The Beatles Remasters: Yellow Submarine

I'm listening to it right now.. and I'm a bit disappointed that they replaced the fake stereo of "Only a Northern Song". It was always like that, and I'd consider it as original as the fake-stereo second half of "I'm the Walrus".
I liked the atmosphere for this strange arrangement.
(The same for "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I love You" on the stereo PPM, as the true mono versions are available elsewhere)

Martin

 

Same here. I just listened to these last night, & had the same exact feeling. They sound very dull.

 

When you're listening late at night
You may think the band are not quite right
But they are, They just play it like that

 

I agree - I actually think they did a pretty good job on the Love Me Do fake stereo.

They must have decided that if an entire song was fake stereo it would be replaced, while if it was just a section of the song it was part of the original mix and vibe of the record and could stay?

 

Wonderful - Hey Bulldog, yeah! Love tracks 7 - 13

 

Hmmmm, I was enjoying listening to the new '09 stereo boxset remasters for several hours last night, until I got to Yellow Submarine and heard 'Hey Bulldog'. Its sounded ok, but I then compared it to the sound quality on the YS Songtrack, and I thought the Songtrack sounded much better.

In fact, I always thought the YS Songrack cd sounded pretty darn good (has it really been 10 years since it was released?).

I think I will have to do further listening tonight, and compare the other Songtrack tunes to the ones on the new 09 remasters such as 'All You Need is Love' on MMT. To my ears, 'All You Need is Love' sounds amazing on the Songtrack. 'Eleanor Rigby', 'Yellow Submarine', 'Lucy...', 'Think for Yourself', 'Baby Youre a Rich Man' all sound great too, so I might be disappointed if I hear them as sounding inferior on the new 09 remasters of Revolver, YS, & Sgt Pepper.

Then again, I had quite a few beers last night while I was listening, so not sure if that mightve influenced what my ears perceived

 

The Yellow Submarine Soundtrack may sound better because they are 'Remixes' not remasters !!

 

Just for fun I tried to match the relative Eq's using needledrops from PPM, you can use this eq also for She Loves You, try it, it works pretty fine.

 

They could have put the entire YSS and GM's orchestral score onto one cd.

Evan

 

"Only A Northern Song" should be played between "Fixing A Hole" and "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite" as it was recorded by the Beatles between those Pepper songs.

 

"Hey Bulldog" vocals in 2009 "Yellow Submarine" stereo remaster is attenuated or buried in the mix compared to the one in "Yellow Submarine Songtrack".
That's understandable because the Songtrack is a remix.

As far as I remember, I have not heard the vocals of "Hey Bulldog" so attenuated the way it sound in the 2009 "Yellow Submarine" stereo remaster.

I still have to compare it to its 1987 counterpart and the one on 2009 MONO box set.

 

Bulldog Fade

On YSS, the fade in -- fade out effect at the end of Bulldog is minimal, if it's there at all. I rather like the trick, and it's one of the few quibbles I have with the otherwise great YSS 1999 remix.

 

Some points about the YS remaster:

The song "Yellow Submarine" sounds better here then on the Revolver remaster.

The orchestral recordings shine. It's All Too Much still sounds like crap.

And best for me, every single image of the Beatles in this package is from the cartoon!

Evan

 

I also think All You Need is Love sounds better on YS than on MMT!

 

I noticed that too. They sound very good, but unfortunately I hardly ever listen to those tracks.

The stills from the cartoon ARE nice in the package.

I also noticed the Hey Bulldog vocals in this stereo version were too buried for my taste.

That's about all I really have to say. I don't regret owning this new disc, but as always the Beatles content is a bit slim and I would have rather had those songs as part of the new Past Masters and skipped the George Martin score.

 

Will SOMEONE who has both please answer these questions? What's the difference in the way this same mono mix was treated on the two CDs? Are they digitally identical, or is the bass pumped up on the YS disc?

etc.

 

I've not heard the YS remaster of Northern Song, but it's well established that the stuff on the mono box was not treated to any compression, NR, or additional EQ so they have been treated differently.

 

In which case A Day In The Life should be at the beginning IIRC.

 

Yep:
Strawberry Fields Forever
When I'm 64
Penny Lane
A Day in the Life
Good Morning
Fixing A Hole
Only a Northern Song
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
etc.
Other than the transitions between songs, sounds very interesting this way.

 

No it isn't. The only thing they didn't use on the mono box set that they did use on the stereo CDs is peak limiting. Both EQ and NR were used, sparingly, on the mono box set. I can't be bothered to find the quote(s) to confirm this but I'm sure someone will.

 

How would you describe/rank the compression used on YSS? Heavy? Moderate? Light? It's definitely louder than the original mixes, but how much of that do you attribute to the fact that these are indeed remixes. The song elements have been re-positioned & the those elements are coming from first generation multi-track tapes vs. bounced master tapes, etc.

The one thing that I noticed when comparing the YSS remixes to the original songs is that - on some songs, not all - the lead vocal seems too "up front" - just a tad louder in the mix than it used to be. Enough so that it bothers me.

Just wondering what others opinons are in comparison to the new ones. (I have a friend who rates YSS as the best sounding Beatles CD...)

Dexter

 

My bad. They were treated differently anyway so it is quite reasonable that they may sound different.

 

that would not make much sense in a reissue campaign.

 

YSS's compression is pretty bad. I would off the top of my head rank the remixed albums like so (with the first being the most compressed):

YSS
Love
1
LIBN

I can't be bothered to analyse them but I think that's pretty much right. However, YSS has other problems such as excess of noise reduction (of the above, only Love escapes this treatment) and also clipping (for example, the final chorus of Yellow Submarine has clipping all over the vocals). Tis a shame cos the actual mixes are great in general.

Well level matching them shows that only two peaks in the entire song are reduced in amplitude on the stereo CD. The spectral display looks pretty much the same, I can't see any obvious bass boost but I don't have any software that'll show EQ comparisons.

 

Since when does Apple make sense?

Evan