Generally speaking, subby, if the "in other news" followup is three times as long as the lead-off, it's not going to be funny.

That line -- while good -- is so old Dennis Miller was still a liberal when he said it.

It is pretty remarkable how vibrant and new the 1997 "Anthology", 2003 "#1" and 2007 "Love" CDs sound as compared to the 1987, 1988 era "original" CD releases. I was listening to the "Love" CD just days ago and I was amazed at how much better it sounds than the other commercially available CDs. No comparison. "Walrus" sounded like it was recorded yesterday (no pun intended), whereas the whole MMT CD just sounds tinny and thin.

"Love" was ok. Parts of it were really cool others were just mleh.

Mr. Coffee Nerves: That line -- while good -- is so old Dennis Miller was still a liberal when he said it.

It's so old I didn't even remember he'd said it.

And it's still not funny. But with context at least the headline is a little less awful.

The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

Insert recycled complaint about recycled joke in recycled headline.

CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

Reel to reel tape FTW!

I'm curious. What medium did the Beatles use to record their songs?

Bah - I'm still not giving up my 8-tracks.

BunkyBrewman: CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

Reel to reel tape FTW!

I'm curious. What medium did the Beatles use to record their songs?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD like The Beatles, no matter how much they're remastered.

FTFY

What is this, like the fourth time they've been "remastered"?

Im happy with the recordings I already have. This is cool though. I guess.

Kyosuke: BunkyBrewman: CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

Reel to reel tape FTW!

I'm curious. What medium did the Beatles use to record their songs?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi


*golf clap*

Nicely played.

it's about time - they've done a real disservice to the catalog by leaving the current CD versions out there, untouched, for so long. they sound distant, quiet, muted, even underwater in parts. and sadly, they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness and clarity (as anyone with any mp3 player can tell you...)

UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Yeah, louder is always better. Quiet music sux.

Pocket Ninja: Generally speaking, subby, if the "in other news" followup is three times as long as the lead-off, it's not going to be funny.

Mr. Coffee Nerves: That line -- while good -- is so old Dennis Miller was still a liberal when he said it.

WOW! Tough crowd!

Mr. Coffee Nerves: That line -- while good -- is so old Dennis Miller was still a liberal when he said it.

I just checked in here to make sure this was mentioned.

fatbear: UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Yeah, louder is always better. Quiet music sux.

perhaps i misspoke - quiet music isn't bad, but if you listen to two songs on your ipod, and you can't hear one of them, clearly there's a problem.

we probably fall on the same side of the "volume wars" debate.

Re-Re-Re-Mastered

In other words..
"u bai R stuff again, K"

BunkyBrewman: CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

Reel to reel tape FTW!

I'm curious. What medium did the Beatles use to record their songs?

They were the first band (in the UK anyways) to release an LP that was recorded on a 4-track reel-to-reel..... which, if I recall correctly was The White Album

CheddarPants: The Beatles, ALONG WITH LED ZEPPELIN AS WELL AS PRETTY MUCH EVERY ACT RECORDED DURING THE VINYL ERA, will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

UncleScam: perhaps i misspoke - quiet music isn't bad, but if you listen to two songs on your ipod, and you can't hear one of them, clearly there's a problem.

we probably fall on the same side of the "volume wars" debate.

You can adjust that in iTunes - and many other iPod management programs. Or does it sound like mud if you bring it up to an acceptable level?

Yes, subby, I too used to watch Not Necessarily The News.

Kyosuke: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Thread over.

fatbear:
You can adjust that in iTunes - and many other iPod management programs. Or does it sound like mud if you bring it up to an acceptable level?

you're very right, it can be adjusted, but you shouldn't have to. also, those 80's digital transfers just have a weird watery effect that you can't get around. the cd version of "sgt. pepper" is an unfortunate example of that.

i'm one of those amish folk that still listen to CD's, where volume levels are frustrating.

of course, everyone else in america just downloaded the "purple chick" versions - lossless compression remastered from the original vinyl.

JBLars: Yes, subby, I too used to watch Not Necessarily The News listen to the Off-White album

I'm actually most excited by the re-mastered mono versions coming out. The EMI balance engineers spent most of their mixdown time carefully balancing for mono. After that they would quickly mix to stereo as an afterthought, since very few consumers had stereo systems.
Every Beatles CD available up until this release are the afterthought stereo mixes. Even the Mobile Sound Fidelity releases are stereo [nice bootleg if you can find them].
Most Beatles fans have never heard these mono recordings and subsequently have never heard how this band was supposed to sound.

Mudcloth: Every Beatles CD available up until this release are the afterthought stereo mixes.

you're correct - up until the white album.

the mono mixes were the ones that the beatles themselves were involved in. they would often leave the "novelty" stereo mix for an assistant engineer. there are some interesting differences in the mixes of some of the songs.

Re: loudness wars, I have a question for the experts.

