Do You Agree With George Martin On Re-Mixing Analogue Recordings for Digital Audio?

If George Martin thinks the remixes are better, I'm OK with that. Who the _ _ _ _ am I to question George Martin's opinion on the Beatles? I'm not saying you shouldn't, you have every right to your opinion. I'm just saying I'm good. I wasn't buying Beatles records in the mid 60's, so I don't have those original mixes etched in my brain. Maybe if I did, I'd feel differently.

 

I have said this before. GM did not mean for his new mixes to make the originals go out of print. They were meant for cd, not for vinyl. GM could not have foreseen the swift near death of vinyl nor that emi chose to use them on later vinyl editions. He was not at emi and had no influence on that.

 

It would have been so easy to put the originals on the same disc as the remixes if they just had to rerelease them. I don't understand their logic.

 

You must not be a fan of surround sound

 

I question Reverb Soul being the only stereo CD easy to obtain.
I don't feel bad about it either.

 

I find it hard to believe, listening to the beatles records that I have, that any of those songs were mixed or mastered for cheap sound systems. A mastering engineer of the 60s would deliberately roll off frequencies of the song and cheapen it for portable players? They should only remix the catalogue only if it makes the songs sound better, like if they were mixed badly in the first place. If it doesnt do any significant benefit to the song and the original tape mixes are fine, let them be, let them be, dont whisper words of remix, Let them be.

 

of course, but that would have been too easy! How can anyone accept their actions in screwing us out of the original mixes where they belonged ON the friggin Stereo BOX!

 

Yes. Different medium. I think it would be wise.

 

O
OK, I see now...makes sense...BUT, you would and you'd be pissed where they located them!

 

I'd love to hear multichannel versions created of the entire catalog. We already have pretty much definitive stereo versions of all the tracks. You could probably squeeze a little more fidelity out of them doing a stereo remix, but if you're going to go to all that trouble, why not go multichannel?

 

The "remixes" that were done for the early ZZ TOP albums releases were horrid. Although some kind of box set has been released that allegedly goes back to the original albums, they are still not something you can buy individually far as I know, other than Tres Hombres.

 

I think you're confused on how mules are made.

 

They weren't.
Producers and engineers likely did the very best they could to get music they worked on sounding as good as it possibly could. They valued their reputations as well as their art and craft.
Mechanics don't fix cars up just good enough to cruise up and down gravel roads......... Just because....................
Those guys did the best jobs they could with what tools they had.
Which is one of the things that made the rock era great. "With what they had" is the key. They had to use their witts because they didn't have every trick in the book in a machine to do it for them.
Most homes by the 60s had hifi systems, big console models that could produce huge bass and had pretty damn good sound. Tube hifi systems.

 

You know it child.
Those are as bad as the Doors 40th Anniversary remixes that replaced the real ones.

Thinking about those, I realize Reverb Soul could have been even worse. I'm not going to complain anymore.

 

Not so. I have a damn nice surround system in the room in which we watch movies.
But surround is not ideal for everything.
And, remixing for surround is not the same as a remix that is intended to change the original mix. Normally a surround or multichannel mix is an enhancement of the original mix, it is not intended to be a unique mix contrary to the original.

 

point taken...sadly, the list goes on. I can name some more...

 

yes, we had one...it kicked ass!

 

Back in the 60s and early 70s I had one of those old console remote speakers, the HUGE ones that was like a waist high x 2'deep by 3' wide speaker cab that had a volume control on the side of it.
I ran an old either Univox or Ampeg tube head into it, it was the head that someone had taken out of an amp and built a very rudimentary wooden box for.
That setup sounded HUGE, I had an old Univox Super Fuzz as well. I wish I had pics of the whole rig somewhere.....

 

that's awesome! me too! I'd would have loved to see them.

 

They sounded ok back then. Not so much today.

 

at the time it was awesome! great, great memories playing my Stereo Beatles albums...the house rocked! heavenly for a pre-teen!

 

They were mixed and mastered for most likely the "Average turntable" of the day, on master tapes that often had a few generations of overdubs and no noise reduction, and so on.

They were not mixed badly originally, and in fact were pretty decent for the day, but by going a generation or two further back, you can get even better sonics, and having multi-tracks alone, instead of a couple generation down master, you can take those and have far less noise, better transients, cleaner treble and less distortion.

Every tape generation adds noise, distortion and removes some clarity.

We are talking, "make them sound the best they can", not that they were rubbish before.

Remixing is important not to so much change the overall sound,but to get to the multi-tracks, isolate each part at its initial recording stage and then re-combine with todays technology and no limitations of analog open reel tape from back then, nor no equalization for vinyl etc.

 

They sound a hell of a lot better than a lot of the over compress post production poisoned stuff that has been coming out over the past 10 years or so. At least you are hearing a band rather than the gear. Much as I wish they had multitracks back then ( but then again, perhaps that would have ruined the sound) and that stereo versions were available of more of it, it still amazes me they were able to capture such great sound.

Everything from Sgt Peppers on has far superior sound to the way music is damaged by technology now.
Which, simply needn't be.

 

Remove compression from the equation.............

See I do not see Peppers, and White album as sounding all that great. To me they sound good for the time. Not great today.

But my ideal of great today, is NOT using an example of a highly compressed master. It is using something that was tastefully done over the last 25 years or so.


This at home on my system sounds really good. So clean and clear it sounds like she is in my room live. A touch of tape hiss. Nice reverb, not overdone in any way!

Even on youtube you can tell its a nice recording. My home version has a couple notches better clarity though.

 

I am saying that The Beatles need to be remixed into 5.1 where it is possible asthe technology exists to do it properly and the listening adventure would be amazing..That is just my opinion