Please Please Me: The Beatles Remasters

Amazon.com and Amazon Canada are sold out of Beatles Mono Box Sets. The mono should sound better than the stereo versions for most of the albums except the last two. Amazon UK still has the mono sets for 200 Pounds. So now is the time to order! There will probably be no more mono sets available after the first run. If you miss the pre-orders at Amazon UK, Amazon Canada has the Japanese Import Beatles Mono Box Set for a mere $690 CDN :^0

I've been hunting for the Mono box this afternoon!

and i have heard elsewhere (a buddy's dad worked for the biz..Columbia Records i think)....have heard rumors that the HiRez remaster tapes, which are supposedly gonna be used for the vinyl releases late fall, will then be possibly available for 24/96 downloads. (24/192 would be better; i.e native, but MUCH smaller market) The only downside; it would mean i might be nearing death!! :)

You may want to try Music Direct, I ordered a mono box there on Tuesday. Elusive Disc had it too, but given that it is getting hard to find, Elusive Disc raised the price by $20, which always makes me mad (although it is supply - demand 101 commercialism at its finest).

Still have mono sets @$269 USD:
Beatles Shop US

Awesome! Thanks for the link. Just ordered the Mono Box!

I've been looking and just tried musicdirect, which states:
* Orders placed after August 14, 2009 cannot be guaranteed to be filled. This was a limited production piece and is sold out worldwide. You can still order The Mono Box Set from us but we cannot guarantee your order will be filled.

Hi Ray - Try the Beatles store. That's where I just ordered mine from without any such warning.

http://beatles.fanfire.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/artist?source...

Here's hoping for the hirez!

Because if not thousands of posters on the Steve Hoffman Forum wont have anything to moan about.

If they are awful it will give their lives meaning for another 20 years till the next remastering.

So spare a thought.

Thanks for the link Chris. Just ordered mine. I just hope they will actually ship and not just taking orders.

I just got off the phone with Fanfire and was told they do not know if all pre-orders will be filled because they don't know how many they will actually get. It is on first come first serve basis. :( I may be pretty far down the list.

I don't think they'll sound terrible. I had the same thought about the Beatles remasters as a lot of people probably have. And wonder how good they will really sound? Hopefully they be great because I love the Beatles and Steve Hoffman will probably never have the opportunity to remaster any of the Beatles catalog.

I have to say though that everything I've heard that Steve Hoffman has remastered seems to the best available version of the recording. Where I've had mixed results with MFSL and other audiophile labels which usually sound than the original label remastering. I know I can buy a Hoffman remastered recording with confidence, knowing that it will sound about as good as it can and a couple steps closer to the live event. His work is very consistent. But it's not luck or by accident. I don't think anyone works as hard as Steve does to seek out the original mastering equipment along with every previous version of the recording. He has a great chain of equipment. Uses no digital processing / editing. All this is evident to me when I listen to an album he's worked on. I can't wait until he starts doing Hi-Res remastering.

I first heard about these on Michael Fremer's site at www.musicangle.com and here's a tidbit I haven't seen mentioned yet (I think). Probably many of you know this already, but just in case, here's a chance for me to make a minor contribution. The stereo recording will be slightly compressed to increase the volume level. The mono recordings are not.

Thanks for the bit of info bachrocks.

Looks like Michael Fremer has doubts too. He wants vinyl transfered from the tape directly to a lacquer master with no digital editing/ processing etc. What would be the point of transfering from even high resolution digital to vinyl ? I think maybe they should have gone direct from the master tapes to digital for CD instead of all this Protools stuff.

I pre-order BOTH the Mono AND Stereo box sets back in mid-July from Music Direct. I then put in for 8 hours of PTO for Friday the 11th to sit at home in front of the HiFi and give them proper spins.

The "Love" album on DVD-Audio was great and I'm a HUGE fan of "Let It Be...Naked" as, after listening to over 90 hours of "Let It Be"/"Abbey Road" outtakes it's the definitive version of how that album should have been released in the first place.

