What's the Beef with Beatles "1"?

Hi,

I am a newcomer to this forum, so I have read with great interest the many past threads concerning all facets of the Beatles catalog. Perhaps oldtimers are sick of this theme!

Most of the complaints deal with the shoddy remastering of the 1987 EMI catalog. Well, a portion of that catalog was remastered just a few years ago and came out on "1".

It seems people hate that one even more than the '87 editions!

As an audio novice, what is the problem with Beatles "1"? I have to admit, it sounds okay to my ears, a little loud. It seems the stereo has been "centered" on some tracks. Although it sounds weird, I sorta liked the "old" versions where you could isolate certain parts of the track due to the disparate things that were on each side (Rain, Paperback Writer, Rubber Soul...)


Thanks for the input,

Brian

 

Where's that Beatles database when ya need it!

Basically....No-noised to death.....maximized, compressed........etc

 

"Love Me Do" on "1" was recently identified as being from the correct (dry) single master of the "Andy-White-on-drums" version. Which makes it the only CD appearance of this single master.

Otherwise, every song sounds (much) better elsewhere (Past Masters CDs, album CDs, CD Singles Collection, CD EP Collection). "I Feel Fine" and "Penny Lane" were particularly unlistenable, as far as I remember. Noise reduction, aggressive eq and peak limiting. In addition, many feel that the mono single mixes should have been used.

 

ooofah!
I Wanna Hold Your Hand mono from EP collection= punch to the gut!
same song from "1"= mosquito bite! No impact at all.

 

I just skimmed through the whole CD again, the pinching of the high end detail is awful, there is no 'air'.

 

Me too...now I remember why I only ever played this CD once.

"From Me To You" sounds decent but most of the tracks are various degrees of bad. Stink, stank, stunk!

 

It totally sucks. No way to be polite about it. Sad. Really sad.

 

Actually not as much as one might think.

Doing a rip of "Love Me Do" from 1 and comparing to a rip from PPM and there's not much difference. It certainly not the lease bit maxed out as 1 is barely louder than PPM. And then most of the early tracks were seriously compressed by Martin back in the day anyway.

So, to be honest, I can't wholly fault the disc for that.

However, the eq choices of goosing the highs to make up what no-noise took out is a bit hard to take.

 

When I bought it I immediately skipped to "Penny Lane", couldn't wait to hear it. I expected to turn it up loud in my car but found it painful to listen to. It was so wretched. I had no idea what the problem was, maybe it's me, maybe the recordings sounded worse than I remember...then I discovered this forum and found out.

It really is one of the most disgraceful comp CDs ever issued. A terrific concept and handy entry into the glories of The Beatles, totally screwed up.

dan c

 

Despite the bad sound it sold a gazillion copies. I don't know what to think about that.

 

"Penny Lane" seems to be one of the worst tracks as far as compression goes - no dynamics whatsoever - extremely squashed.

 

Nothing to do with the sound IMHO. It was a great concept that just about every casual and serious Beatles fan in the world bought.

dan c

 

Great band, great songs, great advertising campaign, and (seemingly) great value.

 

I swear, everytime a thread on this CD pops up, I consider buying the thing.

Make the voices stop.

 

Penny Lane from "1".

 

Penny Lane from "Magical Mystery Tour" CD.

 

Take the hysterical antipathy toward this CD with a grain of salt, Alexandria. It's one of the pet whipping boys around here.

 

Again - not like most remasters - and certainly not buzzed-cut. And MMT was made much softer than the first 4 original CD's because of the early compression.

But also, again, it's the eq/nr that hurts so much.

 

I agree. It could have been even worse. But there is added compression. Not much but still. Completely unnecessary.

 

I can sure hear the added compression - and if you were to match levels it would definitely clearly show in the waveforms.

 

When Rolling Stone started publishing their "Best of" lists a couple of years ago I started making compilations of the lists. More for convenience than anything else, I used "1" as a source for many of the Beatles tunes. I hadn't listened to it much before, since I'm mostly into vinyl, and prefer to hear entire albums.

As I worked through the recordings, it immediately became obvious that something was wrong with "1". In comparison with any other source (LP, CD, Cassette) the songs on "1" blasted out with a harshness that had me leaping out of my chair and turning down the recording level. I found that I could match the volume of "1" songs to other sources, but the life was sucked out of them at the same time. I don't have a complete collection of early Beatles, so I was forced to continue using the CD for certain songs, but I would have to agree to avoid it if possible.

BTW, I came to this conclusion long before I stumbled on this forum. One of the first things I did when I started visiting here was to look up "1" to see if others had my opinion of the disc. I was gratified to see that I wasn't just being picky about the CD. IMHO it is the worst-sounding CD I own, in terms of sonics, not content. Maybe it is OK if played in a convertible with the top down at 60 mph?

 

Is it worse than the latest U2 CD? That is my reference for how bad a CD can sound.

 

It's as bad as the latest U2 CD, but it's something you would actually like to hear! "1" is unlistenable to me.

 

The farmer shot the cow with a Revolver. It was a Hard Days work to cut it up into pieces, but he got a little Help from some friends and sold it to the Butcher on the Abbey Road who put it up For Sale in the window. My mum bought a couple of pounds to make some Pepper steak, but the damn thing tasted like Rubber - and that's my Beef!

 

Uh......


In terms of content, you can't argue with Beatles 1. In terms of sonics, it is one of the WORST sounding CD's ever. 'Nuff said.


Evan