Sir George Martin...brilliant or lazy?
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Posted on Oct 01, 2002 08:40 pm
JoeFlava
Member Since: Aug 15, 2002
Hey, all. I've been listening to some Beatles lately, and I'm curious...maybe someone here is a Beatle nut or whatever...
I've noticed that very often, things would be hard-panned left and right, such as the vocals, guitars, even the whole drum kit!! It's kinda weird to listen to now, using today's music as a reference. Is this because A) he was a genius who was exploiting that "crazy new stereo", or B) he was too lazy to create sonic space for each instrument, so he just seperated everything?
(I'm not slamming the Beatles or Martin, I just thought this would be a fun topic to explore...)
Later,
Joe
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Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Oct 02, 2002 12:01 am I just answered this in a post about a month ago. The answer is A) He was a genious. George never was one to leave thing's untouched. He pushed the limit at every turn of the page. Did you know that the flanging sound we now take for granted was actually an accident. When George was mixing some Beatle's stuff, someone leaned on the tape spool and slowed it down ever so slightly just for an instant. The result when the track's were played back gave this erie sound. The confession was made about leanign on the tape. And the genious was smart enough to try and duplicate the boo boo, and there it was. The coolest sound, Flanging.
So in short, yes. George Martin was definately a genious who was far and above one of the best producer's and inovater's ever to have graced the music biz.
Moral of this story: Don't ever be afraid to try something differant. If it weren't for someone somewhere experimenting with some thing musically, it would be a really boring sound scape out there.
Oct 02, 2002 05:11 am Yes, we did have a thread on this very subject, personally, genious or not, "trying something different" or not, I thought that hard panning sucked...there were times the bass and drums were panned to the same time and carried 90% of the VU meters...way to heavy ont hat side.
Try it...sure! Release it to the public...Uuuu, no. You can't discount everything else the guy did though. He was a heavy wieght in the industry and did a lot of good stuff. That choice of panning wasn't one of them.
