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

This is fairly close..

http://www.bootlegzone.com/beatleg/discs/scans/pc-60.jpg

That Cheap Trick story is pretty good.

It was weird reading that Rolling Stone interview last year taken from the unreleased parts of Lennon's final interview. Him talking about Bruce Springsteen and president-elect Ronald Reagan. It'd be like hearing Elvis talk about Pat Benatar or something.,

the day that Jack Douglas booked the members of Cheap Trick to come in and track "I'm Losing You" with John

WTF?! never heard of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im3AUiCGqnk

Enjoying this far more than I thought I would. It's all silly fun, of course, but the best part is that I'm giving real attention to a load of songs of which I was only dimly aware, e.g. 'Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)'.

itunes didn't remove the gaps between tracks for some reason. Could be to do with the vbr encoding, I dunno.

Is the Dropbox option still available? If so, I would like a listen (pjmiller68atgmaildotcom). But don't go to any trouble, it's only beacuse I'm TOO LAZY for FLACS. Kthx please and thank you.

I have a Dropbox "thingy" - used it once.

seems like the vinyl reissues are never coming out :(

*cries*

let me give you all a steer.

picture if you will, April 2012: EMI release two Talk Talk albums as deluxe vinyl remasters featuring a DVD of 24bit Wav files.

The music press go nuts and everyone talks about vinyl revival and increasing market for HD download tracks.

EMI realises that this combo hits both the analog purists and the digital stereophiles and maximises the amount you can charge for something that can be picked up on CD for about £5.

EMI begin to wonder if they have any other 'classic' albums that can be reissued on vinyl with 24bit digital files included and charge £20 for the package.

somone coughs and points to the big money spitting pipe in their office labelled "The Beatles revenue".

seriously, if those Talk Talk reissues are not testing the water for something bigger, I will be severely disappointed in The Man's greed and my personal weakness in the face of deluxe reissues.

hope you're right....just seems like such a no brainer

i mean look at prices for mono original presses on discogs for revolver:

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?q=revolver+beatles&format=Vinyl&year=1966

yeah and original White Album in mono is crazy highly priced in our neck of the woods. you're looking at £80-£100 if you even want a Very Good copy let alone a mint one.

I guess news is that Yellow Submarine will see a Blu-Ray release and remastering and the Soundtrack album will come out again and all. Which is cool, but MMT and Let it Be continue to collect dust.

and "Give my regards to Broadway" continues to collect grit and rain and (etc)

gag flubbed due to lack of street cred

Surely there aren't any Ringo haters anymore?

Why hate on him? He was a perfectly competent drummer who happened to be lucky enough to be in a band with three of the biggest musical geniuses ever. He's not up there with the three others, but few others are. And he is perfectly fine otherwise, even if his solo albums are largely irrelevant (the new one actually possibly being his best since "Ringo")

He's more than a competent drummer, Geir, but I don't expect you to understand that at all.

He's a fantastic drummer.

"Ticket to Ride" came on the radio yesterday, and all I could think about was that awesome drum beat that drives the thing.

What's great is that most people consider "Rain" to be Ringo's crowning moment of glory as a drummer, without considering that the tape on that was slowed down to change the key from A to G, and that he therefore played all those fills faster than we think he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48OPy9CmXA4

Woahh - never heard that track before. Fabulous.

I first heard that sped up version here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f7D2_jUkqA

This guy's got the bassline nailed perfectly but it really just makes you appreciated how awesome Paul is.

He really is. I'd love to listen to their catalogue with the bass mixed way up like that - I can never hear him properly. I only ever really pick him up on tracks like A Day In The Life or Mr Kite, which are amazing but I know there are so many treasures there.

(that guy's got a lovely tone btw)

i thought the remasters really brought the bass out tremendously compared to previous masters

Agreed he did a great job on "Rain". Also "Strawberry Fields Forever". I like Ringo's drumming, but even somebody as great as Jeff Porcaro, Phil Collins, Keith Moon, Bill Bruford, Lars Ulrich or Charlie Watts would still have been overshadowed by the other Fab Three. Because they were Fab'er than most anything else.

It's hard to imagine the Beatles with other drummers like some of those guys. I've mentioned it before, but that take of "Please Please Me" with the session drummer (ostensibly a good player) on Anthology 1 is the best proof that the Beatles would have been very different without Ringo and, in fact, may very well have not ended up being successful at all.

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/would-the-real-drummer-on-please1/page-3/

This guy seems to have worked it out that it's Ringo on that version as well.

God, Paul really was like the trippiest bass player of any big 60s band! The more I'm paying attention to it, the more all his stuff from the second half of the 60s is just loopy and unpredictable as all hell. But it never really feels like he's being fussy or trying to get attention at the expense of the song, it just adds this level of complexity to the backing track that you can easily go years without noticing, except for seeing like a Beatles party cover band that seems to be lacking.... something ineffable.

This guy seems to have worked it out that it's Ringo on that version as well.

