Sexy Sadie | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

@Dark Overlord said (in another thread):

Ron Nasty said
He’s nearer than you, Necko, even though you’re not wrong.

They recorded takes 1-21 on 19 July. Remaking it on the 24th, they recorded takes 25-47. A second remake on the 13 August (the day after the Not Guilty [take 102]) saw them starting with take 100 through to take 107, reduction mixes taking it to take 111. After further overdubs and reduction mixes on 21 August, it reached take 117.

There are no takes 22-24 or 48-99 though, meaning there are 63 takes (some of which are reduction mixes).  

Why would a reduction mix count as a take, that makes no sense. Also, where did 22, 23, 24, and 48-99 go, they couldn’t’ve possibly done that many reduction mixes.

Responding in a more appropriate thread.

I shall take your latter question as it has the easiest answer.

Takes 22-24 and 48-99 didn’t go anywhere. There never were.

When The Beatles re-made songs, they often rounded up the last take number to a 5 or 0 on the first take of the re-make.

Take 21 was the last take of the first version. When they decided it needed a re-make, the first take of the re-make was labelled take 25. The day before they went for a second re-make, George’s Not Guilty  had reached take 102, so it’s likely that they were having a bit of a laugh about that by starting the second re-make at take 100.

Now, why where tape reduction mixes given take numbers?

The first thing to remember about take numbers is that their main purpose is as an index of the work done on a song, they are so things can be identified and found easily. A stack of tapes with nothing more than Sexy Sadie written on every box would have them spend hours trying to find the one they were after.

When they were bouncing down to free up tracks for overdubs, they were creating the mix onto which the overdubs would be made, creating a new backing track to be recorded on. It is no longer the same as the take it was made from because, say, four tracks all used on the original, while only two used, with two free for overdubs, on the new version.

You can’t call the version with two free tracks the same as the version with no free tracks.

Important decisions were also made at the time of reductions, as balances between certain instruments you wouldn’t be able to change much again. So, often more than one was done to get the soundscape they would continue with exactly right, as it would be what they were stuck with.

So, take 107 was given four different reduction mixes at the end of the session for them to choose which would be overdubbed from, each given a take number (takes 108-111) to identify them. Though, of course, Beatles being Beatles, when the day arrived for the overdubs, the first thing they did was create a fifth reduction!