Beatles Remastered

[Mayonnaise]

I read in the paper that the Beatles catalog is being remastered and will be released this summer. Does anyone have any insider info on just what they are doing? Perhaps SCAD or DSM or 5.1.

[shokhead]

I was told the entire British catalog was remasterted and i havent heard of any HiRes.

[superpanavision70mm]

I doubt that there will be anything on SACD from them, although that would be awesome, esp. if they just do a simple 2.0 DSD like with the Rolling Stones. I am thinking they will just re-issue their catalog remastered on CD...yawn.

[Mayonnaise]

Music by The Beatles, notably absent from the digital revolution, will be made available for downloading by fans of the Fab Four. The entire Beatles catalog is being remastered and the recordings will be made available for downloading, according to a witness statement in a London court by Neil Aspinall, managing director of Apple Corps Ltd., The Beatles' company. The statement, made during a suit by Apple Corps against Apple Computer Inc., was confirmed today by Moira Bellas, a spokeswoman for Apple Corps. "There are plans to do it," she said of offering Beatles songs for downloading. "There's no firm date yet" and no deals have yet been signed with downloading services, she said. The Beatles' company is suing the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker over an agreement concerning the "apple" name and logo. Apple Corps claims the computer company, which makes the iPod music player and has sold more than 1 billion songs through the iTunes Music Store, breached the 1991 agreement. Songs of The Beatles, who spearheaded the "British Invasion" of the U.S. music charts in the 1960s, are the best-known gap in the roster of digital music available to fans. The global recording industry is counting on digital sales, which tripled last year to $1.1 billion, to grow rapidly and offset a continuing decline in compact disc sales. Recorded music sales totaled $33 billion last year.

New masters

Songs by The Beatles, which include "I Feel Fine," "Yesterday" and "Let It Be," have proved popular to successive generations of music fans. A 2000 album released by EMI Group Plc titled "1" that contained 27 U.S. or British number one singles has sold more than 20 million copies, so young music fans who grew up on digital downloads are considered a ripe new audience.

"We're remastering the whole Beatles catalog, just to make it sound brighter and better and getting proper booklets to go with each of the packages," Aspinall said in the lawsuit witness statement, according to World Entertainment News Network, and confirmed by Bellas, the Apple Corps spokeswoman.

"I think it would be wrong to offer downloads of the old masters when I am making new masters," Aspinall said. "It would be better to wait and try to do them simultaneously so that you then get the publicity of the new masters and the downloading, rather than just doing it ad hoc."

Apple Corps, which represents The Beatles' business interests, is owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and the estate of George Harrison.

Court hearings in Apple Corps' lawsuit against Apple Computer concluded April 5, with the judge saying he will issue a decision at a later date.

[Davey]

"We're remastering the whole Beatles catalog, just to make it sound brighter and better ..."

Unfortunately, they probably think they did a good job on the horribly mastered "1" collection, with the tons of compression and the overuse of noise reduction.

[shokhead]

It really doesnt sound any different from the reg cd's.

[Davey]

It really doesnt sound any different from the reg cd's.

The 1987 CDs sound great compared to "1". Not the same at all.

[shokhead]

Which 87 cds?

[Davey]

Which 87 cds?

I don't think there were 87 of them, just the main ones.

[shokhead]

LOL 1987 come on. Your busting my a$$ and its already dragging.

[Davey]

LOL 1987 come on. Your busting my a$$ and its already dragging.

I think 87 is when the Beatles went digital, except for that nice sounding early JPN Abbey Road CD. But I only have a couple. Most of my Beatles is on US and UK vinyl. You really think that loud "1" CD sounds like the regular Beatles CDs? I honestly don't have a copy of "1" to pull out but have borrowed it before and thought it sounded really bad like most newly remastered stuff. The original CDs could be a lot better, that's for sure, but I think their biggest problem was the source material just wasn't close enough to the masters. And it would be nice to have them done with some better electronics, like a nice vintage tape machine and mixing console feeding a good sounding modern A/D convertor. But at least they don't sound like they were futzed with so much, except for the ones that infamously used the "wrong" mixes and stuff like that.

[Dusty Chalk]

Oh, great,
another remaster debate.

[Davey]

Oh, great,
another remaster debate.

Not really much of a debate when shok's still trying to figure out who the thread is about

[BradH]

Oh, great,
another remaster debate.

There's no debate.

It's unanimous, they're gonna suck.

"Better and brighter" means compressed all to hell for the mp3 crowd.

[3-LockBox]

After hearing the Let It Be (naked) remaster, I'll pass.

And yes, it was 1987 when the first wave of Beatles CDs hit the market.

The Past Masters CD series was the best sounding Beatles I ever heard...better sounding than any of their 'latest' releases, and still a damn fine CD all the way around.

[Yovra]

It's exactly a year after this debate and things have changed...well...a little. The "Love"-project showed that with access to the original master-tapes they (Martin and Son) could make a remix/remaster-project worth while...
The "remastered reissue" debate is still going on with no light at the end of the tunnel. I think the iTunes Beatles aren't going to happen this year, so see you all around next year at the same time. Maybe we'll discussing the release of the Let-it-Be-DVD!

[3-LockBox]

It's exactly a year after this debate and things have changed...well...a little. The "Love"-project showed that with access to the original master-tapes they (Martin and Son) could make a remix/remaster-project worth while...
The "remastered reissue" debate is still going on with no light at the end of the tunnel. I think the iTunes Beatles aren't going to happen this year, so see you all around next year at the same time. Maybe we'll discussing the release of the Let-it-Be-DVD!

I thought this looked familiar...

and I still feel the same way, too.

I had always wanted the Beatles catalog to get a proper re-release, but after hearing Let It Be (nekkid) and "1", I'll pass. I can do as good a job of over-compressed-to-hell remastering with Goldwave and a CD as the record company is going to put out.

Piss on 'em.

[Slosh]

Oh, great,
another remaster debate.

But will this be a mass debate?

NP: (non-wankish)

[DariusNYC]

The best thing that will be happening, if you want the Beatles' music to be appreciated by the maximum number of people, is that they'll be making the catalog available for legal download. Large numbers of younger (mostly) music fans these days don't listen to CDs at all, and a big publicity push in connection with launching the catalog on iTunes would I feel have the social value of spreading the Beatles' music more comprehensively to a new generation of listeners.