Why do some 60s recordings sound so much better than others?

[LR90]

I’ve been listening to some 60s music recently and one thing that struck me was the variability in fidelity between old tracks of a similar vintage. This got me thinking why some tracks sound so bad compared to their contemporaries.

Take ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’. Fantastic song, but the fidelity is awful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0vCwGUZe1I

It’s the same story with ‘See Emily Play’ by Pink Floyd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c0EDM-Yu9o

And ‘Flowers in the Rain’ by The Move:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_laosNxqzNg


They sound like old recordings, right? Very distant and not at all crisp or ‘present’.


Now, compare them with ‘A Day in the Life’ by The Beatles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYeV7jLBXvA

‘Good Times, Bad Times’ by Led Zeppelin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA9Rec1qAFQ

Or ‘No Expectations’ by The Stones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aNbZIOvrMI


Now, all of these songs were recorded within a period of about 18 months in 1967-1968, but the latter three recordings, to my ears at least, are MILES better.

It could be argued that the Beatles, the Stones and Zep were bigger bands at the time and had access to better equipment and engineers, but all of these recordings were made at the same small number of London studios — EMI, Olympic, Regent etc.

Pink Floyd even recorded their debut album at Abbey Road at the same time The Beatles were recording Sgt Pepper. So why does ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ sound so pants in comparison?

FWIW, I’m not critiquing the music here, just the quality of the recording. I love all of the above bands.

[LR90]

These are both really interesting points. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

From what you've both said, I think it might be a combination of things. Certainly the bad recordings sound 'tapey', like they've been recorded onto cassette. Weirdly though, The Beatles were renowned for not only doing loads of takes, but also bouncing tracks down on the multitrack to make space for more overdubs.

And while this must have had a negative effect on the audio quality, their recordings always sound comparatively crisp. Take 'Strawberry Fields Forever' - they spent more time recording that than any other band had ever spent on a pop single at that point, and yet it still sounds good.

The point about consumables and valves is a really good one — I hadn't considered that. This is an issue that seems to have largely been resolved by the mid-70s, when solid-state desks were becoming the norm, but multitrack tape recording was still being used, so could this be the answer?

Interestingly, Pink Floyd's debut was produced by Norman Smith — the Beatles' first engineer. Of course, no one compares to George Martin, but I can't believe the slightly naff sound quality was down to him. After all, EMI were famously fastidious about everything (they didn't upgrade from 4-track to 8-track until 1968 as they wanted to be 100% sure of the quality) so I can't believe they'd let a substandard producer produce an album.

[LR90]

Good point. But yes I do have most of the above on CD.

I was listening recently on Spotify, for full disclosure. While not audiophile quality, Spotify should be good enough not to be colouring my judgement of the recordings.