Sterling Sound remastering US Beatles albums

[Beatlesfan03]

I'll agree with you Luke about the brightness, I thought it was maybe because I was listening to it on a car stereo. The duophonic tracks sounded especially bright to me.

A couple things I noticed:

-On I'll Be Back, I noticed that the little tape warble midway through the song appears to be missing on the stereo version of Beatles '65. I'm pretty certain that it was on all the versions that I have of this song (it is there on the mono). It's obviously too late to pull out my LP and check it, but did anyone else notice this?

-On Something New, I noticed clicking throughout a good portion of the stereo "I'll Cry Instead." It appeared to be mostly on the left channel. Once again, I might just fault this to my less than hi-fi car stereo but was curious if anyone else heard this.

Overall, this is a pretty nice package (the actual package holding the discs itself is another story) and I think Jensen did a pretty nice job. Maybe Apple sees or hears that people are digging on the sound on this, they might reconsider how they may eventually do the UK catalog (although personally I think it is already done but that's just my opinion).

I've only seen a few of the early reviews from SH.TV yesterday. Curious to see if we're supposed to burn these discs and crucify Ted Jensen yet.

[lukpac]

Like I said, I would have liked these to have been a bit "warmer" sounding, but since some of the other sources I mentioned sound so much like this, my guess is that's how the tapes sound (for better or worse) and Jensen just didn't stray far. I suppose I'd rather he did that than make them worse...

[Xenu]

I agree with you on the brightness. Does this set best Deluxe Something New, otherwise? I assume the mono portion is better at least.

[lukpac]

http://stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost. ... tcount=231

I did a little more listening. I can understand Bob's comment about the midrange, as the "breath of life" midrange "magic" isn't really there. I have to question if it would even be possible to have that quality with these tapes. There's only so much "goodness" that can be squeaked out of these tapes. A few weeks ago, I listened to a late 60's stereo LP of Beatles VI. Why I decided to pull it out, I don't know but I did. It was nasty sounding! I get the impression that it takes quite a bit of skillful engineering to get these tapes to sound even reasonably good (how could it not, knowing what we do about these tapes?) but like I basically said earlier, (for what they are) these turned out "pretty darn good"!

http://stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost. ... tcount=268

These CD's sound better than they should and that's a remark on Ted Jensen.

Why do people keep assuming these tapes sound so bad, and that it's somehow magic that the CDs sound as good as they do? It seems to me (again, based on hearing other releases of this stuff) that the tapes aren't that bad at all, and that the EQ is simply a bit bright and thin.

Like I've said, they sound "good enough", and they are a decent source to play with, but out of the box I still prefer my LP transfers, EQ-wise anyway.

And does anyone know where the congas are in I Feel Fine?

[Grant]

And does anyone know where the congas are in I Feel Fine?

They are still there. They are just washed in tons of reverb, for God knows why. Well, actually, my theory is that Dave Dexter was trying to make that track sound more rock & roll, as the Beatles sound was changing at that point. He was trying to retain that brash sound they had when theire music first washed up on these shores. I think he was also trying to remove the intimate sound of "She's A Woman", and at the same time, covering up some of the sound degredation from all the tape copying.

[lukpac]

It was a joke, Grant. There aren't any congas on that song. Just Ringo's kit.

[lukpac]

Slow Down and Matchbox sound *amazingly* like the Past Masters versions, for better or worse.

Don't mind me, I'm fucking deaf.

There's certainly more bottom on Matchbox on the Capitol set, and a hint more high end. For the better, in both cases, I'd say. The same is true with Slow Down, although perhaps not quite as much.

More later.

[Beatlesfan03]

Why do people keep assuming these tapes sound so bad, and that it's somehow magic that the CDs sound as good as they do? It seems to me (again, based on hearing other releases of this stuff) that the tapes aren't that bad at all, and that the EQ is simply a bit bright and thin.

Like I've said, they sound "good enough", and they are a decent source to play with, but out of the box I still prefer my LP transfers, EQ-wise anyway.

