Beatles box set coming Nov. 16

Well, you just made me order it!
With a $5 off coupon, it was $75 CND shipped! Not bad!

Use this coupon!
MAPAMEXFALL5

 

Same here, albeit on the opposite coast.

You boomers are going to die before we see hi-rez, unfutzed-with Beatles CDs, do you realize that? Of course, your children (us) will probably die first, too. And the deaths of the prinicipals doesn't help -- imagine all of Paul's heirs with collective veto power over the Beatles catalog. You think it's bad now... The bootlegs are probably the only chance anything currently unreleased will get out at all.

 

The Amazon prices will CERTAINLY come down. When they are first listed they list the highest list price and never the "special" price. Give it a few weeks and it'll plummet.

 

Amazon.ca is the opposite. They always go UP after the initial price is posted. Happens all the time!

 

That's true, I've had a lot of good buys on amazon.ca by pre-ordering things. Thanks for the coupon, I can't find the one I had!

 

Michael you forgot the painful stereo "Thank You Girl". Ouch!

 

YUP!...another one of my favs. painful? nah...

 

James my man!! I know this, as I did buy it in 1964 right after I bought the Capitol "Something New". BTW I still own them both.

Much to my surprise though as I'm sure many who might even own it. It was Re-Released with the same cover and all, It even says STEREO on the outside cover. BUT it was on a PURPLE Capitol Label vinyl LP disc. I'd say circa late 70's or very early 80's issue.

The real surprising thing about this re-issue is that all the Beatle songs are in complete MONO and the George Martin Orchestra songs are in Stereo.

So to my last knowledge of the LP being pressed it was/IS on the Capitol label. Therefore Capitol now owned the rights to it then and now still.

That was my reason for saying why it wasn't included. Surely they would still have the correct Stereo versions used for the United Artist's original. I'm sorry as in no way was I trying to get technical about the use of the Soundtrack LP because of it's origin having UNITED ARTISTS on the Cover and not the usual Capitol Logo's of the same era and time.

 

Are you sure it's mono? On my purple label copy from the same time, the Beatles tracks appear to be monohonic when you casually listen to it, but upon closer listening it's fake stereo, but not of the usual variety. They've taken the mono versions and panned them slightly left or right at different points in the songs! For instance, on "Tell Me Why" the vocals pan to one side when it goes "Well I gave you everything I had" then pans over to the other side for "but you left me sittin' on my own".

Also, if you put it into mono it doesn't sound good, so you can't just make it mono either.

 

You know now that you mentioned that song I do recall it being that way. However once again, I can still say that this was not the way the songs are on the original release of the Stereo version from the 1964 UA pressing.

Needless to say the Purple Capitol pressing is nasty sounding except for the George Martin Orchestra arrangments.

Very good of you to bring that up about that in Tell Me Why, as I have a needle drop of that which my good friend who owns the Purple Capitol and even another re-issue and they are both bad. I have no idea what the person or persons that were in control of that one had mind as to what they were doing while mastering those pressings. They must have never had even heard a Beatles record IMO and didn't have a clue!!

 

Yeah, that track had one of the most annoying uses of the mono pan-effect - it's so bad that it's almost comical. Listen in headphones for the most ridiculous fake stereo you've ever heard. They figured having the drums, bass, guitars and vocals all panning as one slightly left or right is what the people wanted? "Can't Buy Me Love" is insane too: "I don't care to..." is in the middle of the stereo field, "...much for money..." is panned to the right channel and "money can't buy me love" is panned to the left channel. The engineer can barely keep up with his non-sensical pans either.

 

Who knows, maybe they will release these on vinyl as well.

 

Interesting entry in the Mark Lewisohn book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessionson page 40.

Wednesday 26 February (1964)

Studio Two (control room only): 10.00am-1.00pm
Mono mixing:
"You Can't Do That" (remixes 1-4, from take 9)
"Can't Buy Me Love" (from take 4)
P:George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham

Mono remixes of both sides of the next single provided the morning's work. With Capitol, EMI's US label, now keen to see as much Beatles material as possible, George Martin had a double-edged brief in preparing masters, in some instances making US versions a little different from the UK. "You Can't Do That" was one such task. George supervising two remixes (numbers two and four) for the USA and keeping remix three for the UK and Europe. Remix one was not used. The remix of "Can't Buy Me Love" was identical for both territories.
_____________________

From page 46.

