Anthology "remasters"

Discuss official releases and re-issues. The only links allowed here are to the Beatles YouTube channel or other band-sanctioned platforms.
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Fred68
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Re: Anthology "remasters"

Post by Fred68 »

On Qobuz, only the Anthology Highlights release indicates a 2011 copyright and publishing date. The regular Anthology volumes list their respective original 1995 or 1996 dates.
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Tex
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Re: Anthology "remasters"

Post by Tex »

I skimmed volume 3 on iTunes but did not notice anything different. The outtake of "The End" still sounds relatively lo-fi.

I know volume 1 has big improvements. I think I was one of the first to mention those. This was the period when I realized iTunes had their own mastering and whoever does it does a pretty darn good job it's not just a slogan.

I'm sorry I just can't accept that notion that iTunes is forbidden from adjusting their files to meet their standards. "Mastered for iTunes" suggests they are doing custom mastering otherwise if they are just handed the masters as-is the "mastered for iTunes" slogan is meaningless there's no point in using it versus any other master they are given. Are recording companies custom mastering only for online stores but not their physical media? Silly.

I'm also having trouble with the notion Giles could master anything well. Have you heard his stuff????? Is there evidence he was actually involved in the iTunes mastering?

Are there any specific tracks on volume 2 and 3 I should compare?

Someone really should do a thorough track by track comparison.
Last edited by Tex on Tue Feb 07, 2023 1:27 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Anthology "remasters"

Post by harrylime »

dk2600 wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 9:18 am You'll be suprised and find various new masters and new remixes you didn't know about.

I really wonder why noone has used this database to make "the book". You get the artist, song, mix/remix/remaster, year, running time, release title, releasenumber and more.
Say I pick Love Me Do, I get this:

Image

How is this telling me anything? Not to mention the 1995 (Anthology 1) version isn't stereo, it's the first EMI session with Best on drums. Where's the '93 Red Album version with the Mew restoration? 2003 One restoration? Ringo version on Past Masters and Mono Masters? What are those 0:34 and 3:56 releases? What would the 'original mix' actually be? And then extrapolate this to over 200 Beatles songs alone... Don't get me wrong it's a nice library to find hidden or unknown gems, but I wouldn't invest my time to source a book or other kind of release database from it. I would rather work from for example the resources by Brennan, Winn, Lewishohn etc.
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Re: Anthology "remasters"

Post by dk2600 »

So far I have collected these versions of Love Me Do. I don't know why some version disappears from the database, that use the ISRC numbers to identify and thus pay royalties from digital music like cd, dvd and streaming. In fact you can grab these ISRC numbers from cd's as hidden data.

When The Beatles decides that a new master is the version supplied to the streaming companies they may be asked to drop the old version.

The first 5 letters and numbers identify the country GB Great Britain and the next 3 being 040 or aye or bxs = the recordcompany. The next two numbers 84 and 00 identify the year of the master being 1984 and 2000 and the last 5 numbers 00040 and 00920 identify the year of the master 1984 and in 2000. So being low 00040 the master must have been done or registrated early in 1984.

Gb0408400040 1984 Love Me Do
Gbaye0000920 2000 Love Me Do
Gbaye0600333 2006 Love Me Do
Gbaye0600344 2006 Love Me Do
Gbaye0601417 2006 Love Me Do
Gbaye0801379 2008 Love Me Do
Gbaye0900612 2009 Love Me Do
Gbaye0900756 2009 Love Me Do
Gbaye1100454 2011 Love Me Do
Gbaye6300121 1963 Love Me Do
Gbaye8700032 1987 Love Me Do
Gbbxs1036257 2010 Love Me Do
Gbbxs1036498 2010 Love Me Do
Gbcad9401295 1994 Love Me Do
Gbum71505907 2015 Love Me Do
Gbum72200662 2022 Love Me Do
Gbum71308705 2013 Love Me Do - Live At Bbc For Easy Beat - 20Th October, 1963
Gbum71308720 2013 Love Me Do - Live At Bbc For Pop Go The The Beatles - 10Th September, 1963
Gbum71308697 2013 Love Me Do - Live At Bbc For Saturday Club - 26Th January, 1963
Gbum71306574 2013 Love Me Do - Live At The Bbc For Pop Go The The Beatles - 23Rd July, 1963
Gbaye9500676 1995 Love Me Do First Emi Version, & Pete Best
Gbaye6200651 1962 Love Me Do Original Version

These facts are not covered by other authors. They are digging into the the masters done for vinyl. These numbers are for digital music and remember an awful lot of Beatles tracks have seen the light, being remixed or remastered since the 1970's.

As Harrylime shows, there's a lot of non-EMI releases like the AUX masters done in 2022, AUV, USA,ATUM, ITZC that all are either bootlegs or are released in countries with less copyright protection compared to EU or US.

In less than an hour you are able to make your own copy of the database and if you remember to get the full details, you'll find the record company as well, as the title of a possible album and finally the barcode making it possible to order a certain record/cd.
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Re: Anthology "remasters"

Post by harrylime »

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this just showing what was released? Not the fact if it was remastered, remixed, edited whatever. So say Australia does a CD release of the stereo CD's, it will use the 2009 masters, nothing new, but it will get an ISRC entry. That doesn't mean Australia remastered the set or something similar.
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Re: Anthology "remasters"

Post by dk2600 »

The ISRC numbers are unique and used all over the world to be able to pay royalties direct to the right copyrightholder.

Any recordcompany can tell the IFPI organisation that they will release a song and will have to pay for this registration. The company will have 3 characters=numbers/letters to identify the company/country and then 2 numbers to identify the year 19xx or now 20xx and the last 5 numbers are the masternumber in that company.

When a Beatles song so far being unreleased is going to be published as a physical product or by streaming Universal makes a so called Label Information Sheet, telling all the facts that will have to be printed on the label of the cd/lp including the ISRC master number for each song.

Universal Australia now knows what song they have to download from the Universal master server to make their production.

The cd has a hidden file with ISRC number for each song making it easy for radiostations to give the right facts when playing a song to the copyright holder. The sames goes for streaming.

When a published song is getting a remix or new master Universal master server will have a the new version with a new ISRC number and the Label Information Sheet for a certain release will be updated like I wrote earlier for the Anthology I, 2 and 3 having new masters, that now comes with a mixture of new masters on the vinyls.

For sure mistakes are done and some countries are using the wrong version when making a reprint of the cd/vinyl forgetting to check if there's corrections. We saw this a couple of years back, when the Let It Be deluxe box in Japan came with a wrong master for one of the cd's as the only country in the world. They forgot that what Apple/Universal had planned a year earlier was changed in the meantime. The song was the same but the version/master were different and you could hear this.

The old ISRC number for an old master or earlier mix will stay in the ISRC database, because a lot of radiostation etc. still have the old versions of the cds or downloaded files and thus will have to pay royalty when being played. And some companies will delete the old registration from the ISRC database.

You'll notice a ISRC of a song with 62 is mastering year due to that the old analog master from 1962 was used and just transferred digital without being changed, but you won't be have the year this was done.

There's so many new facts to learn from the ISRC numbers. Like the entire McCartney catalogue had new masters in 2007 and they were delivered beginning with gbccs0700001 being 3 Legs and mastered in alphabetical order ending with gbccs0700645 Zoo Gang.

It's a little difficult to identify say the Band On the Run masters because of many live versions.
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