Beatles Remix Poll: Beatles 1 2015 or Yellow Submarine Songtrack? Which album is better?

I love both of these albums. They are both brilliant remixes IMO. Which album is the better remix and which do you prefer?

 

Split vote. Neither is perfect, but both contain some of my go-to versions.

 

I was very disappointed with the 2015 1 re-mix. I fully expected a proper stereo She loves You, with today's technology that must be possible?. I voted for the Soundtrack re-mix.

 

Other: Love

 

Which is the lesser of two evils?

 

Uh...no. You can't make true stereo from mono. Never could and never will.

 

Why would anyone want to anyway?? It has about 50 edits!! Why reinvent the wheel.

 

1+ by far. Sounds like the originals except far more exciting with more up-front vocals and centered vocals. All of them are my go to mixes.
The Songtrack remixes are a lot more radical. Still great though.

 

"Yellow Submarine Songtrack"

 

'1+' isn't perfect. But the 'Yellow Submarine' remix contains heavy noise reduction, out of sync errors, weird reverb, harsh EQ-ing, vocals often overpowering the instruments.

 

I love the up-front vocals, but you're right, it doesn't work for every song (Think For Yourself) and the harshness is a big detractor for me.

 

The master tapes of it are gone. Even if you found the original tracking tapes, it is probably one track of the instruments and one track of the vocals. Giles can't undo that. He could remix Pepper because there were enormous number of tracks recorded, and the tracking tapes still existed, pre-reduction mixdowns. With all those different tracks, he could use modern technology to feed the raw tracks into computers, which are not limited to 4 tracks, so he had much more freedom to pan the different instruments around and balance them.

 

I’d still be happy with any stereo mix at all, and he did a great job with Twist and Shout which is much better than the original stereo mix imo. Vocals closer to the center.

 

I vote Songtrack. Not because of the sound but because the remixes are better. If you are going to remix something, then freaking do it. If you're trying to sound close to the original mix then why bother? Hearing drums panned hard left or right in a 2018 mix just sounds stupid to me.

 

Purists complain about Pepper & White Album remixes for their limiting and compression, yet they now love the YS remix, which have plenty of noise-reduction, sync-errors and bright eq’ing. In 1999 it was considered a major missed oppertunity. It seems like the tendency is to doom out everything that is new and then praise everything that came before and consider it hip. Life go round in circles: It has happend before with the 1987 cd’s too.

Mark my words: In 10-15 years, the 2009 cd’s and the Pepper / White Album mix will be considered hip.

 

Sadly, this might be true, if they continue to go further following same mix/mastering fashion, until The Beatles becomes Drum&base band... But I hope not (actually, IMO the WA remix is more subtle and listenable than Pepper).

 

I voted "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" for two reasons - firstly, it made me appreciate and love "Hey Bulldog" (a great new mix, IMO), and secondly - it was clearly a new album/comp and a new mix, with new cover art, so there's no need to be compared to the originals. What bothers me the most with these new remixes that substitute the original albums and compilations is that they use the same title, cover art and track list, and if they are successful enough, they will become the ultimate versions, with the originals going OOP.

 

‘Yellow Submarine Songtrack’ for me.

‘1+‘ has some weird mix decisions. Where’s the bongos gone in ‘A Hard Day’s Night’? What’s going on at the end of ‘Eight Days A Week’? Where are the drums on ‘Get Back’? ‘Ticket To Ride’ sounds very odd here too. The rest are a great improvement over the originals and are my go to mixes.

Pretty much everything sounds brilliantly balanced to me on ‘YSS’ apart from ‘Hey Bulldog’ so it wins.

 

Agreed. Those 2 voted choices do absolutely nothing for me!

Love is unique!

 

I like them both but my liking for YSS is more consistent. There are no careless "errors" and it does sound to me as if it was done more meticulously. A few of the tracks on the remixed "1' sound as if they were either a bit rushed or not as closely paid attention to in terms of minute-but noticeable-details. The leftover piano note on Ballad Of John and Yoko...the distortion during the solo in Let It Be...the lack of bottom end on the drums for Get Back..

 

I disagree. The White Album didn't need a stereo re-mix nearly as much as Sgt. Pepper did. They did a much better job stereo mixing in 1968 than in 1967. A lot of the new mix in the White Album seems to be enhancing the bass and drums. While I don't have a problem with it (I love the drums and bass on Beatles records), and I think the remixed White Album sounds great, it seems that the drums and bass are the instruments most boosted in the new mix in general. On Sgt. Pepper, the remix was more about making a stereo mix of the superior mono version of the album, which had noticeable differences with the stereo aside from hard panning. And fixing the panning, bringing the drums and bass to the center was very important---the fact that the bass and drums are often hard panned to the left on many Beatles records in stereo is one of my least favorite things about 60s Beatles stereo mixes---especially on headphones.

 

I didn't gave an opinion if any of these albums needed a remix, I just said that of the two, the WA is more listenable to my ears, and that the excessively boosted drums and bass are a bit better and more tastefully executed compared to Pepper remix, so one could hope that this fashion of bloated and overwhelming bass sound will not be "developed"further in the eventual future remixes and remasters (wishful thinking, perhaps).

 

I haven't heard any claim that the new remixes substitute the originals or that the original mixes will go out of print. I believe there is nothing to fear here.

 

With all the new stereo remixes, there are some that are great improvements and some that are head-scratchers. Some remixes on 1+ like "Can't Buy Me Love", "Day Tripper", "Lady Madonna" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko" sound great while the remix of "Get Back" is just awful. Ringo's drums are so diminished compared to the original mix. Most of the new mixes on "Sgt. Pepper" and "The White Album" are much improved over the original mixes, but I still prefer the remix of the song "Sgt. Pepper" from YSS, while the remix of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" sounds weak compared to the original.