The life changed

 After last weeks excursion into different topics from the norm on here, we do get back to more core things this week which has been a pretty much wet and cool one with temperatures only just about 6 degrees out on one day.

One thing that you cannot entirely eliminate is the possibility of either being spotted by people who know you while out or perhaps people who just turn up while passing which in any kind of life that some people can be judgemental over might concern you.

A good chunk of my family are within our city region with many within a five mile radius, legacy of the days when people here worked in the local pits, potteries, steelworks and engineering concerns that were on our doorsteps.

Anyway I do have a good number of surviving aunts and uncles as much as in recent years the number has been thinned out as it were and quite unexpectedly my Uncle Len called while at my parents who are very used to seeing a "boy" in their company.

He called really for Dad cos he's know a lot around electronics and mechanical engineering repairing  things like vintage radios of which Uncle Len had just bought one from an auction house nearby.

He also has quite a collection of clocks.

It is several years since I have seen him, before covid for sure and within that time I have moved very much away from any meaningful adult presentation either by attire and by social position too within the family and with other adults.

He had not for several decades at least seen any version of me that wore grey short trousers, long turn over top socks and school tops and even if I had the inclination to, there was no time to change.

All I could do is just get on with it and be prepared answer anything.

He was talking mainly with my father and then mum as prompted by that universal habit of parents to show photographs of family, he remarked on how much "your son takes after you" and "how is he" which probably a reflection on the deferental child to parent relating style where by I only join in adult to adult conversations when invited in which I was to talk a little about what I had been up to only then taking direct supplimentary points.

I'm generally expected to read or "play" entertaining myself unless I'm in on the conversation or event.

Suprisingly the very altered physical presentation from when I last saw him didn't seem to faze him nor did the clear lack of relating to him as adult as mentally at least this could of been a conversation between a teenage me and him if not a couple of years younger.

As it came to time for him to be off, I shook hands with him.

Things had gone better than I had thought they may of and on reflection that I am at one with being this adult in law but child.

Revolver remade

Regular readers of this blog know we don't talk much about "affects" on here such as toys or records because it's really more a personal blog rather than the blog of a person however I was that boy and so some records are in their own way important within that.

It's also true that some artists and composers are very much connected with me so exploring them coincided with personal journeys of self exploration.

The last time I wrote anything on here about the Beatles was February 2017 which was looking at the records by them I owned, a good number from childhood around significant birthdays and christmas's part of reason was one you have a collection then, unless you collect variants and world-wide issues, you've pretty much have all you need and the last core albums of interest were issued in the autumn of 2012.

Recording technology today, indeed ever since the early 1970's was radically different than it was for much of the 1960's when these albums were recorded having far more individual tracks and in recent years attempts at remixing them for better stereo sound has been the focus.

Recently I bought the new remixed edition of the Revolver album of 1966.

This album was recorded using four tracks on a tape recorder working on one part of the song using up to all the four tracks to get all the elements wanted such as any instruments and then mixed to a single track of a new tape on another machine before starting again to build up the drum tracks, lead,bass and rhythm guitar in many sessions before a final tape with everything to be included in the final mix is made.

Back in 1966 the main aim was to make a mono record from those four tracks as that was then norm for pop music especially targetted to teens and young adults for playing on single speaker systems.

A stereo mix was made but the way it was recorded by design limited what could be done when it came to where in a stereo spread everything could be placed which coupled with the rather dashed off approach taking much less time than the mono left a less than satisfactory stereo version.

That version was the one I heard around 1977/8 when I was starting as a young teen to get into the Beatles and back then stereo versions were all you could buy as the mono deemed "old hat" in 1970 had been deleted from the catalogue.

Recently new computer artificial intelligence but steered by humans technology that enabled separating out some of the parts of the four track mixes into effectively separate tracks that could be mixed and placed within the stereo image in the manner many popular albums from the 1970's were by design using multiitrack recording systems has become possible and this album was treated to it.

What you could do to fix some of the errors of the original stereo version intrigued me

As some may recognize on the disc label they have gone for a more authentic 1960's label design although the copyright is 2022 presumably for legal protection and as the record is made not in the UK but the Czech Republic "Made in the EU" is printed,

Take Taxman for instance, there are many periods of near silence on the right hand channel as the vocals are just there or the errors in the double tracking at the start of Eleanor Rigby and the string quartet is now spread between both speakers.

The sea effects on Yellow Submarine originally from a sound effects tape have been remixed into the track in stereo adding atmosphere while the seabird effects on the psychedelic Tomorrow Never Knows are panned from left to right.

This remix centres the vocals more providing the immediacy and drive of the mono but with a more spacious feel spreading the instrumentation around the left and right channels.

Personally I feel the process has worked well producing a more enjoyable mature stereo sound spread without departing too far from what the album sounded like.

Critics have complained that the record sleeve doesn't have those folds around the edges originals had but my last original copy from the mid 1980's lacked them too and the only modern versions to feature them were the 2014 mono editions now deleted.

Sometimes it's good parts of the past have gone

 Slowly recovering here so with any lucky by next week i should be back on my feet again.

As might be inferred by that I'm on enforced rest here more able than usual to be decending very much in time with the rituals of Tie fastening, getting your socks on and supported neatly which is as well as in many respects I love that older, less tech driven and less planned  boyhood with play and a cheeky grin.

That said not everything from then stands critical examination today.

Today, smoking for adults is very much a taboo thing with lots of restrictions where one might while back then my family smoked around me, the parents of friends who gave me lifts smoked in the car and many places we went into like cafés, fish and chip shops and public houses reeked of smoke.

As kids we had candy shaped like cigarettes with pink tips and yes we had them in our mouths trying too look sophesticated pretending to smoke. Today they're gone.

Toys like those Hanna-Barbara cartoon characters Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and co were made to invite children to practise lighting up and enjoy watching the smoke drift.

It seems incredible really such habits known to be harmful were being encouraged in us in underhand ways - I hung out with the smokers and was only detered by the threat of a spanking if caught - and while it's fanciful to look back at things as if everything in the past was fine, the exposure to and encouragment of smoking to us a boys and girls is something I'm glad to see has gone.

November: A month of colour

So it's another month in the history of this blog but we are still in autumn although the storm I can here as I type this up suggests to me many leaves will soon be gone until next year having notice a lot while out walking this weekend in the woods.

One thing I like about leaves is not just the rich colours at this time of year but their very distinctive shapes.

No doubt today and especially tomorrow many of us will see and hear the bonfires with accompanying fireworks of Guy Fawkes Night that always a great boyhood memory.

Here is a Catherine Wheel in full spin spreading colour into the night sky while the air smells very much of smoke.

Stay safe and have fun this Bonfire weekend.