The new Sgt Pepper mix

Anyone heard it yet? On Spotify if you're interested. Haven't listened to it myself yet but will tonight. Lots of people raving about it, a few complaining that it's too loud etc.

Hi,
 
One thing scares me ... get this ...
 
When Sgt Peppers came out we all got it in the States. 10 years later, I wondered why Tower Records (Hollywood - not there anymore!) was trying to sell the IMPORT version of this album. I got one, as it was priced down.
 
HUGE difference. You could hear details on the English album. The American version sounded like it was copied off the AM radio, by comparison! Even the stereo effects were horrendously recorded and messed with.
 
EIGHT years later. Dark Side of the Moon. Same thing. Got the American album, and it stunk, and it was horrendous ... it was a copy! I had gotten the IMPORT some 3 months before, and it was really neat and you could hear the voices and the effects really well ... in the American album it was badly mixed and screwed up really bad!
 
Both of these albums, when they came out a few years ago, "remix'd"/"remastered" (whatever!), guess what they sounded like? The English versions of the LP!
 
I sincerely doubt that these can be done any better, though one could easily work the farm animals with a little distance to make it sound more "real", instead of sound effects ... but in the English pressing, this was not sounding like ... the BBC Sound Effects Library, LP 27, side 1 ... kind of thing. In the American album it sounded like Sound Effects!
 
I, personally, and this does not feel like some paranoia, that the powers that be, still hated rock music, and thought it was taking over the music companies too much, and thus these recordings were intentionally screwed up, to try and hurt the bands as much as possible. Luckily, it was impossible to do so, since the albums were better than those idiots that mangled the pressings and recordings for the American public!
 
I don't see the need of a new mix ... if you have heard the original LP from England. 

I am interested in hearing it, especially the 5.1 mix. Right now the purchase price is holding me back. Will have to wait until I am in a generous spending mood.

Geoff Emerick talks to the ABC’s 7.30 program about working with The Beatles and the 50th anniversary of the landmark Sgt Pepper’s album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5caf6mAACA&feature=share
 
About 30 minutes in he expresses his view of the re-masters.
 

craigb
Is it better than the new Dr. Pepper mix? 

I really like Dr. Pepper and Rum.  Can't decide if its called Captain Pepper or Doctor Morgan.
 
They don't do Doctor Pepper in Vietnam

Hi,
 
I really like Geoff's comments, and specially his opinion of the re-done stuff, and in some ways, I would like to extend this to a lot of the things that Steven Wilson has done, which to my tastes, and ideas, was not really necessary.
 
However, I do listen to things very differently than anyone else I have met, except one lady who taught me most of that. I close my eyes, and work on the colors and the vibrations and where it takes you, and I usually only create an "idea" of what it means to me AFTER the experience, since at that time, it's about the WHOLE experience, and not just one minute of it.
 
Rock music, has tried to simplify this way too much, and taken away the whole "experience" into a sort of Cliff Notes of music appreciation, and in my own way of seeing things, it does not mean that the shorter piece does not have the ability or the quality ... but for me, living through and experiencing it all is what it is all about in music. Let's just say, for the sake of silliness, that this is like enjoying the time and place with your loved one ... 5minutes is not enough ... and you want more! And so do I!
 
Thus, things like Sgt Pepper's and DSOTM, or TLLDOB, or Passion Play, or TAAB, or TFTO, are pieces of music, that are more important to me, as an EXPERIENCE, than they are as a song, or two ... I like to say, that one moment or two in your life is not always the definition of what it is all about ... your whole life is, and that moment is a part of it, although that moment could define a few details within it ... and for me, the "trip" is the part that matters the most, and the moment, is a part of it all ... and yes, there are times when I can remember moments here and there of the LSD trips, and such, but they are not any louder or better than my time with Ingrid, or some of the film work I have done, or some of the poems I have written and the like.
 
Thus, if a piece of art is there in front of you, for me, its FEELING, and EXPRESSION is what draws me in, and therefore, any revision done on it, only means that someone else's opinion and idea has been added to the piece that changes the original feeling, sometimes to the point where the original is LOST ... and I mean LOST. I like ITCOTCK and its various pieces, but the redone thing by SW made me sick to my stomach. It was like someone had placed a shield in front of it and was preventing the original feeling from getting through by changing its appearance and placement in the dream ... it changes the story!
 
I can see it being done for the cleaning up side of it, and knowing how many things get wasted due to poor recording (see Tom Dowd's DVD ... an eye opener for sure!), trying to make them come alive again, is OK with me ... but I would love to see the original strength and feeling not messed up with ... and in this case, yeah, I'm a purist, but then, I think I can see the feeling behind it and I love to pursue that and appreciate that as done via music, in so many different ways ... with one exception ... the more you hear different things, the more you learn how "expression" comes alive, when many folks have the idea that rock music is what musical expression is about, and sometimes, in a few places, it's like a lot of history is not music at all ... it's all crap, when compared to the 4/4 and rock designs!
 
I can see it now ... a remastered Beethoven's 5th ... will it be any different and tell you a different story?

craigb
Remasters should be left for those bands that DIDN'T produce the album they wanted the first time around 

that's what i already said

bapu
I'll be seeing The Fab Faux do Sgt Pepper's in November. Does that count?

Only if they perform it in mono. 

I think I have a couple of albums from Soft, Swollen Spleen.

bapu
Pedro does I'm sure.

c'Amon man, that's a bunch of Duul.... 

 
 
Just finished listening to it. 
 
I have to rate it as OUTSTANDING!  I wish there was an ever higher level of Outstanding cause then I'd rate it that! 

 
I think Pedro is confusing 'remastering' with 'remixing' or even 're-recording'.
 
I have four differently mastered versions of The Clash's eponymous debut album. In each version, the recorded parts, the stereo mix and the relative levels of each part are identical. The only difference is the mastering process itself.
 
Hence two completely different recorded versions of Beethoven's 5th Symphony are er.... completely different.

Can anyone name a single album that got better after being remastered?
 
Not saying it's never happened, but I can't think of any. Now, some of the recent remixes (e.g. the Tull and Yes remixes by Steven Wilson, and Giles Martin's Beatles remixes) have been big improvements. After hearing some of the new Sgt Pepper I've been looking to buy it in FLAC (without success so far).
 
But "remastering" usually just means louder, less dynamic, tinny and distorted. Listen to the travesty that is George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" for an example.

jamesg1213
Looking forward to watching this at the weekend;
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tb97f
 
Howard Goodall analyses each song to show how The Beatles built them layer by layer. Heard a couple of excerpts this week, very interesting stuff.

I saw there was one for Kate Bush as well ... would have loved to see it, but we can't see it in america!