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I was listening to the cd 'The Shadows - first 20 years at the top' today and it struck me how well the Shadow's 60's tracks were recorded, except for 'Midnight', i believe Hank's guitar is distorted on certain parts of the track, and the drumbeat sounds 'strange' (hard to explain). Listen to the track and you'll see what i mean

I haven't listened to it recently - but if I remember rightly, the mono track is fine and the stereo track isn't. I would think you've been listening to the stereo one.
I may be wrong, but I think it's the same track. There's a huge amount of reverb on the recording, but it's fine on the mono track. Any thoughts anyone?
Chas.

Yes, I've noticed the distortion too, which also appears a bit on Man of Mystery. I suppose it could be from the Vox amps, but maybe the signal to the recording desk was overloading the input. Many early sixties recording were of poor quality compared to what we have today. Check out 'The Mexican' by the Fentones for distortion. I guess some of the recording engineers were still learning their trade re. the new 'Beat Groups'.

Tony.

Roy,
On one of the vinyl copies I have (LP I'm sure) there's what sounds like a pre-echo effect on the drums.
Is that what you are referring to?
Cheers,
JB

John Boyd wrote:Roy,
On one of the vinyl copies I have (LP I'm sure) there's what sounds like a pre-echo effect on the drums.
Is that what you are referring to?
Cheers,
JB

Yep, that's it. The reverb just sounds odd. I played it again and checked, it was the stereo version i have. I don't have the mono version so i can't compare.
Listening to more early tracks there is slight distortion on FBI (in the middle eighth) and Man of Mystery. I guess with the Shads schedule of gigs meant they simply didn't have time to check things like recording levels!