The Beatles Remasters Review and Discussion Thread

[phreaknupallnite]

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Originally Posted by jsaliga /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am going to respond to you because you don't have Private Messages turned on. I wanted to discuss the remasters. I was hoping there would have been enough like-minded members who shared my interest to have a viable and lively discussion. I'm not saying that people can't discuss music, The Beatles, or what song they were listening to the last time they sat on the crapper. They just don't need to do that here. What possible harm could there be in showing the topic and other members interested in the remastered music just a tiny bit of respect by giving them some space to share their passion? Is that really too much to ask?

Honestly, this very reply is why I do not come to this forum much anymore. Which is the real shame.

Maybe you should have been very specific on what YOU wanted to discuss, I think we came to this thread to discuss the remasters. "I wanted to discuss the remasters." so did we.....

 

[linuxworks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsaliga /img/forum/go_quote.gif I wanted to discuss the remasters. I was hoping there would have been enough like-minded members who shared my interest to have a viable and lively discussion.

you don't want a discussion; you want yes-men who will simply agree with you.

if you want that, STATE that. sheesh.

 

[kamcma]

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Originally Posted by linuxworks /img/forum/go_quote.gif you don't want a discussion; you want yes-men who will simply agree with you. if you want that, STATE that. sheesh.

Amen. I can remember a least a couple occasions over the last few years where this fellow got super pissy because he didn't like what people were saying in "his" thread.

 

[linuxworks]

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Originally Posted by jsaliga /img/forum/go_quote.gif You didn't ruin it for me. But linuxworks, Beagle, chadbang, markl, a few others, and grawk sure did.

awww. poor baby. yes, you are a control freak. several people here agree with that.

anyway, back on topic (lol) - not sure how explaining my feelings about the remasters 'ruins' things for you but I still feel that the improvements are just not there in enough of a way to justify REBUYING the music.

I did state pretty clearly that the noise levels were way too high for anything 'modern'. they had a chance to denoise and they clearly did not. that is a huge loss imo.

they compressed (further) the stereo tracks and forced us to choose non-mono sound or non-compressed sound. and they played marketing games to make us buy the whole set TWICE (not force but clearly they are trying to get people to buy both). that sickens me and does detract from the whole experience of it all.

perhaps its an acoustic illusion but the mono tracks I've heard sound like the highs are cancelling or muffled more than stereo. I wonder if its speaker placement or just how they mastered it. but I just cannot listen to the mono and get excited about its sound. single channel source from 2 speakers is WORSE than single channel source from 1 speaker. in every way the mono set makes me feel like I'm going backwards in technology.

the fact that the beatles 'wanted' things in mono makes absolutely no difference to me. they weren't gods and they weren't perfect and choosing mono is a huge mistake. I don't attribute 'art' to being in mono anymore than photos are more 'artsy' if they're in black and white. note that I never shoot b/w either; its color all the way for me

95% of the beatles 'message' is there even on fm radio level sound. so, maybe I'm the exception more than the rule, but the 'reworking' of these masters is not different enough to justify any kind of cash outlay.

what WOULD have been truly revolutionary is to have a trade-in program where you would send back (or bring to a store) your original records, tapes, cd's (etc) and then pay an upgrade fee. I feel I already bought the content several times (tapes, lps, cd). paying AGAIN seems utterly wrong to me. paying again for mono is even more wrong

but paying a differential and getting both mono and stereo (which is what they should have done in the first place) would have make the trade-'up' much more economically sensible. and we ARE in a deep recession, guys; this stuff does matter.

 

[Arainach]

Got my stereo set today. I'm generally impressed with it. It's still got a bit more channel separation than I'd like, but they added the vocals faintly to the left channel, which merely makes it sound like they're all standing to the right instead of unnatural when listening on headphones.

The mono mixes aren't bad, but I don't care for them as much as the Stereo mixes. Maybe it's just me.

 

[reorx]

Having a discussion PURELY discussing the SQ of the remasters is not a hard request. In fact, this thread has more SQ-related posts than non-SQ posts. Too bad the OP wasnt willing to take the bad with the good. i hope he would reconsider and continue to post here, but after the bashing he has received from some of you guys, I seriously doubt it.

Plus, as everyone has said, the Beatles are one of the bands inexplicably entwined with memories, experiences, growing up, emotion, etc. It would be impossible to dissect The Beatles from emotion because to most if not all of the posters in this thread, The Beatles were much much more than a just a dang good band, they were a part of growing up, whetehr you actuallly grew up with them in the 60's, or grew up with them through your parents as I did.

