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Saturday, 31 October 2015

Remixing Beatles 1

In the fourth part of the restoration series, Sam Okell and Giles Martin explain their decisions.




The vinyl edition of "Beatles 1" with the new stereo mixes will be out on December 4.


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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've previously worked on 5.1 projects with from multitracks previously mixed to stereo and the simplicity of this technique is key. As far as possible they're replaying individual parts audio back in the space they were played in.
The first time I did this, I thought that pushing the track parts back through the original amps was the way to go but it quickly became apparent that, no, the recorded parts are not as they came from the amps (because of the contribution of the desk and channel pathways etc while recording) so I'm reckoning Giles has been trying a LOT of different speaker/amp replay combinations.

Which, thinking about it, may well lead to some problems when actually mixing the results, a problem of having heard too many combinations! Presumably this is where he relied to some extent on fresh ears, those of his accomplice.

Looking forward to giving these mixes a fresh spin and glad I didn't get into remasters listening for that purpose.
Although there will be screams and hollers from the purists, they have been more than adequately provided for by the remasters sequence in its varied forms and it is time to make the multitracks available to present time.

If you don't like these remixes, though, don't worry...there will be more to come when the multitracks (currently illicitly available) become product in themselves.

31 October 2015 at 12:00
James Percival said...

I agree with virtually everything you have written, IT. Given that up until Abbey Road stereo was clearly second best to mono, and given that the original 1962-68 stereo mixes were at best functional, and at worst god-awful (vocals on one side and instruments on the other!), the decision to finally remaster the Beatles catalogue in 2009 was a real disappointment for me. Besides, we know what a difference a remix can make because of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album, Let it Be-Naked and Love (which I liked and found interesting). A remix of the whole catalogue is long overdue. Of course it won't be possible for all the early recordings, for example I seem to recall that She Loves You is only available as a master tape, but it will happen -eventually.
In terms of sales it has all happened far too late. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but comparable 1960s acts have had several iterations of remixes and remasters while the Beatles catalogue has still been in the blocks.

1 November 2015 at 14:39
Anonymous said...

november 3rd and still havent seen one commercial on tv for the beatles 1 bluray.whoever is in charge of promotion for this is doing a bad job.

3 November 2015 at 15:01
James Percival said...

My discs, courtesy of HMV online, arrived today!! Am I the first??

6 November 2015 at 13:42

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