"Journal Reels"

[Shane]

The recent discussion of the recording of Fun Fun Fun and Don't Worry Baby has me wondering about something.  Over the years on this board, I've heard the idea mentioned that some of the material we're hearing on the SOT series is not the actual master tapes, but rather something called "journal reel".  In other words, while the multitrack master tape is being overdubbed and previous takes erased with a new take, another tape machine is running in the background, recording everything that is going on (blown takes and all) just as a reference tool.  If these do indeed exist, it could lead to some confusion over what was actually laid down across the 3 and 4 track master tapes.

Can anyone shed any light on how much vocal session material in the vaults is from the actual masters, versus how much comes from these supposed journal reels?  A couple sessions that come to my mind as possible candidates for journal reels are the infamous Murry "Help Me Rhonda" session, as I think Brian even mentions a tape recorder running to capture everything.  Also that vocal session for "I Know There's An Answer" on SOT (why they didn't use some of this material on the Pet Sounds boxed set is beyond me.) 

[metal flake paint]

The backing vocals session for "Please Let Me Wonder" comes to mind.

[c-man]

Perhaps some...but as time goes by, I'm realizing that in many cases what we're hearing is the second vocal track, sung as a double to the first, as a dub-down was being made to a second- or third-generation 3-track...and they just kept the second tape going, recording take after take, only rewinding the first tape. Maybe when they got to the end of the reel, they would rewind that second tape. That's how they normally did the basic track, so it makes sense.

[LeeDempsey]

The backing vocals session for "Please Let Me Wonder" comes to mind.

I was just thinking about that... That "Do You Wanna Dance" / "Please Let Me Wonder" tape was one of the first set of outtakes to make the collector's circuit. There are still some elements on that tape that have never surfaced -- such as Dennis' doubled lead on "Do You Wanna Dance" (Mark's recent remix used artificial double tracking and Pro Tools copying of repeated lines like "Do you wanna dance" and "Oh oh baby, do you wanna dance").

Lee

[branaa09]

I never knew that about Do You Wanna Dance?. I thought that Mark had actually found not only the 1st and 2nd Background Vocals, but Dennis's Doubled Lead Vocal as well, while cleaning out the vault of tapes through 2008-2012. Thanks for the info. So to go with journal reels talk, this may also explain why we have things like the vocal only mixes of Dance,Dance,Dance and Help Me, Rhonda the Single Version from the Capitol Punishment boot!

[guitarfool2002]

I can't speak to what is or isn't in the vaults, but with journal reels in general (and there are/were other terms for that too) I can give a few bits of info to maybe clarify what we might be hearing on these leaked items through the years.

It also varied from engineer to engineer, producer to producer, etc. for what was recorded and how it was done. Sometimes it was a case of spending extra money from the budget to run either a second multitrack as a "safety" or backup, or run a simple mixdown reel to capture something like an aux feed out of the board so you'd hear everything that was going "live" into the board, everything coming out of the board, and various effects added like compressor settings, echo chamber sends/returns and levels, and all of that jazz.

A few notable examples, then onto the BB's (and again that's just my theory and 'ears' at work, short of seeing the original reels or whatever to ID what they were).

There was a batch of pristine 1950's Elvis RCA sessions that appeared about a decade or more ago, i can't recall when. These were safety copies of the actual master reels which an RCA engineer had kept since they were made at the actual sessions. In this case, I think (corrections please) they were running a second tape machine as a backup, and the engineer just happened to take them and store them away. I do not think these were "journal reels" but instead the actual session masters from that backup machine.

Phil Spector: There are collections of Spector sessions that have circulated for decades too, and I believe *these* are in fact the journal reels. Spector was known to ask that a tape machine be rolling at all times during the session, as far as I know (Donny...confirm? ) capturing everything that was going into the board. He'd do this from the time the first musicians starting warming up or running down the songs, and if one of them happened to hit on a terrific riff or groove, Spector could ask "let me hear what you played before take 2, that fill..." and if the musician would usually say "I don't remember what I played", Phil would play back that "journal reel" that captured all the warmups and rehearsing so they could hear it. Clever.

The Monkees' "Headquarters Sessions": As far as I know, a lot of the most interesting chatter and fooling around/jamming on that box came from producer Chip Douglas' private collection, where Chip had compiled at the time his own collection of these things taken from the continuously running tape machine (journal) to keep for posterity. So I'm guessing some of the chatter and between-takes stuff that Chip saved would not have been on the multis, yet they had this other machine possibly capturing all of the day's work.

