The Beatles Remastered

[LICORNE]

From USA today.

This is a remastering not a remixing.

By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
You say you want a revelation?
Listen to the intensified punch of Come Together, the majestic breadth of The Long and Winding Road, the modern sheen on Love Me Do and the renewed thrust in I Am the Walrus.


WEIGH IN: Choose your favorite Beatles design
PHOTOS: A gallery of Fab Four album covers

The Beatles catalog, digitally remastered for the first time, is arriving in stores Sept. 9 amid a joyful noise from fans.

Audiophiles have long lamented the thin, shrill results of the music's 1987 transfer to CD, flaws magnified by advances in digital technology that enriched the recordings of peers with repeated remastering rounds.

"Even people listening on lower-quality ear buds and MP3s will hear a drastic jump in quality," says Beatles historian Matt Hurwitz, who heard a sampling of the new tracks. "We're hearing something a lot closer to the stereo and mono mixes produced in the '60s. This is the way The Beatles heard it."

Though frustrating for fans, the wait has heightened drama and value, says Beatles scholar Martin Lewis.

"Fans chomping at the bit felt that Apple was painfully slow responding to demand," he says. "But at least The Beatles haven't been overly repackaged like Elvis and The Who."

The collection includes 14 stereo albums, sold individually or in a box set, each with original U.K. vinyl track listings, artwork and liner notes, plus archival photos and added historical and recording notes. New QuickTime mini-documentaries are included in each CD except Past Masters, which combines the two 1988 single volumes into one set.

The Beatles in Mono, a box catering to completists, gathers 10 mono albums and two discs of mono masters. (Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be are missing because they were recorded in stereo.) Monos won't be sold separately, and EMI has no plans to press more mono boxes when the first run sells out.

"That's smart, because people who want the mono mixes want all of them," Hurwitz says. "It's for hard-core fans like me who want to understand what it all sounded like back then. In 1963, kids didn't have stereos. That's why (producer) George Martin felt so strongly about releasing those (early) albums in mono. We're finally getting to hear the true excitement of those recordings."

Among the mono treats: Paul McCartney's vamping coda on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise), audible only on vinyl until now. And because bass was often suppressed on vinyl to prevent phonograph needles from jumping, expect more oomph from McCartney's Hofner.

The upgraded catalog "leaves the library pure," Hurwitz says. "It's now the definitive catalog, as close to the masters as technically possible."

The long and winding road to 09/09/09 began four years ago when Abbey Road engineers in London got the green light to transfer The Beatles tunes from analog tape to digital.

Though the original high-quality tapes showed no deterioration, the splicing-tape glue had dried up, causing segments to separate.

"It was slightly disconcerting on the first rewind of Please Please Me when the edits started coming apart," says Guy Massey, the project's senior recording engineer, during a playback session of remaster excerpts at Capitol Records.

Once tracks were ported one by one to digital files, engineers debated the extent of their scouring. Vocal pops, drop-outs, electrical clicks and bad edits were erased where possible.

"Some people argue that things like that should stay," says project coordinator Allan Rouse. "I don't agree. It's painful to listen to, and you would have dealt with it if you'd had the technology in the '60s. We've repaired those things to sound more pleasing."

Certain organic sounds, however, like Ringo Starr's creaky bass drum pedal on 1963's All I've Got to Do, stayed.

"In the piano chord at the end of A Day in the Life, you hear a squeaky chair," Massey says. "The Beatles probably would have removed it if they'd had the wherewithal. Unless they detracted from the performance, we've left things like that intact because they've become part of history."

Defying a trend toward excess, the team made modest use of "limiting," which shrinks dynamic range to make music sound louder. Only five of the 525 minutes of Beatles music was subjected to de-noising technology, used to reduce tape hiss.

Though the enhancements are subtle, fans will notice brighter, warmer sound and plenty of unearthed details. Engineers took greater liberties with the stereos than the monos.

"For the stereos, we haven't presented the original master tapes as they were, because we felt we could improve them," Massey says. "The monos are more representative of the master tapes. We've presented them in the best possible light."

Remastering significantly boosted sound quality, particularly on Revolver and The Beatles (aka the White Album). Remixing, the manipulation of separate tracks to alter the placement of vocals and instrumentation, could have yielded more dramatic results, but Apple has yet to green-light a catalog remix.

"That's the only thing that would make a massive difference," says Rouse, acknowledging that while some fans yearn for a full remix, purists regard it as retouching the Mona Lisa. "So far, some 120 Beatles songs have been remixed in 5.1 stereo for DVD, and they're great alternatives, but not replacements."

Fans who cry "revisionism" should seek out their old records or the mono set, McCartney says. "It's not like the originals have gone away. If you want what we consider an improvement, this is it, the stereo CDs. Our guys worked hard to get it faithful to the original."

John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, anticipates few objections to the retooled tunes, particularly since many consumers will be newbies.

"These songs aren't just old songs," she says. "They're new, too, because many people haven't listened to The Beatles yet."

...........

