Why do Beatles CD's have such low fidelity?

I'd love to say "you're right, I'm wrong" but what proof do we have that this is the case?
Given most companies archiving policies, ie BBC, Decca etc I am a very pessimistic, and knowing from the past even if they have the correct box available they won't use it.

I work about 3 miles away from Abbey Road, I'm going to go and ask them!

Tim

 

How about Mark Lewisohn's book where he went through and catalogued all the tapes?

 

I'm sure there are cases in which some tapes may have been lost. But starting in 1964 the stated policy is that every tape was to be kept. Not just the masters, original two,three,four,and eight tracks, but every step in between including alternate takes, etc. That is why they were able to do the Anthology CD's, the songtrack, Let It Be Naked, etc. So as far as I know virtually everything exists. The big plus for the Beatles is that aside from a few exceptions virtually everything was recorded in one Studio (EMI) and with one producer.

 

He evens mentions the tapes that are missing. Mostly beacuse Martin or one of the Beatles took it home and never returned it. These were of course just session tapes, nothing cataloged as a master.

 

Right. They are rough mixes not masters.

 

I agree on all points.

 

As others have pointed out Mr. Lewisohn's work, I'll only mention John Barrett's extensive notes provide interesting reading as well. If you by chance live close to Decca, ask them if they still have possession of the Beatles audition tape master (not that they're likely to admit it)! The cuts that appeared on Anthology appears to be about the same generation as the bootlegs, although there are some subtle differences between the same cuts. I've heard the Beatles had access to either Epstein's or another copy, but it's possible they simply cleaned up the bootleg for release.

Derek

 

Abbey Road Toshiba Black Triangle CD master

It is my understanding that the Black Triangle master was the same utilized by Toshiba for the Abbey Road Pro-Use LP in 1978. I believe that the Pro-Use master was taken from the original EMI mix tapes. Wouldn't that make the source for the CD a first generation master tape?

The first four CD's sound really bad--dull and lifeless--not warm & glorious like the mono LP's sound! The Help and Rubber Soul remixes don't sound too hot either. Of them all, the only one I like is Magical Mystery Tour--evidently taken from the 1971 German Odeon/Hor Zu release.

My favorites in my collection are the 1967 Capitol Magical Mystery Tour (with the booklet!) and the 1969 Capitol Abbey Road, and the 1985 Electrola DMM White Album.

I have an Apple ST-2442 Rubber Soul which I like a lot--much more reverb than the CD, and with the US track selection. The writing on the vinyl says 2-2442-H-20. Any idea when this release was from? Thanks!

 

I like the sound of my Horzu "PPM" LP. Has great fidelity.... That is a pretty early recording....

 

Are you saying that all the Beatles CDs have noise reduction on them (except for the Toshiba Abbey Road)? If not, what does the above statement mean?

 

The problem with Revolver and anything they did afterwards is the excessive use of ADT to double-track the vocals. Excessive particularly on Revolver, where on many tracks the vocal is on the right and the ADT-doubled vocal is on the left. Not a problem in having double-tracked vocals, except that ADT is out-of-phase. Try this little experiment. Put Doctor Robert, Love You To, I'm Only Sleeping, or And Your Bird Can Sing (these songs all have the vocals mixed as above) through your favorite karaoke filter (nero's is pretty good). This will give you mostly vocals on left and right (ignore the crappy artifacting). Now open it in your wav editor and mix it to mono. You should get a jump in the dbs when combining to mono, but you don't. You get a reduction in volume when the tracks are combined, because something in the vocals is cancelling out. Obladi Oblada is another one where this works well. You'll never get a good remaster of this album as is because of the inverted ADT.
-Steve

 

Sounds like mono is the way to go.

 

That is not correct. The vocals are not out of phase. They are out of synch, but that is the point of ADT. The principle of Karaoke filters is that they remove the information that is on both channels leaving out the information that is different. On most modern recordings that is the vocals, which are usually dead center. But since the vocals on most of the songs on Revolver are slightly different on each due to the use of ADT, then the karaoke filter does not work. Futhermore, the karaoke filter inverts one of the channels to filter sounds. That is why when you combine the two channels to mono they cancel each other out are not out phase is the mono mix. The mono LP exhibits no such problems. If the two vocal tracks were out of phase then the volume of the vocals would have diminished when the mix was created.

 

The karaoke filter does not invert one of the channels. A vocal cut that results in a mono OOPS does invert one of the channels but a karaoke filter with a stereo result doesn't. The vocals are out of sync and out of phase both, the delay seems to be in the neighborhood of .025-.032 seconds. Try folding the regular Doctor Robert stereo mix down to mono, you can hear the vocals cutting out, simply being out of sync wouldn't account for this.

 

Well I'll admit that I'm not 100% sure how the karaoke filter works, but it seems that inverting one of the tracks is the most logical way to filter out the "center" channel". Also the two vocal tracks are out of sync precisely as a result of the use of ADT. The way if works, IIRC, is that the vocal is ran through two separate tape machines that are out of sync. Just to be sure I performed the mono/stereo test, and the vocals do not cut out. There is certainly a jarring effect when listened to through headphones, but when played back on my receiver I hear no such drop in the volume of the vocals.

I do want to add, that phase issues such as these, even if they did exist would not account for a problem with the fidelity of the CD's. After all I tested both the CD and the LP and they both have the characteristics you detail (vocals and ADT vocals on each of the two channels), but the LP does not suffer from low fidelity.

 

I would agree with this. In order for ADT to create OOP vocals I'd think the delay would have to be so short as to defeat the purpose of using ADT in the first place. IMO, if you can actually hear the ADT'd part than it is essentially dissociated from the vocal as far as phase cancellations are concerned. This is particularly true when doing reel flanging. Unless the delay is extremely short the flanging effect doesn't work. You just hear the two sources. Now flanging definitely creates these types of phase cancellations and that is the whole point of it.

 

Regardless of the effect, if it is done as a production effect in the recording process than the producer determined that it is an integral part of the process. Besides, even if there was a loss of fidelity as a result of this process, it would only be on the tracks that were affected. I'd think there was a lot more degradation due to the multiple generational bouncing that was commonly used on these records. As Jorge mentions, the records do not seem to suffer from any ADT induced low fidelity.

 

The delay used to stereo-ize the vocals on "And You Bird Can Sing" and "Doctor Robert"
is like 33 milliseconds. Using an audio editor program you can shift the right channel behind the left channel by that much (1,477-1,479 samples) and the vocals will sync and "collapse" to the center of the stereo. Very Cool.

 

Yeah and the songs sound better that way too.

 

Maybe so, but then wouldn't the rest of the music have a 33 ms channel to channel delay? This would seem to give the whole song an ADT effect somewhat similar to the horrible Elvis fake stereo records which most of us detest.

 

Listen, folks, George Martin and The Beatles choice to use ADT was a creative production decision. It has nothing to do with "bad mixing" or "bad mastering." If you don't like the way ADT sounds, then you don't like the way The Beatles wanted their record to sound, plain and simple. If you think a particular song sounds better if you screw around with it on your computer, it is your preference, but please do not proclaim that your "science experiment" (for lack of a better word) is the way the song ought to sound, or should sound.