What better way to improve my technical performance and mixing skills than by covering the best popular music in history?
These were all recorded in Logic Pro X. Guitars, bass, and vocals are all me. Drums are sequenced with Superior Drummer 3 providing the sounds of Ringo’s Ludwig Oyster kit (1963-1968) or Hollywood kit (late 1968-1970). Strings and other orchestral instruments are also meticulously sequenced in Logic, using sample packs from Spitfire, Native Instruments, and eInstruments. Of particular note are the ‘Mrs. Mills’ Steinway Vertegrand and Challen ‘Jangle Box’ pianos from Abbey Road Studio 2, which was sampled beautifully by Spitfire. You can hear Mrs. Mills on ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Lady Madonna’ while the Challen is the jangly piano on ‘Old Brown Shoe’. The other piano seeing heavy use is Embertone’s Walker Steinway D, which is the nicest sampled Steinway I’ve ever played.
The incredible book, ‘The Beatles: Complete Scores’ provided the sheet music for most tracks. While there are some errors in the books, I think this can be forgiven considering that (a) it was written before we had widespread access to many session tapes and (b) it’s a massive book and mistakes happen. For some songs, notably ‘Eleanor Rigby’, I referred to George Martin’s original score, which is widely available on the Internet.
Guitars included my Rickenbacker 320, Rickenbacker 330/12, Epiphone Casino, homebuilt Stratocaster, Martin D-12, and Gibson Les Paul Classic.
Basses included an Epiphone Viola bass, Rickenbacker 4003s, and a Squier Classic Vibe ‘60s Jazz Bass.