Why Giles Won’t Remix Rubber Soul/Revolver

A nice simple explanation,thanks. A progression I was not aware of

 

Mono-Stereo-Stereo Matrix, using all three existing mixes.

 

Even Steven Wilson had another go at one of his early surround remixes (King Crimson - In the Court...). Learning curves and advancing technology are real - why not do it again if you can do better?

 

The Dolby Atmos version of Abbey Road on Apple Music is fantastic, just a new, fresh, and fun interpretation of the original. I love it. And I look forward to Rubber Soul and Revolver being given the same treatment when Giles feels the technology is mature enough.

Beatles Spatial Audio is the new Super Deluxe. It’s better than outtakes and demos. You are hearing new things in new spaces. It’s incredible.

 

They synched up two four track machines.

 

Well, I actually liked the Pepper remix (the mix, not the CD mastering), but philosophically, I'm with you. I thought the idea of going back to the pre-bounce tapes and separating them for a 8- or 16-track master was a great example of modern technology helping 1967's "impossible" become possible. But after they had the tracks separated they should have just mixed it old-school like it was 1971; they didn't need to get cute with it. But they did, and they will continue to use modern tech and thinking to remix Beatles albums. We'll always have the originals if we don't like the remixes.

 

The difference in this case would be, remixes are completely additive - painting over Picasso would destroy the original literally. For remixes, if someone doesn't like them, they can just listen to the original and stick it it. So I say, are remixes absolutely a need? No, but they are fun and I am glad they exist

 

sure, ok. i was given 5 mixes of "you oughta know" from maverick, and never did pick my favorite.

so yeah, ok.

 

The third one

 

one of them had the guitar way up. i think that was my choice at the time.

but they were of course mixed "format specific" not listening pleasure, per se.

 

I have no desire to hear remixes of RS or RVLR. More interesting is to ponder if not being able to do a remix is preventing a super deluxe treatment with interesting outtakes and studio chatter, etc.

I prefer the original mixes. I have no issues at all with the 1987 remixes. But since this subject comes up pretty often here, I guess I do kind of marinate on the subject. In that spirit I would say the originals, warts and all, have a certain presence and freshness that shouldn't be messed with. Because you can kill it without even trying. If you see the Buddha, kill him. Isn't that what they say?

 

Giles is just trying to put smiles on our faces

 

we'll never get anywhere by insulting or overpowering Giles. One thing is for sure...he has been entrusted by the Beatles with the production of their remixes. Secondly.. he has made his decisions AFTER at least six Abbey Road engineers who worked on the 2009 remasters, Sam Okell, Ken Scott, Geoff Emerick, Alan Parsons, Glyn Johns, Dhani & Olivia Harrison have presumably weighed in or expressed opinions directly counter to the direction Giles decided to go.

the socks and sandals brigade are all in our basements KNEE DEEP in water with gnomes who can't swim!!!

meanwhile... Giles is striding around with thigh high waders. Like a zealot.. he knows only the true tenets of the faith! The Beatles are the greatest band in rock because George Martin cut up some tape of pipe organ and calliope... threw them in the air and edited them into the Harry the Horse Waltz while drinking claret which was apologized for after Can You Take Me Back? but anyway Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane (inarguably the greatest moment in all Beatledom... Gretsch who? Rickenbacker what?) belong on the same album as Sgt. Pepper.. but Only a Northern Song was cut explicitly by my dad and MUST be banished from the same CD ..with that settled.. my job is to apply ADT for as long as the electricity at Abbey Road is working... if a tambourine is on the same track as the guitars, there is NOTHING I can do... and if the drums on While My Guitar Gently Weeps have moved to the same stairwell as those on Mother Nature's Son then tell your SONOS smart speaker to turn them back up! Amen Hallelujah!

how can we convince Giles NOW? his FATHER remixed Rubber Soul.... he considered remixing Revolver but thought it too complex for his limited time window!! 35 YEARS and half of the world's NEVE mixing consoles at the bottom of the ocean after one too many DMX album release parties LATER.... after computers have increased in power by THOUSANDS of orders of magnitude and advances in DEMIXING tech are set to amaze even the most skeptical audiophile. In a world where grade schoolers carry 200 tracks of 24 bit 192 khz hi res digital to school every day.... with the rationale that generations of the future need minor stereo upgrades of Abbey Road or they won't listen to them BUT the blaring midrange of Revolver and the TRULY NAKED sounds of Rubber Soul are just a road that must not be travelled!!! ..

the look on Macca's face as Rubin played back And Your Bird Can Sing??? I mean... Macca wouldn't overrule Giles for a ride on Bezos rocket I'm sure... but IF the master server is STILL in L.A. maybe somebody could ACCIDENTALLY run off a remix or two!! Just maybe the guy who produced the Red Hot Chili Peppers knows someone who can redefine the beaten down image of the socks & sandals brigade while we're still able to(on increasingly rare occasions!) hold up a sock!!!

 

if you want the job done RIGHT... call out.. OH YOKO!

 

wouldn't a remix be more like turning on a light in a room with the painting? or at least repainting faded and dissolved paint or canvas to restore the strokes and colors to look like the original painting did?

