Beatles Studio Albums Remastered

[Abby Normal]

So, while I've been ripping our CDs to FLAC I got to my wife's Beatles collection (I do like them, too--but not quite enough to have bought any of these myself) and I found that her Abbey Road is pretty much unreadable. I did I search and found out that they are releasing stereo remasters of all studio albums (including "Past Masters") and a boxed set of these (14 albums + various bonus features such as a DVD with all mini-documentaries, etc). In addition, they are releasing ONLY a boxed set of MONO remasters--which is, of course, very exciting to Beatles afficianados because generally the artists nor their primary mixing engineer (George Martin) participated in the stereo mixes. The mono mixes was their focus and this is how many Beatles fans heard the music.

So I've heard...

My wife and I are not old enough to have experienced this. Is anyone here planning on getting the mono boxed set and do you think it is worth getting it eventually? It's due for release September 9 and the current price is still a little out there for me--but I'd like to hear some thoughts about not just the mono remasters but the stereo remasters, too.

By the way--this is not a thread for "I'm not a Beatles fan" comments--those comments are fine, but only if you have something more substantial to say to contribute to the intent of this topic.

Thanks.

[Avrin]

Despite all promises and oaths, Mono Masters CD1 from "The Beatles in Mono" box set is compressed. The other twelve (including its twin Mono Masters CD2) are not. The stereo box is compressed in its entirety, and all Beatles intimacy and dynamics are lost.

Looks like I'm not buying any of these remasters.

[rayzray]

Despite all promises and oaths, Mono Masters CD1 from "The Beatles in Mono" box set is compressed. The other twelve (including its twin Mono Masters CD2) are not. The stereo box is compressed in its entirety, and all Beatles intimacy and dynamics are lost.

Looks like I'm not buying any of these remasters.

i sent a copy of you post to one of my former piano students who is pretty much "into" the Beatles -

he sent this back to me to paste here for you to read -

((Hi Ray,

I don't read that board, but please copy/paste this response:

-----

This is not correct. There are a few things:

1. The stereo set was *not* compressed in its entirety. There are some tracks

to which no compression was applied, and others where compression was only

applied to one channel (typically, the one with the most transients). In

general, the amount of compression/limiting typically resulted in a volume

boost in the range of 1db-3db. Less than 1.5db of compression gain in not

audible. There are a couple of issues with the stereo set, but the compression

isn't a big one.

2. There was no compression applied to the Mono set. None. You can try to

determine this through comparisons with other masterings or vinyl pressings,

but you will get incorrect results. Those masterings will may appear to have

higher transients in some instances due to the amount of EQ that was applied

at the frequencies dominant in the transients. EQ was not (as far as I know)

applied to the Mono set. These were done flat.

3. As a final consideration, keep in mind that the original mixes (especially

the mono mixes) were heavily compressed and limited. It many cases, the

limiting was rather extreme. Revolver is a good example of this. If they

applied 1db-3dbs of further compression, it would be virtually unnoticeable,

as all of the peaks were already squashed. It is the same as bein upset that

somebody drew on your blue wall with a blue crayon of the same shade. ))

[ozpeter]

I've only heard bits on the net and the radio, but the vocals sound horribly 'exposed' to me - I'm afraid the digital restoration process has not been kind to the original performances. I was all set to buy the box set (stereo) but I'll pass, and just replay them in my head as required.

[Avrin]

1. Compression was applied to the stereo set in its entirety. On most tracks it resulted in "brickwalling" the signal level, while others still have some headroom left. In any case, the signal is distorted (any amount of compression = distortion) throughout the entire stereo set.

2. Compression was applied to Mono Masters CD1 in the mono boxset with the same result as above. Other mono CDs are not compressed. Original Stereo Mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul in the mono box are not compressed.

3. Some of the original mixes certainly had some analogue compression, at least on some instruments. But that was how the producer and the group intended the music to sound. The mixes still had enough headroom, and sounded the way they should. In no way was there any artificial "brickwalling", which we have now, and which makes the music scream at you. So vocals and many subtle sounds are no longer subtle.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Avrin

[Avrin]

Currently listening to the version of "Beatles 1" made directly from original master tapes w/o any remastering and not available officially. This is the way Beatles always sounded and should continue to. Even the pseudo-stereo version of "From Me To You" kicks ass.

And the only version of studio albums I would recommend is Dr.Ebbetts 2008 Upgrade bootleg re-release sourced from MFSL vinyls. Though some may prefer his release of "The Blue Box".

