I’m currently reading Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight, by John McDermott with Eddie Kramer. Hendrix fans will know Kramer as his longtime engineer and the main architect of Hendrix’s studio sound. I recommend it for both fans and those interested in learning about one of the most important figures in musical history. It combines a history of the development of Hendrix as a business commodity with some great tidbits about his personal life and the recording of the albums. It happens that I’m reading about Axis at the moment. One of my favorite stories is the story of how Hendrix lost the master for Side A. Yes, he lost the master for Side A of Axis: Bold As Love.
It had been decided that thirteen songs, including “EXP,” would make the final cut. For four days, Hendrix, Chandler (Chas Chandler, former bassist for the Animals, and Hendrix’s producer and mentor) and Kramer labored over the tapes before finally finishing during the early hours of the 31st–Halloween. Somehow, and–even now–no one is exactly sure how, Hendrix proceeded to lose the mixes for what was to become side one. Still living together, Hendrix and Chandler had taken the final masters home to their apartment. As Chandler surmises, Hendrix was eager to audition the Experience’s new album, and had taken the masters before any safety copies had been made. “He went off to a party and took the masters with him. Coming back, he left one of the boxes in a taxi. It was all scheduled for release! So we rang up Eddie and went into Olympic (Studios) the next night and mixed the entire A side of the album again, all in one night.” For Kramer, the news was painful. The mixes that they had labored on, deriving from only four-track tapes, were almost performances in themselves. Ideas and sounds, “flying by the seat of our pants,” as Kramer described it, were gone.” …to this day, people say to Chandler and Kramer, “The sound you created on ‘If Six Was Nine’ was so good.” Their reply, more than twenty years later, remains, “If you only knew.”
It’s puzzling that the tape box never turned up, given its value. Initially, I figured that the cabbie turned it in without looking at it, and it sat in the cab company’s Lost and Found, eventually getting tossed without anyone ever knowing what it was. But it would have been clearly labeled as a recording master. You’d think that someone would have figured it out. In any case, if you guys could start looking around in the basement, I’d appreciate it.
One of the things that interested me most was the discussion of phasing (technically “phase cancellation”) in the recording. There had been some use of rudimentary phasing up to that point, but no one had ever figured out how to do it, much less record it, in stereo. Rather than go into a technical discussion, I’m including a link to Axis. If you don’t know what it is by name, you’ll recognize it immediately when you hear it.
At 2:46 into the song, Mitch’s phased drums are audible, and just as his roll is rushing from left to right, Kramer pans the drum sound through the speakers, effectively cancelling the phasing just a split second before Hendrix’s guitar dramatically reappears, now awash in this new sound. For the first time, phasing had been recorded in stereo.
I also included it because it’s one of my favorite recorded moments evah. I had a little record player with detachable speakers in cheap plastic casings, and I’d take the speakers and put them up against my ears to listen to it. The section after Mitch’s interlude at 2:46, especially the part that starts at 3:26, after Hendrix’s initial solo, still hits like a sledgehammer. And as always, CRANK IT UP.
busted out Band o Gypsies earlier last year and realized what I knew to be so when I first glommed onto hendrix as a very young drummer: he really was/is the best guitarist of all time. Even now that I hate music, I can very much appreciate his groooooooove…..
I thought it was “Bald as Rove”?
Axis is still my fave Jimi studio LP (Jimi at Monterey may top it for humor). Tracks like “If Six Was Nine” are incredible, but I even dig “She’s So Fine,” which (but for the guitar) could have been a killer track by some band like the Strawberry Alarm Clock. What always strikes my about Hendix, however, is that above and beyond his virtuosity, his recordings are always equally drenched in his personality. Indeed, the former generally serves the latter.
If the Sun, refused to shine……I don’t mind..
He was and remains the best electric guitar player to ever lay hands on a Fender. One of the great joys I’ve had since moving to Nashville is going to Billy Cox’s pawnshop on Nolensville road to meet Mr. Cox. Billy was one the nicest guys I’ve ever met in my life.
Hendrix is as close to worship as I come. Late night Youtube searches lately have turned up some nice stuff by Rory Gallagher and Jeff Beck, two of my other fave guitarists. As far as the lost master tape, it may not have been very clearly marked at all, most of the time just a scribbled abbreviation by the engineer on the end of the tape box is all. It is amazing to me that they took the masters home without a back up copy being made, normally the masters do not leave the studio until copies have been made.
The mixes that they had labored on, deriving from only four-track tapes…
This is what most amazes me, that they were able to get that sound with only four tracks to work with. Seems impossible today.
normally the masters do not leave the studio until copies have been made.
unless you are Jimi Hendrix
This is what most amazes me, that they were able to get that sound with only four tracks to work with. Seems impossible today.
Beatles, man… did it with 2 and 4 tracks… bouncing and bouncing and bouncing… and yet sounding amazing.
This is what most amazes me, that they were able to get that sound with only four tracks to work with. Seems impossible today.
