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Author Topic: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered  (Read 43605 times)

Miguel M

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #30 on: September 24, 2009, 06:06:59 AM »

I have mixed feelings about this.

Magical Mystery Tour, the mono version, is amazing. This was already one of my favorite albums and it even got better. It gained some fatteness and punch.

Abbey Road, the stereo version (duh!), doesn't sound right to me. It is my fav album along with Magical Mystery Tour. Too much ambience/reverb and it also seems to distorce in a different way the vinyl used to. Has anyone noticed this?
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Greg Youngman

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #31 on: September 24, 2009, 11:25:41 AM »

I will not be happy until I'm able to get my hands on the master tapes and make my own mixes.
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Fenris Wulf

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #32 on: September 24, 2009, 11:31:29 PM »

For what it's worth, Geoff Emerick's original mixes of the latter albums are very compressed and in-your-face for the era. I was a bit shocked when I revisited the albums with my present more-educated ears. It helps that the compressors were mostly Fairchild 660's and not some fuzzstressor flavor of the millisecond.

The Anthology remixes were done through a REDD transistor desk "so as not to colour the sound" as Geoff Emerick paradoxically put it. Not sure about the Help! and Rubber Soul remixes from the 80's.
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kats

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #33 on: September 25, 2009, 09:18:57 AM »

Greg Youngman wrote on Thu, 24 September 2009 10:25

I will not be happy until I'm able to get my hands on the master tapes and make my own mixes.


Now THAT would definitely be worth the $300 bux!
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Extreme Mixing

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #34 on: September 25, 2009, 01:56:14 PM »

As most of you know, it's actually possible to do that with some of the songs...

I would rather leave them as they are, myself.  There's a lot of magic in there for me, and I'd rather not.

On the other hand, it is fun to hear John and Paul singing on a track with only a tambourine.

It's an emotional experience, to be sure.

Steve

Edvaard

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #35 on: September 27, 2009, 12:50:28 AM »

It troubles me that so many "in the biz" here miss the point in Klaus's original post.
(but at the same time, that explains to me why I am getting out of it)

I don't care what Sir George or Sir Paul or (were he still with us, I'm sure that he most certainly would be "Sir") John have to say about how much they would gladly re-arrange and re-do things 20 or 40 years after the fact.

I'm sure that da Vinci would have re-done the Mona Lisa at least 20 times, had he been allowed. Whatever they did then, (at that time), including however it got accomplished, was what got across to millions of people at the time.

Do you want to hear what actually went on that accomplished such a worldwide response ? Or rather some bogus "re-creation" that (theoretically) could have made all those millions of people, and perhaps even a few more, even happier at the time, had these God-sent re-masters been available then?

Just asking ....
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Empty Planet

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #36 on: September 27, 2009, 08:09:32 AM »

I respect that opinion, but mine is that I do not think of this at all as a bogus recreation.  They didn't add new parts. They didn't add new effects. Rather, conversely, I get a feeling of respect when I listen to the remasters.

Martin has said that he worked toward creating mixes that would "punch through" the common media of the time, the new transistor handheld radios, the common mono record players, the quality and frequency ranges of which I don't believe I need to iterate.  My impression when I listen to this work is that the recordings have simply been made more balanced, not "hyped," not particularly more modern.  Their new-found clarity is undeniable, and a godsend as far as I'm concerned.

I think this issue actually has far more to do with the human being's basic resistance to change with that which has become familiar.


Cheers.

Cool
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Edvaard

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #37 on: September 28, 2009, 04:02:02 AM »



Though the term 'bogus' may seem a bit strong of wording here, I do not mean to accuse those who spent so much time in this affair of ill intent.

But if it is being sold as "the real thing" when I actually have "the real thing" in my collection and the two do not match up, ....


A you point out, G Martin took into consideration the playback to some extent, but how much do we expect that he went to such great lengths to accommodate the worst of affairs at the time, when we have such good evidence that he was also very realistic about the situation and limited the damage there.

The original records stand as testimony there.

I stand as witness here that I very much appreciated what came across over the transistor radio and the cheap mono record player available to me at the time.

But I also had good experience on few occasions with much better stereos of the time, and certainly those of these last 10 years or so.

All from the original LP's.

I most certainly can understand how you or I might gleefully delve into various details of the original recordings for our "prurient interest" dissection thereof, but this episode is about the general public, and how things were understood and conveyed at the time of the occurrence.


Sound engineers have beaten this thing to death.
 

Let's allow the public to hear some good rendition of what the parties involved intended us to hear when they did it.

I somehow doubt that either Revolver or Sgt. Pepper were recorded and mixed with the transistor radio or mono table-top record player in mind.






 


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Dominick

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #38 on: September 28, 2009, 07:52:18 AM »

Edvaard wrote on Mon, 28 September 2009 04:02


I somehow doubt that either Revolver or Sgt. Pepper were recorded and mixed with the transistor radio or mono table-top record player in mind.



