rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/11/84)
> How do you speed up a record without changing the pitch??? > -Dave Clark (homxa!wdc) There is a device called a Harmonizer produced by Eventide Clockworks (other similar devices followed) that is simply a pitch shifter. Thus one could increase the turntable speed and then shift the pitch downward to compensate. I saw a system demonstrated at AES a few years back that linked a tape recorder's speed to a harmonizer; thus you could increase the speed of the tape deck and the harmonizer would compensate accordingly. This would have been useful for George Martin back when he recorded "Strawberry Fields Forever" with John Lennon. Lennon recorded two versions of the song (I think one was with brass and the other with Mellotron flutes) in two different keys at two different speeds. After recording the first version, Lennon recorded the second version of the song with the different arrangement. Dissatisfied with that second version, Lennon told George Martin that he wanted him to combine both versions together. Martin explained that they were in two different keys and at two different speeds, but this didn't matter to Lennon. (This explains why George Martin has almost no hair today :-) Martin accomplished the task by slowing down the version in the higher key and inserting sections of it into the middle of the song. Thus the whole song was in one key, with the middle section at a different speed than the rest of the song. Frankly, I'm sort of glad Martin didn't have the device I describe; I like the way the song turned out. Sort of puts a perspective on the schlock-rockers of today who just correct their flubs with similar editing/recording tricks to the one I describe above, and for whom the intense creative work of those like George Martin is replaced by "Use a whatsit box!". About a year ago, I heard an acetate of one of the original unembellished versions of "Strawberry Fields Forever" on KFJC out near Palo Alto, CA. Worth hearing. -- Now I've lost my train of thought. I'll have to catch the bus of thought. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr