DCC Archive Beatles Singles and EP Collections...help needed!

OK...I think I've got this down, but I'd appreciate any assistence.

Firstly, we have the masters for the original CDs. The first four were, IIRC, taken from LP production tapes, no? And then the various others were taken from disparate sources (Pepper from a safety tape, etc.).


Now, let's consider the Singles collection.

IIRC, the Singles collection marks the appearence of several *upgrades* to the already-released material; for example, the version of Please Please Me here doesn't suffer from the azimuth problems that plague the one on the PPME album (this was also used on the Red Album). Presumably, though, they used the same tapes if they could, correct?

The EP collection is even stranger. Besides the well-known upgrade to She Loves You (which, IMO, easily beats the 1 version), there's the bizarre upgrade to the Magical Mystery Tour stereo material, which makes no sense to me; additionally, the nature of one of the upgrades in particular is really confusing (this MMT upgrade, BTW, is used on the MMT tracks on the Blue album). I Am the Walrus is the culprit, here. Listen to the right channel at the beginning of the song; on the MMT CD, the orchestra abruptly cuts in after the intro, yet on the EP Collection (and, consequently, the blue album) the orchestra track fades in, and a bit earlier as well. Now, we don't seem to be dealing with different mixes here, but if that's some sort of 1987 digital tampering showing up, it's awfully arbitrary...


Any input?

-D

 

The stereo Magical Mystery Tour EP seems to have deeper bass (at least to my ears).

The mono Long Tall Sally EP and mono "I Want to Hold Your Hand" are terrific!!.

Lance Hall

 

Can anyone tell me which one is the better (sonically and/or from a collector's standpoint) the 45 vinyl version of the 25 disc Singles collection or the 14 disc EP Collection.

Does one have more songs than the other and/or what other differences are there? Thanks for the help!!!

 

klm, I don't know if they differ in sound quality, but the singles and EP collections do indeed differ in song content.

Track listings for the two collections can be found at the All Music Guide website:

Singles Collection

EP Collection

 

Yes, but what about I Am the Walrus? ANybody?

-D

 

Yeah, I noticed the difference in the right channel of "I Am The Walrus" when I first listened to the CD EP. It appears in the MMT album CD mastering (1987) they decided to blank out the right channel till the orchestra came in and in the MMT EP CD mastering (1988) they left it as is.

Evidently someone (George Martin?) didn't like the leakage of the rythm track into the ochestra track at the beginning of the song and decided to tidy it up.