Monday 22 June, (1964)

Studio One 10.00-11.30am
Mono mixing:
"Anytime At All" (remix 2, for the UK, from take 11)
"Anytime At All" (remix 3, for the USA, from take 11)
"When I Get Home" (remix 2, for the UK, from take 11)
"When I Get Home" (remix 3, for the USA, from take 11)
"I'll Be Back" (remix 2, for the UK, from take 16)
"I'll Be Back" (remix 3, for the USA, from take 16)
"And I Love Her" (remix 2, from take 21) no country mentioned
P:George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick
_______________________

From pages 50 and 51.

Monday 12 October (1964)

Studio Two (control room only) 10.00-10.30am
Mono mixing:
"She's A Woman" (remix 1 from take 6)
Stereo mixing:
"She's A Woman" (from take 6)
P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott

The mono remix of "She's A Woman" was for the UK record market only. A remix for the US was done on 21 October.

Wednesday 21 October (1964)

Abbey Road Room 65 2.30-5.45pm
Mono mixing:
"I Feel Fine" (remixes, 1-4 from take 9)
"I'll Follow The Sun" (from take 8)
"She's A Woman (remix 2, from take 6)
"Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby" (from take 1)

P:George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ron Pender

Four remixes of "I Feel Fine". Remixe three was for the British single and remix four for the US. The first two were left unreleased. The second remix of "She's A Woman" was expressly for the US.
__________________

IIRC someone in an earlier post, said that Georg Martin remixed "I Feel Fine" / "She's A Woman" for the U.S. That is correct, however I point to the bold text above "...making US versions a little different...". The U.S. "I Feel Fine" / "She's A Woman" single is a lot different from the U.K. version. It would be great sometime to hear the actual tapes that were sent to Capitol from Abbey Road. The words flat and dry comes to mind.

 

Capitol Tower echo has a different character than Abbey Road echo. So for these "special" mixes prepared for the US, if you're trying to figure out where the addtitional echo (compared to the UK mix) came from, try to pay attention to the way the echo sounds. The extra echo could possibly be from both Capitol AND more echo being used at Abbey Road (compared to the mix done for the UK) when the mix was made for the US.

 

So, on the UA Hard Day's Night the Beatles songs are in full stereo? The reel to reel tape I have has them in mono. This is the Magtec version. Did the unfortunate slow-speed Ampex version of HDN have the Beatles songs in stereo?

 

So I wasn't totally insane! Hmph.

 

The verdict is still out. The only so-called stereo version I've heard is horrible fake pan-pot stereo from the mono tracks. It sounds like mono until you start to notice the sound drift to the left or right. Scroll up to my previous 2 posts for some details.

 

Every "Stereo" version of the UA AHDN LP I have ever heard(which is every label variant), the Beatles songs are all in fake stereo. The pan-and-scanning on some of the tracks is quite laughable. I still think it should have been part of this set, though.


Evan

 

The original reel to reel tape that I had used that pan-and-scanning stuff. I thought it was tape dropouts. The newer tape has just mono, which is the better of the two.

 

I found this interesting, it seems to be a popular box set with us Canadians:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: 517
Amazon.ca Sales Rank 10

 

A good example of this are the mono mixes of I Call Your Name & Long Tall Sally on the original Capitol of Canada LP Long Tall Sally. Capitol of Canada used the mixes that were sent to them by Abbey Road and did not alter them by adding extra reverb;although Capitol of Canada took the stereo mix of Long Tall Sally and folded it down into mono. These mixes sound much better than their US counterparts. There is a sight amount of reverb on Long Tall Sally. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I believe that was the way that George Martin intended it to sound.

Tom

 

I hope this isn't the final artwork.....

 

Ted Jensen mastered Stone Temple Pilots' greatest hits album Thank You, its badly compressed but that was probably a record company decision. He remastered the Bob Marley albums, I have Legend, it has good dynamics but sounds too bright to me. I have a Shakira greatest hit CD that he mastered, it sounds good. He's probably okay when they leave him alone, still, when I heard Sterling Sound was doing this I too assumed it would be Greg Calbi mastering this.