The Beatles Kinfauns Demos
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OxTango Music: Esher Sketching OxTango Music, who previously released Star Club, Live Vol. 1-3, and Get Back nagra tapes have announced that they are about to release 'Esher Sketching – the Kinfauns White Album Demos'. The collection comprises the complete home demo recordings The Beatles made at George Harrison’s 'Kinfauns' estate in Esher, Surrey in May, 1968. Considered by many to be an alternate 'unplugged' version of the White Album, the Esher demos are unique not only for offering stripped-down, acoustic versions of songs that would later be rocked up and/or more elaborately arranged in their White Album incarnations, but also several rarities never formally recorded by the band. But even more than that, there’s a pervasive spirit of fun and relaxed joy in their collaborative music-making here that would be all too rare in their final working years as a unit.
The collection is to feature the 27 available recordings newly re-mastered, and is due out in mid June. The company has also started a new blog – 'Vintage Re-masters' – where you can hear source and remaster audio comparison clips for all the tracks included. The 27 songs believed to have been taped at Kinfauns were recorded on Harrison's Ampex four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder, a fact that he mentioned in an early nineties interview with Musician magazine. They were mostly grouped together by the composer of each song, although John Lennon's songs were more scattered across the day.
The Beatles Kinfauns Demos (2016 Remaster Rev A) The legendary Kinfauns or Esher demos, recorded around the end of May 1968, have an interesting backstory. Back from the Maharishi's meditation camp in Rishikesh, India, John, Paul and George all sought to get their new songs onto tape. John and Paul had likely already taped some at home and brought these tracks over to George's so-called Kinfauns bungalow in Esher. A few photos taken by Michael Herring document the Beatles on May 28, with Paul alledgedly considering leaving the band. Anyway, George owned an Ampex 4-Track recorder, on which they subsequently demoed their new material. Ringo, Mal Evans and Derek Taylor were present at times and likely assisted with percussion.
After the sessions, George gave a mono mix of their recordings to each of the Beatles. John's copy has been widely bootlegged over the years and is also the main source for this version. Of the 27 demos known to public, 7 have been released on 'Anthology 3' (Happiness is a Warm Gun, Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, Glass Onion, Junk, Piggies, Honey Pie) and parts of two more (Sour Milk Sea, While My Guitar Gently Weeps) have recently been broadcast in better quality.
The versions found on bootles vary in quality, so several possible sources were evaluated. The tracks were assembled from three different sources to combine the best known circulating versions. This remastering is an attempt to get the sound as close to the original master mono tape as possible.
It is perhaps nothing for purists, because noise reduction, heavy equalization and other measures that are generally 'outlawed' were used to create this. One at a time: Countless smaller clicks, some dropouts and a few loud mic bumps were removed from the spectra in Sony SpectraLayers Pro. Differential Equalization was used to make the demos sound close to their 'Anthology' counterparts where possible, otherwise from the closest sounding 'Anthology' demo.
This resulted in a much warmer and more natural sound. Noise reduction was applied very gently in SpectraLayers. I really did my best to keep artifacts to a minimum (ie.
I can't hear any on headphones or stereo) by checking the spectrogram and the sound continously. Harmonic Excitation was used to restore high frequencies above about 9kHz. A plugin for Audacity was used to create the harmonies, which were then blended into the existing track for a full sound. The tracks were repitched and run 1,95% faster than the version by PC, which seemed the best option after long consideration. Finally, everything was normalized to 89dB with foobar using ReplyGain.
All in all, the sound quality is as good as it can be without access to the master tapes. Share freely, don't sell! Don't share lossy! Lineage: Ampex 4-Track John's mono reel 2nd gen copy ?
Front cover (click for full size - included in download): Back cover (click for full size - included in download): The legendary Kinfauns or Esher demos, recorded around the end of May 1968, have an interesting backstory. Back from the Maharishi's meditation camp in Rishikesh, India, John, Paul and George all sought to get their new songs onto tape. John and Paul had likely already taped some at home and brought these tracks over to George's so-called Kinfauns bungalow in Esher. A few photos taken by Michael Herring document the Beatles on May 28, with Paul alledgedly considering leaving the band. Anyway, George owned an Ampex 4-Track recorder, on which they subsequently demoed their new material.
Ringo, Mal Evans and Derek Taylor were present at times and likely assisted with percussion. After the sessions, George gave a mono mix of their recordings to each of the Beatles. John's copy has been widely bootlegged over the years and is also the main source for this version. Of the 27 demos known to public, 7 have been released on 'Anthology 3' (Happiness is a Warm Gun, Mean Mr.