Edited September 17, 2009 by Avrin

[rayzray]

Currently listening to the version of "Beatles 1" made directly from original master tapes w/o any remastering and not available officially. This is the way Beatles always sounded and should continue to. Even the pseudo-stereo version of "From Me To You" kicks ass.

And the only version of studio albums I would recommend is Dr.Ebbetts 2008 Upgrade bootleg re-release sourced from MFSL vinyls. Though some may prefer his release of "The Blue Box".

yes- i have a copy of Dr Ebbetts CD - don't know which one - but i used to LOVE to listen to his re-masters of the Beatles -

i highly recommend his works - too -

[Avrin]

Dr. Ebbetts never makes any remasters. He only makes true transfers from vinyl to CD, preserving as much of the original quality as possible during such transfers. The only actual changes he makes is removing some clicks here and there, or changing levels a bit.

[rayzray]

Dr. Ebbetts never makes any remasters. He only makes true transfers from vinyl to CD, preserving as much of the original quality as possible during such transfers. The only actual changes he makes is removing some clicks here and there, or changing levels a bit.

oh - i though he went to the masters - that's cool that he takes they from the vynyls - maybe that's why they sound fooooo good -

i'll have to find the CD and listen to it again -

[Stuge]

well ,then what choice do we have other than buying out these cd's ?

[Avrin]

You may either contact Dr. Ebbetts in some way - he mails his issues on a subscription basis (the 2008 Beatles Upgrades were mailed for free to those who had earlier received his previous issues of the MFSL Beatles albums, which were already much better than anything you may ever see on a CD, the only exception being the semi-official 1983 Toshiba-EMI "Black Triangle" CD issue of Abbey Road), or look for these issues on P2P networks.

[Hungerdunger]

Anyone who's been following this topic may find this programme interesting; it's a two hour special looking at George Martin's production of the Beatles' albums, as well as explanations of how the originals have been remastered. You can find it on the newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.radio.bbc. The programme was posted in 2 parts on 8 September, or find it by searching for "producers".

I must admit, that while I realised that these recordings were ahead of their time, I didn't realise just how cutting-edge they were when you consider how basic the equipment was which they had at their disposal.

[Avrin]

Even basic equipment may be used to produce much better quality recordings than what is being produced now using all the cutting-edge "technologies" to satisfy the marketing department. Could you imagine Japanese CD releases of classical music or Pink Floyd with serious clipping distortion some 20 years ago? Now such releases are the new norm, and more than 90% of new albums and remasters are released like that. Welcome to the 21st Century!

This is near the end of the first track on the 2004 Japanese remaster of Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut":

You can easily see that the part was clipped first, and then had its level decreased by slightly more than 1dB. And all that was done at a sampling frequency different from 44,1 kHz. Then the material was converted to 44,1 kHz without proper filters, killing whatever there was left of quality. And this is definitely not the worst example of a modern remaster.

The same portion from the original perfectly sounding Japanese release:

Edited September 21, 2009 by Avrin

[Hungerdunger]

Even basic equipment may be used to produce much better quality recordings than what is being produced now using all the cutting-edge "technologies" to satisfy the marketing department.

I agree with you, but what I was getting at was the sheer inventiveness needed to come up with unusual sounds, and to get so many "layers" of sound using only a four-track machine.

[Avrin]

Exactly. And The Beatles and Sir George Martin actually invented a lot of effects and technologies later used by other musicians and producers.

[Stuge]

Exactly. And The Beatles and Sir George Martin actually invented a lot of effects and technologies later used by other musicians and producers.

who is this Dr. Ebbetts,arvin ??

Can you guide me right direction?

[Avrin]

I don't know who this person is. Rumor is that he is a needle-dropper from Japan with excellent equipment and great knowledge and experience and access to vinyl releases in pristine condition.

[LonelyMachines]

I've got the Mono set, and I've been comparing it with the original CD's, as well as a few Mobile Fidelity CD's and LP's. I've also got some bootleg transfers that were quite well done. The biggest improvements are in the sound of the rhythm section. In many cases, the harmony vocals sound much better balanced in the mix. Overall, the brittleness that characterized most previous masters is mostly absent.

Across the board, the new mono masters are the best I've heard. Bear in mind, this stuff was recorded 40 years ago, with inferior condition, on tape, and with the standards of the time, which included compression. The "loudness wars" have been going on since the 1950's.

Remember, if you're getting these off iTunes, Zune or whatever, that the files are being compressed. Not a good point of reference.

[Avrin]

The mono box (excluding Mono Masters CD1) is remastered properly.

