Het Grote Beatles Topic - Deel 37, Ballad of Paul and Ringo

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Op zaterdag 7 november 2009 08:24 schreef webfreak het volgende:
("What would you say if I sang auto-tune")

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Op zaterdag 7 november 2009 02:09 schreef Arn0 het volgende:
Het filmpje op de site van Yoko Ono/Jimmy Fallon werkte niet voor niet VS-inwonenden dus heb ik het optreden maar even zelf geript en op youtube gegooid, indien er iemand (Aisumasen?) geïnteresseerd is;

Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band 05/11/09 Jimmy Fallon

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Op zaterdag 7 november 2009 16:24 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:

[..]

. Ik probeerde toevallig gisteren via een proxy de opname te bekijken, maar dat lukte niet. Bedankt voor het posten dus!

Geweldige performance. Erg mooi hoe er geen verschil lijkt te zijn tussen 1969 en 2009. Multi-instrumentalist Sean Lennon speelt weer een zeer goede partij, en Mark Ronson is ook lekker bezig op z'n Hofner.

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Inside The Making Of The Beatles Remastered Catalog
Two of the studio engineers discuss the process with us.

By Ken Richardson
November 2009

I’ve come to Electric Lady Studios in New York City for — what? Yet another remastering of the Jimi Hendrix catalog? Actually, that’s coming next year (I kid you not). But the subject at hand, after a 22-year wait, is the Beatles making only their second appearance on CD. And it’s time for a first listen to a handful of songs and a chat with some members of the remastering team.

Over the past 4 years, that team has worked at Abbey Road Studios to transfer (and sometimes repair) the Beatles’ original recordings at 192 kHz/24 bits. And because of the size of the project — the entire catalog, both mono and stereo — it really did take a team. Led by project coordinator Allan Rouse, it included recording engineers Guy Massey, Paul Hicks, and Sam Okell; audio restoration engineer Simon Gibson, and mastering engineers Steve Rooke and Sean Magee. Each has had years of experience working on-staff at Abbey Road. Some have since gone freelance; others are still there. All have spent a good portion of their professional lives safeguarding the sound of the Beatles.

Personally, I haven’t really minded the 22-year wait. I always prefer a catalog to be handled judiciously, in moderation. But after all these years, I do have questions. And here at Electric Lady, I’m sitting in a control room with Rouse and Massey. As the project’s senior recording engineer, Massey was in charge of the stereo remasters. A few weeks later, I will call London to speak with Hicks, who was in charge of the mono remasters.

Okay, Messrs. R. and H. and M. — time to assure the public!

Sound + Vision: The press release mentions some of the “state-of-the-art recording technology” used for transferring the original recordings, such as a Pro Tools workstation and a Prism A/D converter. Why did you choose the Prism?

Massey: Abbey Road uses that converter in its present systems: the Prism Sound ADA-8XR. We were very happy with it.

Sound + Vision: What about the “vintage studio equipment” that was also used?

Massey: The Studer A80 tape machine was the main piece of vintage gear.

Rouse: And the EQ was from an old EMI console. In addition, we tried out valves — sorry, tubes — and yes, they provided that warmth. But ultimately, in terms of noise levels and other things, for the stereo remastering . . .

You’ve got to remember: The recordings are 40 years old, so you’ve got fans of them for 40 years. But also, this is a remaster, and what we’re attempting to do is hopefully keep the recordings going for another 10, 15, 20 years, until they’re remastered again.

In the meantime, we were actually considering, what with the onset of The Beatles: Rock Band, if all these kids go out and buy that videogame — or if their parents go out and buy it for them, which is more likely, because the parents want to play it, too, and then the kids start to play it and think, ‘What else has this band done?’ — we wanted to improve the recordings at least to an extent that helps them sound better, perhaps, for the 21st century. I suppose you could argue that you should remaster them twice: once for the people from the ’60s, and again for the new generation.

Then there’s mono vs. stereo. I grew up with the Beatles, yet I have no huge desire to listen to mono; I prefer stereo. I’m well aware of the history, of when the Beatles sat in the studio and made their decisions. They were nearly never in the studio for the stereo mixes. But that doesn’t mean those stereo mixes aren’t . . .

Everybody says that Sgt. Pepper in mono is it. But for me, it’s not. It’s stereo for me. Everybody has their own different views about the monos and the stereos. But primarily, the monos are going to be for those people who grew up during that period of time and who recognize that, strictly speaking, those are the “real” masters.

Sound + Vision: As for the American capitol “masters,” I won’t go there . . .

Rouse: I won’t say anything about those.

