The Beatles 50th anniversary editions in Mix magazine

That’s certainly the case. They moan and complain so much it’s unbelievable.
Take the 6(!) disc long White Album anniversary from 2018. We got ALL Esher Demos. We got nearly every fart they cared to play during those sessions, from alternates to scrap-heaps and p***-takes. Every tape was obviously examined and we got previously undocumented outtakes. Still, the members here moaned and complained from morning till evening that several well-known outtakes from old bootlegs WASN’T included! I agree, sometimes I think several fans doesn’t even deserve to be honoured with all these boxed sets.

 

Oh okay, that wasn't at all clear.

By the way, to get this back more on point - the article mentioned that the EMI tape stock was exceptional, and it even though this was the first time any of these tapes had been played in 50 years (the famous ones had been played 50 or 60 times) they were in amazing shape and you didn't have to "bake" any of them (the usual procedure for a lot of old audio tapes.)

 

These people should try being a Kate Bush fan. We get nothing and we're asked to like it.

 

If you have a Tascam 4-track (a 414 or 424) , you can actually isolate all four tracks. I have to go by memory since the power supply for my Tascam 414 is shot, but iirc you send Tracks 1 and 2 panned hard left and right to the standard L R Line Out , then send Track 3 to Effect 1 Send and Track 4 to Effect 2 Send.

EDIT
lol Looks like @slane beat me to it!

 

I wonder if anybody who'd produced a famous album on a Tascam was as careful about preserving all of the bounce down generations as the EMI engineers were? And if so, could they duplicate their techniques with modern equipment?

 

In another thread (probably the Pepper thread), it was asserted, due to a screenshot that Sam provided of the ProTools session files, that Sam/Giles sampled a singular Ringo snare hit from elsehwere in the masters, and synced them with the actual drum track, thus "beefing" up the snare sound.

So now we know that is not what they did. Good to know, it sort of annoyed me.

We also have confirmation to what someone said in the beginning of that Pepper thread-- that they recorded the actual acoustics of the Abbey Road studios to get stereo ambience of the room. This is the stereo effect that people here were swearing up and down were cheep VST plugins lol.

 

Sure, but they are probably vintage/60s fetishists.

One of my favorite bands, Olivia Tremor Control, recorded both their albums Dusk At Cubist Castle and Black Foliage on 4 and 8 track tape, included by The Beatles, Beach Boys, Zombies, etc. What I've read from the producer of both album, Robert Schneider of Apples in Stereo, there was a lot of crazy crazy bouncing to make room for the many layers on the album. There was also, on the later album, a lot of weird tape sync stuff; as in, each of the individual band members would take a mix home, record additional instrumentation on their own, then sync their overdubs to the master later on.

 

Thank you; that clears it up nicely.

 

They did mention plugins that had been made of all these famous pieces of equipment at Abbey Road - but that they didn't need the to use them because they were actually using the real equipment at Abbey Road. When I get back to my apartment I can go in and quote that part, as well as some usage of a REDD console.

 

The originals are great from an historic perspective and many of them were recorded quite well for their time. But just before, I listened to the first LP of the remixed White Album. I try my utmost to respect everyone's opinion but I have a hard time with people saying they actually think the original sounds better than the remix. The original sounds *different* from the remix and is obviously more of "it's time". if someone is looking to be taken back to that magical moment when they were floored by the album for the first time, the original mix (of this or any other album)is obviously the way to go. But if it's a matter of hearing the recordings come to life at their clearest and, as you say, fullest, I have to go with the remix.

 

Easy there cowboy. I'm as annoyed at the Chicken Littles on here about the remixes as you seem to be but there's still more in the vaults that could come out and be worthwhile.

 

The Super Deluxe Editions are my go-to versions now, which is why I am in the Reformed synod of the Beatleites.

 

+1

Sgt. Pepper aside*, I think Giles has largely done a great (and more importantly, entertaining) job in remixing the Beatles' catalogue. The "white album" remix has become my go-to; and the Abbey Road remix is revelatory: like going from a 16mm print to 70mm widescreen. Can't wait to hear Rubber Soul and Revolver ...

