Sterling Sound remastering US Beatles albums

[Patrick M]

http://academic.reed.edu/writing/grammar/pronouns.html

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

Johnny Tightlips sez, "I ain't sayin' nothin'!"

[Rspaight]

Here's the art from Amazon.

[Beatlesfan03]

Here's the art from Amazon.

So we have art, but still no official word from Apple? All beatles.com wants me to do is take a ride on the Yellow Submarine.

Capitol surely couldn't get these out without Apple at least making some sort of acknowledgment?

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

Am I wrong in saying that all 4 of those Capitol albums could probably fit easily onto a single 80 minute CD?

[Rspaight]

I think they're about 25 minutes each, so probably not.

I've heard persistent stories that these will be mono/stereo twofers (or mono/stereo/"duophonic" hodgepodges), so the CDs *may* be more than half full.

Ryan

[Kjoerup]

Duophonic! Are they really going to do that???

Now maybe we'll finally get a reissue of Pet Sounds in glorious duophonic!

[Rspaight]

Wouldn't surprise me, but at this point nobody really knows. Bruce Spizer says (via SH.tv) he consulted on the project and there are 7 duophonic tracks included.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showp ... tcount=140

Ryan

[lukpac]

Of course, while many tracks are true stereo, many have plenty of added EQ/reverb. Thank You Girl comes right to mind. Something New would be the exception.

[Rspaight]

Official press release:

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/710capitolbox.html

Stereo and mono versions, matching the original Capitol releases (which means reverb, high-generation dubs, mono fold-downs, and stereo=duophonic in seven instances). Remastered using "vintage tube equipment". Hardback delux-o book.

Music Direct reports that they'll be available as individual discs at some point -- the box is limited edition.

Think I'll pass at the asking price. I'd get it for about $30. I have a feeling these will start popping up in used bins and eBay pretty quickly.

Ryan

[lukpac]

"'Remastered from the original American master tapes, these were the audio mixes and sequence of songs that found their way into our homes,' commented Capitol Records president Andrew Slater."

"The duophonic sound was carefully created by Capitol, using 2 channels of mono which were equalized, compressed and then reverb was added."

Too bad this isn't the real artwork.

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

"The duophonic sound was carefully created by Capitol, using 2 channels of mono which were equalized, compressed and then reverb was added."

Now if only BMG/RCA can figure out a way to make Dynaflex SACK-DEES.

[lukpac]

Fremer doesn't like the idea:

Capitol Records Set to Reissue First Four Beatles Albums Sounding as Bad as You Remember Them!
Capitol Records announced the other day that it will soon issue the first four American Beatles albums in both mono and stereo mixes for the first time, in a new $69/98 box set edition.

Capitol Records president Andy Slater is quoted on CNN.com as saying: "It's been a personal quest for me over the last three years to get these records released because this is the way I remember them, the way I first heard them." Do you care what Andy Slater heard growing up? Not me! Guess what? I heard them this way too first—until I heard them the right way. What kind of narcissistic, irrational reason is "it's what I grew up with" to justify a reissue series from one of the most important groups in pop music?

How is it possible that reissues of the lousy sounding American originals, with their added echo, compression, haziness and sometimes "reprocessed for stereo" mixes (when actual stereo mixes existed ie: "She's a Woman"), will be released using state of the art digital converters and other modern gear before the good sounding UK originals—the genuine documents— get that treatment? This is crazy!

This set isn't what The Beatles or George Martin wanted. It's the creation of an executive team that didn't want to release or appreciate the group in the first place! They chopped up the track order mostly for financial reasons that can be understood, but they "improved" the original sound only because they could. And now we're going to get to hear their revisionist history yet again. I'm so thrilled!

The way the album track lineups worked out, with singles added that were left off the UK originals, and various other tracks substituted, can be interesting, with some listeners preferring the American Rubber Soul song lineup, for instance, but why should this mangled history come first?

Beatles fans want, first and foremost, from everything I can read and hear, the original UK LPs faithfully reproduced and packaged using the appropriate playback gear, on hybrid SACD, or DVD-A if you must, plus AAA LPs. Then, perhaps it would make sense to produce the American history.

But I guess this is Andy Slater's "personal quest," and he's the president of Capitol. It's good to be president of Capitol Records—at least for Andy Slater. For Beatles fans? Not so good.

[krabapple]

Did 'Beatles fans' want 'One'? If not, who the fuck bought all those copies?

[Andreas]

Did 'Beatles fans' want 'One'? If not, who the fuck bought all those copies?

A 75-minutes Beatles Best-of-CD was what people wanted. And rightly so. Song selection was very good, sound quality was irrelevant. Audiophile mastering would have helped its reputation on certain internet forums, but it would not have diminished nor enhanced its success.