Mustard, Polythene Pam, Glass Onion, Junk, Piggies, Honey Pie) and parts of two more (Sour Milk Sea, While My Guitar Gently Weeps) have recently been broadcast in better quality. The source for this remaster was the version by Purple Chick found on the 'White Album Deluxe' set, which sounds better and less processed than the 'Acoustic Masterpieces' version. This remastering is an attempt to get the sound as close to the original master mono tape as possible. It is perhaps nothing for purists, because noise reduction, heavy equalization and other measures that are generally 'outlawed' were used to create this. One at a time: Countless smaller clicks, some dropouts and a few loud mic bumps were removed from the spectra in Sony SpectraLayers Pro.
Differential Equalization was used to make the demos sound close to their 'Anthology' counterparts where possible, otherwise from the closest sounding 'Anthology' demo. This resulted in a much warmer and more natural sound.
Noise reduction was applied very gently in SpectraLayers. I really did my best to keep artifacts to a minimum (ie. I can't hear any on headphones or stereo) by checking the spectrogram and the sound continously. Spectral Band Replication was employed to emulate heights by adding a harmony to the existing track, equalizing it cleverly to hide artifacts. This method gives not 100% accurate, but very listenable results, because it creates something the ear expects to hear. So the result sounds better than the original noise, but also better than no signal. All in all, the sound quality is as good as it can be without access to the master tapes.
The Beatles Kinfauns Demos
The Beatles Kinfauns Demos
If you miss the noise, you can blend it back in by mixing this with the Purple Chick version. Share freely, don't sell!
Don't share lossy! Hello everybody, first of all thank you for sharing and compiling all this Bealtes material here, I really appreciate it! I'm not sure what's the policy on remasters here, and I know the Esher demos have been done several times before. They all sound tinny still and the noise just annoys me. I wasn't happy with the sound quality on any version so thought I could give it a shot as well.
First step was finding the best source. I decided to go for the Purple Chick source rather than the one that starts with 'Cry Baby Cry'. I think PC has the right track order, and some bits seem to be missing on the other source. More importantly, PC has a continous level of noise throughout the song, while the other source was apparently processed with adaptive gain (?) so that the noise level fluctuates. The tape speed also matched the demos available from official sources. It therefore seemed better to use the PC source as a base for further edits.
I'm no expert in sound restoration (actually I'm a biology student), but some time ago I discovered a program called SpectraLayers Pro, which allows one to edit sound files by editing the spectrogram directly. I found that method very cool, and I used it to restore a few Jimi Hendrix tracks, but this is my first big remastering project. I did most of it in the time after Christmas, but completed it now with access to the 'Sour Milk Sea' bit from Yellow Chatter Custard (thanks ennolenno!). So let's have a look at an example now: This is the spectrogram of 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' before my restoration.
And here is the spectrogram after my edits: So I've done several things you can see in the spectrogram. 1) Combine with the intro from 'Living in the Material World' documentary. This has been done at least, but using the second source. The different sound quality between the sources is obviously obvious.
2) Differential Equalization With this technology, I can copy the equalization of one track onto the other. I've heard there is such a plugin for ProTools, but without ProTools I'm stuck with Audacity and SpectraLayers Pro for my edits. So I wrote a little script that takes two frequency analyses from audacity and creates an equalizer (anyone interested in that? I could polish and release it) that I can import back into audacity.
The resulting equalized track of the demo already sounds very similar to the intro bit, but is noisy. I used this technique not only to join the two tracks here but for every single one, getting the equalization from the Anthology versions where possible, otherwise from the closest sounding anthology demo. This was the essential step in reducing the tinny sound and shows prominently in the spectrogram. 3) Noise reduction I know it is generally outlawed, but when done really carefully, NR can improve the sound a lot.
SpectraLayers has a great noise removal tool. I really did my best to keep artifacts to a minimum (ie. I can't hear any on headphones or stereo) by checking the spectrogram and the sound continously. 4) Restoring Heights I haven't seen anyone use this technique so far, but I doubt I invented it. When you open studio material in a spectrogram it goes right up to 20kHz, but bootlegs rarely do (if they do, it is usually tape hiss rather than signal). I used a trick to emulate heights here by adding a harmony to the existing track, equalizing it cleverly to hide artifacts.
This method gives not 100% accurate, but very listenable results, because it creates something the ear expects to hear. So the result sounds better than the original noise, but also better than no signal. Long story short, give it a listen and decide for yourself. If there is interest I will gladly share my complete collection of remastered Kinfauns demos, now up to 31 with the 'recent' release of the edited partial remixes of 'Sour Milk Sea' and 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'.
including Kinfauns Demos in mono and true stereo, session source upgrades and remasters Last edited by on Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:35 pm, edited 8 times in total. 4) Restoring Heights I haven't seen anyone use this technique so far, but I doubt I invented it. When you open studio material in a spectrogram it goes right up to 20kHz, but bootlegs rarely do (if they do, it is usually tape hiss rather than signal). I used a trick to emulate heights here by adding a harmony to the existing track, equalizing it cleverly to hide artifacts. This method gives not 100% accurate, but very listenable results, because it creates something the ear expects to hear.