Sound + Vision: No baking of the original multitrack tapes was necessary?

Massey: No. Some of the leader tape was coming apart; the glue had dried. But there were no problems at all with the actual oxide. The tapes have really been looked after.

Sound + Vision: So all of the music we’re hearing is from the original tapes?

Both: Yes.

Sound + Vision: Some recording “imperfections” have been fixed. Can you give any specific examples?

Massey: I’ve got a little demonstration CD here if you’d like to have a listen . . .

Sound + Vision: Oh, sure.

Massey: First, dropouts. There weren’t many across the whole catalog — maybe four or five. [Massey plays the A/B disc to demonstrate dropouts fixed in the guitar solo at 0:59 in “Kansas City” and also during the line “tried to please her” at 1:50 in “Day Tripper.”] Next, microphone pops in the vocals. [Demos a pop removed from the second “p” in the line “not what I appear to be” at 0:10 in “I’m a Loser.”] This second one is a noise that’s quite subtle, like a rumble, as if John touched the mike stand. [Plays the very first word, “She’s,” from “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.”] Now we move on to click removal. [Cuesup “Eleanor Rigby” at 0:14.] Finally, de-noising. [Plays guitar intro to “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” to demonstrate hiss removed.] The de-noising was subtle, subtle. We were very aware of not going overboard with that. And fewer than 5 minutes of the catalog were treated this way. Overall, if there were extraneous things that interfered with the listening experience, we took them out. A few things we left because we believed they were acoustical noises. We tried to take out only the things that were electrical in nature.

Rouse: So the squeaky chair at the end of “A Day in the Life”: It’s still there.

Massey: And Ringo’s often squeaky drum pedal: It’s still there.

Sound + Vision: Mastering engineer Bob Ludwig has said: “I often say how grateful I am that, when the Beatles were doing their recordings, digital limiters didn’t exist, because if those recordings had been squashed to death like so many contemporary records are, they would never have the longevity that they have had.” In light of that, it’s admirable that you have used limiting on the stereo versions only — and only, as the press release says, “moderately.”

Massey: We were obviously aware of the Loudness Wars — squashing, brickwalling, all that sort of stuff — and we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to retain the original dynamics. So for the loudest part of the loudest songs, there may be limiting of 3 to 4 dB, but for most of the songs, most of the time, there isn’t any limiting.

Sound + Vision: And so this was an effort to help make the primitive-stereo mixes come across more powerfully to the new generation?

Massey: Yes.

Rouse: And I would take issue a tiny little bit with what Bob Ludwig said. If you would quote again the last part of what he said.

Sound + Vision: “. . . because if those recordings had been squashed to death like so many contemporary records are, they would never have the longevity that they have had.”

That statement doesn’t give much credit to the songs. Because the Beatles aren’t just about sound; they’re about the fact that they were particularly good songwriters and musicians. The very thought that people wouldn’t have continued buying Beatles records because of the sound — sorry, I can’t agree with that.

Sound + Vision: Were there any forest-for-the-trees instances where, after working on individual tracks for a while, something new became apparent when you relistened to the album as a whole?

Massey: I do remember that, once we’d done Revolver for the first time, Allan did come up with quite a few suggestions. Overall, he thought we might have been a little too reverent.

Sound + Vision: It’s such a great hard-rock record. The guitars are—

Massey: Blistering. With “She Said She Said,” for example, the vocal is very bright and cutting, and we did want to try to bring that through — while still retaining all those guitars. I’m really pleased with the way it came out. But Revolver was challenging. We did have to revisit it a couple of times.

Sound + Vision: Has that album’s original engineer, Geoff Emerick, heard any of the remasters?

Rouse: No. Neither has Ken Scott, Glyn Johns, or Phil Macdonald. Or George Martin. And neither did Norman Smith; he’s no longer around, sadly. [Smith died in March 2008 at the age of 85.] The thing is, I started on the Beatles’ projects when Neil Aspinall resurfaced for Apple’s first major job in a long time, Live at the BBC. Immediately after that, it was the Anthology CDs; I spent a year in my room at Abbey Road listening with George Martin, feeding material upstairs to Paul Hicks, who was working with Geoff Emerick. And then Guy first came in as the assistant engineer on the 5.1 mix for the Yellow Submarine DVD.

The point I’m trying to make is this: Guy, Paul, and I were building a team, which has remained more or less the same through the Help! DVD, the Let It Be . . . Naked CD, and the Love CD+DVD-Audio, right up to now. We started the current reissue series — we may have been lucky, but we did start it — which immediately led to the next job, which immediately led to the next job. So there was never really any consideration that the previous engineers would be involved in these remasters. I also wonder: If you’ve engineered something yourself, you’re gonna be very close to it. We’re more neutral.

