Steve, I think you've mentioned talking to George and Paul. Did Ringo ever talk to you, perhaps when you mastered "Ringo" for DCC?
Back when I was an engineering intern at an LA radio station called KROQ, (this was in the 1970's), Ringo came in to visit on the air with a jock. As the show progressed, Ringo got drunker and drunker, until one segment he just started swearing a blue streak. I mean really cutting loose. Saying F this and F that. It was funny, but shocking at the same time. So, I had to cut him off. They bundled him out of there, before the FCC Police could find him and cut his tongue out. I'm glad he is on the wagon!
Sad story, but it looks like Ringo has put those days behind him. The reason I asked, Steve, was it just seems strange that with the results you got on Paul's stuff and Ringo's, and I guess with George's awareness, that the Beatles catalog is the way it is. I reread the 11/12/93 Goldmine article on Paul's remasters, which you must have hated, which features quotes from you and Peter Mew, and commentary by the writer about how you BOTH achieved excellent results. Mew sounds like a reasonable guy in the article. But the proof is in the listening. I'm not going to say Mew's stuff is horrible, but it certainly is inferior to yours. So what gives? Is this a personality thing? Abbey Road doesn't want a hot-shot outsider from L.A. telling them how to do their business; Peter Mew was mastering LPs when you were just a kid? You've proven you can do the work. So is it that the Beatles organization doesn't care about the sound quality when they can sell 10 or 20 million copies of "1" no matter how it sounds? On the other hand, how can it be a matter of the Beatles organization being greedy, because if they had put out remasters, no matter whether they were good or bad, they would have sold many million units of new product. Since it's not the money, what is it? Yoko has approved remastering of lots of John's solo stuff, so it isn't a purist thing. What is at work here?
Well Paul, Big companies hardly ever let outsiders in. You know that. It's true that Paul McCartney loves his DCC Gold Discs, but he doesn't exactly see eye to eye with EMI, now does he? George was interested, but he's in a better place now. Ringo liked his DCC disc, but he can't go against EMI. So, the catalog doesn't get remastered. BUT, you can bet that they are working on surround sound Beatles projects right now. Well, not until they no-noise and compress all of the multi-track tapes first.
You are working under a false assumption: the assumption that everyone agrees on what constitutes a "good-sounding" album. In the case of most poorly-mastered CDs like Beatles 1, it's not that the people in charge don't care about the sound quality. They DO care, but the sad fact is that a lot of people LIKE the way "1" sounds. I mean, they must care, if they're willing to pay Mew to spend hours NoNoising everything, when it would be much cheaper to tell him to lay off NoNoise. Maybe they listen on cheap playback equipment, maybe they have damaged ears, maybe they just have bad taste and like that sterile, mechanical sound. Peter Mew certainly doesn't consider himself a hack... I'm sure when he listens to playbacks of his work, he thinks it sounds great, and there are others who agree. And sadly, those people are in charge. Think about MCA. They are actually willing to spend money to remaster discs that sound great, and make them sound bad (eg Buddy Holly & Mamas and the Papas greates hits). What possible explanation can there be other than impaired aesthetics?
