White Album 50th Anniversary Edition | Page 10 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

glazball said
@J Alesait I’d love to see a source on that because I’ve never heard anyone ever say that the (Beatles’) preferred version of the White Album is the mono mix.

Now you made me doubt my memory… Anyhow, I don’t remember The Beatles saying their prefered version was the stereo one. Maybe neither one was prefered over the other…

Billy Rhythm said
OK, J Alesait, you really dig the ‘Love’ project but throughout Beatland you’re clearly in a minority there…  that “hurried 1968 stereo mix” of the ‘White Album ‘ continues to outsell ‘Love’ year after year…  yeah, I know Sir George Martin helped out on the project but advanced hearing loss was also a big factor in his involvement…  the ‘White Album ‘ is a finished work of art, and it’s 50 years old…  the interest in celebrating its legacy is staggering and shows that it’s stood the test of time…

I never compared the White Album to Love. I just said Giles did a pretty good job on the latter. Probably ANY version of the White Album will always outsell Love, even this 2018 remixed version! But that’s not the point.
I think many of us have enjoyed Love for what it is: a soundtrack album of a Cirque du Soleil show. 

“hurried” doesn’t mean that they shoulda spent more time on it…  they wanted to wrap it up and capture it while they were still hot for it…  if you simmer things too long it eventually deteriorates…  I believe that The Beatles themselves realized this at the time and wanted to deliver the best album that they could…

“Hurried” is not even the main issue here. The thing is they still had to bounce-down many tracks on this album, and they did it not because some artistic consideration but because they had no choice. Therefore, some instruments and voices recorded by them simply got lost or muffled on the final mix. Now we can hear all this as it was recorded yesterday… They certainly would have used this technology had it been available back then.
 

Apologies for not jumping on the Giles Martin bandwagon…  I hear him goin’ on about how much fun they were having making this record as though the people who were there and close to The Beatles at the time made up all of the stories about the tension between them…  now he’s trying to tell us that that’s not Ringo playing the fills on ‘Dear Prudence ‘?!  how the hell would he know?…  people also seem to forget that his father was only one of, what?  9 different production credits for the album?  did he not abruptedly leave before the sessions were even halfway through?

Giles is saying (and I’ve heard him myself) that the tapes do not reveal any major tension betwen the group when they were recording music. Of course, he was not there in the first place, and he cannot deny what they’ve always said: that they were breaking apart during those sessions. He also says that they played live as a four piece band for much of the recordings, and this is a fact.

I’ve always assumed it was common knowledge that Paul played the drums on Dear Prudence , so he’s saying nothing new here. He’s in a better position than all of us to tell if Ringo overdubbed or not some fills on it, because he’s heard all the takes and every recorded track of this song (and of every song).

This all wreaks of Apple’s continued mandate to “revision” The Beatles’ legacy…  if the new mix is so much better than the original, why not sell it on its own?  because it wouldn’t sell…  it’s the unreleased goodies that are selling this package…  sure, if you put the new mix on a new state-of-the-art sound system it’s likely to sonically sound better than the original will, but how many Beatles’ fans actually even own such a system?  and even those who do probably don’t use such a rig for most of their listening pleasures…  the vast majority listen on modest to cheap (for lack of a better word) audio devices and that’s where the “hurried 1968 stereo mix” will outshine anything new, everytime…  they weren’t looking to please a handful of elitists back in 1968…  just their loyal fans…:-)  

Of course the new mix would sell on its own. It would sell simply because it’s the White Album by the Beatles, isn’t it? I bet it will even outsell the 2009 stereo remaster in years to come (the original stereo mix version will always exist, so there’s no need to worry). I fail to see the problem with having a new stereo mix that can bring to us that wonderful music in better quality and detail, and that allows us to hear sounds that were always there but we couldn’t hear clearly. Now, each track recorded for any given song has the same acoustic quality, and those that were relegated/downgraded before because of the bounce-downs are now back as when they were first recorded. And lucky us that the original tapes are still in good form, because otherwise those sounds would have been lost forever!!

And this is not heresy as some seem to be thinking. Giles is not adding voices nor instruments to the mixes. And he’s perfectly capable of the job (AND he’s the son of George Martin, so we can rest assured he loves and respects this music!!).

I’m sure anyone hearing this album (this 2018 mix) 100 years from now, for the first time ever, will perfectly enjoy the music and the sound and will not care at all about who mixed it or why it is mixed this way. The “problem” is there for us all who have heard the original mixes and keep comparing them.

Billy Rhythm said

Expert Textpert said
@Billy Rhythm, have you heard the Giles Martin mix or are you just automatically dismissing it?

no, I have not and nor do I care to…  no, I didn’t bite at the 2009 stab at it either…  they couldn’t even wait a decade to rework it yet again?!  I didn’t even buy the CDs that were first released in the 80s either…  I transferred all of my vinyl & cassettes to mp3s using SoundForge (before SONY bought it and was released by the developers Sonic Foundry)…  I didn’t use ANY compression, Noise Reduction etc. and simply just got a good level for a clean transfer…  I preserved the works virtually exactly as they were when I first heard them…

Using your own words again, you’re clearly in a minority here…

The 1987 release was the first time Beatles music was released on CD, a bit later than other classic rock performers indeed… The 2009 was the perfection of the mastering for CD of the entire catalogue (both mono and stereo mixes) in order to preserve in CD and digital formats those original and historical mixes… Now we’re talking about something very different from the 2009 releases. Both the 1987 and the 2009 releases served two purposes: first and foremost, set a new standard, giving the NEW buyers (meaning new listeners) THE product to get (on the current format of the era) in order to hear the classic versions of the Beatles’ songs; second, inviting “old” listeners to buy again music they already owned, in order to enjoy its improved sound quality (in this case, a subtly improved sound quality, actually stuff for audiophiles which was not really well explained to the people because any new sale counts). 

Anyway, now we’re talking about something else, since there’s no point in remixing an album to make it sound exactly the same. Here we have more depth, detail, and a new stereo panning which makes more sence now in 2018 after 50 years of mixing experience in the world of rock/pop music. So, it’s not a reworking of the 2009 release by no means.