Post by hollowmoor on Oct 16, 2012 21:18:10 GMT
Hello all,
I've just been speaking to Steven Wilson who agreed to answer a couple of questions regarding his work on the new TAAB stereo and surround remixes.
There are no words from Steven in the packaging for the forthcoming TAAB release as he did not want to effectively repeat what he had written for the Aqualung box set, however he has very kindly taken time out of from his LA recording sessions to talk a little about TAAB for the forum.
So, here we go....
I believe you only had (digital transfers of) two 16 track reels to work from when remixing TAAB. What were the main challenges you faced when mixing a continuous piece of music as opposed to individual tracks?
Yes, TAAB is much more of a musical adventure, with quite a few production elements added to the raw performances during the mixing process which needed to be figured out and matched in my mix. Also sonically it was a great mix so it was more about just trying to reach that level, rather than on Aqualung, where perhaps I was looking to improve on the 1971 mix. Most problematic on TAAB was that the last 2 minutes at the end of side 1 had been created after the main recording sessions by looping the two 3 chord stabs and then processing them through echo and other sound design elements, finally editing this section on during mastering. But this part of the tape was missing, so I had to figure out how they did it and recreate it….especially as of course this part presented a lot of possibilities for having fun in surround sound!
One other thing worth noting is that one side of the original mix gets progressively slower in pitch as it plays, probably as a result of a slightly faulty tape machine used to mix down onto. Now it runs at the correct pitch all the way through.
Ian mentioned in an interview late last year that you had prepared a stripped down ‘live in the studio’ mix for possible inclusion as a bonus track or tracks…
I was hoping to persuade Ian to include a "stripped down" mix of the whole album as a bonus, with all the overdubs and mix trickery removed, leaving just the piece as it was played live in the studio, or as close as possible given that some of the guide vocals were replaced. It's quite an interesting listen. The idea of the stripped down mix was to replicate as closely as possible the way the piece was rehearsed and the backing track then cut live in the studio - apart from one small section on part 2 all Ian's flute was overdubbed later - the same with the extra guitar, harpsichord, glockenspiel, saxophone, violin, orchestra, timpani, harmony vocals, and a whole lot of other things - also removed were any treatments like echo, reverb (just a little to stop it sounding too dry), the phasing on the drums..etc... The sound design sections at the end of part 1 and start of part 2 are gone of course (created in the editing and overdubbing stages). Finally the little edit where the same few organ notes were edited to repeat 3 times at 16.00 on the original was also removed. This is just the drums, bass, main guitar, and hammond, as it was played - and Ian playing the acoustic and singing the main vocal lines. I couldn't get it completely as it was played, since Ian did go back and replace some vocal lines, and some piano was added and then bounced together with the hammond. But it's a pretty good approximation and yes it does expose a number of mistakes, but I don't think that matters - it's a simply dazzling piece of writing and I was hoping it could be a worthy inclusion on the reissue.
But it seems that EMI won’t be including any of this. Do you know why it was rejected?
I'd have to ask Ian, but I guess in the end he just didn't feel it was worthwhile to include it.
Has the TAAB experience tempted you to produce your own 40 minute epic? ;-))
The last Porcupine Tree album The Incident contained a 55 minute song cycle, but I don't know how successful it was, most people didn't pick up on the fact that several songs used the same chords and musical motifs, so I suspect it felt too much like a bunch of songs stitched together at random. Also sometimes the grand form of a long piece can get in the way of simply writing strong material, as I think Ian himself found with a Passion Play - much as I love it, it is a piece where the grand design does sometimes get in the way of the music, so it's certainly not as easy as he made it sound on TAAB!
(c) Steven Wilson & The Jethro Tull Forum 2012
Our thanks must go to Steven yet again for indulging us, it's always fascinating to hear what he has to say about his work and lets hope we can hear from him again in the future on other Tull projects, but that's entirely dependant on the EMI/UMG merger.
I've just been speaking to Steven Wilson who agreed to answer a couple of questions regarding his work on the new TAAB stereo and surround remixes.
There are no words from Steven in the packaging for the forthcoming TAAB release as he did not want to effectively repeat what he had written for the Aqualung box set, however he has very kindly taken time out of from his LA recording sessions to talk a little about TAAB for the forum.
So, here we go....
I believe you only had (digital transfers of) two 16 track reels to work from when remixing TAAB. What were the main challenges you faced when mixing a continuous piece of music as opposed to individual tracks?
Yes, TAAB is much more of a musical adventure, with quite a few production elements added to the raw performances during the mixing process which needed to be figured out and matched in my mix. Also sonically it was a great mix so it was more about just trying to reach that level, rather than on Aqualung, where perhaps I was looking to improve on the 1971 mix. Most problematic on TAAB was that the last 2 minutes at the end of side 1 had been created after the main recording sessions by looping the two 3 chord stabs and then processing them through echo and other sound design elements, finally editing this section on during mastering. But this part of the tape was missing, so I had to figure out how they did it and recreate it….especially as of course this part presented a lot of possibilities for having fun in surround sound!
One other thing worth noting is that one side of the original mix gets progressively slower in pitch as it plays, probably as a result of a slightly faulty tape machine used to mix down onto. Now it runs at the correct pitch all the way through.
Ian mentioned in an interview late last year that you had prepared a stripped down ‘live in the studio’ mix for possible inclusion as a bonus track or tracks…
I was hoping to persuade Ian to include a "stripped down" mix of the whole album as a bonus, with all the overdubs and mix trickery removed, leaving just the piece as it was played live in the studio, or as close as possible given that some of the guide vocals were replaced. It's quite an interesting listen. The idea of the stripped down mix was to replicate as closely as possible the way the piece was rehearsed and the backing track then cut live in the studio - apart from one small section on part 2 all Ian's flute was overdubbed later - the same with the extra guitar, harpsichord, glockenspiel, saxophone, violin, orchestra, timpani, harmony vocals, and a whole lot of other things - also removed were any treatments like echo, reverb (just a little to stop it sounding too dry), the phasing on the drums..etc... The sound design sections at the end of part 1 and start of part 2 are gone of course (created in the editing and overdubbing stages). Finally the little edit where the same few organ notes were edited to repeat 3 times at 16.00 on the original was also removed. This is just the drums, bass, main guitar, and hammond, as it was played - and Ian playing the acoustic and singing the main vocal lines. I couldn't get it completely as it was played, since Ian did go back and replace some vocal lines, and some piano was added and then bounced together with the hammond. But it's a pretty good approximation and yes it does expose a number of mistakes, but I don't think that matters - it's a simply dazzling piece of writing and I was hoping it could be a worthy inclusion on the reissue.
But it seems that EMI won’t be including any of this. Do you know why it was rejected?
I'd have to ask Ian, but I guess in the end he just didn't feel it was worthwhile to include it.
Has the TAAB experience tempted you to produce your own 40 minute epic? ;-))
The last Porcupine Tree album The Incident contained a 55 minute song cycle, but I don't know how successful it was, most people didn't pick up on the fact that several songs used the same chords and musical motifs, so I suspect it felt too much like a bunch of songs stitched together at random. Also sometimes the grand form of a long piece can get in the way of simply writing strong material, as I think Ian himself found with a Passion Play - much as I love it, it is a piece where the grand design does sometimes get in the way of the music, so it's certainly not as easy as he made it sound on TAAB!
(c) Steven Wilson & The Jethro Tull Forum 2012
Our thanks must go to Steven yet again for indulging us, it's always fascinating to hear what he has to say about his work and lets hope we can hear from him again in the future on other Tull projects, but that's entirely dependant on the EMI/UMG merger.