Anybody Like The Beatles Sound?

Love the Beatles. Love the library. Used in conjunction with other instruments and softsynths you can create some really great tracks!

FloridaMusicCo has it for $355.00. That's the lowest I've seen. I'm watching the 3rd video now. Talk about memories (and yes, I'm old enough!)

-Susan

Is this with the Play engine or still the Kontakt Player? I parted ways with buying any new stuff from EW and soundsonline because of the Play engine, which if memory serves uses a dongle, which I ain't nuts about. I'd post over on the forums, but Doug Rogers banned me for criticizing some aspects of their marketing (I kept it civil, no foul language).

The Rickenbacker is a 12 string guitar, not a bass (although I did see a 12 string bass which had the 4 regular strings tripled like a 12 string guitar would have the normal 6 strings doubled at a Guitar Center a couple of years back. It was an OLD bass). Alembic did make an 8 string bass (4 strings doubled in octaves) - had one and it disappeared sometimes years back in the 70's.

Oh yes I forgot cos it's plugged into my USB permanently.
There is an iLok dongle - which adds a few bucks to the total. ($30.00)
I guess you gotta pay to keep the musical history going?
In my opinion I was so wrapped up in the actual SOUNDS that all else seemed .........whatever.
But having crossed all those bridges - it's still worth the money.
You can go on forever tweeking sounds and that's kinda fun too.
I just wish my John Lennon would get here soon for his vocals.
He says he's running late.............Imagine?

then you will want these as well:

http://www.recordingthebeatles.com/

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/refills/ark/

also instructional are the books by Sir George Martin (All You Need Is Ears) and Geoff Emmerick (My Life With The Beatles)

these guys were the producer and engineer on much of the bands biggest albums (sgt pepper, magical mystery tour)...

droool.

-tbf

which if memory serves uses a dongle

Oh, Pooh! I didn't even notice that. Oh well, I can't afford it anyway... but it sure does look/sound like fun!

Thanks-

-Susan

I don't have the Fab Four software. But I enjoy these kinds of sounds a lot and usually find myself incorporating them into what I produce, usually by fabricating them from close enough.

The sounds on the Quick Time demo of the Fab Four module are very evocative and instantly bring to mind what they're supposed to. But it also has to be said that the chords and lines being played in the demo barely avoid directly quoting Beatle songs, and that adds to the capacity of the sounds to evoke. I think "evoke" is the key word here. (Listen to the three song demos; the sounds are accurate, but so are the playing and the parts. Without those, the sounds would not *mean* the same thing, or even sound the same.)

More important than whether or not these sounds sound good is that they are evocative of goodness, which is what makes them sound good. Many of the sounds don't sound like what would be objectively considered "good" apart from their ability to evoke. In many cases, that was also true at the time the Beatles were first using these sounds.

For example, the strings during the intro to I Am The Walrus, and that reappear throughout the record, aren’t really the kind of strings you expect to hear in orchestral or chamber music; rather, they sound "like strings" in the sense that they were already *in quotes* at the time they were recorded; their function in the production was not *as* strings per se, but rather to evoke a sense of strings, and to invoke the meanings associated with strings. This was a basic method of mid/late Beatles; sound as spice; real beyond fake.

More or less the same goes for the strings in Strawberry Fields Forever, which is Walrus's year-older sister and conceptual blueprint. The strings in Glass Onion take this even further by paraphrasing and evoking the strings from I Am The Walrus. Instant Ruttles.

In contrast, the function of the strings in Yesterday, whatever their quality as an arrangement, are a conventional "string accompaniment" and as such sampling or recreating them wouldn't provide anything like the wow recognition factor that you'd get from employing strings as in IATW or SFF, whose role is based on their intrusion as incongruous elements ("classical sounding strings") in an already off-kilter soundscape. In fact, the strings at the top of IATW help establish that very off-kilter-ness, while the strings in Yesterday fully center the song in a more conventional and sentimental context of "pretty" and "beautiful" and "oh isn't that just exquisite." (John Lennon and Phil Spector pulled a similarly sappy trick on Imagine; compare that with the authentically inauthentic strings in John's Number 9 Dream, or even at the end of Cty Baby Cry.)

The strings in Eleanor Rigby are a slightly different case because they are the only instruments heard. The production was more chamber-like to begin with, though the instruments were probably more closely micced (and probably also more casually recorded; and maybe doubled?) than they'd be for a proper chamber session.

But unlike the strings in Yesterday, whose strings don't have the same evocative power today, or the strings in IATW/SFF, whose powerful impact was premised on their intrusion into those particular records/songs/productions, the evocative power of Eleanor Rigby is based (aside from the fab arrangement itself) on the song's position on Revolver, abruptly starting with its chamber music urgency right after the urgently brittle guitars of Taxman. Great sequencing.

Today, it would be much easier to produce something like an "Eleanor Rigby effect" than a "Yesterday effect", because the latter wasn't really an "effect" even at the time; it was merely a production "move" to make a romantic song more romantic.

Do any of these strings actually *sound* good from a modern day recording pov, without respect to their presence on these landmark recordings? And do you really need the Fab Four sample set to get them? (Not that I would mind having the FF module.)

