VH 1 secretly remixed by Donn Landee! Asst. engineer Peggy Mccreary Interview

[James in New York]

Premiered 53 minutes ago

Van Halen asst. engineer Peggy Mccreary shares a bombshell story of how Van Halen 1 was remixed by Donn Landee without Ted Templeman or anyone in the band knowing till NOW!

The version we hear today was actually the remix!

Full Interview available 2/28/21

[Raldo]

Wonder what the mix sounded like beforehand. Interesting story.

[James in New York]

Wonder what the mix sounded like beforehand. Interesting story.

Yes, looking forward to seeing the full interview tomorrow!

[right-here-i-say]

This is intriguing to say the least. But not sure if possible. Ted would know there was changes unless they are very minimal.

I still say Ted is the 3rd most important member of VH (behind Ed/Dave). He nailed the first 6 and 4UCK. Pretty sure Ed always said he sped up the process which if we listen to VH3 that strategy would have been needed.

[Dave's Dreidel]

I really doubt that Donn Landee remixed VH1 without Ted's knowledge.

[ziggysmalls]

Who knows. Donn may have said Ted didn't know because he wanted to make it sound like he was going rogue. I would imagine lot of reefer was smoked back then and its been almost 50 years. Plus when people get older they start taking credit. Now I will say her stating how she has a funny comment to say off camera kind of tells me they did remix it. Whether on Ted's orders or not. Maybe an exec heard it and said "remix it Ted" Ted's mix my have been the one they heard so Ted tells Don "remix it and lets see if they can tell a difference"

Donn and Eddie were going against Ted a few albums later so who knows. Maybe Donn kind of goes against the rules

[VH1986]

Maybe Ted knew Donn remixed and liked his mix better so he didn't say anything. Who knows, but it's fun to have some new revelation to talk about that isn't negative.

[James in New York]

More tomorrow, then hopefully they talk to Don or Ted...

[JUNGLE DRUMMER]

This is intriguing to say the least. But not sure if possible. Ted would know there was changes unless they are very minimal.

I still say Ted is the 3rd most important member of VH (behind Ed/Dave). He nailed the first 6 and 4UCK. Pretty sure Ed always said he sped up the process which if we listen to VH3 that strategy would have been needed.

Uhh no. Ted was important, but you still need a great band to produce the results he got. The producer is not more important than Al and Mike. C'mon.

[Dave's Dreidel]

If you read the book about Templeman, which Ted fully participated in, then this comes across as clearly false.

Ted and Donn's relationship was one in which if Donn wanted something redone, he would simply have said to Ted "let's remix this", not gone behind his back.

Their working rhythm was to keep sending remixes back and forth to each other until they agreed on what worked.

The more I think about it, the more total rubbish I think it is.

[mike zack]

Is Donn still alive? We need an interview from him. He was tight with Ed for a while.

[T.B.]

Stuff like this with engineers and producers producing different mixes for an album is far more common than most people think. Even back in the 60's and 70's, there was often multiple mixes of an album done for different formats like record, cassette, 8 track, radio, etc. Sometimes several different mixes are produced for the artist and record label to choose which one they prefer. One little example is the promo single for Secrets off Diver Down has two slightly different mixes, one for mono and one for stereo.

Although the rest of the story needs to be heard, it honestly sounds like Donn took the time over a weekend to do an album mix on his own and perhaps some members of the band came in and did a few overdubs to polish the finished product and Ted essentially signed off on it.

And somewhat related, wasn't Landee the guy who had some sort of drug-fueled episode at 5150 where he confiscated the multi-track masters for "1984" and locked himself in a room threatening to destroy the tapes and had to be coerced to give up the tapes? Or was that another engineer?

[Dave's Dreidel]

Stuff like this with engineers and producers producing different mixes for an album is far more common than most people think. Even back in the 60's and 70's, there was often multiple mixes of an album done for different formats like record, cassette, 8 track, radio, etc. Sometimes several different mixes are produced for the artist and record label to choose which one they prefer. One little example is the promo single for Secrets off Diver Down has two slightly different mixes, one for mono and one for stereo.

Although the rest of the story needs to be heard, it honestly sounds like Donn took the time over a weekend to do an album mix on his own and perhaps some members of the band came in and did a few overdubs to polish the finished product and Ted essentially signed off on it.

And somewhat related, wasn't Landee the guy who had some sort of drug-fueled episode at 5150 where he confiscated the multi-track masters for "1984" and locked himself in a room threatening to destroy the tapes and had to be coerced to give up the tapes? Or was that another engineer?

That was Landee, but that stuff didn't start happening until Fair Warning and 1984, I think Diver Down was recorded too quickly for that kind of crap to be going on.

But the story is about the mixing of VH1, which Greg Renoff goes into great detail about, with Ted's involvement, and the interview is not Landee himself either. My bullshit meter on this story is about 99.99%.

If the story was on Fair Warning, then yeah, I'd believe it.

[I Coulda Hada VH]

No matter what the actual truth is, the final mix that was ultimately released on VHI aka the greatest rock & roll album ever recorded is, wait for it ... straight up ( . Y . )

[Little Dreamer]

Actually in Ted's book, what he explains is how much he trusted Donn. It was not a big deal for Donn to go in a mix stuff by himself. By that time, they'd already done many records together and functioned as a unit, trusting each other 100%. Donn would probably call up Ted and say "I'm gonna stay longer to try to improve the mix," and Ted would be totally ok with it.

Also Ted asked WB to give Donn points on the record, which not all engineers get. They were really tight.