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

It's just odd, you know. If they did this back in the late 90s (and people have been crying for this sort of thing for over 10 years) back after I bought the Who remasters with all those awesome bonus tracks, I would have totally bought these. It's just weird that they've waited til now. What is the motive? Cos there definitely is one you can't deny it.

the motive is to make money by selling CDs! the record companies are businesses. i assumed this was well known.

as far as why they waited, i dunno i bet that's more to the whole paul/yoko/ringo/apple thing being unable to ever get shit done.

definitely have a point there -- seems like it would've made sense to launch a full reissue program in the post-Anthology period (mid to late 90s). But I think the whole Beatles world is fully different from even comparably big bands of the 60s. Lotta different factions, each with their own agendas, money to make, and with equal power over decisions.

i mean look at what a big deal it was to settle the whole apple thing, the beatles act like they should have a seat at the UN.

since they can't tour like the Stones the Beatles have to reissue stuff every 5-10 years to remind us they ARE THE GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIME etc etc

what's the big problem with the current cds?
Um, they sound like shit?

Like, is there something I can listen for that will make me really anticipate this? Or is it something where if I had the vinyl, I'd understand this immediately?
Yeah, listen to the vinyl rips. I mean, I getcha. I grew up with the vinyls and then I stopped listening to the Beatles for years. When I switched over to CD, I scooped up almost all their catalog and didn't hear any deficiencies because I hadn't heard the vinyl in a long time. Now that I have, it's a revelation; the early Beatles albums on CD sound horrible. It's not even close.
I repeat:
Beatles for Sale as it should sound

Seriously, download it and do a taste test.

I've actually found it really hard to find Beatles LPs, outside of the blue and red greatest hits things. It seems the reasonably priced shops get rid of them fairly quickly, while other stores ask ridiculous prices just because its THE BEATLES. I mean, there was a store near me that was asking $30 for a beat-to-shit copy of Sgt. Pepper's on vinyl.

that seems to be the trend, though I remember as a kid finding the later stuff -- Sgt. Peppers, Abbey Road, Let It Be in the used vinyl bins for cheap. But yeah, you look for it now and it's marked up, usually outrageously.

The record store I used to work at would drive people crazy when they would try to sell their old Beatles records

"YOU ONLY WANT TO GIVE ME A DOLLAR? THIS IS THE FUCKIN BEATLES MAAAN"

"Uh, yeah, that record sold three million units. There's no shortage of copies of that record floating around"

People thought because they had a vinyl copy of a record everyone owns that they were sitting on a goldmine.

There are probably hundreds of millions of Beatles vinyls currently floating around the known universe, new and used. I must just luck out, I see Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road all the time at thrift shops, for at most $2. And people take care of their Beatles records so they're usually playable without skips.

Just wish they were offering something new, something a tenth as cool as the "Revolution" bootleg.

yeah, that's what's funny -- I mean in terms of actual rarity, Beatles records are not scarce. Like, they must've had the biggest initial pressings in history.

I'll try the Beatles For Sale thing right away. That's probably my favorite Beatles album at this point.

man i NEVER see good copies of the originals anymore...i kick myself for not buying all that stuff in the 90s...now all i see is bargain bin once all hashed up like with the record just thrown in the cardboard with no sleeve

starting to get that way with the prime stones stuff too, i paid 15 for beggars and i thought it was a good deal

I have a bunch of Beatles vinyl that I probably never listened to because I also have the CDs. :/

People thought because they had a vinyl copy of a record everyone owns that they were sitting on a goldmine.

OTM. Around Atlanta you can find lots of Beatles records in thrift shops (Goodwill $1-2, Last Chance $1.99, Value Village 40cents) but yeah go to an antique store and you will find any old Beatles record in thoroughly used condition going for something insane like $35.

yeah i always chortle when i go to this one secondhand flea market type place in my town, and there's a seller who has shit like Allman Bros. LPs for $30. Basic Beatles stuff, too -- with comments like "ORIGINAL PRESSING" and "RARE" ...

If people want a taster for what the new remasters might sound like I'd recommend the Love thing from the other year. Got me pretty fucking excited.

yeah, i pulled out Love this week in anticipation. made me angry/excited in equal measure. some of it is soooooo retarded. the sound is great though.

"Something" on Love is one that stood out -- incredibly lush.

People thought because they had a vinyl copy of a record everyone owns that they were sitting on a goldmine.

Reminds me of a woman who came into Streetside Records shortly after Conway Twitty died and bought one of each of his CDs because "they're going to be worth something some day."

Yeah, some of the edits / segues whatever are a little annoying, but fucking damn it sounds astounding.

Like, is there something I can listen for that will make me really anticipate this?

Euler, like Nick mentioned way up there, the sound quality of the Love thing that just came out year was pretty awesome. You should listen to that, and if the remastering on that doesn't impress you, you probably won't get much out of the forthcoming reissues. And if you do notice the bump up in quality, you might be convinced to buy a few.

That said, I'm part of the evil plot for the RIAA to scam millions of people out of their money through what we call the "new format trick". You might wonder, "how would that trick work without someone pointing a gun at someone else's head and demanding that they purchase the same old album in a new format or be murdered?" You're absolutely correct, and that's why the RIAA pays me to point guns at baby boomer heads until they shell out the money.

and we'll just keep repeating the scam until the public catches on, and then we'll gladly take our TAXPAYER BAILOUT!