That said, i TRIED to listen to The Beatles as my parents first did, through the mono recordings. And sad to say, I failed to see what all the fuss was about. It was like I was listening to the am radio, on non-resolving speakers. Granted, all the annoying panning issues and extreme channel separation was gone, but so was the depth and audio tricks that I was so used to when I was groiwng up.

For three years, from when I was ten upto around thirteen, i listened to NOTHING but the Beatles (specifically the 1987 cds). I did not listen to the Top 40 music of the time, I did not listen to classical, nada. I was purely obsessed with the fab four. I had my Complete Beatles Jingle Magazine which contained all the lyrics and chords of all their songs, and i would sing along every single day for three years. Needless to say, the extreme panning and stereo tricks became ingrained to me...THAT was t he Beatles I knew and grew up with...THAT was the initial experience and magic I was always wishing to recapture.

And the same goes for everyone else. Everyone is trying to recapture that intial magic we felt when we first discovered the Beatles. for some, it was listening to the am radio with the rest of their family while their disapproving parents muttered about the evils of Rock and Roll. To some, like me, it was thorough the cds of my parents, whcih just happened to be the 1987 Stereo mixed cds. We all love the same music, that much is obvious. We are just all partial to the presentation we prefer. Some will listen to the mono versions and will feel like it was 1969 all over again...while some like me will listen to the Mono versions and just find it flat, dull, far removed from the stereo versions i grew up with and loved.

Thats my take at least. Ill listen to the mono versions again for the next few days, but after listening to an album in mono, I would always reach for the stereo version (1987 or 2009, it didnt matter) and say to myself "THATS how its supposed to sound".

 

[SemiAudiophile]

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Originally Posted by Sordel /img/forum/go_quote.gif I see the issue. Mark's response simply wasnt a proper response to the thread. Unfortunately, Jsal's attempts to get the thread back to the original subject ended up turning the thread into a thread about the ethics of threads, of which the internet has at least thirty million and rising..

sigh...the internet. ain't it great? i understood Mark's point about the younger generation. to be honest i used to think like that. i thought the Beatles were some mainstream boy band that was forced upon the radio/tv and i didn't get it at all. but, now that i've actually listened to their music, i understand what they're all about. they truly were a talented band and i now consider myself a fan of their music.

yes i think that it's sad that the music that comes out nowadays aren't nearly as good, creative, well recorded, etc. maybe technology just makes people lazy? or people just have lack of inspiration? perhaps people don't care about music like they used to and only care about making money? i sometimes wish i grew up in the 60-70's era. not all new bands are crap though. there's a good deal of bands from the 90-2000's that i appreciate and i find are unique.

back on topic, i haven't ordered the new remastered box set yet...but from what i've read so far, it doesn't seem to be that much better than the earlier versions.

 

[ssportclay]

I haven't heard any of the new stereophonic releases yet but I think that people should keep in mind that these recordings were not remixed in any way. They were just digitally remastered and repaired where problems may have occurred. The same mixed masters are still in tacked.

 

[dan1son]

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Originally Posted by linuxworks /img/forum/go_quote.gif anyway, back on topic (lol) - not sure how explaining my feelings about the remasters 'ruins' things for you but I still feel that the improvements are just not there in enough of a way to justify REBUYING the music.

I completely agree with your previous statement on them not remixing the stereo tracks (I think I commented about that in the second or third post in this thread). I would've much preferred a stereo remix to more modern ideas. The one sided stuff is obnoxious. Love is a great example of what they could've done.

However. Something to consider about your "REBUYING" statement. For a lot of people this isn't a rebuy, it's an initial purchase. There are millions of people who never purchased any before. Some, like myself, listened to them as a child on their parents systems but never purchased the albums for themselves. My father still listens to his albums and CDs so for me to have them, I need to buy them myself. Why buy the 87 releases when these exist?

I think that is more their thinking. Get a NEW generation to buy the albums, not get everyone to rebuy them. Some will rebuy, but I doubt that's the majority. Of course I could be wrong... they might be pulling a card from George Lucas' deck.

 

[smrtby123]

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Originally Posted by dan1son /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think that is more their thinking. Get a NEW generation to buy the albums, not get everyone to rebuy them. Some will rebuy, but I doubt that's the majority. Of course I could be wrong... they might be pulling a card from George Lucas' deck.

This was exactly my dad and my thoughts when we were talking about it. He said he wasn't going to play around with buying single cds, and he may get the mono set just because its usually taken as the "purist" form of the music. I don't own any of the cds they are all his so I don't feel bad about actually buying them for myself. Since these are out I might as well get these. So far I am pretty satisfied with the White Album, and I have to wait till this weekend to take a listen to Abbey Road.