[Panomaniac]

I've heard them and compared them to the 1987 versions. Well, Abbey Road and Let It Be, anyway. The new ones are better.

Not over compressed, but a little more than the 80's versions. Tracks seem about 2~3db hotter on the 2009 remasters. That may simply be because there is more bass.
Overall they sound smoother, fuller and with better detail. The old masters can be shrill at times. Not the new ones.

Very pleased with the new versions - even if they do sound more "modern." Sometimes that's a good thing.

[MikeInNH]

Just what I need.

Everytime there's anything on the news about the Beatles...our street sign gets stolen. I live in Abbey Road. Our town bought them in bulk...because when one sign gets stolen...it's up within 2 days. Been living there for 10 years....sign has been stolen at least 30 times.

[Old Guy]

I have some not good feelings about this....

The old originals, warts and all, were what it sounded like.

Regardless of improving the product,you are rewriting history. And making it sound more "modern" doesn't appeal to me, though it will make money.

I kinda view it in the same vein as colorizing the classics.

[Panomaniac]

It's not that bad, really.
The 1980s CDs were known to sound worse than the early, good vinyl pressings.
The 2009 remasters are supposed to be faithful to the original good pressings. Or so they say.
And they are not all the different from the 80s version. Really, there have been far worse remasters.

AND - you can get them in mono. That's how all the early albums were mixed.

The new version actually sounds a bit more laid back than the old. Like vinyl vs CD.
By why not hear for yourself? Buy or borrow one and listen.

[LICORNE]

In 1987 the analogue to digital converter was still at 16 bit 44 khz .To day you have Pro tools at 24 bit 192 KHZ converters. The new remastered tapes on CD sound like the originals with all the details you could hear on original vinyls and more. Like squeaky drum pedal, John and Paul whispering between takes. As a matter of fact you gain much more in terms of base and dynamic range.

The re mastering not modification is like the restoration of the sixteenth chapel.

..........................................

[Earl K]

George & Giles Martin(s) remastering (& remixing work ) of Beatles songs for the album, opened my ears to the locked up resolution within those old master tapes .

If the new remasters are anything like this brilliant concept album ( made for Quebecs' equally brilliant "Cirque du Soleil" ) , I'll be buying a box set ( once Costco gets them in ) .

>< cheers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(The_Beatles_album)

[Steve Mac]

Being a Beatles fan...and being that my turntable's been put away while more important things got in the way I refused to buy replacements for the vinyl I amassed. Tonight a friend popped in with Abbey Road remastered. First I gotta say many years ago my Dad had a friend with McIntosh amps....altec 604E's...probably a Thorens turntable...well you get the picture. He had the Revolver album in pristine vinyl glory. I remember being astounded at the warmth and quality of the playback. Needless to say the "old" Revolver CD sounds so astonishingly terrible in comparison...well this was when I lost my love for buying Beatles CDs. OTOH...some early tracks like "And I love Her" sound pretty wonderful even on the original CD.

Well I listened to the entire Abbey Road remastered CD tonight and it is a vast improvement over my original CD(I did buy a few). Time will tell if this vast catalog contains....defects?...or bad things...I just cannot say without listening to them all.

What I can say is there is a clarity that's easily heard and I hear no strange artistic liberties on first listen...it sounds....correct! Listen for yourself!

What this means is that I will have NO problem springing for the stereo box set.
I think anyone who is a fan and is an audiophile of sorts will benefit from this release. I just wish they would have done it right the first time.

[Steve Mac]

In 1987 the analogue to digital converter was still at 16 bit 44 khz .To day you have Pro tools at 24 bit 192 KHZ converters. The new remastered tapes on CD sound like the originals with all the details you could hear on original vinyls and more. Like squeaky drum pedal, John and Paul whispering between takes. As a matter of fact you gain much more in terms of base and dynamic range.

The re mastering not modification is like the restoration of the sixteenth chapel.

..........................................

I read somewhere on the net they used Prism A2D converters to spool the tracks off of the original tapes. I might have missed it, but I do not know if they used Pro Tools to do the remastering...it would be interesting to know which plug ins or outboard processing was utilized during the process...maybe they'll sell that book one day.

[mah]

It's amazing how the version first heard sets up an expectation for repeat listenings to be the same. The remastered versions are a bit like a burger chain changing the bun on your favorite burger. The substance is there but the expectation has been challenged. Some will stop buying the burger, others will be happy to try it again and come to like it.
I took the time to borrow and listen to the Love CD and the Past Masters Remastered CDs. The Love content was somewhat unnerving and kept aggravating my expectations of what I 'should' be hearing. This listening was not very enjoyable. The Past Masters CD was very nice but throughout I felt the sound balance was out of whack.
Of course having grown up with the music of the beatles from the very beginning I am not surprised by my impressions. With further listening I will probably be more comfortable with the remastering. I can't reliably say the same about the Love CD.
One comment I read said the Remastered catalogue is aimed at 'newbies' who have a more modern expectation of recorded music and 'diehard' Beatles fans who will welcome such material.

Cheers, Marshall.