Tug of War Remix

Now that the official announcement has come out we know that the album will be remixed.

Samples have have shown its likely quite different from the standard mix. The inclusion of the '82 mix might be more proof of that.

Thoughts? None of the others got remixes and arguably they needed it. Why this album? Aside from the sample rate since they could have done a remix that flowed closely to the original mix.

Is this good? What other albums need a remix? Thoughts on why Pipes wasn't remixed?

 

Venus and Mars should most definitely be remixed....oh wait....

 

I listened to the promo videos for both TOW and POP and thought they both sounded quite nice and different. There's nothing to suggest that POP was remixed, but it sure sounded nice & different. In the snippet of Say Say Say it sounded like MJ's vocal harmony was mixed lower. However it's been a long time since I listened intently to POP so it may just be my memory is...almost full.

 

I hadn't heard that Pipes was remixed just remastered. But - he did a new remix of Say Say Say so maybe that's what you heard.

 

I'm glad you've opened this up in a new thread. The "main" thread is just bogged down in discussion about the absence of a decent selection of bonus tracks.

I think the rationale is really simple: Venus and Mars was meant to sound the way it does (in terms of compression) and isn't afflicted by any kind of period production. Tug of War, however, sounds thin and weedy which clearly wasn't McCartney intention, it was just a product of the new-fangled digital mixing process. Not only does the original mix sound thin but, of course, it was also made using the analogue to digital conversion available in 1982. I speculate that McCartney simply likes this album enough to want a re-transfer from the original analogue tapes and either doesn't have the notes/settings available to faithfully recreate the original mix or else decided to take the opportunity to do a little further post-production to make it sound better. That's a temptation I suspect many artists feel.

As to why Pipes of Peace isn't being given the same treatment, well, I can only suspect that McCartney just doesn't feel the same affection for it. The only other option is that the album wasn't mixed digitally (I don't have copies of the original vinyl or CD to hand to see if this is the case, so it possibly isn't.)

Either way, I'm intrigued to hear the new mix. In my experience, most remixes tend not to stick: that is, they're either so similar to the originals that I just stick with the latter for the sake of provenance, or they're so different that I end up rejecting them in favour of the much loved original. This is the case with, for example, Double Fantasy Stripped Down. It's an interesting listen but I prefer the original mixes because they're the familiar mixes I love.

I wonder whether McCartney has found a sweet spot here that improves the mixes but doesn't change them so much that my system rejects them.

 

Thanks for the head's up on this thread, Paul. I agree completely with your speculation about why Paul remixed Tug Of War -- I don't think he's unhappy with the mix, but rather just wanted it to sound as full and good as possible with 2015 technology. Curiosity got the best of me and I bought the iTunes download of the title track, and it sounds exactly like you remember, only better -- Paul's vocals sound more natural and upfront, but not overly so. The instrumentation and "production" all sound just like they did in 1982, only a little fuller. (The iTunes download of the remastered "Pipes Of Peace," on the other hand, sounds virtually identical to my 1993 CD rip, so....)

I wish Double Fantasy had been remixed like THIS -- not trying to reinvent the wheel, just sympathetic to the original sound but with improved fidelity and warmer vocals. Double Fantasy Stripped Down is an interesting listen, but not a very good MIX (imo) -- the vocals are too loud, to the point of almost making the tracks sound like monitor mixes. And the music seems to be remixed not with "musicality" in mind but just to make it sound different from the original. There are some exceptions, but overall it just came across as gimmicky.

 

Does it cut off at the end where it would cross-fade into Take It Away?

 

Does this title track ends with complete fade out to the silence or with abrupt cut? I mean is there a crossfade with Take It Away in the new mix as on the original mix? Or they decided to remove crossfades in the new mix...?

P.S. A bit late...

 

Yes, it still crossfades, and when I put it into a playlist with the other ToW tracks (1993 remaster), it segued perfectly into "Take It Away."

 

It is a different mix of "Say Say Say" in the MPL POP video so it must be from the 2015 remix. On the original, Paul's vocal was panned a little to the left and Michael's was panned a little to the right making it easy to remove either vocal by process of out of phase cancellation and I swear I hear some new elements before the song jumps to another one.

 

By the sound of it, it seems like the new TOW is in the same vein as the 2000 remix of Imagine (where Yoko stayed quite faithful to the original but slightly brought up front John's vocals and there was more overall clarity) rather than the 2010 DF Stripped Down.

@Paul H - did that Imagine remix hit the sweet spot with you or did your system reject it?

@Sean Murdock - what are your thoughts on that remix?

 

Well you didn't ask me but...I loved the remixes of John's stuff, they're much more enjoyable. We could argue "but they're not the originals!" But we still have the originals available. We'll also have the original TOW so it's all good.

 

Same here, I love the remixes. The good part is that now we also have the original mixes remastered and so there is the best of both worlds. Unfortunately though for newer fans, those Lennon remixes have now been swept under the carpet when they deserve to be out there.

Sorry for all these John related conversation in this TOW thread. I read the reference to Stripped Down in Paul and Sean's posts above and it brought to mind the Yoko remixes.

 

I have a bit of a paranoid ear when I listen to a new remix. When I heard the clips from the deluxe promo yesterday it sounded all wrong. Backing vocals too loud and too much reverb... I thought Paul's lead vocal was over compressed to sound like on the Chaos And Creation album. Even heard a bit of autotune? I hope I heard wrong.

