I Want To Hold Your Hand (BDJ Remix)

By the time I Want To Hold Your Hand was recorded (October 1963), EMI had installed 4-track recorders at Abbey Road. The results are immediately audible: guitars are double tracked amd distributed over different tracks.The Single was - of course - released in glorious mono. Since I Want To Hold Your hand was not included on With The Beatles, no stereo version was released in the UK. it features on a Capitol album in the US in stereo, but this sounds like 'fake stereo' to me (highs on the right, lows on the left).A Stereo mix had been by George Martin on 21 October 1963: this version was released in Australia in 1963, and true to the then current tradition: vocals on the right, all the instruments on the left.Thanks to the fact that I Want To Hold Your Hand was recorded on 4-track, it was possible to produce different stereo versions; on 8 June 1965 Norman Smith made a new remix, with the vocals placed in the centre. It was never used. For the UK release 'Collection Of Beatles Oldies' another stereo remix ws made on November 7th 1966. The same version is found on the Past Masters and Remasters releases. In this latest version, the vocals are centered, drums + bass on the left, solo guitar on the right. A clear improvement over te 1963 mix, but.... still sounding awkward: the vocals come in rather abruptly, and drums + bass are only mixed in the left channel.Is it possible to centre the vocals, drums and bass, and leave the guitars separated ? Only in BDJ studios, where the state of the art technology (3-D Spectral Extractor) churned away for quite a while to achieve this feat. But it's worth it, since the stereo picture is now more natural, and drums and bass more powerful than ever heard before.