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

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.

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/cinematic.php

The entire package seems interesting. Almost like I need to get myself a gaming console.

But, as for the remasters: Quicktime? Why? :)

because the video portions are only like 10 minutes long, I think. If you get the box set you'll get them all strung together on DVD. I don't anticipate them being very interesting though. It would have made more sense to put together a DVD of the promo videos (if these are all included I'll be shocked)

beatles rock band is a lot of fun, they did a nice job with the presentation too.

Have you already played it?

Holy cra-cra-crap that animation thing is cool. I really like that shot of them 'sitting in an English garden'.

Makes me kinda wish they just went ahead and made a Beatles anime.

What, like Yellow Submarine...?

I don't anticipate them being very interesting though.

Surely, in the case of The Beatles, so much is said, so much is written, that there is likely to be anything much about the proccess behind the albums that isn't already covered. If not before, at least the "Anthology" series should take care of most of the facts that the world would need to know. So I agree there.

I just saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium at a big screen theater last week. It was followed by the live footage from one of their last shows in Japan.

Seeing John just freak out and start speaking in tongues to 50,000 people who can't hear or understand him is still pretty affecting. And so are the performances. I'm guessing they did a lot of studio patchwork on these after the fact? The vocals sound awfully good considering the circumstances...

Ah, thank you Wikipedia.

"The film is not a completely candid concert film, however, as overdubs were recorded by the Beatles in London in January 1966 to cover audio problems throughout the concert recording."

So the Box set pics are here!

Looking good. Doesn't give to much away mind but enough for now.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0FaQ7TxM2U0/SjL3N31gKRI/AAAAAAAABEw/hE1dAweO8_E/s1600-h/beatlesstereoofficial.jpg

Hmm

Well they're here anyways

http://wogew.blogspot.com/2009/06/postcard-from-berlin.html

Aiee, $350 is not what I was hoping for. Why would the mono one be more expensive? Actually, why would I buy mono at all?

£200 for the mono set (from Amazon "List Price £237"!) and £170 for the stereo (List Price £202!).

I was expecting around the £200 mark TBH, but it wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest had they gone even higher.

sometimes the US price isn't just the price in pounds though...

Can anyone recommend me an art criticism-angled book on the Beatles, specifically their days hanging out with German art students and how it affected their subsequent work? I would say mainly about 'the Hamburg days' but Klaus Voorman did alot of work with them even through Lennon's solo career.

I'd love to read something well-written taking their career in that context.

listened to that 10-minute "Revolution, Take 21" outtake yesterday --- eeeyowch it is good. Screw the remasters, release more stuff like that! (Kidding ... remasters & outtakes, plz)

Adam, this book is great:

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20071001/9780307353375.jpg

This book took 20 years to write and it shows - extremely well researched and short on gossip. Fantastic musical critiques and social analysis. Oh, and there's quite a bit on the 1960-61 Hamburg/Liverpool era.

^Love that book!

xxxpost

Amazon UK are listing the box sets for pre-order at £134 for Stereo and £158 for Mono, whic seems pretty reasonable to me.

Again, why is the Mono more expensive? It seems to have less discs in it.

They've come down a lot since I posted those prices a few days ago. Plus they've dropped the "list price". Interesting. In a good way.

http://larryfire.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/beatlesstereoofficial.jpg

These are the mono ones, right? I mean, they don't exist to me at all. Mono doesn't exist to me whenever stereo is available..

[imghttp://www.puppiesandflowers.com/blogimages/bear-covering-eyes.jpg[/img]

oops
http://www.puppiesandflowers.com/blogimages/bear-covering-eyes.jpg

geir, even now, it must be said...you are a weird bird homie

and no, i think that is the stereo box set .... you may look at it, Geir. IT EXISTS.

Not in the shops before 090909, no :)

Someone photoshop some 2001 monkeys caressing that Beatles box.

looking forward to downloading the mono one.

that picture is actually some kind of Second Life computer-generated proto-copy of the box set. weird. geir is actually correct that it doesn't exist!

Geir, "Let it be" was never released in Mono, so that's the Stereo set.

Alright?

http://www.beatles-unlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/beatles-mono-boxset300.jpg

There you go, the Mono set.

ah good, i like that box better since it will fit in my CD racks instead of that big booze bottle box shaped thing for the stereo

Anyone worked out why the mono (less CDs in it) is more expensive?

http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/richmedia/images/cover.gif

Anyone worked out why the mono (less CDs in it) is more expensive?

I think it's because the mono box is a limited edition

not the most solid evidence, but cd japan does mark their listings differently by that token:
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/search3.html?q=beatles+box+set&step=20&r=any&order=score&media=

Anyone worked out why the mono (less CDs in it) is more expensive?

The mono set actually contains two copies of the product - one in each speaker - so Apple is overlooking the opportunity to charge double the money. The stereo set only has 50% of the product in each speaker.

Just checked a minute ago, and Amazon.co.uk have bumped the prices back up - £200 for mono and £160 for stereo.

Beatles.com is now showing a clip of the Revolver mini-doc.

Appears to be rather weak chopped up version of the Anthology stuff.

clips up over at amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/entity/The-Beatles/B000APTK6K though I'm not sure whether that's the best way to judge how good these sound ... will listen when i get home from work. wonder if the price for the box set will come down at some point? right now, it is out of my price range ...

Does anyone know which stereo mixes will be used on the first 2 albums? Will they use the original 2 track mixes or new remixes that George Martin have been playing with the thought of making? (Most of those songs would probably sound better with one channel in the middle and the other one to the left/right rather than one extreme right and the other one extreme left, but that would also be kind of revisionist)

Yeah, but does anybody actually like it like that?