 

[linuxworks]

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Originally Posted by dan1son /img/forum/go_quote.gif However. Something to consider about your "REBUYING" statement. For a lot of people this isn't a rebuy, it's an initial purchase.

that's fine and reasonable.

but what I don't understand (well, I do, but ...) is how they can justify making 2 sets instead of 1.

how? do it on dvd instead! cd's? really? people USE them, still? nah, they rip to disk or mp3 or something. the shinydisc is just a carrier or transfer format, not (today, really) an end-user playback medium.

what would have been VISIONARY is to release many versions on the same disc. include video, too. why not? go for the gold!

then with dvd, the'd have the ability to show stills, lyrics and offer alternative tracks, mixes, stuff WITH noise reduction, stuff as-is, etc.

what a glorious thing THAT would have been.

better yet: with multitrack dvd audio ability, DON'T MIX AT ALL! retain ALL the original tracks and let the USER mix them down!

you want vision, they could have offered true vision. instead what we get is a rehashed cash-grab with no significant value-add (imo).

they dropped the ball and totally missed the boat. what they did could have been done 20 yrs ago. they embraced NOTHING modern about this release.

 

[Sordel]

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Originally Posted by linuxworks /img/forum/go_quote.gif what I don't understand (well, I do, but ...) is how they can justify making 2 sets instead of 1.

The thing I find understandable but frustrating about responses to this remaster series is that people conflate two different objections: first that it's expensive, and secondly that it isn't high enough quality.

Now, I agree that these sets are very expensive; the mono set is absurdly expensive. But ... given how much we all spend on headphones etc., plus the diminishing returns of improved sound quality, I just can't take seriously the complaint that the remasters are too expensive to be worth buying. Isn't buying the new remaster an audio tweak? If so, it isn't a relatively expensive one.

Asking for twice as much in one boxed set is really a complaint about price: presumably if they gave you the two boxed sets for the price of one, you wouldn't actually complain about the fact of their being in two boxes ... it's the price that annoys you.

Then you go on to say that you'd like videos and multiple audio tracks. Well, maybe, but the mono box in particular is an audiophile product and most audiophiles have traditionally taken the view that one thing done well is enough. Sure, they could have slapped some more extras on the stereo boxed set, which is the vanilla product, but I'm happy with the mono boxed set as it is, and I don't feel that "added value" adds much value really.

It's often said but: if you don't like the product, vote with your wallet. There are enough who will vote the other way to ensure that projects such as this one are profitable in the future.

Personally I've been listening to the mono albums again all afternoon and I'm more than happy with the purchase.

 

[ssportclay]

Speaking of mono a stereo mixes. EMI could have easily put both a stereo and mono mix on each disc because all of these albums are very short. Perhaps they will do just that down the road and charge a little extra. This is all really about money.

 

[linuxworks]

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Originally Posted by Sordel /img/forum/go_quote.gif Asking for twice as much in one boxed set is really a complaint about price: presumably if they gave you the two boxed sets for the price of one, you wouldn't actually complain about the fact of their being in two boxes ... it's the price that annoys you.

its double dipping. the SAME material but marketing made them change the compression levels. no sane engineer would do this on their own, but marketing makes an ugly cash grab figuring they can get buyers into the double-dip mode. sickening. I hate marketing folks, truth be told.


Quote:

Then you go on to say that you'd like videos and multiple audio tracks. Well, maybe, but the mono box in particular is an audiophile product and most audiophiles have traditionally taken the view that one thing done well is enough.

its NOT an either/or. that's false logic.

Quote:

Sure, they could have slapped some more extras on the stereo boxed set, which is the vanilla product, but I'm happy with the mono boxed set as it is, and I don't feel that "added value" adds much value really.

its JUST a reshash of 40 year old performances. what's new here? nothing!

throw in some tracks from the yellow dog boots (or similar). something more than just a very slight rehash of very old performances.

and again, they could have embraced modern tech and given us original multitrack content, perhaps mixed in various 'angles' (so to speak, using dvd terms).

they did nothing at all 'cool' with this and they really could have. not hard to think of imaginative ways to make this 'launch' something really worth it.

 

[linuxworks]

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Originally Posted by ssportclay /img/forum/go_quote.gif Speaking of mono a stereo mixes. EMI could have easily put both a stereo and mono mix on each disc because all of these albums are very short. Perhaps they will do just that down the road and charge a little extra. This is all really about money.

bingo!

this guy gets it.

but double the discs and a marketing spin gets them (sometimes) double the money.

follow the money. its all about that and nothing else. not love for fans or any of that fake altruism. if they cared about fans, they would not compress down ANY of the music. instead, they create a fake duality and hope that people will double-buy.

stuff like this makes me continue to HATE big music.