Paul McCartney Archive Collection - 'Forthcoming Releases' [2019+]

I'd say every 80-year old's hearing is probably not the best. Add 6 decades of touring to that and it's suprising that he still can hear at all.

 

I think there's a clear distinction between how the Archive editons and the new studio albums are handled in terms of mastering. And I think it has less to do with what Paul wants, and more with which people are working on it. Without looking it up, I assume his new albums are mastered by engineers who are generelly working on more current releases and go with the current trend. I don't think it's necessarily Paul wanting to sound modern and more with management giving the job to whoever is considered right at the time.

You'd be surprised how little most musicans really know about mastering.

 

As you say I know many musicians who don't have a clue about mastering but Macca has always been such a hands-on control freak, I can't believe he'd let someone else decide these things for him. He gets the final nod on his music after all. He's also spent his whole career making sure he's 'in the game', which means knowing what the 'competition' is up to.

 

There's a difference between deciding and doing. He talks somewhere about how the engineers went and remastered the older albums and he was surprised at how good they could make it. It could very well be that he's giving them the odd instruction (like "keep it close" or "I was aiming for this effect") and then okaying the results that the engineers who did the remaster came up with.

Both Flowers in the Dirt and Flaming Pie demonstrate how little tweaking needs to be done on something that has recording equipment very similar to today. With the older records, either they need to be digitized from analogue or upgraded digitally — which is, I suppose, one of the bigger issues with both London Town and Back to the Egg, as they precede the digital recording era. Broad Street will be interesting, since some of the material (like the buskering) its likely different recording methods than the studios George Martin was using. Press to Play may be the first to use digital technology in a way that's much easier to adjust (and therefore compile).

Video content is a different matter, as 35mm can be scanned and upscaled to modern standards but it's a lot harder with material that went direct to video. If, say, the Back to the Egg film is shot directly to video – or the archive at MPL only has a video copy to work with, then it's a lot more intense and a lot more expensive a process. That's really a labour of love if it's not direct transfer: that Paramount found it not worth processing Star Trek series into upscaling underscores that you have to make up the costs elsewhere. It can help explain why the costs of the sets has risen over time.

You also have the issue of the images too: given the timing of digital cameras and Linda's own love of the process – Flaming Pie uses Polaroid transfers, which is an analogue process – every one of the negatives/composites has to be scanned in, cleaned up for dust/scratches/etc. and then laid in. If they are re-creating the original, the typefaces have also changed as the digitization of some fonts has removed some of the variations between print houses of the day.

Thankfully, by the time you move past Flaming Pie and start into Run Devil Run, it's almost all digital from the get-go. We know for sure that the images on Driving Rain are digital because Paul talks about using a camera in his watch; Memory Almost Full had its imagery manipulated for the Starbucks stores and that can mostly be done digitally alone by that point. It makes it less labour intensive and therefore cost effective to do the later albums when there's less copies expected to be sold.

Hopefully, though, Universal doesn't get to the point where they see these SDEs as being money losers. The fan base on The Beatles may complain but the content is still being bought and celebrated – something that helps them stand above their peers on a regular basis.

 

When MAF was released, people here contacted the mastering engineer (whose name I forget) and were like "Bruh what's going on with this being so freaking loud?" and they got the answer that McCartney wanted it to sound that way.

He's a hands on guy who knows what he wants.

 

All they'll have to do is release the SDEs with 6 different vinyl cover variations and they'll come out with a profit because all the compulsive fans won't be able to contain themselves and will buy it 6 times over.

 

Bob Ludwig, who said: "The final CD [of Memory Almost Full] is EXACTLY the way Paul and the producer wanted, every note."

 

I am not disagreeing with you. But in my experience, more often than not, statemens like that mean "our work was approved by the artist", and not "the artist was there with us, with a clear vision in mind, discussing every detail with us and making sure we're getting it 100% to sound the way they want it". Like, if they don't object, it must have been exactly what they wanted. So those statements are often half-truths. Most musicians don't even know what mastering is or could hear a difference anyway.

But if you say so, I believe that it's diffrent with Paul.

 

This reminds me of when they used the 80s remixes for the remasters of Help! and Rubber Soul because those are the mixes George Martin wanted but when asked, George Martin didn't even remember remixing them.

 

Worse, they claimed there was only one version of "Help!" – but the American Rarities album made clear the single mix was a different vocal take based on different lyrics. That single version seems to have been lost in the plan.

 

Didn't the American Rarities album just have the mono mix for "Help!"?

 

Yes, that's true! The UK mono album mix is also the UK single mix

 

From @Frank [reformatted a bit to capture the quotes]:

 

Just to be clear, I didn't have that conversation. I was quoting it from here:
Paul McCartney MEMORY ALMOST FULL - Mastering good or bad? *

(and the Frank he's referring to in that post isn't me)

 

Er... No. People will jump off the roundabout when they realise they are being used and are buying the same thing over and over. And... once you jump off it makes future rejections much easier. The Beatles never did this. They were very fair in not including singles on albums etc. Paul has dramatically forgotten this philosophy.

 

That's an insult to Paul and the producer then. Abysmal.

 

Lets start a new topic. how old will we be when London & Egg come out. Really dragging this out Paul

 

One guy said one of these days he'll be 90 when London & Egg come out.

I hope he's 89...

 

I'm hoping he's 90! [meaning we'd have the set within a year...]

 

Well, I do try to give credit where it's due, but the provenance of the quotes sometimes seems to get a bit muddled....

 

I know this is a long shot, but I would absolutely love a 1972 (and 1973) Wings tour box. Multiple full shows, plus rehearsals, resulting in a great commemorative box celebrating those tours, and not severely limited in quantity, so all fans can enjoy.

 

For those that got the recent boxed set of McCartney I II III, can you confirm if the medley on McCartney of "Hot As Sun/Glasses" is split into two separate cuts as was listed in the initial advertisement?

 

It is not.

 

If they really had wanted to engage in historical revisionism, they would have split it in three: Hot As Sun/Glasses/Suicide.

 

Several eBay sellers currently offering multiple sealed Ram boxes for cheap $$$. Seems a little suspicious…..