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Remastering The Beatles

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URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=19549
Printed Date: November 24 2024 at 00:55
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Topic: Remastering The Beatles
Posted By: chopper
Subject: Remastering The Beatles
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 12:49
This follows on from my review of the Yellow Submarine songtrack ( http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=70307 - http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=70307 ) . The songs on this CD have been either tidied (a mistake in the double tracking of McCartney's vocal at the start of the first verse of "Eleanor Rigby" has been removed), enhanced (the vocals at the beginning of "All you need is love") or altered (Lennon's repetitions in the last verse of "Yellow Submarine" start after the first line instead of the second).
I'm personally not in favour of removing all the glitches and errors from Beatles records as, for me, that's part of their attraction - to what extent do you think The Beatles' (or indeed any other band's) old recordings should be remastered or altered?



Replies:
Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 12:56
Overall, i found that the current Cds version are bad, like for PF. They should give the job to Bob Ludwig.
He's the man!



Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 12:56

I like to hear old recordings as they were.

I'm no authority on The Beatles, but my friends father has nost of their albums - original releases on vinyl - he's looked after them well, and they sound fantastic! In fact MY vinyl of Sgt Pepper sounds better IMO than my CD..



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Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy!


Posted By: PROGMAN
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 12:57
remaster it but don't alter anything, just improve the sound, not change any recording!!

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CYMRU AM BYTH


Posted By: PROGMAN
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 12:57
Sometimes Vinyl is better!!

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CYMRU AM BYTH


Posted By: PROGMAN
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 12:59
I wish Ozzy would realise you can't impriove the music by having drums and bass guitars re-recorded, very shameful Ozzy Osbourne!!

AVOID THESE:

Blizzard of Ozz (2002 remaster)
Diary of a Madman (2002 remaster)

just get the original 1980 or remastered 1995 versions!!


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CYMRU AM BYTH


Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 13:01
Weren't the Beatles albums delayed for a long time before being released on CD (cf. advent of commercial CDs) - didn't this have to have Michael Jackson's approval, as owner of the songs' copyright?????? Every one was remastered as far as I remember too?


Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 13:01
 move on chopper god  enuff allready with the beatles


Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 13:05
Originally posted by yankeerose yankeerose wrote:

 move on chopper god  enuff allready with the beatles

If you're so fed up with Beatles threads, why do you keep reading and posting in them? Anyway, if you read it properly, this was intended to kick off a discussion about remastering any band's old recordings.


Posted By: lunaticviolist
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 13:18
Originally posted by PROGMAN PROGMAN wrote:

remaster it but don't alter anything, just improve the sound, not change any recording!!

I agree.  George Martin was great, and all of the old vinyls sound fine, but the CDs don't sound so good.  And the tracklists even have typos (White Album).


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Posted By: Duncan
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 13:27
Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

The songs on this CD have been either tidied (a mistake in the double tracking of McCartney's vocal at the start of the first verse of "Eleanor Rigby" has been removed), enhanced (the vocals at the beginning of "All you need is love") or altered (Lennon's repetitions in the last verse of "Yellow Submarine" start after the first line instead of the second).


God knows what the reasoning is behind this kind of thing. "Uh oh, The Beatles' reputation will be in tatters if consumers, on purchasing this cash-in compilation, are subjected to the same minute imperfections they grew up listening to!"

I haven't heard a Beatles CD release with sound I actively object to, though


Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 14:13

Originally posted by PROGMAN PROGMAN wrote:

I wish Ozzy would realise you can't impriove the music by having drums and bass guitars re-recorded, very shameful Ozzy Osbourne!!

AVOID THESE:

Blizzard of Ozz (2002 remaster)
Diary of a Madman (2002 remaster)

just get the original 1980 or remastered 1995 versions!!

Thats a shame he did that. I like the original sound on those Ozzy albums. Tommy Aldridge's drums sound brilliant on 'Diary of a Madman'



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Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy!