If you listen to specific parts of the HQ Sessions box, you'll hear things like Hank Cicalo patching in and adjusting a compressor on Mike's 12-string guitar as he ran through a part, and I'm thinking this could only have come from a journal reel scenario because things like that would most likely not have been on the 4 or 8 track master reel, and if it was it most likely would have been "wiped" or taped over if more tracks were needed for bouncing.

How about the Beatles? Even before Anthology, why did some songs have full audio verite recordings of the full session with all chatter and talkback details, while others are just alternate takes with perhaps only the engineer at the top slating the take number? It's gotta be the sourcing, where did this come from...etc.

The SOT material: Unless they were running a second multitrack machine at the original 60's sessions, there would be no way the SOT folks could have "remixed" the tracks as they did to create those stereo final versions. I may be wrong, but those tapes they accessed, copied, and mixed would have needed to be multitracks, either the masters themselves or the safety/backup copies of those reels. A journal reel would not contain the media necessary to do full stereo remixes from 3, 4, or 8 track tapes as was done on SOT, as well as preserving the in-between stuff. BUT a journal reel might have captured vocal sessions as those which have leaked out contain.

Correct?

The Murry Help Me Rhonda tape actually contains separate tapes from different sources that day. One is a "journal reel", I believe, capturing whatever was going on in the studio and going through the board, but the last few minutes where Murry and Brian start arguing sounds like it came from one of Brian's hand-held tape recorders, which we all know he had and used often. Listen as Murry tries to grab or cover the microphone as Brian is "interviewing" him - this wouldn't have been on a studio journal reel.

So it sounds like they combined a few sources - whoever did it - to create that infamous tracks.

And in general, beyond those artists, sometimes what seems like it would be a journal reel capturing all of the talkback clicks, studio chatter, conversations, between take stuff and all of that could have been a case of deciding to let tape roll at all times versus stopping and starting for each take. That was up to whoever was doing it.

Wish I could be more specific, but it was literally a case-by-case basis, and that also explains why some bands have hours of studio outtakes and chatter that have leaked out or been released officially and others have barely anything beyond alternate mixes and early versions minus the chatter.

Corrections/clarifications more than welcome!   

[DonnyL]

Perhaps some...but as time goes by, I'm realizing that in many cases what we're hearing is the second vocal track, sung as a double to the first, as a dub-down was being made to a second- or third-generation 3-track...and they just kept the second tape going, recording take after take, only rewinding the first tape. Maybe when they got to the end of the reel, they would rewind that second tape. That's how they normally did the basic track, so it makes sense.

This is the only theory that makes sense to me. I don't think anyone was running a 1/4" tape just to document the session. I think this theory comes from an Al Jardine quote where he said something like, 'There were people running tape machines in the background!' or something.

I mean, this was teenage music, there were no 'rock critics', master tapes were lost or recorded over ('Little Girl I Once Knew') ... in this environment, someone archiving the session with an extra tape just seems kind of absurd to me.

Think about it like this: You have a 3-hr. session. The reason the tape is left going is because you're in the moment, going from take to take, starting, stopping, etc ... you're not gonna take precious time to rewind a 2nd deck every time you need to redo the take ... plus you may go back and use part of an earlier take and splice it to a different one to create a master. So they kept it rolling. Sometimes they were discarded, sometimes recorded over later, sometimes they ended up in the vault. When those guys were making the bootlegs, they didn't know what they were listening to probably.

Stranger things have happened though, and there are always exceptions, but ... there aren't many (if any) 'journal reels' for 8-track sessions, because they didn't need them. It's an artifact of the 3-track (and maybe 4-track) process.

[DonnyL]

Re: Craig/ guitarfool --

Now, Spector I could believe running 'journal reels' !

But sorry, I don't know much about Spector's sessions.

[guitarfool2002]

Re: Craig/ guitarfool --

Now, Spector I could believe running 'journal reels' !

But sorry, I don't know much about Spector's sessions.

Spector definitely ran an extra deck like this, I've heard it confirmed also by some of the musicians with whom Spector used this reel to remind them of what they had played earlier!   Again, just my guess, but that batch of Spector tracking sessions *may* have been in part from those reels.

