I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

i mean no-fi

"Technology exists to have a higher sampling rate"

Ah, the old "music falling through the gaps" nonsense.

I s'pose 1993 would be the first time I started to get involved in this particular debate - I think I was still quite swayed by the audio press in those days and, even though with my physics background I understood Nyquist (which Fr3m3r clearly didn't), I found the more esoteric reasoning for vinyl's superiority quite persuasive back then. I mean, all these audiophiles (and I was definitely aspiring to be one) can't be wrong, right?

I'm glad the debate sort of settled down over the years (I'm sure you can still find the old arguments being rehashed on rec.audio.opinion by the same people who've been at each other's throats for 20 years) - some sort of consensus seems to have been reached as to what analogue tape is good for, what digital is good for, that the special sound of vinyl is really quite easily explained, not necessarily in terms of the deficiencies of 16/44.1k but in terms of what analogue replay adds.

There are still folk out there who insist that digitisation of any sort destroys music but it's a pretty fringe viewpoint now (in the mid-'90s it really seemed to be gathering force as the underlying credo behind all audiophile opinion).

The whole vinyl vs. CD argument is misplaced in this thread, IMO. The reason the original Beatles albums on CD sound like shit is simply because they weren't mastered, transferred, etc. correctly. Like others have pointed out, recent reissues like Love and Beatles 1 sound very good indeed.

Well, seems wrong to say they weren't transferred correctly, more that they didn't know what they were doing yet in 1986 and 1987. For the time, they were state of the art, and they were widely praised for their sound quality, especially from Rubber Soul on.

I'd be kinda curious to know precisely what the shortcomings (by today's standards) were in the original Beatles digital remasters; it can't simply be down to bitrate/headroom (being ultra-safe and peaking at whatever those CDs peak at: -6dBFS?). Plenty of DDD classical recordings from that time still sound fine, so what was it about mastering old rock/pop tapes for CD that was so challenging in 1987?

Well, for starters, the first four were in mono only. And not even the same mono mixes they were released in originally.

Otherwise, I think the process was just lazy, as all processes were back then. As for DDD recordings, they usually don't need remastering, but there's a lot of brushing up to do with old analogue tapes to make them sound digital.

All processes in 1986 and 1987 were lazy?

Basically, yes. There was this new thing called Compact Disc that was soon taking off, and they needed every single title ever released out as quick as possible. So they didn't really do a lot of it to get the best out of the sound. Also because they thought that "Oh, it's CD, it sounds great anyway".

There are still folk out there who insist that digitisation of any sort destroys music

On a slightly different note, I also have a problem understanding those synth purists who claim that a modern generated analog synth, or a softsynth, doesn't sounds as "warm" as the old analog synths. I mean, I am a bit analog fan, but I just cannot hear the difference at all. Except old analogue synths go sour.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I essentially agree with Geir here. It may be an oversimplification to say the record companies were just throwing everything on CD without any thought two decades ago, but there was a LOT of crappy jobs. Miles Davis' catalog, for one, was completely disrespected when his albums were first released on CD. It took years before decent-sounding reissues came out.

With Miles Davis, are you talking about the Columbia Jazz Masterpiece deals?

Speaking of this, what I do have more problems with is if one album is being remastered at the best technology (24 bit and all). And then 2 years later, the same album is being re-released again in a "Deluxe" edition, completely with a second disc mostly consisting of demo and/or live versions of the same songs that are already on the album. Now that is pointless!

The exception is when people such as Pet Shop Boys fill that second disc with great b-sides and great extended/alternative mixes, adding non-album singles from the same era. Those 2 CDs work. Also the Donna Summer "Hot Girls" with lots of 12 inch mixes behind does. But I am never interested in hearing demo/live.

Interestingly, Amazon.co.uk is listing the remasters as being £8.99 each, or £15.99 for the doubles.

the rudy van gelder series of jazz remasters are really amazing sounding CDs, kind of blue is one of them

Kind of Blue isn't an RVG (it sounds good tho). RVG just does the Blue Note and Prestige reissues. Watch out bringing those up -- some audiophile nuts loathe them for some reason. They sound great to me, for the most part.

With Miles Davis, are you talking about the Columbia Jazz Masterpiece deals?
I believe so.
I have the 1992 Columbia Mastersound Gold CD of Kind of Blue, and it sounds great.

