Beatles remasters?
- Thread starter roman
- Start date
Yank
Bulbous Also Tapered
The 1988 ones have better dynamics than the the 2009 ones, but the 2009 ones sound like they were "cut" through a cleaner signal chain, newer digital processors, but seem a little compressed.
Not to say the 2009 ones are "loudness wars" victims, far from it, but the older ones do have better DR, and the newer ones seems cleaner and sharper, a little more bottom and top.
So it's a trade off.
I can't comment on the anniversary remix/remasters, I haven't heard them.
Not to say the 2009 ones are "loudness wars" victims, far from it, but the older ones do have better DR, and the newer ones seems cleaner and sharper, a little more bottom and top.
So it's a trade off.
I can't comment on the anniversary remix/remasters, I haven't heard them.
Sloop John B
And any old music will do…
Personally I’d go for the latest remixes of these 2 albums, great work done by Giles Martin on them.
Otherwise the 2009 ones. My theory is that George Martin’s hearing was shot for the 1998 ones and they are mastered too brightly.
.sjb
Otherwise the 2009 ones. My theory is that George Martin’s hearing was shot for the 1998 ones and they are mastered too brightly.
.sjb
I compared my 1979 MoFi LP (transferred to digital) of Abbey Road with the 2009 CD remaster. After some fiddling in Audacity to get the average levels the same it seems that the 2009 version is slightly 'loudness wared', about 6 dB, in a couple of loud passages. Now with the same average level, comparing the sound quality, the difference is rather small.
Remix? Well, if you like your 1960's E-type with a Ford era V8 and a digital display on the dashboard... Fine with me!
Remix? Well, if you like your 1960's E-type with a Ford era V8 and a digital display on the dashboard... Fine with me!
Yank
Bulbous Also Tapered
The remixes I've heard were done "in the spirit of the original", not overly modernized. They do attempt to center the lead vocal. But there's no disco bass drum, or reggae bass, no massive revisionism.
A lot of the Beatles mixes contain "reduction mixes", where they filled up the 4-track or 8-track tape with tracks, then mix all that down to one track on another multitrack machine to free up space for more parts. But they kept all the original tapes in the EMI archive, so Giles Martin was able to go back to the originals and separate out some parts that had previously been irreversibly combined.
One massively horrible and invasive change they made on the 2009 remasters, one that really makes me angry, is they removed the pickup selector switch noise from John Lennon's guitar in "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". Grr. That little noise injects a bit of "humanity" and was something I always expected to hear after 40 years of familiarity with the track. On the 2009 version I anticipate it, and then when it doesn't happen, there's disappointment.