I understand why what we call "loudness war" is bad because of the compression that destroys the dynamic range. But given a recording, is there ever a reason to, leaving the range alone, not shift the loudness such that the pre-existing peak is at maximum loudness for the medium? Is there a reason for there to be "quiet" albums that don't actually use the entire range?

Mr. Coffee Nerves: That line -- while good -- is so old Dennis Miller was still a liberal when he said it.

THIS.

andreirublev: Re: loudness wars, I have a question for the experts.

I understand why what we call "loudness war" is bad because of the compression that destroys the dynamic range. But given a recording, is there ever a reason to, leaving the range alone, not shift the loudness such that the pre-existing peak is at maximum loudness for the medium? Is there a reason for there to be "quiet" albums that don't actually use the entire range?



i'm no expert - i'm actually more of an idiot - but i would say no, there is no reason. many albums use quiet sections to draw you in. i.e. dan aeurbach (sp?) said in an interview that the first track on his new album was purposely mastered with less volume in the hopes that you'll turn up your stereo. than, when track two hits, it's ON!

but really, the finest digital mastering techniques of the 1980's were nothing like what we have today. listen to a 80's CD release of the beatles, neil young, rolling stones, etc, followed by a CD that came out in the last ten years and the difference is quite striking. not only in volume, but overall clarity and fidelity.

CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

(((hug)))

The sad part is that we'll get a remastered copy of the original mix of "Eleanor Rigby" instead of the vastly superior remix on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack. The orchestration sounds amazing in full stereo. (It wasn't possible to mix it in stereo in 1965 because of the four-track machines they were using.)

UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Fark yeah! Normalize the farking hell out of them! Turn the compression up to 11!

All music waveforms should look like this:

andreirublev: Is there a reason for there to be "quiet" albums that don't actually use the entire range?

They do actually use the entire range. Since the momentary peaks are not squashed by limiting, the mean overall loudness seems less.

Also, spectrum density (which is one of the things hard limiting increases) directly affects the perceived loudness, even for two songs whose peaks are at the same level.

Ant: UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Fark yeah! Normalize the farking hell out of them! Turn the compression up to 11!

not quite what i meant - as my other comments clarified - but point taken.

UncleScam: Ant: UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Fark yeah! Normalize the farking hell out of them! Turn the compression up to 11!

not quite what i meant - as my other comments clarified - but point taken.

No, you're not getting off that easy! LOUD = BAD!! WHARGRRRBLL!!! Every person on earth should have a $10,000 speaker system and a fully enclosed sound proof environment to listen in, or they don't deserve to listen to music. Nevermind that compression makes it easier to keep a consistent level between tracks, or bring up some of the parts that are harder to hear. If you don't have exactly the right balance of loud and soft parts to show off some audiophile's new system then you're just contributing to the loudness wars that have single handled destroyed music and raped my dog.

sonicfluid: UncleScam: Ant: UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Fark yeah! Normalize the farking hell out of them! Turn the compression up to 11!

not quite what i meant - as my other comments clarified - but point taken.

No, you're not getting off that easy! LOUD = BAD!! WHARGRRRBLL!!! Every person on earth should have a $10,000 speaker system and a fully enclosed sound proof environment to listen in, or they don't deserve to listen to music. Nevermind that compression makes it easier to keep a consistent level between tracks, or bring up some of the parts that are harder to hear. If you don't have exactly the right balance of loud and soft parts to show off some audiophile's new system then you're just contributing to the loudness wars that have single handled destroyed music and raped my dog.

Yeah, the argument is often made that so much music is listened to on iPods these days that large dynamic ranges make the quiet parts unlistenable. Fair enough. But there are programs that can easily compress a song's dynamic range to make it easier to listen to on a portable device. Truly removing compression that's already there, however, is nigh impossible without some weird stuff happening. In our modern age, "remastering" usually just means "compressing the fark out of" and the people who actually buy the music to play it on decent systems in their homes get farked. SQUASHED WAVEFORMS DON'T SOUND GOOD!

And that's why we have vinyl corksniffers. Of course the medium itself isn't better, but the way the music was printed onto it absolutely is, for those who enjoy subtlety in their aural adventures.

Ant: UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Fark yeah! Normalize the farking hell out of them! Turn the compression up to 11!

All music waveforms should look like this:

I'd take you seriously if you didn't think normalization was a problem.

CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.drugs.

FTFEveryone.

Michael Jackson still own that catalogue or did he have to sell that off?

I think MJ owns 50% now, with Sony owning the other half

Every Beatles CD available up until this release are the afterthought stereo mixes.

And you are how old? The big complaint about the original release of the first four Beatles CDs (allon one day in February 1987) was that they were in mono. I bought them anyway as I grew up with the Beatles in mono.

radioman_: Every Beatles CD available up until this release are the afterthought stereo mixes.

