The Beatles: Digitally Remastered Catalogue‏

[Dusty Ayres]

From the Beatles official website:

We are delighted to announce the release of the original Beatles catalogue, which has been digitally re-mastered for the first time, for worldwide CD release on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 (09-09-09), the same date as the release of the widely anticipated "The Beatles: Rock Band" video game.
Each of the CDs is packaged with replicated original UK album art, including expanded booklets containing original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited period, each CD will also be embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. On the same date, two new Beatles boxed CD collections will also be released.
The albums have been re-mastered by a dedicated team of engineers at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London over a four year period utilising state of the art recording technology alongside vintage studio equipment, carefully maintaining the authenticity and integrity of the original analogue recordings. The result of this painstaking process is the highest fidelity the catalogue has seen since its original release.
The collection comprises all 12 Beatles albums in stereo, with track listings and artwork as originally released in the UK, and 'Magical Mystery Tour,' which became part of The Beatles' core catalogue when the CDs were first released in 1987. In addition, the collections 'Past Masters Vol. I and II' are now combined as one title, for a total of 14 titles over 16 discs. This will mark the first time that the first four Beatles albums will be available in stereo in their entirety on compact disc. These 14 albums, along with a DVD collection of the documentaries, will also be available for purchase together in a stereo boxed set.
Within each CD's new packaging, booklets include detailed historical notes along with informative recording notes. With the exception of the 'Past Masters' set, newly produced mini-documentaries on the making of each album, directed by Bob Smeaton, are included as QuickTime files on each album. The documentaries contain archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-heard studio chat from The Beatles, offering a unique and very personal insight into the studio atmosphere.

The Beatles: Digitally Remastered Catalogue‏

Hope that I can still use these with ITunes on my Ipod....

Thoughts, anyone?

 

[David cgc]

I've been waiting for this since I heard the remastered versions of the songs used in "Love." I'm no audiophile, but even I could plainly hear the difference in quality between those and the recordings I have from original digital masters from the '80s.

 

[Bad Bishop]

Re: The Beatles: Digitally Remastered Catalogue?

Will these remastered tracks make a bit of difference to people who listen to nothing but compressed audio files on their iPods or mp3 players?

 

[Small White Car]

Re: The Beatles: Digitally Remastered Catalogue?

Hope that I can still use these with ITunes on my Ipod....

It sure looks like they'll only be releasing it on CD, so you'll be fine.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I'm surprised they still haven't announced a digital distribution deal. Obviously the smartest thing to do is to make it so the only way for people to download these songs is through bit torrent. It's an excellent strategy that's worked time and time again.

 

[David cgc]

Re: The Beatles: Digitally Remastered Catalogue?

Will these remastered tracks make a bit of difference to people who listen to nothing but compressed audio files on their iPods or mp3 players?

Well, as I said, I can tell the difference, and everything I listen to is on my computer. "Compressed" doesn't necessarily mean "40 kbps mono."

 

[LitmusDragon]

I might spring for this if the pricetag isn't too huge. I was impressed with the sound quality of the "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" which has remastered versions of all of the songs from that movie. If you compare "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" off of that release to the Sgt. Pepper master, the difference is huge. There's an entire lead guitar part near the end you can't even hear on the album mix.

As interesting as Yellow Submarine Songtrack was (and wow, it came out 10 years ago, time flies) I think The White Album would benefit most from a remastering. As amazing as the songs on that album are, the mix on the current pressing has always sounded flat to me. The same is true of Abbey Road, but to a lesser extent.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

The Beatles music- Remastering vs. Remixing "Yellow Submarine"

I was impressed with the sound quality of the "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" which has remastered versions of all of the songs from that movie. If you compare "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" off of that release to the Sgt. Pepper master, the difference is huge.

this article details how they did the remix for Yellow Submarine from the first-generation recorded tracks.
IT WAS 31 YEARS: REMIXED IN 5.1 FOR YELLOW SUBMARINE
Sep 1, 1999
http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_years_remixed_yellow/index.html


If you haven't heard the DVD from "Yellow Submarine" in 5.1 surround sound you really need to.

