Beatles Remasters [split topic]

[Bennygaylord]

Really enjoying these Anthology DVDs. Didn't know they existed!

[mulder]

There was a site that had all those individual master tracks, can't find it now though. It's interesting how much bleed there is on the individual tracks, you'd never get away with that these days!

Look for Purple Chick Sgt Pepper Deluxe Disc 6 or something like that, there are 4 4 tracks from Sgt Pepper on that disc, Sgt. Pepper, Leaving Home, Little Help, and Day In The Life which is available as a rip from Guitar Hero anyway.  There may be others out there, but I've only ever found these four.

[Jemble Fred]

This is rather cool: http://undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=9293_Klaus_Voormann_Releases_A_Sideman%60s_Journey I'd never detected anything but enmity/indifference between Voorman & Macca, so that's nice to see.

[abighat]

Possibly an unpopular opinion, but to my ear the Rock Band remix of Abbey Road is better than the original -and I don't say that lightly. I think it's incredible.

[Bennygaylord]

Finished that Beatles Backwards article. Really enjoyable stuff, if a little too personal in places.

[Roy*Mallard]

Well i've bought nearly all of the stereo reissues (only missing A Hard Day's Night, mainly cos i've been too lazy to go to an out of town store to pick it up) and i have been very pleased with what i've heard. Here are some highly interesting and worthwhile points......

*Firstly the packaging is really rather nice. The booklets are beautiful and lots of nice photos. The sleeve notes lack a little something - trainspotter stuff mostly - but that's not really all that important.

*Revolver and The White Album sound much better and clearer - a general comment on all the albums - but on, for example, a track such as Long, Long, Long from The White Album, the improvement in sound really helps the track so much - far less muddy. Revolver has much more life in it compared to the original CD issue.

*Abbey Road sounds great - Paul's bass is more clear and the album as a whole, while sounding rather stilted on the previous issue, is now utterly charming in it's new form.

*I'd forgotten how good some of the earlier albums are. Please Please Me and Beatles For Sale are excellent - what was the first side of BFS is absolutely sublime - the 2nd side lets it down a little, but generally it's first class.

*Finding songs that i had forgotten were so good - early tracks such as Chains & P.S. I Love You from Please Please Me, It Won't Be Long, You Really Got A Hold On Me & Not A Second Time from With The Beatles, Every Little Thing from Beatles For Sale, You're Gonna Lose That Girl & You Like Me Too Much (which seems like it was nicked for The Coral's Pass It On) from Help! and I Call Your Name and Yes It Is from Past Masters. Also, reacquainting myself with more popular numbers like She Loves You and I Saw Her Standing There, which i haven't properly heard since i was a kid - so much energy and performed with great vim and vigor.

*Reacquainting myself with Let It Be having listed to LIB...Naked for the last 5 or 6 years. I like both versions a lot.

*I still think Help! is their weakest album despite a few stand out tracks - the aforementioned, the title track and The Night Before. It's not a bad album by any means, just not as good as the rest. Unsurprising, as it was their fifth album in 2 years or some such.

*Some of the mono tracks on the stereo albums really suffer in comparison to the stereo tracks on each album (Past Masters, Please Please Me and Yellow Submarine).

*Some of the tracks that were included on the Rock N Roll albums from the 70's gave me great memories of my families' summer holidays in Anglesey during the mid-late 80's. Really nice to remember various songs relating to various places we would go ....ah, such a long time ago now.

So, i'm genuinely impressed with the stereo remasters and only wish i had the moolah to splash out on the mono box, which i have yet to see here in Hong Kong. Would love to give them a listen and see how they vary - think i could sell my spleen, we'll see how it goes.

[Ignatius_S]

Don't know if this is of interest, but EMI are suing an US site that's being selling Beatles' songs - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8342277.stm

The story also mentions a limited edition apple-shaped USB drives containing the remastered back catalogue for £200.

[Doctor Stamen]

Good luck to him, but I can't see this standing up in court somehow.

Remember those mad fuckers who were making The Beatles back catalogue available for download? Well, they're even more mental than we first thought.

BlueBeat, who were selling the Fab Four tracks have, unsurprisingly, been hit with a federal copyright lawsuit. They have been told to stop selling the music with immediate effect.

What no-one counted on was BlueBeat's owner, Hank Risan, making one of the most insane claims in rock history!

