The Beatles Remasters Remastered

Okay, so who has the audacity to try and "remaster" the new Beatles Remastered CDs? Me, sir. (Or madam.) This blog is because I need somewhere to write what has happened and about what I have heard.

Why? Because I had already heard the Beatle CDs sound far better than the new remastered EMI releases. They sound muddy, dull and flat to me. But in all fairness, most CDs do to me these days. But wait... let's go back a few years and start at the beginning of the story.

My history of loving Beatles music goes back to Jan 3, 1964 when Jack Parr (and not Ed Sullivan) had the 1st appearance of the Beatles on his show. I had just come home from the movies and my parents were watching the Jack Parr Show. He introduced the Beatles and played a clip of them performing "She Loves You" in their collarless jackets. I was only 13 at the time, but I remembered them and was bowled over with what I saw. Since no radio station in Boston was playing any Beatle records at the time, nobody had ever heard of them. The next day at school, I asked the entire class if they had seen the Beatles on TV last night. Not one person had. I was the first. Yahoo! Five minutes ago, I checked Youtube to see if the Jack Parr clip was on there and sure enough, there it was. In all it's glory. Just as I remembered it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcusX12nSqE

Alright, that being said, the rest is history. I became a musician and then a recording engineer and producer. I have been fortunate enough to work on live recordings of some of the greatest artists in Rock & Roll history. In 1976, I got to work with my brother-in-law and do special effects for the master himself, Paul McCartney at his LA Forum dates. I still have my Wings Over America backstage pass. More than anything else, I am a fan of the music. Not just Beatles, but all kinds. So let's get back to where my story picks up.

I guess it starts when I had been pestering my friend Geoff Emerick (yes, the Beatles' engineer) about why he hadn't remastered the miserable sounding CDs that were on the market. I had all the British LPs and they sounded great. CDs were hyped as something that would sound amazing. Well, they really didn't. They could, but they didn't. Weak mastering. Big labels just shoveling catalog product out without any involvement with the original engineers or producers. Not too bright, if you ask me.

Now days there is the belief that like having more pixels on a DVD gives you a clearer picture, so having more bits on a recording gives you a clearer sound or High Definition. And to confuse the issue even more, everyone is running around talking about 5.1 Surround. To me that is all garbage. Mr Emerick has said the same to me once. Why not 8.1 or 16.1?? A speaker for every instrument......hmmmmm.... I seem to remember some studios actually having one speaker per track in the early days. I have found that a 16 bit CD IS capable of delivering a clear HD sound because, I have done it. And blown away even non-audiophile listeners with a before and after presentation.

So how did this come about?? Well, after a couple of years of pestering Geoff (and he was always very gracious, even enough to invite me to his book release party at Capitol Records studios), I decided that I had better stop bothering him, or he might just get angry. I just decided to go into my home studio and try and improve the quality for my own listening pleasure. I digitized the CDs that I had purchased from the local music store. It took a long bit of work but somewhere in the steps that I took, the music came alive and there was a presence that I had not heard on any recordings before. Anyone involved in recording knows that we deal with Hi's, Mid's and Low's coming out of speakers. It is always "flat" sounding and has no life. I guess that is why mastering engineers try so hard to make music as loud as possible on CDs these days. To get a little excitement in there. I believe that sometimes God just gives you a present, and this one was mine. I felt like Nikola Tesla when he just saw the vision of the electric generator in his mind. Maybe what I had wasn't as world shaking, but to me, it was like breathing life into the recordings. Because of the new separation between instruments, I could hear things that had been buried in the mix before. There was "punch" and "presence" that had not existed before. It was like hearing 3-D sound or as some have said, "It sounds like the artist is playing live in front of you.

I phoned Geoff to tell him. I think he was a bit taken aback when I told him that I had remastered Revolver. There was a slight pause and he said in his very British way, "Right?" I knew he thought I was a bit wacko, but I convinced him to take a CD and give it a fair listen. I figured that If I could impress the guy who recorded Sgt Pepper, I just might have something. A week later I received a message on my answering machine from Geoff. It said "I've just been listening to those Beatle tracks you did, they're actually brilliant. They sound great! I just thought I'd let you know that, I mean they are just fantastic. I don't know what you've done but they sound really good....."

I think I'll close here for now and pick this up later because there is much more to tell and what the heck... I'm probably just writing this for my own edification....so I don't forget it..See you in a couple of weeks..