MWWAHAHAHAHAHAHA, it's so perfect!!!11

how would that trick work

It's called encouraging the mass-culture fetishizing of audio (and video) fidelity.

http://www.filmjunk.com/2009/02/03/the-least-essential-blu-ray-releases-so-far/

I haven't heard much of Love (one of these days!). It's the Beatles, I'll probably buy all of these, provided I can afford it. I wanted to hear more of what to listen for, and so I'm going to try the Beatles for Sale thing pointed to above.

hahaha audiophile fidelity is so far from "mass culture" it's not even funny

Just for the sake of argument, at what point do you think the improvement of audio and fidelity should have been halted? CD? 180g vinyl? Wax cylinder? VHS? The spirograph?

VHS

i remember making mixtapes on vhs! they could be like 6 hours long

Stylophone.

As someone who volunteers in a charity shop sorting their vinyl, and only ever seems to buy from them too- any Beatles vinyl is incredibly scarce, and the stuff we get, no matter how beat up and shitty, we can sell within a day for a tenner plus (when the majority of stuff, good quality, is marked at £1 - £3).

Also, considering hopefully I should have my first full time job by the time these come out, I might consider actually buying them as I've been living off inherited beat up vinyl copies of various albums and shitty downloads of the rest. There is a generation who haven't yet bought their first Beatles albums who will end up loving them like everyone else this could be sold too the same way my older brother and all his friends drank the kool aid circa the anthology.

Would it have been better if DVDs and Blueray had been developed and introduced without any sort of advertising, so as to not encourage people to fetishize the improved fidelity?

Records should have never been created. They have killed music.

damn you, thomas edison. DAMN YOU TO HELL.

http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/images/adaccess/R/R02/R0206/R0206-med.jpeg

haha, what does "OYEZ!" mean ... ?

"hear ye"

I've said this before, but the whole nu vinyl-fetishism is hilarious to me because people are buying these brand new indie rock records from Insound for their "better sound quality" but they were all recorded digitally anyway, so it doesn't really matter what format.

Well, the product and packaging is bigger, they usually come with a free download, and vinyl is more expensive to produce. So you get more value for your money from a vinyl even not taking into account sound quality.

But yeah that stuff is so funny. Lots of my musician friends with use 8-track digital recorders or their computer to record something and then do the mixdowns onto tape and then make a digital copy of that tape to send in to get pressed onto record. I bet no-one ever sends tape to a record pressing plant anymore, it's always CDrs.

The Beatles remastering technique described above has "24 bit 192 kHz resolution," which is vastly more than what you get on a CD. So if they go from the 24-bit master to vinyl, you bet the vinyl could sound better than the CD.

But yeah that stuff is so funny. Lots of my musician friends with use 8-track digital recorders or their computer to record something and then do the mixdowns onto tape and then make a digital copy of that tape to send in to get pressed onto record. I bet no-one ever sends tape to a record pressing plant anymore, it's always CDrs.

i think even stuff recorded digitally lots of time sounds better on vinyl though, like "ga ga ga ga ga ga" by spoon comes to mind, because it's not mastered so harshly and vinyl tends to sand off some of that hissy high end.

i know a few ppl that have done all analog process but i've A/B'd stuff on vinyl and CD and it sounds better on vinyl, even digitally recorded stuff.

as far as recording digital and bouncing to tape, that's not uncommon actually, tape can give you a nice natural compression that makes your mixes hold together, the guy we recorded with (on tape) used to have some clients come in just to bounce to one-inch on the mixes just to get a little tape compression before mastering.

yeah I'm sorry guys M@tt is otm, vinyl just sounds better - doesn't matter how it was originally recorded. At this point in the game, there's pretty much nobody using an all analog process, digital is always involved somewhere along the line.

as for why this took so long: it has apparently taken about 4 years to do the actual work of remastering. why they didn't do it earlier: anything involving the beatles involves mccartney, star, ono, harrison (when alive) and his wife (now); AND EMI. there was a deal in place to have these remastered by DCC in the 90's but harrison refused to sign off. I think the multitude of people involved in agreements on anything is a horrible mess; I'm frankly surprised this ever happened at this point.

Shakey, the "vinyl just sounds better" argument when talking about digital era indie rock records is snake oil bullshit to make collector nerds feel superior in a brave new world where anyone can download a record. It's just another reason for merriweather post pavillion people to pat themselves on the back.

what's funny (haha!) is that if they had actually done remasters back in the mid-90s, they could totally STILL be re-reissuing them this year, in new NEW remastered form. I mean, look at Elvis Costello.

like M@tt I am mostly speaking from personal experience here insofar as the records we made sound better on vinyl than they do on MP3/CD but whatevs Whiney yr mileage may vary

Shakey, the "vinyl just sounds better" argument when talking about digital era indie rock records is snake oil bullshit to make collector nerds feel superior in a brave new world where anyone can download a record. It's just another reason for merriweather post pavillion people to pat themselves on the back.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, April 10, 2009 8:54 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm not saying across the board 100 percent it always will, but like i said i will trust my ears...though recently i've gotten a better CD player and have been buying up jazz reissues and stuff that sound FANTASTIC on CD...but overall there's a sense of space to vinyl...also it's less harsh sounding at high levels...

like i said, i think it's more that vinyl inhibits/fights a lot of the bad mastering practices that are so prevalent now.

have you ever A/B'd stuff? i mean i've done it at my place for skeptics (like my wife haha) and even they admit there's a certain quality that's gained from vinyl

i don't really think anyone should pat themselves on the back for animal collective though.