The Beatles – Decca Sessions – Restoration – In Stereo

History

The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, north London, on 1 January 1962. They were rejected by the label, who instead opted to sign a contract with Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. At the time, the standard procedure for a test of this type was to record between two and five songs and then quickly usher the artists out of the studio. However, the Beatles ended up recording fifteen songs, and the recording session was extended into the afternoon broken by a lunch break. This could suggest that, if offered a deal, their first single and perhaps others would have been taken from the resulting tape.  History tells us the audition was recorded live onto two-track tape with no overdubs. This suggests that the master tape was in stereo… but then mixed to the mono copies we have come to know over the years, first through bootlegs and then the Anthology release in ’95.  The stereo master was likely destroyed, or re-used, as was common practice during that era.

About The Restoration

The digital source was a high-resolution copy of what had to have been at least a 3rd generation master.  Which one, exactly, is not 100% certain. Two copies of the Decca Tapes were sold to private collectors in the late seventies. The one I am ALMOST sure I used was from the master that Circuit Records released in 1983… and not the one from 1979, which was sourced from the two Epstein tapes that were found in his home at the time of his death.  The digital transfer was from a source tape that was a mono copy of a mono copy, recorded at 15IPS, onto one reel, made directly from the stereo mixdown at Decca.  Hence, a “third-generation” copy. All things considered… that’s not horrible, when you stop to consider that most of our Capital Records Beatles releases in the states were at least 3rd generation copies of the master mixdowns directly from EMI.  That’s, very literally, what we (here in the US) grew up listening to.

Nevertheless, cleanup was a bitch.  The master was obviously aged and not stored particularly well, as there was frequency loss from about 12.5 upwards, replaced with quite a bit of hiss. Pictures of the actual reel and box says “tails out – 15ips” and makes reference to “Dolby Test Tones” for calibration at the beginning of the reel… which weren’t there.  So, either the label was written later by an idiot or there was no dolby processing used.  I think both is true upon hearing the digital copy.

I de-mixed the entire source copy from start to finish… without de-banding… using Demucs3. Why Demucs3, you ask?  Because Demucs4 seems to produce more artifacts and does not separate certain tracks with precision enough to make them usable (yet).  The vocals had a lot of “pops” and were very “tinny”… so they were the first thing to be de-noised and re-equalized using iZotope 10 modules (AI). Pete’s drumming (don’t get me started!) was buried on some of the tracks and so they needed to be put forward in the mix, and re-ripped from our “master” using an AI module that was specifically trained for drums before being re-equalized, cleaned, etc.  Distortion was removed as much as possible but some still exists (on every copy known to man, so I don’t feel bad).  Finally, all the tracks were mixed to Stereo via my old standard Adobe Audition (which I will NEVER get rid of, I don’t care how old it gets… it’s still widely used).

Note: I reserve the right to pull these in the future and re-do them, like, pretty much, all my work when some new technology comes along! <LOL>

I am sincerely hoping these tracks become someone’s “standard go-to” sources for the Decca sessions. I think they’re some of the cleanest and immersive stereo spectrum remixes of these tracks that are out there so far. If you find others you prefer… please drop me a line and shoot me a link.  I’m a fan, too.

Bonus Tracks: I’ve included remixes of “Cry For A Shadow” and “Aint She Sweet” featuring Pete Best on drums, recorded while playing in Hamburg.  They fit well with the Decca stuff… and I felt it was time for them to get a little love, too, you know?

Track List:

1. Like Dreamers Do
2. Crying Waiting Hoping
3. Memphis
4. Love Of The Loved
5. Take Good Care of My Baby
6. Hello Little Girl
7. Searchin’
8. September In The Rain
9. Money
10. Til’ There Was You
11. Three Cool Cats
12. Sure To Fall
13. To Know Her is To Love Her
14. Besame Mucho
15. Sheik Of Araby
16. Aint She Sweet [BONUS TRACK!]
17. Cry For A Shadow [BONUS TRACK!]

The Download

The remixes are available below… they are NOT banded. In other words… this is the entire digital transfer.  I will upload a version at a later date with an m3u file, and individual tracks for those of you who don’t wish to create your own.