Thread by @garius

Weirdly, I actually know the answer to this. Knew it as soon as I heard it.

Pretty cert the Matrix version of White Rabbit is the same one that was on the soundtrack for The Game (1997), which was a very slightly up-mixed version from Jefferson's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow.

https://twitter.com/geofftech/status/1437354519990579210

I know this (or think I do) because I remember hearing it in an otherwise mediocre film as a 17 year old and it blew my mind so fucking much I bought the soundtrack on Cassette.

Good luck finding it today though.

Good news is that it really is only slightly different from the Surrealistic Pillow mono version. Which you can find on Spotify here, and is a critical part of my "Music for drunken night bus trips home from Central London" personal playlist.

open.spotify.com/track/0B06qo77…

You do want the mono version though. It's the slightly dirtier, deadened sound that makes it.

The stereo cleaned up version is empirically better, but it loses the claustrophobia element.

(Also you then get the proper Eric Clapton-esque random guitar ending bit on the Spotify version which always makes me laugh)

This is because it's a dump-and-run of the original single tape.

Always keep an eye out for these on Spotify on the end of old albums as they're pretty glorious when you find them. Because they've not been through whatever process a remaster has decided will be good. Human or AI

RANDOM MUSIC HISTORY SIDEBAR: Always worth remembering that good bands then and now master for the medium they primarily care about.

Brothers in Arms was the first album properly mastered for CD (and thus arguably generic digital) for example.

And this is why a lot of stuff today that's "generic pop", or by a clever artist/studio that realises their primary audience is "school kid on a bus" will actually sort the levels so they bias towards shitty cheap iPhone headphones or phone speakers.

No point being sniffy about that. Fair play to them. It's what artists have always done. The tech and medium changes, the goal doesn't. I always find that utterly fascinating.

FINAL SIDEBAR: White Rabbit is doubly fascinating as a song because it's a rare example of a 'pre-trailerised' track. i.e. one that, in it's original recording, actually hits all the emotional beats the studios now try to artificially create in Trailer Covers.

And yes. Trailer Covers is both a genre and an actual industry now. It's about taking a familiar song and slowing it right down so people hook on the lyrics and pay attention as they're intrigued by the musical shifts - and thus focus on (and share) the trailer too.

Don't believe me?

Sony Music have a whole department dedicated to creating them. variety.com/2021/artisans/…!

Why yes, "why does music sound different across different platforms/devices I own?" was indeed one of those (white) rabbit holes I fell down at one point in my life.

UPDATE: Really good point from a former studio engineer here and with hindsight I completely agree.

It's likely the same idea producing (in audio terms) the same result, the same way (fiddling with the EQ compression):

https://twitter.com/downpressor/status/1437369873282187271

Also apologies to any studio engineers if I've critically mangled my terminology up thread.

This was just a mind dump of things I know. And drinking is normally involved in the process of knowing things. This results in critical vocabulary not being retained. Just the fun bits.

This whole thread brought to you by every pissed convo I've had with a sound engineer in Bradleys or The Ship.

If you're a sound engineer in Soho who likes being pissed and telling stories, let's chat. If we don't already. Maybe we did and I don't remember. Sorry. I was pissed.