They most certainly were. In spades.
The  Beatles prime demographic in 1966-1967 was under 25 years old.
Most of them did not have high fidelity playback devices.
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Dominick Costanzo

Empty Planet

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #39 on: September 28, 2009, 08:16:44 AM »

Edvaard wrote on Mon, 28 September 2009 09:02

...I most certainly can understand how you or I might gleefully delve into various details of the original recordings for our "prurient interest" dissection thereof...



Lol.  Well done.   Very Happy



Cheers.

Cool
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compasspnt

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #40 on: September 28, 2009, 10:04:53 AM »

Edvaard wrote on Mon, 28 September 2009 04:02

I do not mean to accuse those who spent so much time in this affair of ill intent.



Just exactly who do you say approached this re-release with "ill intent"?
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J.J. Blair

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #41 on: September 28, 2009, 12:22:22 PM »

Edvaard, did you get the mono box, and are you listening against a mono LP?
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Edvaard

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #42 on: September 29, 2009, 01:36:37 AM »

Not that I didn't expect the 'slap-back' from my initial post, but ...

Edvaard wrote on Mon, 28 September 2009 04:02

Quote:

I somehow doubt that either 'Revolver' or 'Sgt. Pepper' were recorded and mixed with the transistor radio or mono table-top record player in mind.


Another wrote ...

Quote:

They most certainly were. In spades.
The Beatles prime demographic in 1966-1967 was under 25 years old.
Most of them did not have high fidelity playback devices.



I was in that crowd, whereupon I spoke of first-hand experience there, along with the first-hand experience of many years later where I somehow got it into my head and ears that Sir George did not ruin things in the process, as so many others had. I was not alone in having "The good, the bad, and the ugly" for playback at the time.

He did not mix explicitly for that medium, he merely had that in consideration, the less so as things went along.

It's The Beatles, after all; all you have to do is put the vocals out front and be done with it. Not to say that George Martin did not earn his keep in the latter stages (and very importantly, on the first album especially).


Quote:

Just exactly who do you say approached this re-release with "ill intent"?


Oh please ...    

So far as I could read from that post, not even the people releasing this venture had "ill intent," they were just pursuing the most economically feasable venture available to them at the time.


Quote:

"Edvaard, did you get the mono box, and are you listening against a mono LP?"


Good question JJ, and no, I haven't actually yet.



'Empty Planet' is the only one making a decent argument against me on this issue. My rejoinder to him was and is; "do we want to make the general public hear what greedy sound engineers want to hear for their own selfish purpose, or do we want to be proper sonic archeologists, nay, perhaps paleontologists (time goes quickly, doesn't it?)

As a "greedy" sound recordist myself who has in fact accumulated much in the way of bootlegs, back channel gossip, past masters, etc., I ask; do we STILL need to foist all this upon the public?

The original post (please read it) focused upon the question of the preservation of the original recordings.

Please read it again.



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Edvaard

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #43 on: September 29, 2009, 02:30:02 AM »

Hello JJ,
As long as we are in 'interrogation' mode here ...
Have you heard the original broadcasts of these items on either tube or small transistor radios for yourself, at the time of release?

Have you heard any of these items, at the time of release, on either mono or stereo records, played upon either cheapo turntables, or on a good juke box, or perhaps on a neighbor's or aunt's or uncle's much better playback system?

I heard all this at the same time, in the same age.

So no, I haven't heard any of the new release yet, being as that I possess some good bit of this collection to begin with, and duly satisfied with the original output and intent, I'll get to this new release when I can.

I'm sure that there will be things that I enjoy about both versions of the new release, when I get to it.

But this situation forces those who want to hear the "original recipe" to still be stuck with digging into the used records
market, where getting a good copy of this particular band is quite difficult.

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J.J. Blair

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Re: Critic At Large, Vol. IV: The Beatles Remastered
« Reply #44 on: September 29, 2009, 12:01:56 PM »

Edvaard, there's no interrogation going on here.  You said, "the two do not match up," and I was simply trying to establish what didn't match up.  I had assumed, obviously incorrectly, that from that statement, you had compared the new CDs against an original LP, and I was trying to find out if the new mono CDs match up against the original release, is all.  There's no need to be defensive.  It's an innocent question.

Now, if you'd like an answer to your question, when I was 6, Rubber Soul was the first record I ever picked out for myself at the record store (1976), and I used to listen to it on my mono GE transistor phonograph.  I also listened to it on my father's turntable, through his tube Marantz preamps and amps, through JBL Olympus speakers.  But at the age of 6, I had no appreciation for the difference between tube and transistor, or mono and stereo, so it was all lost on me.  I just knew that I loved the music.
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They say the heart of Rock & Roll is still beating, which is amazing if you consider all the blow it's done over the years.

"The Internet enables pompous blowhards to interact with other pompous blowhards in a big circle jerk of pomposity." - Bill Maher

"The negative aspects of this business, not only will continue to prevail, but will continue to accelerate in madness. Conditions aren't going to get better, because the economics of rock and roll are getting closer and closer to the economics of Big Business America." - Bill Graham
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