 

... I think it's a no brainer. Giles certainly learned from these remixes and should certainly use the opportunity to refine his work. add another group of outtakes... add only a northern song... upgrade the Anthology... Atmos for both Pepper and White Album... McCartney should use the Universal deal to upgrade his deluxes and 5.1/Atmos as well!

 

Really at the end of the day it is all subjective. As someone who has loved and found the remixes thus far a great joy to listen to, I don't share the verbatim views - I suppose for those who dislike Giles' choices artistically and subjectively the originals will always be there anyways so it is a win-win

 

Yes, and I only listen to the original mixes, and I love them.

People who enjoy the remix across this forum love to tell those who don’t that they can always listen to the original mix. True, we can, but framing it that way is incorrect, in my eyes. It’s not as simple as, “Don’t like it? Put on the original.” The fact that there was real potential for a phenomenal-sounding remix is the truly disappointing part. It is a missed opportunity. It’s not that I’m being forced to listen to, or like, the remix, it’s that a FAR superior one could have been created, and we’ll never get that opportunity again. This was their one chance. They failed. And to make matters worse, the original stereo mixes we’re being told to go back to are, in their current 2009 remaster, peak limited. That sucks. It’s not the worst remastering a beloved catalog has received, to be sure, but I’m still having to compromise with half the original mixes. The 2009 monos are stellar.

And yes, I, quite naively, figured they would be doing what you suggested - taking the pre-bounced tracks and giving it a fresh, organic mix, similar to what the Magical Mystery Tour LP got in 1971 (and it’s one of the best-sounding Beatles stereo mixes). Clearly, the Beatles brain trust feels what has been released thus far in terms of Beatles remixes is the best they can do. A shame.

 

If he wasn't qualified to to the job he would not have been hired, to me anything else is irrelevant

 

The monos are definitive

why monkey with the tapes?!

 

I guess that makes sense, though I suspect it won't be too long before the technology will be able to do a good enough job of separating all the elements for them to do a proper remix. At which point they'd probably remix the early albums as well.

 

So every single mastering engineer who has created a terrible, brickwalled, treble- and bass-boosted remaster gets a pass because they were hired?

 

indeed and worse! it's all a game.

 

opinionated sounds better...know-it-all? nah, we are always learning and sharing.

 

Pepper........
No, no sync. each 1" machine was free wheeling. They did exp with jimmying up some circuit boxes to varispeed. when they adapted that for sync, it didn't work....the tach signal was there but they couldn't get lock. The ac motors were all traveling in a common rate with tach, but there was too much drift (reliable synchronizers were still five years away). So other than vso, they ditched the idea of sync, and just kept pingponging between the two freewheeling machines.....and increasingly b***"ing to emi to buy some 8trk machines. Which Emi was hopelessly slow to do.

So the procedure.....done to make bazillions of records, not just Beatles....

One machine powered up, trk 1 filled with a guitar or piano or harpsichord. trk 2 filled with extraneous support, track 3 filled with guide snare, trk 4 , guide hh...some elements....say the first piano...compressed and a mono reverb printed/baked onto just tha piano.

Then the session stops ..,...for a half hour of bounce reduction...playing those four tracks out of the console into a bounced mono compiled submix over onto machine $2. No bass yet because it'll get lost in subsequent bounces.

reel 1.... is wisely put away....not erased...ever.

reel2 on machine two now gets it's three overdubs. Then that is reduced bounced back to fresh tape on machine #1. reel 2 put away....not erased. same way all the way to reel 9.

And onward.....no reel erased. All components intact although spread between a load of reels. Nonlinear editing gets invented 30 years later and voila....intact multitracks.

Penny Lane itself consists of 31 individual mono tracks after being extracted from all the work reels and reassembled in Pro Tools.

In Revolver/Rubber Soul, you had a procedure where during bounces, elements were being added AT the bounce...."hey let's sing 4pt harmony WHILE we're doing the bounce from machine 1 to 2. Baking in the overlapping signals "in the air" during the flyover. For those, you need spleeter/demucs technology to demix.

now a decade ago, Cedar was used but Cedar has a whole lot of limitations that technology like spleeter/demucs are overcoming.

The "on the fly" overdubbing are why the psychedelic elements are often lost for say, the stereo mix of "Baby You're a Rich Man'.....because.....they were laid in AT the bounces. No real biggie to isolate those now for a new multitrack buildout.

But yeah, Revolver/Rubber Soul have way more baked-in elements on comp tracks...those have to be surgically demixed.....no biggie.

Deep-learning code is running 24/7 by guys training spleeter/demucs to do an ai trip in identifying, say a stratocaster mixed with a telecaster....and pulling them into separate files that are clean with no artifacts. Mixed guitars have traditionally been hard to pull apart.

But it's getting there!

Another issue with independent 300 pound freewheeling tape machines with either ac or dc motors is slight pitch change as the reels pack. Not to mention wow flutter (even on these spectacular pro level studers).

Of course, the advent of the basically wonderful, magical Capstan program (and others similar) solves that completely. I'm sure AR uses it.