The original Miles CDs not only were poorly mastered (Columbia routinely overdid the noise reduction, often completely obscuring things like quiet cymbals), but in at least one instance (Miles Ahead) alternate takes were used for the CD in place of the master takes.

i think there were some pitch issues that were resolved in the remasters on kind of blue, like originally some tracks were slightly sharp or flat

never mind about the beatles catalogue - what about kraftwerk !?
i mean they are all done and dusted, with a special promo box of them all even appearing on ebay from time to time.
what on earth is holding up the proper full release of those !
and yes, the latest reissue of 'kind of blue' does indeed resolve the speed issue.

what on earth is holding up the proper full release of those !

The remastering job accidentally removed all the brushed snares, confusing the sound for static and hiss.

never mind about the beatles catalogue - what about kraftwerk !?

According to the guy in an indie store in Oslo specializing in synthpop/EBM, the were so dissatisfied with the remasters they chose not to release them. I believe they are available for download though.

i have basically put up my whole collection, all the albums plus Past Masters, on Amazon. i will get an average of five dollars a CD and have already sold most of it, that's $80 towards these new box sets.

does this whole Beatles remastered catalogue/ ROCK BAND thing deserve it's own thread? i think it does, but anyway
here's ROCK BAND's trailer. i know nothing about computer games =
http://www.beatles.com/core/home/

"mild lyrics"
"tobacco reference"

where's the tobacco reference? i couldn't see it.

the abbey road cover

"on the way upstairs I had a smoke"

Here's hoping the Beatles edition of "Rock Band" does the same wonders to the musical taste of the kids that Guitar Hero did a few years ago. If they can discover Iron Maiden and AC/DC in retrospect, they should also be able to discover The Beatles.

that trailer is dead exciting, and i'm about as over music games as i am the beatles at this point. also tempted by a remastered white album. but including the documentaries as qt files? really??

ach, they'll all get dragged off and made available someplace, no bother.

watched the trailer: meh. as an exercise in deep Beatles fetishism, it's interesting, but it's not making me run out and buy an x-box-a-ma-whatsis.

That looks pretty damn cool! Taxman!!

As for remastered White Album: seek out the German Direct Metal Master pressing of the White Album via the usual sites. It's a late 70s pressing done right before the switch to digital, with the master cut directly into metal rather than lacquered and electoplated. It sounds AMAZING and I doubt Apple could get even close to the sound quality.

oh, like i need another version of the white album ... (jk, scouring the internet now! :D)

found it -- oh, internet, me luv u. (and man, upthread i was dissing beatles fetishism. pot calling kettle black i guess.)

The acoustic guitars and vocals in particular are amazing. Drums are crisp as hell. It's stunning how much additional sound you get from this.

Supposedly it's just a really good needledrop on a super hi-fi system. Its funny cos above in this thread I was all anti-remastering and now I'm saying check this out. The truth is this is 30 year old technology here.

I don't own an Xbox or Playstation or whatever, but if I did, "Rock Band" would already have been in my stock of games and probably used a lot. And I would definitely be looking forward to the Beatles one.
(Which I do anyways, because I hope it will do wonders for the kids' musical taste)

Beatles game looks great! cannot wait to do harmonies with my kids. We'll be well on our way to being the next Carter family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YsdS00GI58

San Andreas is what you need, Geir.

lolz game looks great. kinda wish there was a "Yoko" function that would allow you to break up the band/mess up other players

also maybe a Pete Best function where you have to sit in the other room while your friends are having fun.

How about a Stu Sutcliffe function, also known as the Sid Vicious function?

There's a Doug Sandon function, where your girlfriend comes in and makes you go to work instead of messing around playing computer games.

who's doug sandon?

Beg pardon, Colin Hanton was 'who' I meant.

wrt the 96 vs 48 vs 41 thing: you don't just get the added acoustic range above 20khz (which no one can hear) there's also something that happens when tracks are bounced down from 96 (or 48) to 41 - you lose a bit of detail, numbers are squashed and crunched and tail ends of long digital strings are rounded up or down, adding digital artifacts and noises and what not. i don't have audiophile gear but i have decent studio gear (pro tools, genelec speakers, spl thousand dollar volume knob, etc) and there are differences to be heard between 41kHz and 48kHz and 96kHz . especially when you bounce them down to cd.

also, fuck vynil. shit gets all dusty and scratchy and sounds like ass if you play it more than a few times or leave it on your record player overnight, and i'm glad they switched to cd.

As for remastered White Album: seek out the German Direct Metal Master pressing of the White Album via the usual sites.
Got a link? I found it here in six parts, but I couldn't join the files because I couldn't find the password.
Help!

http://musicinyourbrain.blogspot.com/2008/12/beatles-white-album-german-direct-metal.html

^^^ that's where I got it from yesterday. It's noticably better than any other version I've heard, but the last second of Savoy Truffle is cut off.