The Apartment Tapes – Final Remix/Master

What you’re listening to now is the final mixes of the Apartment Tapes Sessions, overdubbed (poorly) over the span of nine years, starting in New York, produced by Jack Hansen in 1959 and 1960, and, later on, by Norman Petty using the Fireballs as a backing group for the overdub sessions.  It’s important to note that this set has been curated to represent (subjectively) the best of the overdub recordings… and, as such, does not include duplicate titles between Hanson and Petty in which they were dubbed in vastly different ways. For those that long for a complete collection of every session, rest assured this is being worked on.

Project History:

This has been a fourteen-month effort, which is an exceedingly long time for me to be working on one set. However, if you take a listen to the preview sets that I posted about nine months ago, you will notice a considerable improvement since those earlier rough mixes. A lot of time has been put into de-mixing, de-noising, equalizing and, finally remixing these songs, finding the cleanest source tapes and, finally, balancing the mix so that you can (very) clearly hear Buddy’s vocals and guitar work shine through, as if he was standing there in the studio right next to the other musicians. The original multitrack recordings (3-Track for Jack Hansen’s sessions, Twin-Track for Petty’s earliest attempts), used a 2nd or 3rd generation copy of the raw apartment tapes to overdub onto. As a result, in those limited days of analog, there was an incredible amount of tape hiss even before the overdubs commenced. Holly’s vocals were treated to massive amounts of reverb and sound-on-sound tape delay and were buried in the mix, marring the original intimate nature of the performance.

What We’ve Done:

Using AI de-mixing technology, we’ve reduced the hiss, eliminated the (overly) applied reverb/sound-on-sound effects applied to the original raw session tape, imported it back into the mix, separated his guitar and main vocal, allowing for a significant boost to his vocal track while balancing his guitar with the other instruments which were also remixed and re-balanced. Note to historians: “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” have been remixed in true stereo! My thoughts on this project, all along, have been: “anything that was originally laid down on an Ampex 401A tape-recorder at 15 ips with a decent microphone and good quality tape (which Buddy had in his possession) should never sound like it was something recorded in a tin can on a cheap telephone line and then overdubbed to mask it. The ingredients have always been there. Unfortunately the technology was not. This was never the fault of Norman Petty or Jack Hansen.

What This Project Isn’t:

This is not, in any way, similar to the approach Rollercoaster Records took to their “That Makes It So Much Better” releases. For one thing, rather than de-emphasizing the extensive reverb and echo effects that were originally applied, producer Chris Hopkins chose to add to it by applying additional reverb to the tracks. Whether that was a mistake or not isn’t something I’m here to decide for you… everyone, of course, is entitled to their preferences and personal tastes.  I chose another approach, both in how the tracks were de-mixed and remixed, and how I feel Mr. Holly might have preferred his music (which was clearly evolving) to sound if he had a say in the matter.  These tracks are also not “Sync-To-Stereo” efforts heard in some of Mr. Hopkins earlier efforts.

What’s Next:

A full Deluxe Set of all the Apartment Tapes sessions, all versions of all songs included. Stay Tuned!

The Remodeled Apartment Tapes

Produced and Remixed by David Orwig – ASP Studio, Honeybrook, PA

Mastered by Mike Quinn at SoundGate Labs,  South Heidelberg, PA.

The Song List:

1. What To Do
2. That Makes It Tough
3. That’s What They Say
4. Peggy Sue Got Married
5. Crying Waiting Hoping
6. Learning The Game
7. Dearest
8. Wait ‘Til The Sun Shines, Nellie
9. Smokey Joe’s Cafe
10. Slippin’ And Slidin’
11. Love Is Strange
12. You’re The One (Bonus Track)

BANDED FLAC & MP3