I was wondering if you knew what kind of setup it was, at this point I'm guessing it was just a simple aux out feeding into a 1/4 inch reel or something, kept running constantly.

With the Beach Boys - well, Brian more accurately - I can't think of a specific "proof" for this but if he was running a separate reel I believe he may have gotten the idea from learning how Spector ran his sessions, not just from the same people who worked on them but also remember Brian would drop in on Spector's sessions to watch and learn what was going on.

What exactly Brian did with these reels if anything at all, or what we've actually "heard" and so on is the question only the vault contents can answer.

The Monkees HQ Sessions - That I know was Chip Douglas, I think at the time those involved also wanted to capture everything because of the battle it took to allow them to even go into RCA to cut their own records. I'm 99.9% sure the chatter and goofing around (apart from the actual tracking sessions with music) came from Chip's private reel(s), but whether he dubbed them from the actual multitracks or got them from a "journal reel" has to be answered by someone who was on the box set project and handled all that stuff directly.

Note that Headquarters has tons more of this stuff than any other album project they did, and that showed up when they did deluxe reissues and none of the others besides HQ had that kind of depth of material to include.

It's all curious stuff to consider - I come back to the point that every engineer and every project was different, so who knows when and why some of these things may have been done unless those folks confirm it later.

[DonnyL]

Re: Craig/ guitarfool --

Now, Spector I could believe running 'journal reels' !

But sorry, I don't know much about Spector's sessions.

Spector definitely ran an extra deck like this, I've heard it confirmed also by some of the musicians with whom Spector used this reel to remind them of what they had played earlier!   Again, just my guess, but that batch of Spector tracking sessions *may* have been in part from those reels.

I was wondering if you knew what kind of setup it was, at this point I'm guessing it was just a simple aux out feeding into a 1/4 inch reel or something, kept running constantly.

With the Beach Boys - well, Brian more accurately - I can't think of a specific "proof" for this but if he was running a separate reel I believe he may have gotten the idea from learning how Spector ran his sessions, not just from the same people who worked on them but also remember Brian would drop in on Spector's sessions to watch and learn what was going on.

What exactly Brian did with these reels if anything at all, or what we've actually "heard" and so on is the question only the vault contents can answer.

The Monkees HQ Sessions - That I know was Chip Douglas, I think at the time those involved also wanted to capture everything because of the battle it took to allow them to even go into RCA to cut their own records. I'm 99.9% sure the chatter and goofing around (apart from the actual tracking sessions with music) came from Chip's private reel(s), but whether he dubbed them from the actual multitracks or got them from a "journal reel" has to be answered by someone who was on the box set project and handled all that stuff directly.

Note that Headquarters has tons more of this stuff than any other album project they did, and that showed up when they did deluxe reissues and none of the others besides HQ had that kind of depth of material to include.

It's all curious stuff to consider - I come back to the point that every engineer and every project was different, so who knows when and why some of these things may have been done unless those folks confirm it later.

yeh it would probably just be an aux out to 1/4" mono deck or something. Maybe running 7.5 instead of 15 ips. (could then be played at home on a consumer reel + would save tape costs and run longer).

I thought in the case of 'Headquaters' that the guys were not really 'pro' players, and Chip had to comp a lot of different takes into one spliced final? I thought I've heard that somewhere. Well, I mean Mickey Dolenz's drumming really, but since they were recorded live, it'd be everybody.

[guitarfool2002]

I thought in the case of 'Headquaters' that the guys were not really 'pro' players, and Chip had to comp a lot of different takes into one spliced final? I thought I've heard that somewhere. Well, I mean Mickey Dolenz's drumming really, but since they were recorded live, it'd be everybody.

I also read that back in the mid 80's in a Monkees book before I even knew what they were talking about! 

It's opening another can of worms on that topic: I can hear some obvious edits on the album itself, songs like You Told Me you can hear them pretty obvious in the drumming. But - either they found a clever way to mask or hide this element in the presentation of the tracking sessions on that sessions box, or maybe the edits weren't as extensive as Chip's comments would lead us to believe. I really can't say.

My ears told me that some of the performances they cut during the tracking were pretty tight and solid, and that includes Dolenz's drumming. They seem to be going for a full take on the songs, with most of the band playing live together, and some of those takes are both solid rhythmically and close to if not exactly what ended up on the album.

