'Abbey Road' 50th Anniversary | Page 6 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Man, I thought I was the only one. I’m glad to see that people are hearing the problems with these remixes…they’re not right, none of them. Some of them are decent, but all of them have something wrong going on and I would imagine that something as precious as the Beatles would get the utmost attention, but I guess not. It’s easy to get fooled by a bigger, brighter, bassier sound. What’s not as apparent (especially on first listens) is the subtle yet utmost important balancing choices. Geoff Emerick knew how to make records, Giles simply knows how to run equipment.

I don’t hear any care taken on focusing each sound properly. All I hear is them trying to make it punchier and clearer. The only remix I’ve heard that matched up right was Strawberry Fields. Sgt Pepper was absolutely terrible, The White Album was just terrible, and Abbey Road is slightly less terrible than that. 

They’re separating the sounds way too much. They don’t gel together like they do in Geoff’s mixes. I’m hearing all sorts of performance issues in vocals and instruments; sloppy playing, out of tune vocals…things that I never heard before and I studied the original records like a mental patient. These are things that a good mixing engineer knows how to balance correctly. Mind you, I’m not sitting and focusing intently on every little thing of these song. I have them on while driving, etc, and every song has aspects that negatively draws my attention.  

These remixes are an unfortunate cash-grab. They simply could’ve done a more heavy handed remaster. Most mastering engineers (especially if they’re remastering classic records) are very light with their approach which is why modern remasters don’t sound all that different, unless the originals were really really bad. With today’s tech, there’s a lot of amazing things they can pull from a simple 2 track stereo mix…BUT how many times can you put out another remaster and expect people to wanna pay?   

As a professional curiosity I will probably continue to listen to the remixes, but I can’t for enjoyment.

PS: I’m tempted to listen to every song and A/B them to the originals and point out everything different and post it here. I might have some time tomorrow, I don’t know. 

meanmistermustard said
Giles is going for the modern market where everything is clearer and brighter. If the younger generations get into the Beatles that way then so be it as long as the originals remain as the standards for those who want to hear it as originally mixed.

I’m not mad at all that the songs are getting remixed and I’m not saying that clearer and brighter is bad, what I’m saying is that Giles is not the right man for the job. His mixes are revealing poor aspects of performances, such as playing out of time and singing out of tune, 2 things the younger generation is not at all familiar with. The Beatles sound younger and more energetic in the original mixes, vocally and instrumentally. A lot of the remixed songs sound slower to me, and I’m very aware of that because that happens to me when I’m mixing and it normally comes from improper emphasis on the kick drum, snare drum and bass.

I don’t need to hear the same thing, but I do need to feel the same thing and I would LOVE bigger, beefier Beatles records, but I don’t think that’ll be done properly any time soon, at least with Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road . He did get Strawberry Fields right. But I think 1 out of 60+ is a bad ratio.

They should’ve done shoot-outs with top contemporary mix engineers. Give them each 2 or 3 songs as a test and see which one maintained the integrity of the originals while bringing the nice modern oomph. My vote would go to Andy Wallace who mixed Paul’s “Gratitude” and is quite possibly the best modern (even though his heyday was more in the early to mid 2000s) mixer of all time. He’s a big Beatles fan and knows more than most how to make sound work.

Now I have heard that the label wants to make the remixes the definitive streaming versions, where you’d have to buy the CD (or something) of the originals if you want to hear them. That’s what I’m afraid of. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. 

meanmistermustard said
George Martin remixed ‘Help ‘ and ‘Rubber Soul ‘ for the 1987 reissues and those are what you are buying in the shops

Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but George liked to take full credit for doing things that he didn’t really do, like the edit on Strawberry Fields. He didn’t pick up a razor blade and cut the tape, Geoff Emerick probably did. Telling someone to do something verses actually doing it yourself is very differnt. It’s very much a collaborative process. It’s sad, especially with the way they did things back in the day, how engineers would get cut out of the credit they deserved. Puff Daddy was like that. He would actually take co-mixing credit just because he pushed a couple of faders. Meanwhile, they were all reset after he left the room.

Sir George might’ve actually grabbed the faders and EQs and compressors and did the 87 remixes but it was most likely an engineer doing it with George over seeing it. And it’s also hard to mess up a mix when all you have is 4 premixed tracks to deal with. You’d kinda have to go out of your way to make it bad.

What’s happening now is that they’re digitally separating these premixed tracks (which I think is amazing that that is even possible) which gives them more than enough rope to hang themselves.

I don’t see this as a case of being too rigid about changing things. These new mixes are musically bad. There are things about Geoff’s original mixes that I wish were different but they’re fairly minor and never ruin the songs for me. He knew how to get the right emotional impact from the instruments and vocals. He knew what to emphasize and, more importantly, what to deemphasize.

Like I said, Giles is an engineer, not a record maker. There’s something very special in what a good mix engineer does. Learning how to work all the processors and mixing boards is tedious but not hard; knowing how to take a group of instruments and vocals and turning them into a record is. 

meanmistermustard said
Personally, my desire is for the outtakes. The remixes are there and some will be very good, some won’t be, that’s fine and good on Apple for finally doing it, but that is my main motivation for purchasing the sets.

I LOVE the outtakes. Back in the day I used to go to the village in Manhattan to all the bootleg record stores looking for all the alternate versions I read about in the Beatles recording book. I had a pretty extensive collection. One of my favorites was this fast version of Get Back with George using a wah pedal. At one point there was a flub and everyone stopped except for Ringo and he quickly whipped out the CRAZIEST drum solo for a couple bars and BOOM…the rest of the band kicked in like it was nothing. I’m getting the chills just thinking about it. I also had the early rough mixes of the White Album and Bungalow Bill and Happiness Is Warm Gun sounded amazing with the bass being very thick and prominent.  

Sadly though, Apple is doing this strictly for the money, so shame on them. If these remixes aren’t strictly a corporate decision than the quality assurance people that it has to pass through are losing their hearing.