And the compression used in 1950's is almost nothing, compared to what is used now. It was done in analog, and never caused such a distortion as is common now. Just look at the Pink Floyd pictures above. Or enjoy a new one:

This is "Billie Jean" from the 2001 Special Edition of "Thriller". Distortion is perfectly audible. It's beyond me why they've done this to an album that had been recorded perfectly.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Avrin

[Avrin]

BTW, has anyone actually tried putting "Her Majesty" into its original place between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam"? It sounds perfectly at home there, no matter what Paul McCartney says.

Simply inserting the track between the two others may not work - you may need to do a more precise waveform insertion in Adobe Audition. The original place where the tape is spliced can be easily seen.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Avrin

[rayzray]

BTW, has anyone actually tried putting "Her Majesty" into its original place between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam"? It sounds perfectly at home there, no matter what Paul McCartney says.

Simply inserting the track between the two others may not work - you may need to do a more precise waveform insertion in Adobe Audition. The original place where the tape is spliced can be easily seen.

gee - this would be right up my ally - it's what i do best - must chart this down and give it a try !!

"Mean Mr Mustard" > Her Majesty" > "Polythene Pam" !!!!

[Avrin]

A more thorough analysis revealed [unneeded] compression on several tracks of Mono Masters CD2.

So, for those who want to get the best sounding collection of The Beatles recordings on CD, which is true to the spirit of the group, who mixed most of their albums in Mono (with Stereo releases only being a commercial by-product, except for the last three albums), we have the following option:

1. Buy the Mono Box, and dump both Mono Masters CDs.

2. Buy the last five CDs of the "Classic" non-remastered collection ("Yellow Submarine", "Abbey Road", "Let It Be", "Past Masters Volume One", and "Past Masters Volume Two"), while they are still available.

And don't tell be about the Black Triangle release of "Abbey Road" - you either already have it, or never will, and no Beatles CD will ever sound better.

Edited October 28, 2009 by Avrin

[Avrin]

As it turns out, the limited 30,000-copy release of the Beatles Stereo Remasters on an apple-shaped USB-drive contains the new stereo remasters in 44.1 kHz/24-bit quality. That is, supposedly better than CD. The problem with these is that they are also compressed. And why anyone may need compression on a 24-bit media is beyond me.

[Avrin]

Oh, man, the 24-bit version is better than the Stereo CD box. Just burned it to two DVD-Audio discs. Even compression doesn't kill the music. Low-level detail and shades of sound are excellent! Vinyl is finally dead. If it were not for compression, the release would be a sonic paradise.

[BIGHMW]

I have the 1987 CD master of Abbey Road, and also the 1993 issues of both 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, and I think that they are just perfect the way they are, WTH is it with bands/record companies constantly remastering the recordings of albums every 3-4 years worth???? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! I can't believe that The Beatles have now gotten themselves into the hell otherwise known as the "loudness wars".

Right now, John Lennon and George Harrison (R.I.P. to both you are dearly missed) are rolling over in their respective graves over all of this garbage, LEAVE THE SOUND THE WAY IT WAS INTENDED TO BE!!!

[Avrin]

The Beatles catalog had never been officially released on CD in decent quality (the only exception being the semi-official 1983 Toshiba Black Triangle issue of "Abbey Road" that was recalled soon after the release because of publishing rights not having been determined yet). The 1987 issues are not a state-of-the-art transfer. And there weren't any other serious releases before 09/09/09. Dr. Ebbetts's bootlegs made from vinyls are excellent, but still not sourced from the original tapes.

While the stereo 09/09/09 remasters are a victim of the loudness wars (the mono remasters aren't, with the exception of the new "Mono Masters" discs), the end result is not as horrible as one may expect, especially in the 24-bit format. There isn't any clipping, and only some peaks are compressed by a few dB. Some quieter songs are not affected at all, and they actually sound better because of the higher resolution made possible by the level increase (the higher the level, the more bits are used to encode the signal).

Edited January 12, 2010 by Avrin

[Avrin]

Just discovered a funny thing about the Stereo USB. Its built-in application for playing music/viewing videos/artwork, plays music from the MP3 folder, and with gaps! And that despite the MP3s being encoded by LAME and containing all information required to decode them to a gapless stream (you may try that manually - the MP3s decompressed by LAME.EXE make a perfectly gapless set of WAVs).

Edited January 12, 2010 by Avrin

[Avrin]

Finally put the 24 bit remasters onto Hi-MD, by directly feeding 24-bit WAV files decompressed from FLAC to SonicStage and converting them to ATRAC3plus @352 kbit/s. The stuff absolutely kicks ass on my NH600 via a HiFi system. Even the DVD-Audio version I've made earlier is not much better.

Edited February 6, 2010 by Avrin