Giles Martin: Update the Beatles

The Beatles actually screwed up the sound. Pushing the limits of bass and treble (according to some PM interviews IIRC) made recordings suffer. Had they left the EMI standards be, they surely would have sounded better in my opinion.

 

Good thing Ted Turner doesn't do records.

 

Want to make clear, just in case. The sound quality. Not the sound. Which was great and unique.

 

My favorite movie of all time is "It's A Wonderful Life". I discovered it at 12 years old, and that Christmas, must have watched it 50 times (back when it aired on every channel daily in Dec). I appreciate it as a work of visual art as much as I love the acting, the story, and the message. That being said, ever since the blu-ray came out a few years ago, I find that I watch the colorized version more than the B&W. Maybe because it's new, and I've seen the B&W version so much that I can watch it in my head without even seeing it. But I don't hate it. I feel like I notice more of the background that gets blended together when black and white. I don't think it diminishes the masterpiece that is the B&W version at all. I feel the same way about what Giles is doing with the Beatles albums. We have the originals and the recent mono releases if we want to hear it as intended. But what does it hurt to also hear it with a different spin?

 

Yes! A member of tidal... was at my pc at midnight Dec 26 2015 when the Beatles arrived... got the app set to hi fi... true can't separate everything out though macca did record his track direct. Not into the boomy sound either but love the raw plucked sound of the bass from the anthology 5.1 of penny lane and yer blues ... tight and detailed as opposed to boomy. Well as you say not applicable here and pepper has great guitar sounds anyway but always wondered what the opening phrases would sound like given that treatment... I've gotta get my hands on some of that audio software. Love the sound of with a little help instrumental!

 

LOL... autocorrect... noticed it later! my tablet is as offended by those sessions mixes as I am!

 

You know... I think the mono team should have done just that... mono let it be and abbey road exclusive new mono mixes by the team that had just worked through all the mono mixes and had great insight into how ones mixing philosophy differed from mono to stereo... if ppm and wtb were mono albums but both twin track mixes are included in the stereo box,.. then these two exclusive mono mixes.. prepared by Apple in 2009 to complete the mono box would have provided a mirror to the bonuses in the stereo.

 

Paul's voice, you mean

 

The Beatle's sullying of EMI's high fidelity with their limit-pushing is no more a sin than Igor Stravinski's sullying of classical music's finesse with The Rite Of Spring, his noisy take on Industrial America.

 

To me this is like having a poster of the Mona Lisa. The original still exists but we have a printed version for wider distribution. No issue. People can tell the difference. Get over it. People are me dumb as some on here would have you believe.

 

Oh get on wit it already!

 

I like The Shadows as well, but

 

I never realized that...it always sounded like John to me. Thanks for the info!

 

In the past few years (actually - after the Mono Box was released), I often hear and listen about that - how the Beatles only cared about the mono, they almost became professional mono audio engineers, spending days and night without sleep, mixing carefully in mono. And the stereo versions of their albums are described as almost criminally leaked from the studio and released without approval, and no one cared or even remember about the stereo mixes and how they were made. So can we consider then the original Beatles stereo LP's a blatant rip off - a sub par product, put on the market just to cash-in on the stereo craze, without any care and effort to be made from the band and their producer? And who's responsible for these to see the light of the day?

 

That's not exactly true.

 

Giles Martin DEFINITELY says The White Album "will be the next release"........which I can only read as meaning the next re-release! If he was referring to the contemporary releases, he would have said TWA "was the next release".

So a remixed Pepper and White Album but no Revolver or Rubber Soul? What gives?

 

Abbey Road
Next stop after 1968 double.

 

I was mostly asking questions, which can't be wrong. So perhaps you mean that I wrongly interpret the statements about how much care The Beatles put on the mono mixes, and completely disregarded the stereos, but yet - sold them in big quantities?

 

Didn't George H do the USA White Album stereo mix ?

 

The Beatles themselves had about as much to do with the mono mixes as they did the stereos, which is to say, not much at all.

Did the EMI engineers (Smith, Emerick, Scott, et al) place more emphasis on the mono mixes?

Probably.

That's closer to the truth.

 

I have no idea. Is the US stereo mix different from the original? Never knew that.

 

What the...

NO.

Where do people come up with this stuff!!??

 

No, it's not.

It's the same mix; US version from a 1g cooy. Jeefus Chrisss.

 

No. George did NOT do the stereo mix in the USA.

BUT he did make sure that Capitol got the mastering of the LPs correct:

Bruce Spizer says:
George Harrison, along with Mal Evans, was in Los Angeles to produce Jackie Lomax's upcoming Apple album. He dropped by the Capitol Tower to hear the White Album. He had left London for LA prior to the banding session during which the order of the songs was selected for The White Album, and wanted to hear the finished product. He did not like what he heard and insisted that he be allowed to work with Capitol's engineers to remaster the album. ... George Harrison did not approve of the original mastering job done by Capitol on the album. As was often the practice at the time, Capitol's engineers had run the sound signal through a limiter and compressed the volume range of the recording by cutting back the high volume peaks and bringing up the low passages. This would have been particularly noticeable on "Helter Skelter," with the fake fade-out ending, and Harrison's "Long, Long, Long," which has quiet passages throughout and loud distortion at the end. ... According to Eirik "The Norwegian" Wangberg, this work took place at Sound Recorders Studio on Yucca Street, which was located around the corner from the Capitol Tower. And it wasn't done by Capitol's engineers, but by Sound Recorders' Armin Steiner, assisted by Carl Frisk, while George was waiting in their lounge. George also produced sessions for the Jackie Lomax album at this studio at the time.

 

I tend to believe this is true. So are we (to some extent) brainwashed now about how only the mono is relevant, important and approved by the band, and the stereo is some kind of a leftover? I do think that (well, may be apart from the first LP) their goal was to make the stereo versions appealing and interesting when heard on a stereo equipment, and at the same time - still listenable and good sounding when a mono equipment is used. So the original stereo mixes are not be discarded as irrelevant and "not approved" or "against the original group's intentions", IMO.