Beatles remasters soon available on vinyl Options

[2Bdecided]

Stereo 12th / 13th November...
http://thebeatles.com/#/news/Vinyl

Mono coming in 2013.


I'm just waiting for the first claim of how much better they sound than the CDs.

For me, the only vaguely interesting thing is whether these will be cut without peak limiting. Given that they applied the same peak limiting to the 24-bit ultra-expensive USB apple release, I doubt we'll escape it here.


However, it'll (hopefully!) be a much cheaper way of owning and playing Beatles vinyl than tracking down originals, and they'll sound better than most of the 1988 vinyl remasters. (Though for Help and Rubber Soul, they'll be the same masters!). The Beatles website is mostly selling the "experience" of playing vinyl, rather than any actual sonic superiority. How strange for a vinyl press release to be TOS 8 compliant!

Cheers,
David.

P.S. and so it starts...

linuxglobe on 27th Sep 12: “I just want to own Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road on audiophile 180 gram vinyl; I have a usb turntable, easily import into my iPhone! I *HEART* Los Beatles!!! @MarkusMcLaughln

Yeah, 'cause obviously...
digital file > vinyl stamper > vinyl > USB turntable(!!!!) > iTunes > iPhone
will sound better than
digital file > CD > iTunes > iPhone!

This post has been edited by 2Bdecided: Sep 28 2012, 11:35

[2Bdecided]

It's nice they aren't including the peak limiting, it's irrelevant (IMO) that it's cut from 24-bits, and it just proves what a nasty format vinyl is that they have to selectively butcher the tracks with EQ to make them play nicely. It's worse than you might think, because they already removed what they considered "excessive" sibilance in 2009, so it sounds like they're having to go further to make nice sounding vinyl.

They did play around with EQ lots in vinyl's heyday to make cutting and tracking easier - but not using DAWs to spot-"correct" difficult moments.


Whether it's the EQ or the peak limiting or the restoration or the tape degradation, the 2009 CD issues don't sound as natural as the original UK vinyl IMO. Take a listen to various comparisons here...
http://beatledrops.com/
(HA TOS compliant - they're only short samples)
...and it seems (to my ears) that (overlooking the obvious vinyl flaws on some of those samples) the modern CDs, and the "highly regarded" MFSL issues have a "processed/EQ'd" sound that is absent from the originals. Though I think the 2009 CDs sound nice, and the new vinyl may sound slightly better or worse. Apart from the tapes ageing, it may sound better than the original vinyl - though will never be worth as much Finding original vinyl that plays well is as much of a challenge as affording it - though early 1970s pressings are much cheaper and sound about as good to my ears.


What you can clearly hear on the 2009 CDs (and on the original vinyl, but to a lesser extent) is that this is pop music and is recorded as pop music. George Martin was quite capable of producing exquisite "audiophile" style recordings at Abbey Road in the 1960s - before, during and after the time he was working with The Beatles. But when recording The Beatles, he took a different approach - he and his engineers were trying to produce loud punchy recordings, and a sound that tried to compete with the pop productions that came out of America. He was also having to do a lot of "processing" (overdubbing, tape loops, etc etc) on primitive equipment. The result is (intentionally?) grungy - and would have been far more so on typical 1960s replay equipment. Sometimes it sounds distorted or distant, like a badly copied tape. Whereas listen to the flip side of Yellow Submarine - recorded as "classical" music - very few tape faults there.

He and his team did keep very high engineering standards, except on the last two albums, where his absence (LIB) and new equipment (AR) means they're even further away from "audiophile" quality.

IMO the "hissy" nature of 50 year old audio tape isn't really a block to enjoying audiophile-level sound reproduction - it's how well the original recordings were made, how well they've survived, and how well they're remastered that determines whether they still sound great today.
Earliest "stunning" stereo recording I have...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jump-For-Joy-Peggy.../dp/B002BEXED8/
...plenty of tape hiss in some tracks, and some strange microphone positioning on others, but still quite amazing.

Other George Martin recordings show none of the "grunginess" that plagues some Beatles tracks - when he was recording Jazz or Comedy he created recordings that sound about as good as they could. In the same years that he recorded "lo-fi" Beatles, tracks, he gave a very "Hi-Fi" treatment to The Temperance Seven and Peter Sellers etc.

In short, I don't accept that old recording have to sound bad, and I suspect some of the "badness" of the Beatles recordings is intentional.

Cheers,
David.

P.S. Yes, remixes please. Before the tapes have rotted further (though I believe they have 24/96 digital copies of all the multitracks), and before I'm too old to appreciate them. It's very strange that we have 1988 mixes of Help and Rubber Soul, but 1960s mixes of everything else as the "official" versions - H + RS weren't the worst mixes, and aren't really better in their 1988 incarnation.