Red & Blue Albums

[Track06]

There's not much to conclude from looking at the waveforms, because something as basic as analog EQ will shift the phases independently according to their frequency and make it very hard to align and compare.

After reading and thinking about this again, I have to say as an isolated statement this is wrong and potentially misleading. What I think is wrong could be corrected by inserting a 'can' before 'make'. Misleading it still would be because 'basic as analog' could be interpreted as if more 'sophisticated digital' could or would not. SLY 2009-2015 vs 1988-2000 is actually a good example for frequency dependent phase shifts happening. You can moreless align the waveforms based on higher frequencies or the lower ones, but not both at the same time. Depending on how close you look, you may end up with the impression they may be phase inverted.

[csnyfan]

There's not much to conclude from looking at the waveforms, because something as basic as analog EQ will shift the phases independently according to their frequency and make it very hard to align and compare.

After reading and thinking about this again, I have to say as an isolated statement this is wrong and potentially misleading. What I think is wrong could be corrected by inserting a 'can' before 'make'. Misleading it still would be because 'basic as analog' could be interpreted as if more 'sophisticated digital' could or would not. SLY 2009-2015 vs 1988-2000 is actually a good example for frequency dependent phase shifts happening. You can moreless align the waveforms based on higher frequencies or the lower ones, but not both at the same time. Depending on how close you look, you may end up with the impression they may be phase inverted.

Yeah, I left out some context but didn't think anyone would care! Digital filters are often implemented as zero-phase filters using the FFT, which does not change the phase response, which in turn makes alignment much easier. Analog filters (always?) have a non-zero phase response and will shift various frequencies by various amounts, making a proper alignment hard. Note that 'analog' filters can also be implemented digitally, but not vice versa. Creating a tool to match phase response is on my to-do list btw, but it's hard because signal processing filter math is absolutely wicked.

[MarkRJones1970]

I am the Walrus - "See how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide (snort, snort) I'm crying"


Now, '(snort, snort)' has disappeared!

[Refugee]

The EP version of SLY is eq'd isn't it? It sure sounds different from past masters.

For what it's worth I inspected the 1992 EP collection once and found a lot of No Noise being used. The most obvious and destructive example was the mono Blue Jay Way. But the set overall does have a nice use of eq. I think Peter Mew was very good at EQ but unfortunately was completely obsessed by NoNo.

That's actually why I was looking at them at that level of detail, to see if perhaps some form of processing had been applied such as de-clipping since the existing master sounds as if it's a bit overdriven. There are instances where the EP version looks a bit more "rounded" at the peaks than the others, so perhaps that was a result of applying NoNo to it.

[csnyfan]

That's actually why I was looking at them at that level of detail, to see if perhaps some form of processing had been applied such as de-clipping since the existing master sounds as if it's a bit overdriven. There are instances where the EP version looks a bit more "rounded" at the peaks than the others, so perhaps that was a result of applying NoNo to it.

Clipping yes. But it is not possible to conclusively tell if something has been denoised by looking at the waveform. If it was denoised well, it's difficult to prove even looking at the spectrogram.

[csnyfan]

If SLY on the EP box has been denoised, I couldn't tell without comparing various sources. I doubt it's denoised - it's just a very clean transfer with beautiful, crisp high end.

[Lord Reith]

If SLY on the EP box has been denoised, I couldn't tell without comparing various sources. I doubt it's denoised - it's just a very clean transfer with beautiful, crisp high end.

No, SLY does not sound denoised to me. It's a very loud song so probably no need. He would probably tend to use it on quiet songs or quiet sections.

[Beatles4Ever]

I haven't looked through all 44 pages in this thread but I will say this about the 2023 release....

The original release was the version I grew up on and still love to this day. As I got older and more into the Beatles and learned about the various versions and mixes of their songs over the years, the one thing that made this collection worthy on it's own was the fact that it used various mixes from stereo to mono and also included tracks from singles.

The 2012 release replaced all those tracks with the 2009 audio that The Beatles now deem as the "official canon" and all of the various mixes that were used on the original release were then removed. However, the 2014 vinyl release is worthy of having in your collection because it is 100 percent analog.

The 2023 "Deluxe" release is probably the weakest package since the "Super Deluxe" Beatles packages began.
Having said that, there are some nice remixes on the 62-66 set. It gives me hope that the earlier albums will eventually get the Super Deluxe treatment now that Peter Jackson's software has proven that they can cleanly separate instruments and vocals that were once locked together on a single track.