Basically, he's claiming that he doesn't need to license the music as the service is using re-recorded versions of the songs using a technology called "psycho-acoustic simulation" and obtained new copyrights as a result.

Essentially, what they're arguing is that, by ripping the albums from CD while running them through its software, BlueBeat has created a new body of work.

Want an explanation? Risan, when asked by EMI about how he wasn't violating copyrights, said: "I authored the sound recordings that are being used by psycho-acoustic simulation." Of course, the response was something along the lines of 'Eh?'

Risan replied: "Psychoacoustic simulations are my synthetic creation of that series of sounds which best expresses the way I believe a particular melody should be heard as a live performance." This particular series of sounds being Beatles songs with some pictures attached to it... almost like they'd been ripped from a CD.

Of course, this woolly answer was met with an immediate lawsuit, signifying this as piracy "of the most blatant and harmful kind" and taking a pop at the "willful and overtly defiant manner in which they are acting."

How defiant? Well, the BlueBeat has registered for the copyright! "To make matters worse," says EMI's complaint, "Defendants recently sought to register their infringing sound recordings with the Copyright Office, apparently claiming that because they copied the sound recordings using their own computer system, they now own these digital copies and have the right to distribute them to the public."

Absolutely mental.

Of course, as a consumer, you can no longer obtain the Beatles back catalogue as an MP3, however, if you really want those tracks, I'm pretty sure you know of a few places you can get them from and not worry about forking out any money.

Link

[Paaaaul]

Probably not real - but still quite fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rxIMvRy04c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuy8tE1lEBM

[Bennygaylord]

What is it? Can't be doing with youtube in work.

[Lfbarfe]

Good luck to him, but I can't see this standing up in court somehow.

I think it might be a very tongue-in-cheek response to the idea, held by EMI and the major labels, that a remaster re-establishes copyright. Under the 50-year copyright term for sound recordings, Love Me Do becomes public domain in 2013 (they go from 1 January in the year after the 50th anniversary of release). Any other label wanting to use it legally after that point would have to source it from the original vinyl release, while the best available versions at any given time remain the property of the original record company. Of course, in reality, I suspect that we'll see a lot of labels using the EMI CDs and re-EQing them or munging them in some way so they don't exactly resemble the official versions in a waveform comparison. However, it's a principle that the majors are trying to establish, and yer man's probably thinking "I'll invent something that sounds barking, but which amounts to the same thing as re-mastering/re-transferring, just to wind EMI up". Either that or he's mental.

[biggytitbo]

Probably not real - but still quite fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rxIMvRy04c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuy8tE1lEBM

Presumably it's not real, but I actually really like that and it's better than I imagined the real thing would be.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

I found something purporting to be a snippet of "Carnival of Light" years ago on kazaa; and that snippet is the same as the end of Part 1 of those clips.

[Lt Plonker]

Right, sorry for bumping this thread, but I'm in a right old tizzy.

I'm trying to find a certain Beatles website that has production notes/anecdotes on each track recorded by The Beatles. I'm pretty sure it was linked to in one of these Beatles threads but I cannot, for the life of me, find it. Anyone know what I'm on about?

Ta.

[Paaaaul]

Right, sorry for bumping this thread, but I'm in a right old tizzy.

I'm trying to find a certain Beatles website that has production notes/anecdotes on each track recorded by The Beatles. I'm pretty sure it was linked to in one of these Beatles threads but I cannot, for the life of me, find it. Anyone know what I'm on about?

Ta.

Get yourself down to HMV and get a copy of "Revolution In The Head" by Ian Macdonald which is in there for £3.00 at the moment - this is exactly what you need.

(A penny cheaper online here - http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;-1;-1;-1;-1&sku=995189)

[weirdbeard]

Right, sorry for bumping this thread, but I'm in a right old tizzy.

I'm trying to find a certain Beatles website that has production notes/anecdotes on each track recorded by The Beatles. I'm pretty sure it was linked to in one of these Beatles threads but I cannot, for the life of me, find it. Anyone know what I'm on about?

Ta.

http://www.beatlesbible.com/

[joeyzaza]

This is also a good resource:

A Beatles Recording Timeline

[Lfbarfe]

Mark Lewisohn's Complete Beatles Recording Sessions book is worth getting hold of, too.

[Lt Plonker]

Smashing! Thanks a lot everyone!

[Lt Plonker]

I've completely forgotten what I wanted it for now.