Talk:Magic Christian Music

Corrected mixes on this album

The original mixes on the Iveys album have a "muddy" sound quality that was later fixed for Magic Christian Music. The Iveys album was recorded at Trident in 1968 at about the same time as other Trident recordings that are known to have the same sound quality problem. Other examples are the mono mix of the Beatles Hey Jude and the Van Der Graaf Generator album Aerosol Grey Machine.

I'm a recording engineer who understands how professional tape recorders work. After extensive reading about the recordings made at Trident in 1968 I have figured out exactly what happened. The professional 8 track machine used at Trident was made in the USA by the 3M Corporation. It was set up to use USA electrical AC current at 60 Hz and the USA standard of the NAB equalization EQ curve. The UK standard is for 50 Hz current and the IEC equalization curve.

When the 3M machine was initially set up at Trident in London in early 1968 they made the mistake of not correcting for these problems. It took several months to fix. When the Trident tapes with NAB were played back with IEC they sounded wrong. For the mono Hey Jude EMI engineers later tried to fix this with more EQ adjustments. But the EQ inside the recorder and the EQ on the mixing console do not work the same way. The mono mix was never really fixed. But it was fixed with the stereo remix a few years later. This is detailed in the book The Beatles Recording Sessions.

The AC current mismatch of 60 to 50 Hz causes this machine to run at 83.33% of the correct speed. The math is 50 divided by 60 = .83333. The 3M machine running at the correct 60 Hz it plays and records at 15 inches per second. But when the machine runs with 50 Hz current it runs at a non-standard speed of 12.5 inches per second. The speed 2.5 inch difference is rather small and not really a problem provided that the record and playback speeds are the same. However, all other things being equal a slower speed has lower high frequency sound quality than faster speeds. This is one of the reasons why some music producers prefer to use the 30 inches per second speed over the more common 15. Also there is only one EQ standard for the 30 inch speed.

The really big problem is not speed but the equalization EQ mismatch between NAB and IEC. The NAB standard was developed in the USA in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The European IEC standard was developed in Germany about 10 years later. IEC is technically more advanced with improved accuracy in the upper frequencies. However, it breaks compatibility with NAB recordings. Some music producers in the USA and UK actually prefer the NAB standard because of the "warmer mid range" sound. Both are professional standards that can sound great. Used properly, it's only a matter of taste and compatibility.

So the big problem is that the Trident 8 track 3M tapes master tapes were recorded with NAB eq, mixed to a stereo NAB machine, and later played back with IEC eq. The result is the "muddy" sound quality. Same problem as the mono Hey Jude and the VDGG album.

It's rather frustrating to know that the EQ mismatch and speed problems were explained in the Beatles Recording Sessions book from 1988 but either not explained or ignored by Ken Scott when he wrote his Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust book in 2012. Surely he knew and understood the problems at some point in time. Maybe he forgot. The Beatles Recording Sessions book also explains that there was a delay of several months between the time that EMI bought their first 3M 8 track recorder and the time they put it into service. During this time the engineers did testing or modifications on the machine. What exactly were they doing? It's not really explained in the book, but obviously, they understood the AC and EQ mismatch problems and were trying to fix them.

I am sure that the managers of Trident were embarrassed by their mistakes and didn't want to talk about it. This is the reason why most people never figured it out. I am glad they eventually solved the problem though. The 8 track recordings from Trident made in late 1968 sound excellent. Examples are the Beatles 8 track recordings from Trident that are on The White Album and the debut James Taylor album. Same with this album when the Iveys recordings were remixed at Abbey Road for this album.

Lucky for us there is now software available that can correct for EQ mismatches. This article explains it: https://pspatialaudio.com/tape%20equalisation%20correction.htm

I hope that a fan of the Iveys and Badfinger will use the software to correct the Maybe Tomorrow album so it can be heard as originally intended. Thanks. ~2025-38605-43 (talk) 19:20, 25 February 2026 (UTC)