The one gripe some people have about "All Things Must Pass" is that the producer, Phil Spector, drenched the album in his typical "Wall of Sound" production that sometimes veered into overproduction. Well, this takes things in the opposite direction, re-imagining the album strictly as a solo acoustic one! Whatever you think about Spector's production, this allows you to enjoy the album in a different way.
"All Things Must Pass" is a triple album. The first two albums are full of great songs. The third album is a bonus album of jams that I'm going to completely disregard, because those jams have nothing to do with the acoustic format, and they're largely forgettable anyway. The first two albums have a total of 18 songs. Out of those, I was able to find acoustic demos for 11 of them, mostly drawing on the super deluxe edition, but also a few other sources, including the album "Early Takes, Volume 1," the Beatles album "Anthology 3," an unreleased take, and an iTunes only bonus track.
That left seven songs. There were interesting demo versions for all of them from the super deluxe edition, both those either included a drummer and bass, or a full rocking band. I searched the Internet for other acoustic versions. I didn't find any, but during the search I came across an amazing (and free) program I'd never known of before, called Spleeter. This program splits any sound file into five tracks, one containing the vocals, another containing the bass, another the drums, another the piano, and finally one that's everything else. I tried this for the first time on some "All Things Must Pass" songs, and I was amazed at the results! I plan on using this program a LOT more in the future. I thought separating out the different instruments in a recording was next to impossible. But this program has come along in the last year, and while it's not perfect - sometimes there's some loss of audio quality - it's way better than anything I've ever seen before.
The one issue I have with the program is that it doesn't specifically separate out the guitar parts into its own track. The guitar is lumped in with everything else that isn't vocals, bass, drums, or piano. But in the case of the "All Things Must Pass" demos, the "other" is usually just guitar. For instance, some of the songs were just vocals, drums, bass, and guitar (with the guitar sometimes electric, sometimes acoustic). So for the purpose of this album, at least, the program worked great. Even really rocking, full band songs like "What Is Life" now sound like solo guitar demos, though with electric guitar instead of acoustic.
Note I also included the bass on some songs, as I felt having some bass helped cover for some of the sonic imperfections of the Spleeter program. But I generally kept the bass at a relatively low volume, for more of a subtle bass presence.
Anyway, the final result, I believe, sounds exactly as if all the songs were demos done just by Harrison and his electric or acoustic guitar. I'd be curious what you think of my use of this program, and if you can tell the difference between the ones I used it one (which are marked with "[Edit]" in the name) and the ones I didn't.
By posting this, I don't want to take away from sales on the newly released super deluxe edition of the album. On the contrary, I hope this will whet the appetite of George Harrison fans and remind them to buy that. It contains tons of other great things, including three discs of rarities. It really is an excellent release. Plus, the remixed version of the original album included in it is a revelation.
As an aside, I've always thought it weird that the album contains two versions of "Isn't It a Pity," especially since we now know Harrison recorded a bunch of original songs for the album that remained unreleased. But he did include two versions of it, so I tried to do my best with that. The first version here is a different take than the album version, an unaltered solo acoustic demo. For the second version, I used the exact album version, but ran it through the Spleeter program to turn it into another acoustic version.
The first two albums of "All Things Must Pass" are an hour and 18 minutes long. This album is an hour and one minute long. The number of songs is the same, but it's 17 minutes shorter because the acoustic versions are sometimes shorter, especially because they often didn't include the space for solos.
01 I'd Have You Anytime (George Harrison)
02 My Sweet Lord [Edit] (George Harrison)
03 Wah-Wah [Edit] (George Harrison)
04 Isn't It a Pity (George Harrison)
05 What Is Life [Edit] (George Harrison)
06 If Not for You (George Harrison)
07 Behind that Locked Door (George Harrison)
08 Let It Down (George Harrison)
09 Run of the Mill (George Harrison)
10 Beware of Darkness (George Harrison)
11 Apple Scruffs (George Harrison)
12 Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp [Let It Roll] [Edit] (George Harrison)
13 Awaiting on You All [Edit] (George Harrison)
14 All Things Must Pass (George Harrison)
15 I Dig Love [Edit] (George Harrison)
16 Art of Dying (George Harrison)
17 Isn't It a Pity [Version 2] [Edit] (George Harrison)
18 Hear Me Lord (George Harrison)
https://www.upload.ee/files/15119209/GeorgeH_1970_AllThingsMstPassAcoustic_atse.zip.html
For the cover art, I tried to do something similar to the original cover, but different. The original used a black and white photo. I found a color outtake from that same photo session to use. I also found the same font used for the original. But I put the text higher up, so it wouldn't get hidden by the darkness of the trees.
Many thanks! I do own the super deluxe set, but can't wait to hear this version. I've always preferred the bootleg "Beware Of ABKCO" to the overly polished album.
ReplyDeleteExcellent! Thanks a lot. George is my favorite of all and any thing from him is always welcome.
