George Martin's organ... | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I want to ad, regarding the stealth Hammond RT-3 organ on I Wanna Hold Your Hand, where nay sayers point to the existing, very brief outtakes of the recording, you will note that if you listen closely to John’s Guitar in its “pre-superimosed state” play around with the intro bar chords C7 to D7 (where he primarily hits the bottom two strings, the root and fifth with a few upper register notes included) its significantly less saturated, almost anemic and far closer to how his guitar sounds when doing Chuck Berry style chords, root, fifth and hammer on 6th tone, during Roll Over Beethoven , or his very well played backing guitar track on George’s Don’t Bother Me , all done in that same period between With the Beatles and eventually the October 17 recordings of I Want To Hold Your Hand , This Boy and according to self proclaimed Beatles guru Mark Lewisohn, an aborted attempt to re-record You Really Got A Hold On Me plus a few Christmas messages. 

As stated, the IWTHYH sessions were only a few days (or weeks) after Martin superimposed a much clumsier, less stealthy or compressed Hammond onto the rhythm track of I Wanna Be Your Man so obviously, the germ was in his head to employ the same effect but with far more stealth & heavier bottom end, compression and power in order to mask that is an organ plus, this time, he had his first use of EMI’s Telefunken Four track machine. While analyzing the isolated tracks, besides the previously mentioned verses, you can also clearly hear the ORGAN (using extremely heavy compression for the very purpose of blending in with John’s guitar) holding the the low intervals of the middle eight chords as well where on the isolated track I have, you can clearly hear John softly strumming simple open chords of Dm to G to C to Am etc.. During the two bridge segments, on track 1, there are clearly two instruments handling the cords and George’s guitar is on track 2 (actually is track 2 not track 3 where George had an additional overdub paralleling Paul’s chromatic line). Again, there are those who either refuse to acknowledge this due to some bizarre form of denial (but then they’ll believe Glenn Beck:-), and there are those that simply don’t have the ear to process it. This will eventually punch through and finally, all the notes on IWTHYH will have to be edited to show the following, finally correct line up as follows:

I Want To Hold Your Hand (recorded October 17 at Abbey Road studios, takes 1-17 using Telefunken four track console)

George Harrison – Lead guitars, Gretsch Country Gentleman, main guitar track 2, chromatic line dub, track 3

John Lennon – backing guitar, Rickenbacker Capri 325* (see note) on track 1; lead vocals track 4, additional vocals on “hand” track 3, additional single vocal for low harmony line during bridge track 3

Paul McCartney – Hofner Bass – main bass on track 1, additional dubbed bass chromatic line track 3; lead vocals track 4, additional vocals for “hand” track 3

Ringo Starr – drums, track 1

*George Martin – Hammond RT-3 organ, track 2, later reduced down with original track 1 to create new track 1, superimposed onto John’s guitar & embedded

Hand Claps – various Beatles. track 3

martinmocha said
…Emerick and Martin have formed mental cobwebs after the last 50 years, it really only leaves Sir Paul and Ringo and until somebody asks Sir Paul directly, assuming even he can remember the details of a 50 year old recording, this fact will never be 100% verified or at least not until, an audio scientist uses state of the art, wave analysis and masking technology used by law enforcement and our military and I doubt that is going to be any time soon.

There is a software called Melodyne that can separate out the notes within a recording, but with so many instruments and voices present in this recording, it would take a significant amount of work to isolate each one, but it could be done.

Regarding Komm Gib Mir deine Hand:

Funny Paper wrote – ” I know that this is the received claim.  It just doesn’t jibe with what I hear when I listen to the two versions back to back.  The German version sounds markedly different — and better — to my ears.  Now, it is possible that the result of “mixing down” rendered the sound slightly flatter and more washed out (which is the kind of sound I tend to like).  There seem to be other differences that wouldn’t be fully explained by this theory, however.  I don’t have time right now to detail them, but perhaps in the coming week.”

Before I respond to your recalcitrance on this issue, here is a quote from Mark Lewisohns “Beatles Recording Sessions” page 38: “first task was to add “Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand vocals to the ENGLISH rhythm track of I Want To Hold Your Hand , mixed down from four to two track…”. 

Listen, I don’t know how you are hearing a different instrumental track unless you are confused by Harrisons NEW overdub of the guitar chromatic line that parallels the bass although you can still hear Harrison’s original riff underneath from the original but as noted above in Lewisohns book, it was a known fact that Martin used the British backing track from IWTHYH. It is a also a fact that Harrison overdubbed a new, additional guitar line for Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand plus they added new handclaps and of course, the German vocals. George Martin has been interviewed and discussed in great detail how he mixed down the instrumental tracks from the multitrack master of I Want To Hold Your Hand then brought it to the studio in France for the recording. Since She Loves You was only available in mono, due to Abbey Road losing or destroying the original stereo twin track master, they had to record an entirely NEW instrumental plus vocal track for Sie Liebt Dich . 

If even Lewisohn and George Martin’s own interviews don’t convince you, then listen to Komm Gib where at 0:13-0:14, you hear the same exact out of phase sound of two instruments chunking that B7 chord and then again at 1:17 and 1:59 exactly as on IWTHYH….sorry, its not a different recording. Its been documented in numerous books, articles and interviews including what you see above but most importantly, it can be “heard”. If you ears can’t hear it, then I give up, believe what you want. I bowed out of a debate where one self proclaimed Beatles expert asserted that Ringo sang Lady Madonna , huh? Sure and we all know that Tiny Tim actually sang All You Need Is Love and James Brown sang Yesterday – it only gets worse:-)