Stereo Classics' Beatles Mixes (Lovely Rita)

[beatles2me]

Thank you Volker

[RalseiDeltarune]

The new update sounds fantastic! I hope you come to doing the other albums as well. I'd be particularly excited to see what you'd do with With The Beatles and A Hard Day's Night!

[Jay]

Your definitive master of Please Please Me sounds just fabulous. I have a number of needledrops as well as the official CD remasters in my digital library, and yours sounds the best of them all. Much better than the congested and stifled source.

I'm really looking forward to hearing what you come up with for A Hard Day's Night especially. The 2009 stereo remaster is a travesty with its boomy bass, rolled off highs and folded in stereo.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful work. It's much appreciated.

[Garrett]

Jay and RalseiDeltarune, thank you for the encouragement.

I'm nearly done with WTB, just wondering if I should include the singles with it as well (I would have to fit six singles on this "With The Beatles" release) or just release a remastered Past Masters later on.

I see and understand the desire for a remaster of A Hard Day's Night. I always enjoyed the sound of my mid 80's pressing, which was the only solid-state pressing cut on both sides, and it reveals a beautiful presentation of, in my opinion, one of the best stereo-mixed albums of the early 60's. The 2009 really just neuters that, unfortunately.

I'll be remastering A Hard Day's Night from the 2009 (no other option), but the first track will be from the original Red Album CD. Gave the title track a whirl to get an idea of what this album will entail.

hXXps://we.tl/t-WecVmqkzIq

[alphabeatles]

I see and understand the desire for a remaster of A Hard Day's Night. I always enjoyed the sound of my mid 80's pressing, which was the only solid-state pressing cut on both sides, and it reveals a beautiful presentation of, in my opinion, one of the best stereo-mixed albums of the early 60's. The 2009 really just neuters that, unfortunately.

I'll be remastering A Hard Day's Night from the 2009 (no other option), but the first track will be from the original Red Album CD. Gave the title track a whirl to get an idea of what this album will entail.

First, thanks so much for undertaking this project! I am excited about gathering a full set of your work on these, in addition to all of the other mixes of yours already in my collection.

Now, some questions about AHDN:

You mentioned a "mid 80's pressing". Is this the 1982 MFSL BC-1 "The Collection" or perhaps the 1986 BC-13 Blue Box? In the US there was the 1980 Original Motion Picture Sound Track LP SW-11921. I happen to have these FWIW.

Then you said you had "no other option" but to use the "neutered" 2009 – what about your "mid 80's pressing"?

No big deal, just trying to understand what you said and what you meant.

[Garrett]

First, thanks so much for undertaking this project! I am excited about gathering a full set of your work on these, in addition to all of the other mixes of yours already in my collection.

Now, some questions about AHDN:

You mentioned a "mid 80's pressing". Is this the 1982 MFSL BC-1 "The Collection" or perhaps the 1986 BC-13 Blue Box? In the US there was the 1980 Original Motion Picture Sound Track LP SW-11921. I happen to have these FWIW.

Then you said you had "no other option" but to use the "neutered" 2009 – what about your "mid 80's pressing"?

No big deal, just trying to understand what you said and what you meant.

Apologies for being vague. The standard UK issue printed in the mid 80's or yes, what was likely used in the Blue Box. It must have some variant of YEX-126-3-1-1 on side one. Some pressings from the 80's use YEX-126-2, which is a tube-cut.

Ironically though, the pressing that seems to be more helpful for my AHDN project is the Japanese EAS needle-drop by Millennium Remasters. The highs on this pressing are very much recessed, but otherwise, the tonality is what I'm looking for.

And my source must be digitally sourced, or it kind of defeats the purpose. I don't want to just be releasing needle-drops, especially ones that I have not made.

The 2009s are not really bad anyway. The only issues are non-perceptual peak limiting, some small edits like lip-smacks and de-plosiving, and the not great EQ; the last of which can be completely reversed. And the EQ is 99% of the reason why the 2009s are not good.