Posted By: salmacis
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 15:37

Yeah that whole Ozzy debacle is an absolute disgrace....the older versions have sadly been deleted now though I believe, so newer fans will hear those synthetic versions instead.

As for The Beatles and remastering? I definitely think the albums need remastering and upgrading, but if there's one thing I hate it's revisionism/remixing when it's not required. If it's not broke, why fix it?



Posted By: soundspectrum
Date Posted: February 27 2006 at 15:47
holy sh*t...i didnt think it was true.....thats so screwed up. Ozzy....that sucks man.


Posted By: PROGMAN
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 05:31

Originally posted by soundspectrum soundspectrum wrote:

holy sh*t...i didnt think it was true.....thats so screwed up. Ozzy....that sucks man.

Lee Kerslake and Bob Daisley's roles were replaced by Mike Bordin (ex Faith No More) and Rob Trujillo (Metallica).

The 2 albums have lost their originality!!



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CYMRU AM BYTH


Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 06:55
Originally posted by PROGMAN PROGMAN wrote:

Sometimes Vinyl is better!!


Not sometimes, always!


Posted By: RoyalJelly
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 07:19
      I pretty much hated the Yellow Submarine remixes, I found them too
clean, adapted to 90s production aesthetics, the guitars were suddenly
over-effected, smooth and harmless, they'd lost all the edge and bite that
the original Beatles really had...Rock music was meant to make people
slightly uncomfortable, which doesn't work when you smooth out the hard
edges.

     On the other hand, the remix on Let It Be was sort of an opposite
process. Phil Spector had over-produced and watered down the original
recordings with schmalzy string arrangements, and the new mix returns
them to a rawer, clearer state, which is clearly an improvement.


Posted By: PROGMAN
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 07:31

The Sound of Vinyl:

My view: The drums and bass sound good on vinyl, strong sound!!.

Mates View: Oh vinyl is to quiet it's all the sound is in the back!!.

CD Remaster:

Doesen't always sound original, but a good sound!!

good things include no hisses, but watch your back some are rerecorded and tweeked a bit!! 



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CYMRU AM BYTH


Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 08:04
Yes analog sound has much more sound matter, weight, low goes lower and tighter, more dynamic, image, more eeverything...and i don't even talk about the highs.


Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 08:27
...

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Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 08:30


Posted By: PROGMAN
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 08:59

Is High Defination CD any better??

To be honest I can't always tell the difference between a Original CD and a Remastered CD.

There's something fishy about the new War of the Worlds - Jeff Wayne remaster, it could my imagination



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CYMRU AM BYTH


Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 09:14
I'm not sure about what you mean with "high definition".

There's a system called "Hdcd" which is real 20 bits.

This technology offers a better bandwidth but unfortunatly it doesn't means that all HDCD cds are good. It only garantee more details and hopefully dynamic. But it doesn't prevent from harshness.

Besides that yo have the new formats SACD and DVD audio which doesn't interest nobody.

They are potentially better (cause of 24 bits), but there are virtually no musical players using this technology yet.

Better turn on a high end musical classic Cd set up.


Posted By: PROGMAN
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 09:21

Is SACD/DVD Audio any good??

There no synthetic sound or unoriginality??, be good if there wasn't.

Is any of the sound tweaked to get these formats spot on, or can they reproduce superb sound without harming the sound content in any way, like the original mixes and layout left alone??, which should be the case not tweaked at all!!

Sorry I'm getting to technical!!



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CYMRU AM BYTH


Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 09:44
SACD and DVD audio are theorically better cause the 24 bits technology (instead of 16 bits for the classic CD)enables better performances: which results in a wider bandwidth (it goes further in low and highs) and is simply superior on all criterias.
BUT this is theory and reality is that most of the players currently available sound less good than a good
classic player.
A well choosen -even 10 years old- classic player on a good system will satisfy you cause the issue is to get musical devices, put them together and to optimize the whole with accesories.

"they reproduce superb sound without harming the sound content in any way, like the original mixes and layout left alone??, "

If you want the original mix sound, only the vynil can does it.

