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| From | "Jaimie Vernon" <bullseyecanada@hotmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: Beatles Remixes... |
| Date | Fri, 15 Oct 2004 01:08:47 -0400 |
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AT Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 00:28:54 Miguel wrote:
>Michael you hit the nail on the head! The "Yellow Submarine" remix is the
>best thing that ever happened to a Beatles' release (alongside with Dr.
>Ebbets' Center-Stereo "With The Beatles" and "Please, Please, Me")... The
>depth, separation and balance of the YS CD is just a sample of what the
>Beatles' tapes could turn into in the hands of capable and respectful
>re-master-ers such as the gentlemen that worked on this labour of love... I
>could only wish that Apple/Capitol would hand over all the tapes to the
>ones
>who worked on the YS soundtrack, then we would have probably the best
>Beatles' CD re-release in the history of CD recordings... The YS soundtrack
>does not insult the integrity of the original recordings in any way, shape
>of form, on the contrary it adds refreshing, new dimension to what was done
>with the best of intentions and simply brought to life in a way we never
>could have ever imagined...
The only thing the 5.1 remixes did was emphasize the flaws in the original
recordings and magnify how unfriendly early analog recordings are when
thrown into the digital blender.
Sorry, but to hear "Nowhere Man" dismantled and the vocal harmonies
separated into four disparate environments (i.e. every corner of the room)
just made the song sound really weak -- almost like a poorly imaged demo
session -- remember when we all got our hands on that first TASCAM 4-track
machine and spent hours hard-panning instruments in the headphone mix to
give it that 'authentic' 1960's stereo sound? Blah.
The song's strength is the BLENDING of those barbershop harmonies
(particularly the off-key ones). Without the layering you have four voices
floating in the ether with no cohesion...as if the Fabs had been flown into
the session, ProTooled and, wait....that's what DID happen.
I can't imagine a better sounding "Tomorrow Never Knows" because the charm
of the song is the ad-hoc presentation of the backing tapes. Remix it and
the overlapping of these tones will be lost...and the "feel" of the song.
Can you imagine reworking the ending to "I Am The Walrus" and distilling all
the elements of the found sounds? It would sound like a battlefield in
5.1.....not the folded-down compressed wash that made it so charming and
unintelligable in the first place. Ditto "Revolution #9".
Remix the albums at will, but don't f*ck with the integrity of production's
dynamics. Sometimes things were mixed poorly because of technology (the
reduction mixes being a prime example), but sometimes the tambourine was
stuck in the foreground of the mix of "We Can Work It Out" for a
reason....cause it sounded better there or held the groove down or what have
you.
Jaimie Vernon,
Bullseye
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