I always wondered just as you posted how Hank Cicalo would have been able to do such precision cuts on just the drums when the guys were all playing live, in the same room basically (and there is bleed-over too)...I just don't know.

Like I said, another can o' worms with "How did they do that?"    My ears suggest something other than the previous reports of massive editing efforts, but they've been horribly wrong before.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Can't speak for anyone else, but Chuck used to run a 2-track from the desk on the sessions he engineered for Brian, for his own reference purposes. I'm pretty sure the Murry "Rhonda" session and the "DYWD" vocal session came from those. Apparently a friend/associate of Brian's had a lot of these and - for whatever reason - took them with him when he was drafted to Vietnam. And left them there. 

[LeeDempsey]

I never knew that about Do You Wanna Dance?. I thought that Mark had actually found not only the 1st and 2nd Background Vocals, but Dennis's Doubled Lead Vocal as well, while cleaning out the vault of tapes through 2008-2012. Thanks for the info...

Yeah, I was told that by a pretty good source.  So for example, on the first verse it's something like:

Do you wanna dance   [same phrase from second verse, copied to first verse to create a double]
and hold my hand, tell   [artificial double track]
me baby  [same phrase from second verse]
I'm your loving man   [artificial double track]
oh oh baby, do you wanna dance?  [same phrase from second verse]

Lee

[DonnyL]

I thought in the case of 'Headquaters' that the guys were not really 'pro' players, and Chip had to comp a lot of different takes into one spliced final? I thought I've heard that somewhere. Well, I mean Mickey Dolenz's drumming really, but since they were recorded live, it'd be everybody.

I also read that back in the mid 80's in a Monkees book before I even knew what they were talking about! 

It's opening another can of worms on that topic: I can hear some obvious edits on the album itself, songs like You Told Me you can hear them pretty obvious in the drumming. But - either they found a clever way to mask or hide this element in the presentation of the tracking sessions on that sessions box, or maybe the edits weren't as extensive as Chip's comments would lead us to believe. I really can't say.

My ears told me that some of the performances they cut during the tracking were pretty tight and solid, and that includes Dolenz's drumming. They seem to be going for a full take on the songs, with most of the band playing live together, and some of those takes are both solid rhythmically and close to if not exactly what ended up on the album.

I always wondered just as you posted how Hank Cicalo would have been able to do such precision cuts on just the drums when the guys were all playing live, in the same room basically (and there is bleed-over too)...I just don't know.

Like I said, another can o' worms with "How did they do that?"    My ears suggest something other than the previous reports of massive editing efforts, but they've been horribly wrong before.

yeh who knows? I've never listened to closely, but the record does sound more 'garagey'. But I mean many many records were heavily edited in those days ... splicing can be pretty subtle or obvious. I always noticed the really obvious splice toward the end of Leonard Cohen's 'Famous Blue Raincoat' ... the whole vibe and EQ of the song changes. Also, 'Sloop John B' (the orig. vinyl versions) has some glaring EQ and volume differences in the sections. Of course, 'Good Vibes' does too. ... but that one sounds somehow more intentional.

[DonnyL]

Can't speak for anyone else, but Chuck used to run a 2-track from the desk on the sessions he engineered for Brian, for his own reference purposes. I'm pretty sure the Murry "Rhonda" session and the "DYWD" vocal session came from those. Apparently a friend/associate of Brian's had a lot of these and - for whatever reason - took them with him when he was drafted to Vietnam. And left them there. 

What's the source for this info? Are any of the tapes circulating?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Source for the tapes left in 'nam is an interview in Add Some Music. Source for Chuck running a 2-track is me, in conversation with him, control room of Western 3, late March 1985*. I've also seen it (pre-net) in some publication or other.

Aside from those mentioned (and that's just me speculating), I don't know of any in circulation.

[* my eternal thanks to Steve Desper for setting that up: definition of a rhetorical question - "Andrew, been talking to Chuck Britz and he says if you like he'll have a chat with you tomorrow, at Western - would you like to do that ?"]

[DonnyL]

Source for the tapes left in 'nam is an interview in Add Some Music. Source for Chuck running a 2-track is me, in personal conversation with him, control room of Western 3, late March 1985. I've also seen it (pre-net) in some publication or other.