Overall, numeric is crap and sound is trafficked, remixed, bumped, even more in the rock field than in jazz or classical i.e.


Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: February 28 2006 at 09:58

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

SACD and DVD audio are theorically better cause the 24 bits technology (instead of 16 bits for the classic CD)enables better performances: which results in a wider bandwidth (it goes further in low and highs) and is simply superior on all criterias.

Actually the additional bits increase the dynamic range, not the frequency (lows and highs). The sampling frequency has also been increased (doubled) to 96khz, and that means that it is now more than four times more than what the human ear can sense (20khz).

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:



Overall, numeric is crap and sound is trafficked, remixed, bumped, even more in the rock field than in jazz or classical i.e.

In the end everything is numeric. After all, even on analog equipment you have quantification errors introduced by the magnetic head that reads/writes the information. People often claim that tape is superior to CD because there are much more magnetic particles which store the information than th number of bits on a CD. But they often forget that the magnetic head has a much lower resolution than that.



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Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: March 01 2006 at 03:10
Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

SACD and DVD audio are theorically better cause the 24 bits technology (instead of 16 bits for the classic CD)enables better performances: which results in a wider bandwidth (it goes further in low and highs) and is simply superior on all criterias.



Actually the additional bits increase the dynamic range, not the frequency (lows and highs). The sampling frequency has also been increased (doubled) to 96khz, and that means that it is now more than four times more than what the human ear can sense (20khz).


Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

Overall, numeric is crap and sound is trafficked, remixed, bumped, even more in the rock field than in jazz or classical i.e.


In the end everything is numeric. After all, even on analog equipment you have quantification errors introduced by the magnetic head that reads/writes the information. People often claim that tape is superior to CD because there are much more magnetic particles which store the information than th number of bits on a CD. But they often forget that the magnetic head has a much lower resolution than that.



Nothing to do with the numbers of bits/particules.
It's pure imagination, Tape is better cause it's analog.


Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: March 01 2006 at 03:17
I'm sure that 50 years ago people rejected analog electronic amps for a long time, arguing that such a device must by definition sound "artificial" or "harsh".

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Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: March 01 2006 at 07:24
If so, they did the same mistake that people believing marketers claiming that CD is perfect.


Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: March 01 2006 at 07:26

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

If so, they did the same mistake that people believing marketers claiming that CD is perfect.

Rather the opposite. Some people believe everything that "technicians" say - some don't believe a word. And some others are in between ...



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Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: March 01 2006 at 07:47
Theories are one thing, facts -listening tests- are another.


Posted By: marktheshark
Date Posted: March 01 2006 at 16:44
Getting back to the Beatles, here's a discussion we've had over at the other forums I deal with.

Ok, we all know Sgt Pepper was miraculously done on 4 track. However most of the tracks were "bounced" from other 4 track machines, about 4 I think. So the theorey goes about doing a reconstruction of all existing seperate tracks to a 32 track master. If each track had been preserved in their seperate element.

I know some purists think it's best not to tamper with and just "let it be". But when the Beatles were recording SP, they should been upgraded to at least 8 track by that time. Hendrix was using 12 track then and I think EMI was just being tightwadish. In fact there was later discovered an 8 track machine in the basement of Abbey Road around '69. It had been there for 2 years 'til the Beatles and Geoff Emerick discovered it and had it finally installed. Hence why Abbey Road is the only full 8 track album the Beatles ever did. Baby You're A Rich Man and a few songs on the White Album were done at either Trident or Olympia Studios on 8 track.

Besides, reconsructing SP would give more leeway for doing a 5.1 mix. I listened to the 5.1 mix on the Yellow Submarine DVD and it sounded like crap. Everything was so out of balance.

Anyway, it's just food for thought.


Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: March 01 2006 at 17:22

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

Theories are one thing, facts -listening tests- are another.

I thought that you didn't accept listening tests?

Well, nevermind ... let's leave this thread to the Beatles, shall we?



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