMW 281F
Remastered December 2008
Lineage:
source tape > Darthdisc > FLAC > UUnet > wav > Audition 3 > CD Wave > TLH > FLAC > you
"No. 3 Abbey Road NW8" was a milestone in the annals of bootleg history. Previous to 1979, Beatles bootlegs were haphazard affairs, containing pretty awful multi-gen dubs of radio and TV appearances and a few concerts, with the occasional piece of music that somebody thought was The Beatles, and the odd forgery, now referred to as "outfakes." They were pressed on noisy vinyl at low volume, with no quality control of any kind. We were just happy to have them, because they were all there was. Then, this album appeared, issued on Audifon AR-8-69, in a color sleeve. Originals had a green label with the words "Horweite Stereophonie" and the logo of a head with a circle inside it. The sound was excellent. These sold out quickly, and the album was repressed in slightly lesser quality on albums with blank white labels.
Side One contains seven alternate mixes of songs from "Abbey Road." Somewhere, these exist in stereo, but they have never been released that way. These recordings set the bootleg world on its ear, and soon the floodgates would open wide.
Side Two is now commonly referred to as "The Post Card Tape," with Paul McCartney, Donovan and Mary Hopkin in the studio, recorded in the fall of 1968, playing new songs mainly by Donovan, under consideration for Mary's "Post Card" album.
Nearly thirty years after its debut, the fine folks at Darthdisc scored access to the source tape for the "No. 3 Abbey Road NW8" album. It was very nice to hear it, so crisp and clean. However, due to age and other circumstances, the tape is now riddled through with dropouts. Fortunately, something can be done about this problem, especially since Darthdisc's tape transfer was just about perfectly in phase.
Before work began, the .wav files were converted to 32-bit in Adobe Audition 3. Next, all clips were repaired, with the overall level reduced a few dB. Then, cloning took place. There were more dropouts in the left channel than the right, but not all the dropouts were in both channels at the same time. This allowed me to clone microscopic, undamaged portions of the left channel into places with dropouts on the right, which created new dropout-free passages on the right. At the end, the right channel was copied to the left, so they were identical.Then, the speed was corrected to A=440. Only the Abbey Road tracks needed it - they ran slightly fast, while
the Post Card tape was perfect. Finally, the files were reconverted to 16-bit. No noise reduction was applied. Not all the dropouts could be repaired, in places where they were in both channels at once, so a few remain. Overall, the effect is smooth reproduction, in such a way that you couldn't tell that the tape was damaged. And the section of damaged tape in "Golden Slumbers" has been repaired as much as possible. As all operations were performed in 32-bit, the original 16-bit samples of the music remain untouched, and are for all intents and purposes identical to the originals, with no digital degradation. This is about as good as these recordings will ever sound.
Track list:
1. Octopus' Garden (take 26)
2. Her Majesty (take 3)
3. Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight (take 13)
4. You Never Give Me Your Money (take 30)
5. Oh! Darling (take 26)
6. Maxwell's Silver Hammer (RS 13)
7. Something (take 37)
8. How Do You Do
9. Blackbird
10. The Unicorn
11. Lalena
12. Heather
13. Mr. Wind
14. The Walrus And The Carpenter
15. Land Of Gisch
Artwork is included.
Thanks to Darthdisc for the source material.
Feel free to share in lossless format only.
Uploaded to TTD on February 15, 2009
Remasters Workshop
RMW 281F
source tape > Darthdisc > FLAC > UUnet > wav > Audition 3 > CD Wave > TLH > FLAC
"No. 3 Abbey Road NW8" was a milestone in the annals of bootleg history. Previous to 1979, Beatles bootlegs were haphazard affairs, containing pretty awful multi-gen dubs of radio and TV appearances and a few concerts, with the occasional piece of music that somebody thought was The Beatles, and the odd forgery, now referred to as "outfakes." They were pressed on noisy vinyl at low volume, with no quality control of any kind. We were just happy to have them, because they were all there was. Then, this album appeared, issued on Audifon AR-8-69, in a color sleeve. Originals had a green label with the words "Horweite Stereophonie" and the logo of a head with a circle inside it. The sound was excellent. These sold out quickly, and the album was repressed in slightly lesser quality on albums with blank white labels.
Side One contains seven alternate mixes of songs from "Abbey Road." Somewhere, these exist in stereo, but they have never been released that way. These recordings set the bootleg world on its ear, and soon the floodgates would open wide.
Side Two is now commonly referred to as "The Post Card Tape," with Paul McCartney, Donovan and Mary Hopkin in the studio, recorded in the fall of 1968, playing new songs mainly by Donovan, under consideration for Mary's "Post Card" album.
Nearly thirty years after its debut, the fine folks at Darthdisc scored access to the source tape for the "No. 3 Abbey Road NW8" album. It was very nice to hear it, so crisp and clean. However, due to age and other circumstances, the tape is now riddled through with dropouts. Fortunately, something can be done about this problem, especially since Darthdisc's tape transfer was just about perfectly in phase.
Before work began, the .wav files were converted to 32-bit in Adobe Audition 3. Next, all clips were repaired, with the overall level reduced a few dB. Then, cloning took place. There were more dropouts in the left channel than the right, but not all the dropouts were in both channels at the same time. This allowed me to clone microscopic, undamaged portions of the left channel into places with dropouts on the right, which created new dropout-free passages on the right. At the end, the right channel was copied to the left, so they were identical.Then, the speed was corrected to A=440. Only the Abbey Road tracks needed it - they ran slightly fast, while the Post Card tape was perfect. Finally, the files were reconverted to 16-bit. No noise reduction was applied. Not all the dropouts could be repaired, in places where they were in both channels at once, so a few remain. Overall, the effect is smooth reproduction, in such a way that you couldn't tell that the tape was damaged. And the section of damaged tape in "Golden Slumbers" has been repaired as much as possible. As all operations were performed in 32-bit, the original 16-bit samples of the music remain untouched, and are for all intents and purposes identical to the originals, with no digital degradation. This is about as good as these recordings will ever sound.