That was also Kramer’s doing. Previously, engineers had recorded the bass and drums in stereo on two tracks as their basic track. Kramer used all four tracks, two for the drums, one for the bass, and one for any rhythm guitar. Then he would take that tape to another four-track and mix it down to two tracks. That had a number of benefits. They never had to recut basic tracks, and it allowed Hendrix to fine-tune lines and verses. And drummers everywhere owe Kramer a debt of gratitude. Whether intentionally or not, he was the first guy to strengthen the sound of the drummer, which was aften lost in the mix in those days.
Depending on what size tape they used — and it must have been small, since he brought it with him to listen to at somebody’s house — that master probably looked like any random reel-to-reel tape that any drunken chump might lose.
And Hendrix was far less well-known at the time than we misremember him being. He was about as likely to get recognized as someone like, say, Brent Hinds is now.
And important tapes are seldom labeled as clearly as you’d think. It probably only said something like “A1” on the box, because anyone who was supposed to know what it was already knew what it was.
So the cabby probably thought nothing of it (beyond “Man, that guy was high!”) and chucked it.
And…good. I like how sloppy it is. It sounds baked.
Yeah, it was sloppy, that’s one of the regrets that many people involved still have. They were under a lot of pressure to finish the album quickly, and there’s a lot of stuff on it that wouldn’t have been left there later on. Hendrix himself became much more involved in every aspect of recording, and it shows when you listen to Electric Ladyland.
The tape box may or may not have been clearly labeled, but I don’t think you can assume that it wasn’t. They were, in many cases. And the tape was half-inch tape, so it wouldn’t have been played on a home deck. There were plenty of industry parties and jams that took place in studios.
Unless stored really carefully, the tape is trash by now anyway. Even high quality reel to reel won’t last indefinitely. They quality degrades over the years and it’s been like 40 years/
Probably somebody recorded over it.
Kramer used all four tracks, two for the drums…
I have been in sessions where every individual drum in the kit had three mics going to separate tracks, and a half dozen more mics and separate tracks for the cymbals. It isn’t unusual at all for the drums to take up 16 tracks at a demo session.
The stooge is me.
I thought I read somewhere that the manufacturing of analog studio tape has been discontinued indefinitely and now bands that favor the medium (Wilco, The White Stripes) are in fever search-and-buy mode for all remaining reels.
Can anyone else confirm this?
Very interesting stuff, CraigC.
One other thing, Psycho. As far as Hendrix being well-known, Are You Experienced? was a smash, and he was already a sensation among industry types and the cognoscenti in NYC, but you’re right, the likelihood of him being recognized by a particular NY cabbie was probably pretty small. Or the probability was likely small. You can sit here in the waiting room or wait here in the sitting room.
Hendrix is the true antidote to all that “Clapton Is God” nonsense.
A point which Clapton has always readily conceded.
Forty years on, and this music still sounds like it’s being beamed from the future, on Radio Saturn or somethin’.
My favorite Hendrix performance is the live version of “Voodoo Chile Slight Return” on the live elpee Hendrix in the West. He just stripped it down and sped it up, and that made it lightyears more rockin’ than the studio version.
Yes, exactly, TSI. I know I’ve said this before, but try to imagine my head spinning the first time I heard Purple Haze on a Top 40 station right after a Pet Clark song. And on top of it, he was black. I was already heavily into soul and r&b, and my first thought was, “Who the fuck is this crazy black dude?”
And what planet is he from?
And how is he making the guitar do that?
And how is he making the guitar do that?
You figure that one out, let me know. Although Youtube helped a lot in that regard, I was able to determine that some of the stuff he does is impossible to someone with normal sized hands. The way he uses his thumb and plays leads and chords at the same time is amazing.
Thank you! I finally get it. I never understood Hendrix. Now because of you I do. This is the best this MacBook has ever sounded. It’s like finally getting Picasso.
I will now play it over and over again. *joys* I have been reborn.
M4A file?
So, that’s phasing. Always wondered how that effect was implemented. Thanks for the demonstration. I know consider my quest for daily learning fulfilled!
Pretty cool. I know I can always come here for something new and interesting. I’m now going to pick up some Hendrix.
I think seeing him play is vital to understanding his importance/genius. When I first started playing guitar I figured that Hendrix made those sounds because he had cooler gear and was a better player. Then I saw the film of him at Woodstock and it hit me, “Oh, it’s because he’s got friggin colossal hands and oh my god did he just play the guitar with his elbow?!” Totally blew my mind and sent me down the long dark road to noise-rock.
I often wonder what Hendrix would be doing today if he had lived. Probably into some of the same rock/jazz stuff that Beck’s been playing.
My epiphany with Hendrix came at a summer party in the early seventies when his long live version of “Red House” was playing. I literally stopped my conversation and wandered to the speakers with another guy, also a fledgling guitarist. The two of us just stood there, staring at each other, slack jawed, as he build the complexity and intensity of that solo until it exploded.
Pure rush, better than any drug.