Aside from those mentioned (and that's just me speculating), I don't know of any in circulation.

good info. if Chuck were here, most of these mysteries would probably be solved !

[Andrew G. Doe]

Oh hell yes... his memory for song titles wasn't the best, but just hum a riff and the recall was instant. The 30 minutes he said we could have stretched into about 90. Lovely man.

[metal flake paint]

There is a great 30 minute 1993 interview (audio only) with Chuck Britz which was posted on YouTube. Sadly, it has since been removed.

[petsite]

The backing vocals session for "Please Let Me Wonder" comes to mind.

I was just thinking about that... That "Do You Wanna Dance" / "Please Let Me Wonder" tape was one of the first set of outtakes to make the collector's circuit. There are still some elements on that tape that have never surfaced -- such as Dennis' doubled lead on "Do You Wanna Dance" (Mark's recent remix used artificial double tracking and Pro Tools copying of repeated lines like "Do you wanna dance" and "Oh oh baby, do you wanna dance").

Lee

And alot of the times, Brian would add the double to the lead while it was all mixing down to mono. In other words he would get the mix the way he wanted it, then play it back going to mono and have someone sing live while the mix was going down to mono. So no mutiltracks of that vocal.

[LeeDempsey]

The backing vocals session for "Please Let Me Wonder" comes to mind.

I was just thinking about that... That "Do You Wanna Dance" / "Please Let Me Wonder" tape was one of the first set of outtakes to make the collector's circuit. There are still some elements on that tape that have never surfaced -- such as Dennis' doubled lead on "Do You Wanna Dance" (Mark's recent remix used artificial double tracking and Pro Tools copying of repeated lines like "Do you wanna dance" and "Oh oh baby, do you wanna dance").

Lee

And alot of the times, Brian would add the double to the lead while it was all mixing down to mono. In other words he would get the mix the way he wanted it, then play it back going to mono and have someone sing live while the mix was going down to mono. So no mutiltracks of that vocal.

Correct Bob, which is what I would have assumed happened here -- but then we have that tape with a rough mix with Dennis doubling the lead -- followed by the same doubled vocal take a capella.  I can't for the life of me figure out how you could end up with the a capella mix if the vocals weren't isolated on a multitrack.  Very confusing...

At least when I got it, on the same collector's tape as those "Do You Wanna Dance" / "Please Let Me Wonder" session highlights, was Take 1 of the tracking session for "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)."  When the PET SOUNDS SESSIONS box came out, we got a piano demo of "Don't Talk," but no tracking session highlights, when I believe session highlights were included for every other track on the album.  I've always wondered if that was a compiler's decision (since the session outtake had been in the public domain for a couple of decades), or if that tape is missing -- and in the same place as the DYWD / PLMW tape.

Lee

[guitarfool2002]

Did someone ask for a vocals-only mix of "Dance" for personal use during the original sessions? Also, I'm thinking if this track was cut and mixed at Gold Star, it might not have been the same step-by-step process that went into mixing at Western with Chuck Britz, so maybe the process was changed just a bit to allow things like don't seem to line up with the usual recording/mixing methods?

And is there an idea what the source may have been for the session tape in question? It's been confirmed that Chuck was running a 2-track "journal reel", we know Spector did it a Gold Star - That might suggest it was as easy as dropping out the instrumental track, listening to playback of the vocal tracks, and capturing it out of the board onto one of those extra tape machines along with all the residual sounds from the session.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

So let me get this straight. There are journal reels, potentially for things like Smile sessions, which are lost in Vietnam?

The frustration of being a Beach Boys fan is endless. When it comes to myths and 'might have beens', they are the band that just keep giving.

[bgas]

So let me get this straight. There are journal reels, potentially for things like Smile sessions, which are lost in Vietnam?

The frustration of being a Beach Boys fan is endless. When it comes to myths and 'might have beens', they are the band that just keep giving.

I don't think they're lost in Vietnam; I think someone else saved them, and brought them back home to use to record the Archies off the radio

[Iron Horse-Apples]

So let me get this straight. There are journal reels, potentially for things like Smile sessions, which are lost in Vietnam?

The frustration of being a Beach Boys fan is endless. When it comes to myths and 'might have beens', they are the band that just keep giving.

I don't think they're lost in Vietnam; I think someone else saved them, and brought them back home to use to record the Archies off the radio

Source?