!

Does sound reasonable that it's just an early version and Ringo wasn't playing it as well yet, listening again after reading that.

The biggest revelation for me was how good Paul's bass playing was on the early 60's. Just listen to Please, Please Me or I Saw Her Standing There and hear how he drives the songs along. Another thing the re-masters have done is make me re-appreciate John's guitar playing. He really could make it "howl and move."

They definitely did not have that 'chugging away' rhythm section, Paul was noticeably great from the very beginning.

I don't know anything about playing drums, but Ringo's drum sound is so damn bright and funky around '67. "strawberry fields" and "hello goodbye" in particular.. damn

The drums on this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNLcXj5yR68

Yeah, the drumming on Blue Jay Way is real cool. You kinda of get the sense of Ringo and George really having each other's backs on these songs that John and Paul seem to have 50-75% checked out on. Vid, unfortunately, reminds me why I've never really felt a burning, pressing need to see Magical Mystery Tour...

I don't know anything about playing drums, but Ringo's drum sound is so damn bright and funky around '67. "strawberry fields" and "hello goodbye" in particular.. damn

There's a few reasons for that, I think. He had really soured on touring -- likely more than he ever let on -- and was restricted to hacking away as simply as possible just to keep the songs together. No one could hear themselves, or each other, so it was left to Ringo to make sure things didn't fall apart. Fills were kept to a minimum, and there was no room for him to develop or explore new ideas on the spur of the moment. Once they were back in the studio, like the others, he probably felt like he was let off the leash. So something like "Rain" happens, where he's finally able to blast out these incredible ideas that had been stifled by touring for however many months prior.

Also, with the arrival of engineer Geoff Emerick, his close-miking and compression techniques on Ringo's drums coincided with Ringo dampening them with tea towels, giving that broad, flat sound.

I think my favourite Ringo drums are on Don't Let Me Down. Favourite Paul bass is pretty hard... Maybe Something?

Did ringo ever use oil filled heads? Basically 2 layer tom heads with a thin layer of oil between, I know ian paice from deep purple used them to get a deader sound

I don't think Ringo used those heads in the Beatles; afaik, they hadn't been invented yet, but I'm not positive.

Remasters on vinyl in 2012, mono set coming in 2013: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/shades-of-yesterday-new-vinyl-versions-of-beatles-albums-on-the-way/

all i need is cash!

DROOL on the mono set. Man. Hopefully by 2013 I can win on Jeopardy or something and indulge in a crazy purchase like that.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-vinyl-box-set/

The other link takes ages (or) doesn't work for UK

http://theseconddisc.com/2012/09/27/completely-fab-beatles-remasters-coming-to-vinyl/

very specific and tech-y presss release there. dudes know their audience!

Still, some audiophiles are complaining that they're mastered from digital sources.

The Mono box is a given, I spent £170 on the CD box set and don't regret it for a minute.

I am relatively deaf to the subtleties of remastering, though I like vinyl and The Beatles, and I like the conjunction of them in mono. It would be nice to be able to buy a new quality mono pressing of any of their albums.

However, I don't understand some things. Is there the idea that a new mono pressing would sound better than an original 1960s pressing? If so why? Is it just to do with the degradation of old vinyl? Would a new pressing sound better now than a 60s pressing sounded in the 60s, or is it just that they're using technology to make it sound as good now as it once would have? I could understand that, I guess. But if a new pressing is supposed to sound better than ever, how come? Surely whatever master tapes they're sourcing the music from would have degraded sufficiently to cancel out improvements in reproducing such tapes? Or is it - another idea - that improvements in EQing and *mystery audio sauce* mean that pressings now may sound fuller/more exciting than was possible in the 1960s even if they would be less representative of what was originally intended (though arguably more representative of what the intentions of 1960s people would be had they known these things would one day be possible)?

i dunno about the beatles master tapes, but there are instances of the reading technology to have improved to the point where we can hear old recordings with better fidelity than the people who first heard them.

Surely whatever master tapes they're sourcing the music from would have degraded sufficiently to cancel out improvements in reproducing such tapes?

Not necessarily. I don't know exactly what brand or type of tape the Beatles/Martin/EMI used, but Shel Talmy, working around the same time, used the most durable tape available. In fact, it was so durable that it would wear out tape heads after heavy use (which is why studios weren't too happy with Talmy). In the long run, however, that meant the tapes for My Generation were in far better shape after 30+ years than the tapes for Who's Next (some of which disintegrated when being prepared for remix/remaster).

These are interesting things. Would like to hear more about this stuff.

For one thing original mono presses of beatle albums in good condition aren't that easy to come by

Sure, I get that. But I was wondering whether these then amounted to quality reissues or, somehow, improvements. Honestly fascinated by this. I have some original mono Beatles vinyl of variable quality. As I said, I'd love to be able to buy a new one for, say, £20, as opposed to taking a chance on a second-hand copy priced the same or more.