And you are how old? The big complaint about the original release of the first four Beatles CDs (allon one day in February 1987) was that they were in mono. I bought them anyway as I grew up with the Beatles in mono.

Actually, they should be in mono. That's what they were recorded and mixed for.

The "stereo" versions were crap.

Correct. Mono is preferable to fake stereo.

CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

ugh. 5 posts to get to the "vinyl sounds better" guy. please, elaborate, I know you're dying to. make sure you work in the "god save the queen" 45 in your argument.

danduran: Ant: UncleScam: they don't stack up to current music at all in terms of loudness

Fark yeah! Normalize the farking hell out of them! Turn the compression up to 11!

All music waveforms should look like this:

I'd take you seriously if you didn't think normalization was a problem.

Oh, I didn't even catch that before. Sick burn!

jalora: Correct. Mono is preferable to fake stereo.

I think we're getting real stereo for the early albums this time, as you can now separate out instruments from a single track, as they did in creating Love.

BunkyBrewman: I'm curious. What medium did the Beatles use to record their songs?

1" Magnetic tape. Early albums are 2-track. Rubber Soul (I think) and on are 4-track. White Album was the first recorded on 8-track (though "Hey Jude" was cut at Olympic on 8-track before that). And Abbey Road took delivery of new 16-track, 2" tape machines just before the Beatles came back and cut Abbey Road (I think they were the first ones to use the new machines).

As George Martin says somewhere on the Anthology: it's mindblowing that an album like Sgt Pepper's could be recorded on 4-track tape!

If you're interested in the subject, Mark Lewishon wrote a book called the Compleat Beatles Recording Sessions which covers everything they did in the studio.

The other cool thing about the the physical tapes the Beatles recorded on is that they've always been considered so valuable that very great care has been taken with them. Every inch recorded in the studio has been saved (and after about 1966, Martin would just let the machines run all the time, as money was no longer any object) and they've been carefully stored in a bomb-proof vault somewhere in England, so they're in excellent shape.

Which is why these new remaster should sound awesome.

tagjim: ugh. 5 posts to get to the "vinyl sounds better" guy. please, elaborate, I know you're dying to. make sure you work in the "god save the queen" 45 in your argument.

The traditional reason for that was that the mono versions of Sgt Peppers and the White Album were not available until now.

The other thing is that George Martin and the EMI engineers weren't recording for CD; they were recording with the limitations of vinyl in mind. When they did the first round of remasters in the 1980's, they were shocked to find that, at the end of the Sgt Pepper's master, you could hear chairs scraping in the studio after the final *BONG* piano chord. If you have the CD, listen to it on headphones and they're there, right before the weird end-groove thing kicks in.

I'm not a vinyl purist, but I've bought a bunch of new albums on vinyl recently and they do sound better than the CD versions of the same. It's a warmer sound, more human and maybe a little less perfect, yes.

tagjim: CheddarPants: The Beatles will always sound better on vinyl than they do on CD, no matter how much they're remastered.

ugh. 5 posts to get to the "vinyl sounds better" guy. please, elaborate, I know you're dying to. make sure you work in the "god save the queen" 45 in your argument.

Vinyl sounds better because in order for the needle to generate sound it must vibrate in the physical space of the universe, which is what the speaker on the other end must do. While it's not 100% accurate (due to dust, etc.), it must move in a way that is limited by it being an object in motion.

Digital systems do not have this limitation, therefore if a sound has very sharp edges it can signal the speaker to move in a way that is not physically possible. Different speakers react differently to such occurances; some keep up better than others, some make audible changes to the sound. More generally, sounds become "colder" because there is a subtle (and unpredictable, depending on amplifier/voice coil) "pop" created each time the speaker is forced to change direction, as opposed to an analog signal which, even at the highest frequencies humans can detect, is forced by the laws of physics to be slightly rounded off.

Also, frequencies can occur outside human hearing range and be eliminated by digital; we're not even talking about MP3 forcefully removing frequencies that don't matter, I'm taking about uncompressed digital audio (WAV/AIFF). At 44.1kHz (CD quality), you distort or eliminate all audible frequencies above 22.05kHz (this is called the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem). While this is not immediately audible, it can affect the overall signal which you can hear, if it causes resonance against lower frequencies. Depending on the recording techniques and equipment used, this can sometimes be avoided.

This results in a sound that, subconsciously, feels more real from analog/vinyl, leading to descriptions such as "warm" and "alive".

Most audiophiles, if you'll take notice, are great fans of the symphony and the like - music where subtlety is as important as anything. DJs like(d) vinyl because it would drive club systems to pound hard, although these days digital formats prevent theft, damage, and backaches and the vinyl DJ scene is quickly dying (except for scratch DJs).

If all you listen to is Nickelback, you don't need vinyl; it was already recorded digital and is compressed like a diamond, so even a record would sound like garbage.