In the process of re-ripping my CD collection I skipped all of their albums, waiting patiently for these remasters. I'll definitely be ripping both boxed sets.

Our three year old daughter can't wait for the RockBand version to arrive in the mail.

After a personally terrible music-news week (the split up of both The Verve and Oasis) next week will be a nice treat.

Bill

I placed an order for the Mono set at Fanfire 2 days ago but I doubt I'll get one being so late in the game. I contacted my only local, independent music shop for the heck of it and was pleasantly surprised- they had 2 mono's coming and only one was spoken for!

I just did a search and found this: http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=4988006873612

Thought you would get a kick out of it. It really is outrageous that they are asking that price!

Don't you think that they will do another pressing/burning/whatever since these sold out so fast?

Here's to wishing these sound as good as the review says and Hi Rez downloads!

John

The elusive disc still has Mono and Stereo Boxes. I just ordered a Mono set plus the last 3 albums. Here is a link to the Mono set.

http://www.elusivedisc.com/prodinfo.asp?number=EMICDB99451

EMI's already announced that there will be another run of the Mono sets, no details on when or how many.

Bill

Was this supposed to be a limited edition? I would think they'll be flooding the market with millions of both sets. I can't imagine them being collectable.

I just got word from The Elusive Disc that the Mono Box sets are limited but NOT numbered. They also added that they were produced in Japan and sound excellent. They gave me an option to refuse it--but I still opted to take it. They go on to say that no one knew about this until they received them and physically inspected it.

and available. Also quite a few local record stores.

The stereo box was never intended to be limited, only the mono box. And the latest EMi news that more mono boxes will be made/available does not mean they won't be limited. Seems silly to have a limited set that is SOOO limited it's unavailable the week of release.

I have a feeling the only reason they say the mono sets may be limited is because of lack of interest by the avererage person. So they don't have plans to make as many. If the demand is higher than they expect it to be, you can be sure they'll make millions more. This is the record industry we're talking about here. If there's money to be made they're right on it.

Here's a little piece on this topic from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/09/08/boulden.uk.updating....

Not much information but interesting to see.

one of the guys in my local shop let me listen to sgt peppers in stereo last wednesday, it's just as awful as the previous version on cd. all that 'ping pong' stereo, i'd go as far as to say it's unlistenable, and this is supposed to be a remaster? i think someone somewhere has really missed a trick, authenticity is fine but why keep regurgitating the same crap for the sake of 'authenticity'.
i've got a mono rip from a reel to reel tape on cd, and whilst it's a bit 'flat' the image is far, far better.
perhaps it's a master plan, if a decent stereo version were to be released, maybe nobody would buy the mono version, instantly cutting sales by 50%?
i for one wont be buying any of these discs, i'll wait until they release a mono version i can buy individually. or maybe someone lets me rip their version?

it's just so, so, so disappointing.
anyway good luck.
steve

Steve,
These discs are remastered, not remixed. Not sure what you were hoping for.....oh, and most early reviews are not impressed with Pepper.

i was hoping that if it was released as a stereo version, someone, somewhere in apple/emi would have had the foresight to throw away the original 'ping pong' version and remix/re-master an acceptable stereo version. surely if you have access to multi-track master tapes it's possible to use modern technology to produce a version with decent, consistent stereo imagery? instead of instruments and voices appearing all over the place and bouncing from left to right mid riff/solo.
it seems to me the original mix engineer was high or pissed and probably thought it was all very funny indeed. i've read somewhere that the 'fab' four weren't even present when this version was mixed, perhaps they left early to get high or pissed?
steve

and video of the two Beatles box sets. A different take on the mono vs. stereo problem.

Part 1: http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/review-the-beatles-remasters-1963...

Part 2: http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/review-the-beatles-remastered-196...

Video: http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/first-look-the-beatles-remastered...

Samples:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2009/09/mono_or_stereo_help_2.html

The engineer on this LP is Geoff Emerick and he won a grammy for his work

Stereo box set came in from Amazon yesterday - already fully ripped in ALAC by now.