I'm almost tempted to ONLY use the 2009, I'll have to do some comparisons on remasters using the 24 bit 2009 and the original 1987 CDs.

[Jay]

Jay and RalseiDeltarune, thank you for the encouragement.

I'm nearly done with WTB, just wondering if I should include the singles with it as well (I would have to fit six singles on this "With The Beatles" release) or just release a remastered Past Masters later on.

Either way would work just fine IMO.

I see and understand the desire for a remaster of A Hard Day's Night. I always enjoyed the sound of my mid 80's pressing, which was the only solid-state pressing cut on both sides, and it reveals a beautiful presentation of, in my opinion, one of the best stereo-mixed albums of the early 60's. The 2009 really just neuters that, unfortunately.

I'll be remastering A Hard Day's Night from the 2009 (no other option), but the first track will be from the original Red Album CD. Gave the title track a whirl to get an idea of what this album will entail.

hXXps://we.tl/t-WecVmqkzIq

Have you considered using Capitol Albums Vol. 1 as a source as well? "Tell Me Why", "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You", "Anytime At All", "I'll Cry Instead" and "When I Get Home" all sound much superior on that box compared to the 2009 to my ears. No folded in stereo, less intrusive EQ, and "Tell Me Why" doesn't have the highs faded in during the intro like it does on the 2009.

Just throwing it out there for your consideration.

[Garrett]

Have you considered using Capitol Albums Vol. 1 as a source as well? "Tell Me Why", "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You", "Anytime At All", "I'll Cry Instead" and "When I Get Home" all sound much superior on that box compared to the 2009 to my ears. No folded in stereo, less intrusive EQ, and "Tell Me Why" doesn't have the highs faded in during the intro like it does on the 2009.

Just throwing it out there for your consideration.

I'll have to do some experiments. I can fix the folded stereo and EQ, so I would prefer to use the 2009 since it's from the master. I never realized that "Tell Me Why" had the same issue as "A Hard Day's Night" on the intro. How annoying! I think I once read that this was done during the remastering for some reason. I may have to use the Capitol Albums release to tack on the intro to the 2009. Do any other 2009 songs have issues like this or have anything that might not be repairable?

[Jay]

Have you considered using Capitol Albums Vol. 1 as a source as well? "Tell Me Why", "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You", "Anytime At All", "I'll Cry Instead" and "When I Get Home" all sound much superior on that box compared to the 2009 to my ears. No folded in stereo, less intrusive EQ, and "Tell Me Why" doesn't have the highs faded in during the intro like it does on the 2009.

Just throwing it out there for your consideration.

I'll have to do some experiments. I can fix the folded stereo and EQ, so I would prefer to use the 2009 since it's from the master.

Gotcha! Given how well Please Please Me turned out, I'm sure you can do wonders with A Hard Day's Night as well. By the way, I really appreciate that you chose not to downsample PPM to 16 bit and hope you continue to keep the original bitrate in future albums as well.

I never realized that "Tell Me Why" had the same issue as "A Hard Day's Night" on the intro. How annoying! I think I once read that this was done during the remastering for some reason. I may have to use the Capitol Albums release to tack on the intro to the 2009.

That's a good idea. The high-end fade in thing is really annoying. On the title track I assume they chose to roll in the highs like that to get rid of the grit of the opening chord. Bad bad idea. It's SUPPOSED to be jarring! It's not quite as noticeable on "Tell Me Why", but it's definitely there. Once you've heard it the first time, you'll hear it every time.

Do any other 2009 songs have issues like this or have anything that might not be repairable?

I think the very first downbeat of "I'll Cry Instead" is ever so slightly cut off on the 2009 remaster compared to The Capitol Albums Vol. 1, but it's almost undetectable. Other than that, I haven't noticed any unrepairable issues.

[El_Garnatí]

Thanks Bianju.