*It was his first go at a catalogue album, so I give him a mulligan -- a bit too "hard rock" for my tastes. But who cares? We still have the 2009 stereo and mono CDs, which sound great.

 

Although they could have been better i agree with the sentiment

 

? Not sure I follow you.

 

The 2009 Stereo CDs suffer from goosed bass and limiting and in my opinion these are detrimental to the sound. But that wasn’t really the point, I agree with the rest of what you had to say

 

I won't be able to make it over to your place tonight. Could you also post it here.please?

 

Giles Martin is not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

 

I've got the 414, and yes this is correct. Choosing my 4 input audio interface now. Man, I love this forum

I may still try to ride the varispeed once for the fun of it

 

The problem is this:

The Beatles didnt NEED to be Remixed.

 

Gile Martin made this music more pleasant to listen to in the context of a playlist. He revealed how well the albums had originally been recorded in a pre-Dolby world, and these performances and vocals can finally be heard without listening through the acoustical donut glaze of multiple generations of analog tape.

 

Could you imagine if those remixes were putrid like In Search Of The Lost Chord or CTA 50?
The Ultra-Orthodox Beatleites would all grab torches, march to London and set fire to Abbey Road Studios and kill Giles while he's at work on Revolver or Rubber Soul.

Nobody shall removeth thy chair squeak on Wild Honey Pie, it's a crime against humanity.

I like the remixes, better if they weren't so compressed.

 

Stop and think about all of the things in your life you don't actually NEED

 

Here's a bit from the article about ADT:

In re-creating effects, Okell will always start with true ADT (automatic double-tracking), using a Studer tape machine to introduce proper, authentic delays and doubling techniques that help give the mixes a true Beatles sound. "It's something to do with the subtlety of the variation," Okell notes. "I guess you're getting a bit of tape compression and coloration on the sound, a tonal coloration, but you're also getting that continuous variable. And it's a far more subtle effect on a vocal than just using straight delay."Adds Martin, "You don't want to hear ADT. You just want to have the feel of stereo."
​

...and another bit:

Okell will typically mix (or pass some material through) one of the original EMI-built REDD tube consoles, even for Abbey Road, which was recorded on EMI's then-new TG transistorized console. "Geoff Emerick wasn't a fan of that desk. He famously said that he felt he couldn't get some of the crunch, the distortion he had gotten on previous records." For reverb, Okell will make use of the original Studio 2 echo chamber, which, he says, "is just fantastic on drums and guitars. Anything that calls for that short, roomy space around things. I might also use a UAD plate plug-in or an Abbey Road plate emulation. We set up some blind tests with some real reverbs and some plug-ins and A/B'd them, particularly on something crucial, like the vocal reverb on 'Because; which ended up being a UAD plate plug-in."​

 

A bit about the lathe:

His disc cutting lathe is a customized, restored Neumann VMS-80. "When l found it, it was in a pile of very broken bits and looking very sad for itself. I had it tweaked to my specifications."

His Beatles vinyl is created using half-speed mastering, something at which Showell excels. Discs are cut at 16-2/3 rpm, instead of 33-1/3 rpm, with the master playing back at half the normal speed. "If you think about it, a tambourine might have a
15kHz component," he explains. "So in order to cut that at normal speed, the recording stylus has to vibrate at 15,000 times a second. The head can get quite stressed trying to cut all that information. If you halve the playback speed of the source and halve the disc-cutting Lathe, you're effectively turning that 15 kHz to 7.5 kHz, kinda high-mid, which is much easier for the system to cut. You're not pushing it to its limits, so you get more headroom, much cleaner-sounding high-frequency information. Beautiful, clean top end, and much more defined stereo imaging. And with a very good pressing-as Beatles releases have-and a very good turntable with a good cartridge, you've ultimately got a wider range than you would have on a CD."​