As for the missing Pipes remix, I guess they either had printed the mix onto analogue tape as well or they simply upsampled it.

 

Maybe he read on the Steve Hoffman forum how much everybody hates Pipes of Peace and figured it wasn't worth the investment! Personally I think Pipes of Peace is a real sleeper in his catalog, the Red Rose Speedway of the 80s.

 

(Also, horns softer.)

 

I thought Imagine was one of the better remixes, and I think your comparison to the new ToW remix is a good one. As I said earlier, it's "the same but better" and not a radical facelift.

 

I had the same reaction to the new mix. The big changes are to the vocals (more natural, upfront) and the music just sounds fuller...yeah, that's a good word.

I think the remix is because while the "sound" of the 70s may be if it's time, it's worn a bit better than that of the 80s. When listening to PoP I don't get as much of that in the production - especially the vocals - even though it sure is in the instrumentation.

I wonder what other albums will get a remix? London Town would be my pick I think.

 

Surely nobody was expecting a 'Tug Of War' "stripped down" treatment, right? The 'Double Fantasy'-project was a special case, not comparable. As I said, from the samples and songs we heard so far, we can conclude the 'Tug Of War' remix is a combination of staying true to the original atmosphere but also modern mixing decisions.

On the subject of the Lennon remixes: save for the mastering - hooray for the MFSL 'Mind Games - I love them on the whole. They took quite some liberty with 'Mind Games' and 'Rock 'N' Roll', which came from lo-fi AM radio to blissful full stereo quality. But in those cases, even more so since now the original mixes are the standard version again, I guess sound quality goes above artistic decision (I can only assume that 'Rock 'N' Roll' in such lo-fi quality was exactly that).

'Imagine' and 'Plastic Ono Band' on the other hand, suffer a lot from noise reduction. Starting with 'Plastic Ono Band', which is almost all about atmosphere, rawness, live feeling, I think that's a big mistake to make, especially with THIS album. Ringo's drums sound watery, the grittiness from the instruments is gone, the amp sounds are ghosting, the hiss in the room is muted. The vocals are overproduced, where on the original 'Isolation' Lennon is sounding vocally in the middle of a room, again completely raw, almost as if you can feel the loneliness through the recording, the remix has him nicely compressed, in front, with a nice tiny bit of reverb, all background noise gone. Everything which you want in a modern sounding pop record...but just not on 'Plastic Ono Band', at all! The breath inhaling at the same vocal track (1) slowly going from center to dead right during the climax, the double tracked vocal (no breath inhaling) dead left, during the long ending note both meeting each other in the middle for an impressive effect. The remix has some awful noise reduced reverb and thin sounding kick as prelude to this, and then out of nowhere the vocals, both only a tiny bit of stereo separation, which makes it more of an ADT effect than the "in your face"-approach of the original, with the long ending note meeting in the middle losing all impact. And to top it all off, the huge faux pas during 'God'. The breakdown has no effects, nothing, a big climax and then just... hiss, "silence" in normal day life, with then just Lennon a capella without ANY polishing, again as if he's standing there in a room, which sounds like that on the lines after that, with the famous slap delay effects not coming back until he start singing higher again. You'd guessed it... The remix has digital silence at this point with Lennon in your face singing all the words with the same damn slap delay as in the rest of the song.

The 'Imagine' remix is a masterpiece in comparison, but just listen to the very first seconds of the remix to hear how much noise reduction destroyed on that one.

Yeah, anyway, 'Tug Of War' remix, job well done on the 5 minutes we heard so far.

 

The 2 minute promo on YouTube got me pretty excited just now. I couldn't tell which ones were remixed. It seemed or appeared to me, they are selling all the cds videos and deluxe book in one package.

Have you guys seen this commercial ? It's pretty spiffy

Wait I see now it's 2 commercials. The vocal on Keep under cover sounds different.

 

The POP YouTube video only has a remixed "Say Say Say" (2015 Remix). The rest are the usual mixes, remastered. Your mind is playing tricks on you, my friend.

 

I purposely didn't mention the Plastic Ono Band remix, which I hated -- especially what you kindly call the "faux pas" at the end of "God." Horrible. I haven't listened to any of the remixes since John's mixes became standard again in 2010, but I recall Imagine being one of the better ones.

 

Thanks so much for your great comparisons! Have you A/B-ed the 1993 and 2015 Pipes Of Peace yet?

 

Not yet, because I'm not that eager to spend 1,29 euro - hey, we're still Dutchies - on a mp3 download for a song I own plenty of times already and which would just be for the sake of curiousness for the coming 2 months, hahaha. And I figured it's kinda pointless to do a comparison of the samples on the trailer, when the YouTube-stream is so lossy.

 

POP was mixed the same as TOW. In fact, if you look at the original CD's (American Columbia), TOW says recorded analog and mixed digitally. POP says recorded digitally.
I just think Paul has an affection for TOW more so than POP as it was his last really big hit. I am still perplexed as to why it's being remixed when it really didn't sound bad to begin with. Sterile? A bit. Bad? No. Certainly better than McCartney II or V&M.
V&M is the one that really needed a remix. What a shame it wasn't.