Since the songs for "Yellow Submarine" used multi-track recording technology in 1968 the final 3 albums have the potential to get remixed in the same way.
"The White Album" 1968
"Get Back" 1969 was released as "Let It Be" 1970
"Abbey Road" 1969


Remastering an album is one thing but remixing really allows you to hear the best sonic fidelity of the original recorded tracks from 40 years ago.
It _IS_ possible in the future the Beatles' final two albums will get a full remixed in 5.1 surround sound .

 

[Dick Whitman]

I agree that songs from "The White Album" will greatly benefit from remastering. Particularly John's which are very raw and simple recordings. Those may seem more intimate and live sounding, as if being in the room with him. The same may be true of their early albums as well.

 

[Hermiod]

Hope that I can still use these with ITunes on my Ipod....

Thoughts, anyone?

Just rip them in iTunes. There are still a few things released only on CD - Battlestar Galactica soundtracks for instance.

As for compression, you could choose to use the Apple Lossless format within iTunes. The file size will end up being larger but at least it's lossless compression as opposed to lossy mp3/AAC compression.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I agree that songs from "The White Album" will greatly benefit from remastering. Particularly John's which are very raw and simple recordings. Those may seem more intimate and live sounding, as if being in the room with him. The same may be true of their early albums as well.

Something else I'll mention is Paul's bass playing on this album seems muffled compared to just the album before where it was very prominent. I notice this in particular on "Everybody's Got Something to Hide ..." where you've got this loud triangle in the foreground going "ding da-ding ding ding" and Paul's bass is kind of going womp-womp-womp in the background and it's hard to pick out the specific notes he's playing. I'm not sure if this was a conscious decision, or an issue in how the bass was miced, or what. I know Paul can be a bit self conscious about his bass playing at times.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I agree that songs from "The White Album" will greatly benefit from remastering.

Something else I'll mention is Paul's bass playing on this album seems muffled compared to just the album before where it was very prominent.

Paul did some odd things with the bass part on "The White Album." For instance, what sounds like the bass in "I Will" is actually Paul vocalizing the bass line. Also, Paul was displaying more of his multi-instrumentalist skills on the album, which would serve him on McCartney.

 

[Hofner]

Yeah, I always thought the bass in the White Album was just a bit odd.

In the early years Paul's bass could be a bit hard to hear. The story goes that somewhere in 1965 John Lennon went to George Martin and asked why the bass on American records sonunded better than their own records. He wasn't talking about Paul's playing, just the sound quality of recording it.

So they started doing things to try to improve it. You can really hear this in the songs "Paperback writer" and "Rain". Here's one of the things they did. Usually when they start recording a song, they'll record the rhythm instruments first usually bass, drums and rhythm guitar and/or piano. This would usually get reduction mixed into one track so they can add more to the other tracks. Depending on how the reduction mixing was done it could push the bass into the background and it's now 2nd generation. As they were getting more complex in their recording it could get pushed back to 3rd or even 4th generation as they do more reduction mixing to free up more tracks.

So they started delaying recording the bass until later. Sometimes on the final 4 track master, one track would be dedicated just for the bass. On "With A Little Help From My Friends", one track is all the instruments except bass, two are vocals plus maybe some instrumental fills and the fourth is just the bass.

Paul McCartney has said that this really freed him up to be more creative in his bass playing. It seemed to me that this creativity really peaked in 1967. But after that somehow, it seemed like he wasn't as focused on the bass. Not that he trashed the bass completely; it could still be pretty good. But the Beatles' musical direction starting in 1968 seemed to dial back a bit on the bass creativity.

As a bass player myself (Look at my username!) it can be boring practicing the bas just by itself so usually I practice by playing along with records. I find myself gravitating to the Beatles' stuff from '65, '66 and especially '67 as the most fun to play bass with.

Anyways, it's exciting to hear they're finally doing a good remastering of the Beatles' catalog. I'm looking forward to it.

Robert