I wanted some string lines on a song I'm producing whose basic backdrop consists of bright-sounding rhythm guitars playing suspensions and 7ths The strings were to double some relatively clean and simple guitar lines. At first I thought I'd try to find some good string samples. I think I might've briefly tried the Garritan stuff that came with Dimension LE, just because I had it. But I realized that I wasn't really looking for a "good string sound." What I wanted was not "strings" so much as something that evoked strings, or that said "strings," or -- to be really honest -- that said "fake strings like in I Am The Walrus or Strawberry Fields and that will help me add some Beatle-interest and conjure all that voodoo....."

I ended up inserting the TTS-1 and using a patch (under Preset, Ensemble) called 60's Strings, I played the parts with the right articulation, adding octaves and harmony as needed, and processing it so that it sounded bad enough to sound good in the mix and function as I wanted. Totally fake. When it goes by, I think it sounds about right and does what I want. But there are two isolated measures where I think, "oh come on, ****ypoo, that really sounds way too much like I Am The Walrus... you should be ashamed of yourself." But then I think "well, if Jeff Lynn could get away with it and make a career out of it and not be ashamed of himself, why should I worry" and I move on to something else.

"There's nothing you can make that can't be made."

hehehehehe..... Well I can think of other things to spend $400 on.... like, say, 25% of a new DAW.

I agree, the dongle put me off too. My POD functions as a dongle, and I don't care for that, at least in principle, but at least it also functions as a POD, so I get something out of its dongleness.

Marah,

love the little essay on fake this or that. Right on the mark. I love "fake" real analog strings for certain styles. And samples don't work as well, tho on one recent song I tried to replicate on a soft synth my old Seil (italian analog synth) strings patch. Got close, but didn't sound the same. Of course, the analog string patch sounded nothing like real strings, either, but match a certain 80's flavor.

The same way I tried to program a mellotron patch on the same soft synth (FL Studio's PoiZone). Close, but no cigar, but it worked in context. PoiZone acts looks and acts like a Siel, so .... The bad mellotron patch worked fine, but was more wobbly than the real thing.

So many tried to use analog synths to replicate "real instruments" fairly poorly. Then sampling tried to replicate analog synths, again doing poorly trying to copy the inherent instablilties of analog. Now Virtual synths, trying to do both of them. It is funny, since the best thing about each class is stuff it does differently, not similiarly.

Thanks AT.

BTW, the Fab Four product page led me to Ken Scott's web site and some really good interviews with him.

http://www.komosproductions.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=33

An excerpt from a 2004 Mix Online interview:

Can you describe your methodology when you mixed a track in analog?

The way I worked for many years was to do a short section at a time. For instance, I'd get the intro right and then go onto the first verse, get that section right, splice it onto the intro and move on to the next section. I used to piece everything together like that and it enabled me to make some drastic changes between sections.

This process evolved from the Bowie sessions. Up to that point, there'd be the producer, myself, a second and quite often an artist, and if we needed to make changes, there would be hands everywhere on the console as we'd go through an entire mix. When it came to mixing Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory, it was just me, and quite often there wasn't even a second. The only way I could do what I wanted was to do it in sections. The knack was having it so the edit didn't sound like an edit. You had to have the very beginning there, and there had to be enough “hang-over” from the section before to make it sound right so it would all fit together. I would mark everything on the desk and then change it to the way I wanted it to sound. Then I would go back and put it where it had been and quickly I did it — bits and pieces.

I still think that my best work was done that way. These days, with computerized boards — and not necessarily going on to analog — I don't like it as much.

bunnyfluffer, I have the ARK and the rest of reasons refills except the new acoustic bass one.

now they are doing all 4 in a bundle or a few in a bundle.. when I went to a workshop for it last month, I got offered all 4 for £199, but I owned 3 of them from before and they only would knock off £10 for the bass refill so I told them to shove it.. as the bundle , worked out FAR cheaper (half price)

The refill is nice, esp the challen and mrs mills pianos, but the rest I don't use so much.

there is some presets with well known piano sounds from known tunes, including lady madonna in the other piano refill they do, so it's good.

the catch with it is that of course you have to be a reason user.

the biggest annoyance though was I had to wait 6 weeks for it after release (thanks to their last uk distributor, not their current one) in reality Abbey Road Studios is all of 10-15 minutes drive

they re did beatle songs a while back with new people like travis etc, BUT using the original mixing desk and techniques , what they did was impressive with it recording wise considering the equipment used.. so as well as the music the engineering side was very interesting also.. and a good insight into what exactly George Martin and co did engineering wise to convey the sound.

Anybody Like The Beatles

sorry, who?

i'm waiting for The Rutles refill meself...

some say... he owned a triangle... then upgraded to a tambourine... but we know him better as...



"the stig" top gears tame ex F1 driver (on the right )

Mark.. if I parked a lambo around my way in London... it'd last all of 2 minutes.. even my ****box metro (with injector.. how sporty..lol ) gets keyed and it's old. I'm not a petrol head.. my 824's cost more than my car..

Passed the MOT today with not too much hassle, last year was a different matter.. The emission test where they are racking the money in.

down the road in notting hill (where that Tory boy "call me Dave" lives) there is a garage, and it houses such cars for the rich / famous.

I'd rather spend the money on a house etc.. than a bit of metal that people can trash out of jealousy. My friend paid £40-45k on a merc.. I told him he was a mug and he might as well have spent it on a deposit for a house.

It's not me on the left, he's not a baldy like me and I've never be seen in Brown trainers (sneakers) like that. I find it funny so many people try to guess who stig is though, the spoil sports.

Hmm... and I do say "Hmmm....."
I say old mate.
Somehow this Beatles instrument sounds blog has turned into an auto show......
How very strange indeed.