Why did George Martin remix Rubber Soul for cd?

From July 1987 Musician magazine interview with George Martin:

Intro:"George Martin was drawn into the festivities (transfer of The Beatles catalog to CD) last December when EMI's all-powerful Beatles Committee asked him for help in preparing the old Beatles masters for digital. Since this was fairly late in the process, his main contribution to the first two CDs was to talk EMI out of using the 'fake' stereo mixes to go back to mono."

George Martin:"I was, however, asked to look at the next three: Help!, Rubber Soul, and Revolver. These obviously had to be stereo, and when I listened to them - particularly Help! - the stereo was not very good at all. So I went back to the original 4-tracks, and I actually did remix Help! and Rubber Soul. Revolver and Pepper didn't require remixing, however, as by that time I was getting better, along with the technology. I was tempted to right certain wrongs, but the Beatles Committee wanted it to be exactly as out original issue, and I thought, well, perhaps I shouldn't indulge in retrospective thoughts after twenty years, perhaps I should leave what I did all that time ago and say, 'Well, that's what I did, folks, and I'm not changing it now!' What I did do, however, was to clean up the individual sounds, going back to the original 4-track source, and I have, in fact, brought the image in a little bit."

- Lou

 

That seems to settle this thread.

 

Rare, in that it only was prepared that way at one pressing plant...still 10's of thousands of copies were pressed....but it's certainly much rarer than the standard US Capitol album...you done good Eric Hey, I had one for a LONG time and didn't even know it...the reverb isn't exactly obvious unless you compare it directly to the more common version. Ron

PS We don't want forum members thinking this is an entire album of I Feel Fine-type echo....it's not. Matrix numbers Side 1....ST-1-2442-W8 #2, Side 2....ST-2-2442-W14 #1

 

That's the Scranton plant, right? My "echo enhanced" pressing has different numbers in the dead wax:

ST-1-2442-H-18 . 1 *
ST-2-2442-H-20 . 1 *

Also, it was a (later) Apple pressing. It's definitely the "East Coast" version, though.

 

The extra reverb is only in the right channel, and is subtly added. Not to be confused with the (stereo) reverb drench-fests such as BEATLES' SECOND ALBUM etc....

 

Grant, that's what I said.

 

I don't think it's only on the right channel. Listen to the ending guitar riff on Think for Yourself. There's reverb left and right! Also, listen to the percussion in You Won't See Me. The percussion is primarily in the left channel and has a decent amount of reverb on it, compared to the much drier percussion on the UK mix. Agreed, it's not a "drench-fest," though . . .

 

The CD story so far:

*
So, these two escaped revisionism;
1987 Please Please Me (flat)
1987 With The Beatles (flat)
Then;
1987 A Hard Day's Night (?)
1987 Beatles For Sale (?)

*
1987 Help! (remix)
1987 Rubber Soul (remix)

*
1987 Revolver (flat)
1987 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (flat)
If I am quoting Steve Hoffman correctly, I believe he has posted in the past; The Beatles, MMT, AR, & LIB are (for better or worse) flat transfers. What about the much maligned YS?
1987 The Beatles (flat)
1987 Yellow Submarine (?)
1987 Magical Mystery Tour (flat)
1987 Abbey Road (flat)
1987 Let It Be (flat)
1988 Past Masters: Volume One (remixed)
1988 Past Masters: Volume Two (?)
1993 The Beatles 1962 - 1966 (no-nosied)
1993 The Beatles 1967 - 1970 (no-nosied)
1994 Live At The BBC (?)
1995 Anthology 1 (remixed)
1996 Anthology 2 (remixed)
1996 Anthology 3 (remixed)
1998 The Beatles - 30th Anniversary Edition (?)
1999 Yellow Submarine Songtrack (remixed)
2000 1 (maximized compression)
2003 Let It Be... Naked (remixed, no-nosied)
2004 The Capitol Albums: Volume One (?)

All the CD's, none the less, suffer form various amounts of no-nosie & frequency filtering, correct?

Would someone like to add the negative mastering technique's done to each CD title?

* All quotes from: "From July 1987 Musician magazine interview with George Martin".

 

Fake stereo on "With The Beatles"?

addendum: Oh, I guess they mean fake in the sense that it was L/R, with mostly instruments on the left channel, and vocals on the right (other than "Money" of course).

 

I think he was saying that the wide stereo mixes are "fake" mixes, whatever that means.

 

Yeah, thanks. I thought that might have been the case after I had posted. Initially I was just thinking of the truly fake stereo "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" from the "Please Please Me" album.

 

I thought the terminology for the "dual mono" type-stereo mixes was "binaural."