I Recreated The Beatles Rooftop Show to See if it Was Real

Today we tackle arguably the most legendary live recording ever created, the Beatles Get Back Rooftop Show. Wish us luck, may the odds and the comments be ever in our favor....

The whole team's instagrams:

Band - @juiceband
Director, Cinematographer, Editor - @sjgaweda
Camera Operator - @annemariehalo
Camera Operator - @petersenfilms
BTS, Seawall - @biancamunizofficial
BTS, AudioHaze - @loramouna
AudioHaze Co-Editor - @aquieteveningmusic
Production Assistant - @jacksmuniz_music
Recording Engineer - @mhoj_music
Recording, Mixing and Mastering Engineer - @realaudiohaze
Colorist - @elly_tier
Keys - @theogjrob

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Studio Gear Used in This Vid


Camera:

[samuelwiggins]

Loved this! One question— at the beginning of the video you were talking about the high amounts of ambient noise on the roof, and at the end you were saying that recording outside is “like a sound booth.” What made the difference? Just all the wind screens? Catching a recording between planes? Turning everything up louder than the sounds of the city?

[wietzejohanneskrikke]

One thing to consider is that The Beatles recorded this in 1969 in London. That means less people, less traffic noise, fewer airplanes. Also bleed is less of a problem in open air.

[yungstreichholz]

Bro making the best content rn. Your videos should have millions of views.

[seawallsessions]

Big thanks to AudioHaze and Juice for bringing us onto this project! Loved watching all the BTS hahaha

[CHWTT]

Oh man I was not expecting to get another one of these recreation videos so soon. Can't wait to watch this!

[ImAFutureGuitarHero]

The Let It Be album and the rooftop session was a testament to not just the Beatles' musicianship, but also the engineers and personnel involved. Glyn Johns (who also worked with Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, tons of others) was the main recording engineer on the sessions, and I think that's partly why the drums were recorded like that. He liked to record drums with a three-mic setup -- kick, single overhead and a second "overhead" off to the floor tom side (though usually not pointed directly at the floor tom like it is here, it's usually pointed across the tom towards the snare), and that mic setup is commonly referred to as the Glyn Johns setup for fairly obvious reasons.

The other person involved was Alan Parsons (the guy in the orange shirt and black tie in the rooftop photos), who was working as a tape operator, and would go on to engineer the Abbey Road album, and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon, along with the stellar albums with his own band the Alan Parsons Project, and other artists like Al Stewart. The practise of favouring large diaphragm condensers for guitars, and then mic'ing them from a distance, is evident on his work since the Let It Be and rooftop sessions, as Parsons also prefers the mics being pulled back from the amps anywhere from 9" to 18", as that gives you the sound of the amp and cabinet as a whole, rather than just a small section of the speaker cone. Parsons' work in that period is to me the gold standard of how recorded music can sound.

[michaelyosefjimenez]

this is insane. such effort and production quality for a niche topic and your growth as a creator (and as a mixer!) shows. can’t wait to see where else you’ll go

[Intedencefer]

The influence of bleed on the recording is so educational. The vocal mics basically double as room mics! I imagine the panning of these vocal mics also creates some width to the otherwise mono drum sound (you may have already said that in the video, so apologies if I'm repeating anything). We've all heard or read older engineers saying that bleed is your friend if wielded skillfully, and that having musicians playing together in the same space is essential to getting a vintage sound. It does lend a lot of presence and liveliness to the duller sounding close mics in your video for sure. It seems like the outdoor environment of a rooftop also circumvents a lot of the bass buildup and acoustic nastiness that can happen when recording indoors, which probably adds to the overall treble-y, sweetening quality of the mic bleed. It almost reminded me of the Dolby A trick in character.

[mikeconway]

The engineers on the original had spent their years or their apprenticeship mixing primarily to mono. They monitored on large studio speakers and on tiny transistor radio sized ones to ensure sound compatibility with whatever the customer listened on. Their awareness for removing any and all phasing mics cannot be underestimated. When all mics are working in harmony without cancellations or sloshing, it really doesn’t matter how much one instrument bleeds into another’s track. We take gates and plugins for granted these days but a live recording back then could still be perfected by a well pushed fader at the right time.
This was a great video. I’d like to have seen a decent post-mortem on the final recording that took so much effort to create.

[violao]

This sounds so DAMN GOOD! No, they don't "sound" like the Beatles, but they are a tough group and their musicianship just shines through. And great job AudioHaze on the mix! Brilliant! It makes me LOVE the Beatles even more. <3

[Studio-beats]

These are the best production videos out there! Great job🎉

[jimestooper]

Your first mistake was doubting the Beatles

[whemilesmusic]

Fantastic video! Love this series, and you really knocked it out of the park with this one.

1 detail I think you'd find interesting to note - and hopefully discovered after watching the Peter Jackson documentary - is the drum mic'ing technique on the original being the aptly named 'Glynn Johns' technique, named after the engineer who recorded all those sessions. The only difference between your setup and his is the floor-tom mic being used more as a 'side kit' mic than specifically for the tom itself, so is placed further from the drumhead and is pointed towards the snare (placed roughly the same distance to the snare drum as the centered overhead mic is to it). Would be cool to do a video on the technique and experiment with it - works great both in mono & stereo.

Either way, great video and great tribute to the original recording. Can't wait for the next one!

[carldubcats]

I am lost for words, it is and has been one of my favorite songs for some time and I loved that roof top gig. I have actually played on a rooftop with one of my bands and it is a lot of fun. Big up to everyone involved.

[diogodores]

Awesome to see you embrace bleeding in this recording. It’s such an awesome creative tool, people try so hard to isolate everything to try and make every sound perfect, but having some bleeding in the mics brings so much live to a recording. It kind of glues the different sounds together in a way that it’s hard to do if you isolate everything.

Great video! :)

[leesperry]

Fantastic video; first one of yours I've seen and a belter. It really brings home how lucky we were to have the Beatles' catalogue, and the videos of this performance. Their skill level, and that of their teams around them was truly mind blowing. You did an fab job with this recreation. Thanks!

[davidcamarda]

Guitar Player magazine asked Frank Zappa how come there wasn't loud audience sounds in some of his live recordings. Stunned at the complete ignorance of the interviewer, Zappa proceeded to explain what he thought would be common sense to, even the family dog. How loud would the audience have to be, 50 feet away from the microphone, to compete with a 50 watt amplifier 3" away from a microphone.

[diego_cabanillas]

Thanks for the video! Sounded great. Amazing quality videos as always. You are definitely up there with the best music Youtube creators

[FredMendesMusic]

Have been following your work for a while and it's so awesome to be along for the journey and learn so much. Your videos are truly inspiring, and helped me a lot with my production process. Thank you not only for the monumental work and effort but also for sharing it and inspiring us ! Cheers from Portugal ❤✌ !

[patriciolegett]

A couple of observations about the ambient noise you refer to on the NY rooftop: There was absolutely no chance of having air conditioner noise during January in London in 1969; there would be no airplanes either, given that the flight paths to Heathrow airport NEVER go across central London; not then, not now - so those aspects would not have been a problem. The wind obviously WAS a factor to consider and you resolved it very well indeed, congratulations! Overall you succeeded in your experiment. Also, George Martin had a significant hand in the production/mixing side of things, plus the extraordinary George Emerick handling the mikes - no small matter!