So the result sounds better than the original noise, but also better than no signal. I invented it too. Later discovered it is called 'spectral band replication'.
I'm interested in that EQ-script you mention, used to do that with the help of huge spreadsheets, needing lots of time and tries. Glad there is so much positive feedback! I want to try a few more things before I upload the whole set, perhaps equalizing songs like blackbird to the record version as well, just to see if it sounds better than my current version equalized to other anthology demos. Meanwhile I created a preliminary cover, which is not that easy as there aren't too many high resolution shots out there. So credit to Paul Saltzman for the three pics from Rishikesh; the George pic is from the official website, taken some time during the White Album sessions.
The background is George's fireplace wall painting at Kinfauns. Click for full size: @Untehousn: Interesting, I wouldn't have come up with that name. Do you have special a program for that? I just raise the pitch in audacity by one step and then EQ out the low frequencies. Not very elegant, but it works.
It's just a simple python script that reads the frequency analysis text file you can export from audacity, substracts the dB values and creates an equalizer XML you can load back into Audacity. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge to integrate it into audacity as a plugin, but I can easily turn my script into a standalone executable with a simple user interface rather than a command line thing. @wopenke: Cool, I've seen them (minus Neil) live twice! @rfwood1: I'd much prefer to work from the multitrack tapes, but this is all we have and probably will have for a while. I'd love to be wrong and see the multitracks released as 'The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1968'. Nothing besides the two George demo bits has surfaced in better quality, right? including Kinfauns Demos in mono and true stereo, session source upgrades and remasters.
I didn't have access to either, so just downloaded both. I'm really not sure just what the remasters workshop people did there, they obviously also worked from the PC source. Looking at Julia, the horrible equalization is untouched, the dropouts in the beginning are still there, John's mic bump at 0:47 as well. The only difference I see is they repitched it and removed a 'beep' frequency.
I didn't do any repitching (I think the PC version was already repitched to begin with) but I also removed the beep, among the other things I mentioned. As for RobbieC version, he did some pretty good EQ, reduced clicks and noise, but did not do the spectral band replication. I think the EQ on mine is a bit better, it is warmer and smoother. IIRC I sourced it from Anthology Piggies. PC source spectrum (click for full size): RobbieC version spectum (click for full size): My version spectum (click for full size): But again, listen and decide for yourselves: The George demos were surprisingly good quality to begin with, which convinces me a lot of the John and Paul material was recorded elsewhere and dubbed onto George's tape. including Kinfauns Demos in mono and true stereo, session source upgrades and remasters. Very interesting approach csnyfan and I'm really impressed by the sound of your 2 demo 2016 remaster.
The 'Not Guilty' demo sounds really good, especially George's staccato on guitar which I've never noticed before. Same for While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Voice and guitar sounds very good.
Could you make it with ' Circles'? This version - with the haunting organ - has always been one of my favorite. I would be really curious to listen to one of John Lennon's song (S.Sadie, Child Of Nature, I'm So Tired or Dear Prudence.)? Well I've done them all already - I just need to do some finishing touches on some tracks, a few more edits maybe, make a back cover etc. Circles is especially impressing because I got the organ to sound like an actual organ rather than something that pierces your eardrums And here's Dear Prudence for you: I will probably upload the whole set later today.
What's the policy here with including Anthology versions? I have them mixed down to mono in mine, for the sake of completeness and consistency. including Kinfauns Demos in mono and true stereo, session source upgrades and remasters. I really did not aim to reduce all noise, and if you look at the spectra you see some remains. I personally can't hear any artifacts, and that was my goal.
I deliberately let it rest for two weeks after remastering before I listened again, and I still like it as it is. Depending on the original track the noise level varies, and equalizing brought up some noise. The spectral band replication sometimes gives it a slightly artificial or overly clean sound. All in all it maybe sounds too 'perfect', considering how it sounded before.
I'm aware I can't please everyone with a remaster, preferences are simply different. If you don't like it that clean you can easily mix the Purple Chick raw version back in, because I did not alter the track times. It should give a good compromise between my approach and a more purist one.
Well, I'm really no expert in sound restoration either, but with the right programs and some patience it's not that hard. including Kinfauns Demos in mono and true stereo, session source upgrades and remasters.