Fantastic sound - completely impressed. Some of it gave me goosebumps to hear this much improved....

enjoy.

OK... maybe a thong.

The Tone review states "...the stereo editions, which blow away their 1987 digital predecessors in every imaginable facet."
He could not possible have compared the two. I did with 4 discs and was underimpressed.
See my AVS Forum review:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17173317#post17173317

I have not been the only one who, once these stereo discs were released, has openly wondered what all the hype was about.
These releases are for all intents and purposes... exactly the same as the '87 release, just louder and slightly compressed.

I am a Beatles fan and was hoping for something matching the hype, not (especially in the case of the White Album) seriously negating it.

I have the Mono on order and because it's a 'different' mix from the Stereo, and because it's getting even GREATER hype, I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised by this release.

shane

Shane,

I can understand your frustration but to my ears it seems like they have done more than simply bump the volume and add some compression. What I've heard/compared so far reveals various layers that were buried in the '87 CD's. Things that you REALLY had to listen for before are better defined, not necessarily louder where they would mask something else.

As you mentioned in your AVS review, Paul's bass does stand out more and I personally prefer it. His playing is above average IMO but often lacked the prominence in the original CD's.

While I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say that the new stereo remasters aren't world's better than the '87 releases, I can appreciate the improvement and approach taken to the remasters enough to justify their purchase. That's a call we each have to make.

I also picked up the Mono box set and for someone that never had a chance to listen to these versions before they do offer an interesting twist on what I was familiar with. I'm not sure how much they benefit from nearly zero compression or noise reduction but I'm already preferring them to some of the stereo tracks that I've compared.

In the end, I'm just glad to have finally gotten remastered Beatles. They sound fantastic, the packaging's great, and it's given my 3yr old daughter and I a fun way to spend an hour a night.

Cheers!
Bill

Bill.
Thanks for you perspective.

In the next couple weeks I'll devote a bit more time to these stereo releases. I will listen to them on their own to see how they stand up... without comparing them to the original release. I will also hear them on another system to see if there is more than originally perceived.

I certainly am looking forward to the mono set!

Cheers.

shane

The Beatles Mono Box Set = Beatles Heaven!

These albums are old friends rediscovered. I thought I knew these albums inside and out in Stereo but not so. The speed, dynamics, punch, presence, depth, timbre... in Mono. Especially from A Hard Days Night on... first 4 track tape machine IIRC. But still undecided about The White Album. Volume fluctuations? Stereo may be better. Make sure you turn the volume up a few more notches with the mono versions for best effect!

I just finished "groovin" to Rubber Soul.
Now I'm "trippin out" to Magical Mystery Tour.
All in glorious Mono!
"Tho she was born a long, long time ago... your mother should know..." :~))

just for those who are thinking of spending loads of cash on two box sets, one i stereo and one in mono.

if you go into itunes preferences>import settings>select aiff custom. you can select to import in MONO, so save yourself a few quid and just buy the stereo box set.

i suppose if you really wanted you could burn mono discs straight from itunes if you really needed a mono disc, perhaps in the car?

cheers steve

The mono mixes on Pepper, The White Album and MMT are quite different and quite ear-opening. A stereo downmix is not the answer.

Earlier Beatles albums were recorded in mono. Some may say reproducing those in stereo is molesting the sound.

released in both mono and stereo (the stereo usually a couple weeks behind cuz the mono markets were more prevalent). The only thing about the mono albums (up to and including Pepper) is that the Fab Four actually had an opinion on some of the mixing. They left the stereo mix to George Martin and gang solely, but that's not saying much. They only participated slightly in the mono mixes anyway.....they wanted to move on and were not terribly active in post production with the first 4.

Anyway, to say that the early albums were recorded in mono is just not correct. They always used multitrack machines. One of the only caveats are the four fire-destroyed multtracks (She Loves You, PS, I'll get You, Love me Do) not cuz they "recorded it in mono" but because the multitracks were destroyed.