This go around, I bought the black vinyl version of the box set and I also bought the black vinyl 12 inch single of Now and Then.
As for Now and Then....that is a topic all it's own but my one comment about this track is that it doesn't belong on 67-70.

What should have happened was Anthology 1 2 and 3 should have been re-released with Free As A Bird and Real Love getting a remix along with Now and Then being put on the end or the beginning of Anthology 3. It's just really out of place on 67-70.

Last but not least....when I want to spin 62-66 or 67-70 on my turntable......it won't be the 2023 version. That will remain sealed on my shelf.
Just my opinion....of course.

Cheers,
B4E

[Refugee]

That's actually why I was looking at them at that level of detail, to see if perhaps some form of processing had been applied such as de-clipping since the existing master sounds as if it's a bit overdriven. There are instances where the EP version looks a bit more "rounded" at the peaks than the others, so perhaps that was a result of applying NoNo to it.

Clipping yes. But it is not possible to conclusively tell if something has been denoised by looking at the waveform. If it was denoised well, it's difficult to prove even looking at the spectrogram.

I'm guessing that's because "NoNo" somehow tried to identify AWGN and removed it consistently across the audio spectrum (though not perfect in doing so)?

[Refugee]

I haven't looked through all 44 pages in this thread but I will say this about the 2023 release....

The original release was the version I grew up on and still love to this day. As I got older and more into the Beatles and learned about the various versions and mixes of their songs over the years, the one thing that made this collection worthy on it's own was the fact that it used various mixes from stereo to mono and also included tracks from singles.

The 2012 release replaced all those tracks with the 2009 audio that The Beatles now deem as the "official canon" and all of the various mixes that were used on the original release were then removed. However, the 2014 vinyl release is worthy of having in your collection because it is 100 percent analog.

The 2023 "Deluxe" release is probably the weakest package since the "Super Deluxe" Beatles packages began.
Having said that, there are some nice remixes on the 62-66 set. It gives me hope that the earlier albums will eventually get the Super Deluxe treatment now that Peter Jackson's software has proven that they can cleanly separate instruments and vocals that were once locked together on a single track.

This go around, I bought the black vinyl version of the box set and I also bought the black vinyl 12 inch single of Now and Then.
As for Now and Then....that is a topic all it's own but my one comment about this track is that it doesn't belong on 67-70.

What should have happened was Anthology 1 2 and 3 should have been re-released with Free As A Bird and Real Love getting a remix along with Now and Then being put on the end or the beginning of Anthology 3. It's just really out of place on 67-70.

Last but not least....when I want to spin 62-66 or 67-70 on my turntable......it won't be the 2023 version. That will remain sealed on my shelf.
Just my opinion....of course.

Cheers,
B4E

I haven't yet been through the entire thread either, but before listening to the podcast where PJ demonstrates "MAL" on some sections of "Day Tripper", I was listening to the new mix and noticing a lot of things that I didn't like, mostly in the form of "swooshiness" that I get myself when de-mixing with iZotope and then mixing it back together again. I'd read an interview with Giles where he seemed to give the impression that the tracks coming back to him were at the equivalent level of having been recorded on individual tracks to begin with, but that's not the feeling that I got from listening to the podcast (or the 2023 mix of the song). His trained algorithms are certainly far better than what a general vocal/bass/percussion/other STEM separation will yield, and he also has the advantage (in most cases) of having a 4-track to work with from the beginning and thus fewer instruments to separate. I think it really comes down to what exists on each particular track (including bleedover and reverberations) as to how well the separation will work, and when it doesn't work well, I think they'd be better off by just narrowing the stereo field. I think that Giles has done a pretty good job of remixing when he has full multitracks available (except for Pepper that just doesn't sound right at times whether you consider that he was modeling it after the mono mix or not), but when these extractions come back to him in such a way that they cannot be mixed without distracting artifacts being present, then I think that sticking to the 2015 mixes for songs like "Day Tripper" would be the better idea.

Regarding what I said about the remixes sounding good on the later albums, I'm referring to the SDEs of "white" onward, and some of the tracks on the 2023 67-70. I'm not going to get into "Walrus", but I don't understand why the guitars weren't separated on "Revolution", why the bass was cut back on "bulldog" (and some other strange things that happen during the chorus). Enough has been said about OBS as well.

Just my $0.02