ReplyDeleteHi. I can't download, I have this message : 404 forbidden. What happens ? Thx.
ReplyDeleteI just tried the link and it still works. Many people have downloaded the album. Maybe you have some spam filter program blocking you or something. Try downloading it from a different device. If all else fails, I share this (and all other albums here) through the free filesharing program SoulseekQT also.
DeleteAre you in a region where Zippyshare is blocked (the EU, e.g.)? If you are, you can download using a VPN that pretends you're in a region where Zippyshare is not blocked (the US, e.g.) At least in the EU, using a VPN is not illegal, btw.
DeleteThanks Paul and Walter. No, I'm not in a region where Zippyshare is blocked, I'm in France and until now I always could download files of this blog. But I just solved the problem by changing the address of my VPN (that was in England)and now it works. I don't know why I didn't think about it sooner ; I'm very sorry for bothering you. Many thx for your help !
DeleteGlad to hear you got it to work. A lot of people don't know how to change their VPN, so I usually don't mention that.
DeleteGlad to hear that! (No, you were no bother!)
DeleteSpleeter sounds impossibly interesting. I've looked at the web pages for it but as yet, haven't worked with it. The possibility of creating acoustic albums is fascinating. Also, I wonder if it works on live recordings too. Many audience and soundboard recordings have imbalances, this might allow for remasteres that boost separate channels, giving a fuller sound. Thanks for the excellent work.
ReplyDeleteI agree - Spleeter is impossibly interesting! The only bummer is the lack of a specific guitar channel. If you have ideas on albums to use it on, such as important imbalanced bootlegs, please let me know. Another option would be to fix studio albums where the vocals are mixed too low. I'm sure I'm going to be using it a lot!
DeleteBy the way, "Old Brown Shoe" is an album where I've long thought the vocals are mixed too low. I just tried fixing that through Spleeter - much better now. :) Some artists just mix their vocals low for whatever reason - J. J. Cale comes to mind, or early REM.
DeleteAnother potential use I've been thinking of is trying to undo some of the overproduction crimes of 1980s music. The drums especially were often way too loud. That would be an easy fix in Spleeter.
Okay, not raising this as a suggestion for you per se, but would this Spleeter be useful in say, rescuing Jason Newsted's submerged bass parts in the mix of 'And Justice For All'? and since you're talking about too loud drums, same album? I hadn't noticed it until someone brought it to my attention, and IIRC it was referenced in Some Kind Of Monster, but Newsted's bass parts were purposely mixed low because Ulrich and Hetfield thought they were Lennon & McCartney...and that the drums were moved up to mask the low bass parts and also, again, Lennon/McCartney >:(
DeleteI'm sure someone out there probably already 'fixed' this, but at the moment my Google Fu is coming up blank. And if it is possible, I might take a hack at it [shrugs] even as just an experiment, as you already posted a few of those yourself.
I'm not a Metallica fan at all. But if you want to tinker with this and come up with something, I could post it at this blog to make sure more people hear it.
DeleteLast night, I found a forum thread where people were discussing poorly mixed albums, and this "And Justice for All" problem was discussed extensively. (It seems the other band members were having a falling out with the bassist at the time, so mixed him low as kind of a middle finger thing.) So you're hardly alone in having a problem with that record.
Wow. I'm going to have to get this going.
ReplyDeleteOverproduction. Hmm... The Travelling Wilburys.
80's overproduction. Definitely Neil Young's Landing On Water. Also Warren Zevons material from that period. Sentimental Hygiene. I wonder if that could be stripped back.
Bootleg-wise. There's so many. Like you say, it would have to be a very good candidate.
There's no really fantasticly balanced sounding Pink Floyd from the '77 Animals tour. But many contain a very full audio spectrum. You might even try and improve the audio on Neil Youngs Time Fades Away. A Holy Grail of bad audio! Now that'd be very interesting, neigh impossible. Hmm. That would be a true test.
Thanks for the suggestions, but it's better if you post them here:
Deletehttps://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/08/suggestions-for-using-spleeter.html?showComment=1628944862454#c6838932083507764839
And by the way, I had a similar thought as you, because a few hours ago, I tried fiddling with some songs on Neil Young's "Landing on Water." Unfortunately, I realized that many of the songs just weren't very good, no matter the production or instrumentation. :(
You leave my Traveling Wilburys alone! LOL
DeleteOkay, I'd be willing to hear what difference it would make to the first Traveling Wilburys album, though as stated above, I find it perfect just the way it is. :)
DeleteJust wanted to say i think this acoustic All Things Must Pass sounds great! Nice job with it.
ReplyDeleteAs I am listening to it now, it amazes me how much I still hear all the Spectorian grandeur in my mind's ear, yet this is absolutely amazing in its own damn right, 'configured' or not. It is kind of sad in a way that, even though he obviously did the demos and all, he can never hear how wonderful this album sounds acoustic. I can imagine this as an 'MTV Unplugged' that just fell into this reality, just as the 50th Anniversary edition has come out in this one. A++
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