The 2012 Vinyl Re-Issues Were From 44.1khz Source

[dk2600]

The former EMI archive had this info regarding the 2012 vinyl catalogue. Such sheets were done for all their releases with many more informations.
You may notice that the 2009 master was in fact done already back in 2006, GB =Great Britain, AYE label info, 06 the year the master was done and 01410 the specific master for I Saw Her Stading There.

The 2009 stereo cd mastertape is the same, while 2009 mono cd mastertape is gb-aye-09-00605.

Sometimes the album is delivered in total and then the first song has the lowest and the last the highest number and comes in a row and sometimes mixed up and sometimes the masters are not in a row but jumps maybe several 100 numbers for the same album. This happens between Pepper and MMT though the same project.

New masters= a new number for mono, stereo, digital, iTunes, HD etc

Global Repertoire Labelcopy Document

Artist: The Beatles Title: The Beatles In Stereo Vinyl Box
Local Cat #: 633 8091 Format: Vinyl Album Standard 12" (Double Sided)
ICPN: 50999 633809 1 0 GRid:
Copyright Notice: (P) 2012 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by EMI Records Ltd Artwork Notice: (C) 2012 Apple Corps Ltd This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection. All rights reserved. (C) 2012 EMI Records Ltd

International Release Date: 12 Nov 2012

Title: Please Please Me
Format: Vinyl Album Standard 12" (Double Sided) 1 Component Number: 1
ICPN: 0094638241614 Local Cat #:

Side: 1

Session: Audio

1. I Saw Her Standing There (2009 - Remaster) - The Beatles 2:52
ISRC: GB-AYE-06-01410

[Lord Reith]

That's interesting, thanks!

[ringo9]

OK since no balls broken ONE last question LR: A good chunk of my vinyl rip collection is in 32 (floating-point) / 384000 Hz. Should I take extra care with those or just the same procedure as 24/96 will be good? Thanks once again

[Lord Reith]

OK since no balls broken ONE last question LR: A good chunk of my vinyl rip collection is in 32 (floating-point) / 384000 Hz. Should I take extra care with those or just the same procedure as 24/96 will be good? Thanks once again

Same procedure - 96 is a clean division of 384 and there is absolutely no reason to use 32 bit as a listening format. It only provides extra headroom above 0db, and no hirez files are mastered above 0db.

[Lord Reith]

Last night I was listening to the mono Help! album to compare it to the stereo and was struck by a number of things. Firstly, the fidelity of those early mono mixes is really poor. I couldn't help thinking how much better the mono BBC recordings sound. There's a hell of a lot of distortion in those EMI mono mixes which I'm assuming is from the valve-based equipment they used. There's distortion on the stereo mixes too but not as pronounced. Also the mono mixes have very little high frequency content. They are mixed to sound good on little plastic record players and AM radio.

This is all weird because when they go back to original session tapes and make new mixes, the fidelity is always extremely good (if not superlative). I can only suppose that the problems were all in the mixing chain they used in the 60s: valve desks, valve compressors and limiters, valve tone controls etc. Each of these added their own little bit of fuzz to the mix. I would scarcely categorise the original mono mixes as even high fidelity let alone hirez. The stereo mixes fare better as I said, but even they are straddling the borderline of true audiophile quality audio. When I try to turn up the treble on some of the Revolver or Help tracks, there is such a lot of harmonic distortion (the fuzzy sound produced by valves) that I find it difficult to accept that these old mixes could ever truly benefit from a hirez format. There's probably a lot of distortion above 20khz on the old lps, but no actual music.

[alphabeatles]

Fantastic ongoing discussion!

So,

Good news: The original session tapes sound fantastic (even the earliest ones and even when dubbed to cassette and liberated in the 1980s)

Bad news: Releases of the original mixes on vinyl were all victims of the "sausage factory" of the time

Good news: In 2009 these original master mixes were remastered

Bad news: They were still working off of the same old tapes

Good news: The post-2009 Deluxe Editions went back to those original multitrack session tapes for fresh mixes, released in true hi-rez (maybe? or maybe not) and even multitrack

Bad news: Giles mixed them

Good news: People here can fix and re/de-remix them! So these rehabilitated Deluxe versions are probably the best versions of Beatles music that can be had

Bad news: If you like the earlier, original mixes, you will never get true hi-rez

Good news: Many of us here are over 50 and none of this matters as much as it might otherwise! Good tunes are still good tunes

[ianbuckers]

1. If the rip is in the form of sides + cue sheet is there a way to have Audacity read the sheet?

Yes, open the cue sheet in a txt editor and paste the contents into:

http://grimblefritz.com/audacity/cue2lbl.php

Convert it to labels and then copy the text back into a blank txt file and then use the IMPORT > LABELS. When it comes time to export, use "export multiple" and make sure you have "split by labels" selected. It will then export it as separate tracks.

You don't need to do this though. The cue sheet will still read the file no matter what sampling rate it is. You only need to change the cue sheet when you change to or from flac to wave.

2 When the rip comes in format that audacity doen't accept, which tool is best to go to wav and then to Audacity?

Audacity can read any file including video files so long as ffmpeg is installed. Go to EDIT > PREFERENCES > LIBRARIES and use the download button to install ffmpeg.

Really though, audacity is not a tool suited to bulk conversions. You want to use something else. It also doesn't have highest quality sampling conversion enabled by default, you have to set it in preferences. Probably a lot of people overlook that.

Lord over on BZ you shared a method for removing the limiting on the 2009 remasters in Audacity. Could you please repeat the method as I didn't note it down...thanks. If I remember correctly you potentially could get the best sounding versions using your method on the 24 bit files on the 'stick', yes?

[ringo9]

Hi. you can easily get vynil rips from 2012 which as far as I understand is basically that. Right?

[Lord Reith]

Lord over on BZ you shared a method for removing the limiting on the 2009 remasters in Audacity. Could you please repeat the method as I didn't note it down...thanks. If I remember correctly you potentially could get the best sounding versions using your method on the 24 bit files on the 'stick', yes?

Yes, if you have audacity set up in 32 bit mode (in quality settings) you can perform a function which makes the tracks look exactly like the tracks on the 2012 vinyls (which we know for a fact didn't have limiting).

Now, csnyfan poured water on this and said that it didn't get rid of the limiting, but it certainly does something positive and as far I'm concerned if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.

- import the track into audacity
- highlight it and from EFFECTS select "high pass filter" and set it to 20hz and a 48db/8ve cutoff
- apply the filter
- with the track still highlighted, select "amplify" from EFFECTS and you will usually see a positive number in the top field and a negative number in the bottom field. Click ok.
- export the track as a 16 or 24 bit file.

If you do this to an ordinary file, it doesn't really do anything. But when you do it to the remasters, it changes the eq for some reason I can't entirely fathom, and it also releases the flattened peaks and raises the DR value to the same value as any of the old analogue versions. Surely not a coincidence?

[ianbuckers]

Now, csnyfan poured water on this and said that it didn't get rid of the limiting, but it certainly does something positive and as far I'm concerned if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.

He is obviously right as you can't restore what has been lost...but as you say it seems to work on the 2009 tracks. Maybe the limiting was only applied to certain (low) frequencies?

So thank you Lord. It's good to have the method again to experiment with.

But should I be self-correcting myself re the USB stick. Further re-reading of notes taken from SHF posts suggest the USB stick was NOT subject to the limiting. It was only the CDs. Is that your understanding?