Remix vs. Remaster / Stereo vs. Mono

Here's a really well-written article from the New York times that
details the Remix vs. Remaster debate, as well as the stereo vs. mono
issue, and other Beatles fans wish-list topics.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/arts/music/08beat.html?em

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Original Beatles Albums to Be Reissued
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: April 7, 2009

Finally. After watching the Beatles’ company, Apple Corps, devote the
last few years to developing a site-specific show in Las Vegas, a
video game and a line of pricey memorabilia, Beatles fans are finally
getting something they’ve been demanding for at least the last decade:
sonically upgraded reissues of the group’s original British albums, in
stereo and mono. Apple Corps and EMI announced on Tuesday that the
much-postponed remasters would be released on individual stereo CDs
and in two boxed sets — one stereo, the other mono — on Sept. 9, the
same day the Beatles edition of Rock Band, the music video game, is
scheduled for release.

Downloadable versions of this music, however, remain in limbo. In
December Paul McCartney said that they were being held up because of a
dispute between Apple Corps and EMI. More recently, Dhani Harrison,
George Harrison’s son, suggested that Apple Corps was dissatisfied
with the price Apple, the computer company, was charging for iTunes
downloads, and hinted that the Beatles might sell digital downloads
through a system of their own. That could be resolved by September as
well.

Like the original set of Beatles CDs, released in 1987 and not
upgraded since, the reissue series will include only the 12 albums the
Beatles released in Britain between 1963 and 1970, from “Please Please
Me” through “Let It Be,” along with “Magical Mystery Tour” — an
American album that was originally released as a two-EP set in England
— and the two-CD “Past Masters” compilation of the group’s nonalbum
singles. All told, the set includes 16 CDs. (Beatles projects are
typically tightly guarded; few outside EMI have heard the remasters
yet.) Compilations released since 1987, including the “Beatles
Anthology” series, “The Beatles Live at the BBC,” “Yellow Submarine
Songtrack,” “1” and “Love,” the soundtrack for the Cirque du Soleil
show in Las Vegas, are not included in the new series. Nor are the two
“Capitol Albums” boxed sets, which presented several of the Beatles’
albums in the versions released in the United States.

The main reason collectors have been so intent on reissues of music
they already own is that the 1987 CDs, like many discs released in the
early years of the format, sound comparatively harsh and brittle by
today’s standards. Since then, improvements in digital sound
technology and remastering equipment have yielded a richer, smoother
sound, and most of the major groups and artists from the 1960s — from
Bob Dylan, the Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel to the Rolling Stones and
Pink Floyd — have had their catalogs refurbished at least once since
their first appearance on CD. And the Beatles’ own recent releases,
including the “Capitol Albums” and “Love” discs, showed that the
band’s recordings could sound vastly better — warmer and with far
greater presence — than they do on the 1987 discs.

Even so, remastering can be a dicey business: noise-reduction
techniques can slice away the high frequencies of a recording, dulling
the treble sound (in return for eliminating tape hiss). EMI’s
remastering team apparently took this into consideration: the
company’s production notes mention that fewer than five of the 525
minutes of music were subjected to noise reduction. The new transfers
were done using a high-resolution Pro Tools system, and each track was
compared with both its vinyl LP and 1987 CD incarnations.

This is largely what collectors have been looking for. But Beatles
fans are an exacting bunch, and the release plan gives them some cause
for complaint as well. The stereo CDs include video documentaries,
directed by Bob Smeaton (“The Beatles Anthology”), about the making of
each album. But these will be available only on early pressings, and
there are otherwise no bonus tracks, outtakes or extras.

Moreover, the group’s first seven albums (through “Revolver”) include
only about 25 minutes of music. The mono and stereo versions of each —
collectors prize both because of anomalies like different vocal takes,
instrumental lines or effects — could have fit on a single CD with
room to spare. In many cases, the contemporaneous singles could have
fit as well, making the “Past Masters” set superfluous.

The mono boxed set, in fact, demonstrates this. Because the stereo CDs
will include George Martin’s 1987 remixes of “Help!” and “Rubber Soul”
— mixes that have been the subject of much criticism and debate among
Beatles fanatics — the mono CDs of those albums will include both the
mono and the original 1965 stereo mixes of those albums.

Those are, however, available only in the mono boxed set, which
includes the 10 albums (through “The Beatles,” popularly known as the
“White Album”) that were mixed separately for mono and stereo in the
’60s, as well as a mono equivalent of “Past Masters.” (An 11th album,
“Yellow Submarine,” was also released in mono, but the mono version
was just a folded-down version of the stereo mix.) The stereo boxed
set has a minor attraction as well: the documentaries included on the
individual discs are offered here on a separate DVD, a format many
collectors will prefer. An Apple Corps spokesman said that prices were
not yet available.

Having spent years fantasizing about the ideal reissue series,
collectors will also be disappointed about the high-tech opportunities
that Apple Corps and EMI did not take. Although many collectors insist
that only the ’60s original mono and stereo mixes will do, others,
impressed with some of the remixes on the “Yellow Submarine Songtrack”
— the version of “Nowhere Man” with centered vocals, for example — had
been hoping EMI’s engineers would return to the original multitrack
session tapes and use the flexibility of today’s equipment to prepare
fresh mixes. And the 5.1 surround-sound mixes included on “The Beatles
Anthology” DVDs and the “Love” album had collectors hoping that EMI
would release all the original albums in surround.

The wildest dreamers hoped the reissues would be all things to all
collectors: Blu-ray DVDs, for example, with the original mono and
stereo mixes, a surround mix and a raft of outtakes.

But collectors can look on the bright side: the reissues are imminent,
but there is still so much to continue to clamor for. That still
elusive 27-minute outtake of “Helter Skelter,” anyone?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: What the Dylan/Beatles/Sixties Generation stood for
    ... Here's an article from an industry magazine on how The Beatles' ... A Look at the New Stereo and Mono Box Sets ... we put on the masters and compared them with the original CDs, ...
    (rec.music.dylan)
  • Re: If you download mp3s - youre a thief, plain and simple.
    ... the standard UK Stereo issues will slowly be phased in to have the BLUE BOX transfers used as their source material. ... A Collection Of Beatles Oldies UK Mono ... A Hard Days Night US Mono 2005 upgrade ...
    (rec.music.beatles)
  • Re: What the Dylan/Beatles/Sixties Generation stood for
    ... Here's an article from an industry magazine on how The Beatles' ... A Look at the New Stereo and Mono Box Sets ... we put on the masters and compared them with the original CDs, ...
    (rec.music.dylan)
  • Re: Beatles reissues
    ... A Starbuck's near my house has Sgt. Pepper and Rubber Soul ... The Beatles music was recorded on 2-track up to "I Want To Hold ... The stereo and mono mixes sometimes differed significantly. ...
    (rec.audio.pro)
  • Re: 9-9-9 Remasters...
    ... the mono versions being shipped with the mono box set. ... were *artificial* stereo? ... Thus the MONO versions of the albums are closer to what the actual band members wantus to ... Please Me and With The Beatles. ...
    (rec.music.beatles)