Sound + Vision: Were Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr sent the remasters for listening?

Rouse: Oh, yes. That’s the case every time we do a job. The first time that the Beatles were actually brought back into the studio was for the DVD of Yellow Submarine, because it was the first time that the music was being remixed for 5.1.

They didn’t have 5.1 systems at home. So Paul and Ringo came in together, sat down, and listened to it with a broad grin throughout the whole sequence of songs. George Harrison came in; same response. Ever since, if we couldn’t bring the Beatles in to listen to a project, we’d send them a disc. And then we’d just sit and wait for the phone to ring and for them to say, “It’s approved.”

Sound + Vision: Any comments from Paul or Ringo on the CD remasters?

Rouse: There have never been any specific comments from them on any of the jobs we’ve ever done. So I’d like to read into that that they quite like what we’ve been doing.

Sound + Vision: It has been stated that the lack of bonus tracks is due to the desire to maintain “the authenticity and integrity of the original albums.” If that’s the case, why do the official stereo releases of Help! and Rubber Soul have George Martin’s 1987 remixes and not the original 1965 mixes?

I’ll ask you a question: Is your name George Martin? [Laughs.] The point is, George in 1987 decided to remix them. None of us is going to ring him up and say, “We actually don’t think we should be putting out your new mixes just because you decided they’re better.” So it was a very simple decision. George wanted it. That’s the way it stays. But, knowing full well that people would still want to have the 1965 stereo versions, you get those, too, as extras in the mono boxed set.

Sound + Vision: Guy, you did some of the best Beatles surround mixes to date for the DVD of Help! How about a 5.1 mix of the entire catalog? Isn’t that something you’d love to do?

Massey: What do you think? [Laughs.] Yeah, of course, I would love to be given that opportunity.

Sound + Vision: There are no plans?

Rouse: We have to wait for the phone to ring. But it would be fantastic.

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Op zaterdag 7 november 2009 16:57 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
Interessant artikel uit Sound&Vision over het remastering-proces.
Een interview met engineers Allan Rouse en Guy Massey:
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Interessante details, maar het is wel frustrerend dat mijn vermoeden over de 1987-mixes van "Help!" en "Rubber Soul" waarheid blijken. Ze durfden George Martin niet te passeren, en dat is de reden dat je nu de mono-boxset moet aanschaffen voor de originele mixes.

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Op zondag 8 november 2009 19:06 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
Ik vraag mij ineens af waar onze gewaardeerde user hello_goodbye is!

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Op zondag 8 november 2009 23:56 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
Argh, ik ga écht proberen om de setlist van Hamburg en Berlijn niet te bekijken. Ze zijn bezig met een paar verrassingen in de set, en stel dat-ie ineens "I Want To Hold Your Hand" of "Hi, Hi, Hi" speelt zonder dat je het weet .

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Bonus DVD includes:

* Complete David Letterman (Ed Sullivan Theater) marquee performance (seven songs).
* Personal footage of Paul and crew back stage, en route to Citi Field.
* Exclusive footage of Paul performing the Beatles "I'm Down" commemorating the 1965 Historic Shea Stadium Concert
* Flip camera photos taken by fans in and around the stadium surrounding the concert.

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Op donderdag 29 oktober 2009 23:49 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
[..] Laat me raden, "I'm Down" afgewisseld met beelden uit Shea Stadium?

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Op maandag 9 november 2009 16:32 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
Naja, splitscreen dan. En Anthology DVD-kwaliteit, me dunkt .

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Op maandag 9 november 2009 19:58 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
De nieuwe live-CD is overigens geleaked.

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Op maandag 9 november 2009 20:14 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
Nee, maar wat maakt dat uit? 90% van de tracks is al 15 keer lossless te verkrijgen . Blijf erbij dat ik de mix eigenaardig vind. Zijn bas klinkt wel heel erg op de voorgrond, anders dan op de vorige opnames. En het mist die live-sfeer, en wederom zijn alle 'praatjes' er tussenuit geknipt.. Zal het sowieso niet vaak opzetten.

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Op maandag 9 november 2009 20:26 schreef Aisumasen het volgende:
Je plaatje doet het niet, maar is het de volledige Halifax-set? Ja, die is lekker ongepolijst. Jammer dat hij later in de tour beter bij stem was, en "I'm Down" daar mist. But you can't have it all . Mijn favoriete post-Wings setlist is die uit 2004 en 2005, veel leuke toevoegingen.