JMHO, I think everyone the reason why a lot of people think these tapes sound horrible is simply because there is a lot of horrible sounding Capitol vinyl of said tapes. I did some brief comparing with my orange label "Something New" and it sounds downright dreadful against the Jensen version. If I recall correctly, the US versions (at least stereowise) didn't sound "killer" until the final run of US albums in 1987. I have "Meet The Beatles" from this run and on top of the vinyl being of excellent quality, it comes fairly close to the CD (although the CD seems to have a little more bottom).

If you have a lousy pressing of any of these albums, these CDs are going to sound like the holy grail. I'm probably way off base, but it's just my opinion. If anyone's interested, I could make my first attempt to post some samples from my Capitol LPs. It would have to wait until the weekend though.

As for my earlier post, I did find the warble on "I'll Be Back" (everyone please contain your excitement). However, upon listening to "I'll Cry Instead" on my stereo, I am still hearing clicking on the left channel. I thought that it might have to do with the percussion, but it doesn't appear on my Something New LP.

[lukpac]

Yeah, that was mentioned to me by a friend - since some of those LPs sounded so bad, the tapes *must* have sounded bad too, right?

There has been a lot of talk about how compressed the original Capitol tapes were. I'm not so sure about it. Perhaps they added a hint of compression, and the tape copy process might have affected things a bit, but looking at the waveforms to Slow Down and Matchbox shows there isn't that huge of a difference, especially once you match the levels. Most of the compression people are hearing is *in the mixes*.

Back to David's Deluxe Something New question. The stereo is pretty close - I'd say the new CDs have a tad more high end, which might actually make the boot a little more pleasant. The separation is a *tad* better on the new set - Slow Down is slightly more extreme, for example. There's no doubt about the mono side of things, however - the new set smokes DSN, easily. There's a high end (and not just more EQ) not there at all on the boot. No vinyl noise either!

Call me a flip-flopper. When I first played this in the car, I wasn't overly impressed with the EQ. Then I got it home, and it sounded pretty good. Took it to work today, and I found myself reaching for my BFS vinyl dub. But now tonight it sounds pretty good again.

I still wish they would have used the "pre-echo" tapes for Second Album, though.

[Beatlesfan03]

I still wish they would have used the "pre-echo" tapes for Second Album, though.

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with that disc although I must say that I haven't given it a complete listen yet. I'm not sure if it was here or at SH.TV, but I have to respectfully disagree with Grant as I still hear the edits on She Loves You quite clearly.

One other thing I was thinking about, given the fact that McCartney and Ono dig the NR, anyone have any ideas as to why they let this one slide out the door without it?

I also wouldn't mind hearing anything Jensen might have to say about this.

[lukpac]

Ted Jensen

 
For booking information:
Eimear Bradbury
Tel: 212-604-9433x603
Fax: 212-604-9964
Email: eimear.bradbury@sterling-sound.com

[Xenu]

One other thing I was thinking about, given the fact that McCartney and Ono dig the NR, anyone have any ideas as to why they let this one slide out the door without it?

I think saying that they "dig it" is a little much. If they're doing a project, they'll use it. Other than that, they probably don't think about it much. The Lennon stuff could easily be Pete Cobbin's decision.

Besides, hasn't it always been that the UK engineers generally like no-noise, while US engineers generally don't?

[Rspaight]

Ted Jensen is now participating in the review thread over on SH.tv -- he has some interesting things to say.

Ryan

[krabapple]

"Haha....i told the wife when the set came I'd let her hear the Brit/American difference......she said she couldn't care less! "

For the record. I agree 100% with wifey. I don't give a rat's ass about these CDs, except to see
Ted Jensen decimate the beliefs of SHtv folk who seem to think they can discern exactly what was done in the mastering room, simply by listening to the CDs.

This THREAD CRAP! was brought to you by:
krabapple.


(anyway, should't this all be in the 'Reviews' forum by now? Feel free to crap on my Deep Purple thread in retaliation.)

[Ess Ay Cee Dee]

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