The Beatles - White Album Remix Super Deluxe Edition

RandallFlagg

The Sgt Pepper remix is great and gives that album a whole new dimension of listening pleasure, now we have the remixed White Album coming out on 9th November.

I'm not a huge fan of the album, while there some terrific songs I think there's too much filler and really would have made a great single album if they had cherry picked and allowed George Martin to really produce it. The sound is harsh and cold to my ears but I will give the remix a go and see if I hear it differently.

What to you reckon?

Freebird

I'm waiting for the remix of the remix 

I enjoyed the Sgt Pepper one, especially following their creative process. Great insight.

Samgb

I absolutely love the White Album. But then when i like a band i tend to enjoy their missteps and musings as well as the more focused and perfect stuff. 
Not everything has to be perfect. Let us embrace ambition and failure!

JezWynd

One of my favourite Beatles albums. I've never thought of the sound as cold or harsh, on the contrary, stuff like Long, Long Long is full of analog warmth.

JezWynd

Agree though that there is a lot of filler (maybe experimentation is a better word) that would have been best left off the final cut.

Fretwired

Geeks with vintage gear go cork sniffing and ruin a classic album. Remix my arse ...

ICBM

Well that's my Christmas present sorted .

The White Album isn't my favourite - there's too much pretty average material on it, and at least a couple of real stinkers (in my opinion) - but it does still contain one of my favourite Beatles songs, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, as well as a few others I like.

The Sgt. Pepper remaster was so good that it actually made me appreciate the album much more, even the couple of songs I hadn't really liked before, so maybe a really good remaster of this will do the same... these guys really do know what they're doing, and clearly understand what they're trying to achieve.

Octahedron

I thought ooh yeah interesting until I saw the price tag even for the iTunes version ($119.99 Australian)

octatonic

I've heard all those songs before.

ICBM

octatonic said:

I've heard all those songs before.

TTony

ICBM said:

The Sgt. Pepper remaster was so good that it actually made me appreciate the album much more, even the couple of songs I hadn't really liked before, 

Ditto.

These songs are so well known that we probably don’t really, actively, listen to them anymore.  Our brains know what’s coming because we’ve heard them so many times through our lives.

But a decent remaster introduces some different elements.  We listen to them properly again, and appreciate them properly all over again.

axisus

I just can't be bothered with the remix fad. I'm perfectly happy listening to albums in the form that they were released and I'd rather spend my money on something new. Having said that, I have no problem with them being out there, many fans seem to soil themselves at the merest mention of a remix if it is done by Steven Wilson.

RandallFlagg

Octahedron said:

I thought ooh yeah interesting until I saw the price tag even for the iTunes version ($119.99 Australian)

Hang on I'm going to sneeze...ah...ah...ah...torrent

...excuse me.

ICBM

axisus said:

I just can't be bothered with the remix fad. I'm perfectly happy listening to albums in the form that they were released and I'd rather spend my money on something new.

The Sgt. Pepper 50th Anniversary edition is so expertly done that the perceived mix I’ve had in my head for forty years has not changed at all (unlike many remasters) but everything is clearer and more detailed... like playing the same record on a crap hi-fi and then a good one.

If you like the Beatles and you haven’t heard it, you really should - it’s eye (or ear ) opening. I’ve never heard another remix that good before. The second disc of alternate takes and the two songs that weren’t on the original album is well worth it too, especially the two different speed versions of Strawberry Fields.

I’m just hoping the White Album one is as good.

(Edit - RandallFlagg is correct, technically it is a remix... just one that doesn’t sound like it!)

Hootsmon

Is it just peppers and the white album that has the expanded 50th anniversary remaster treatment thus far?

ICBM

hootsmon said:

Is it just peppers and the white album that has the expanded 50th anniversary remaster treatment thus far?

They've definitely done at least Rubber Soul and Revolver as well, but they say they're 'remix' albums, which put me off in the way I think axisus means. That's why I was so pleased to find how good Sgt. Pepper is.

I should maybe given those two a listen and see...

RandallFlagg

ICBM said:

axisus said:

I just can't be bothered with the remix fad. I'm perfectly happy listening to albums in the form that they were released and I'd rather spend my money on something new.

The Sgt. Pepper 50th Anniversary edition isn’t a remix, it’s a remaster - so expertly done that the perceived mix I’ve had in my head for forty years has not changed at all (unlike many remasters) but everything is clearer and more detailed... like playing the same record on a crap hi-fi and then a good one.

If you like the Beatles and you haven’t heard it, you really should - it’s eye (or ear ) opening. I’ve never heard another remaster that good before. The second disc of alternate takes and the two songs that weren’t on the original album is well worth it too, especially the two different speed versions of Strawberry Fields.

I’m just hoping the White Album one is as good.

You are wrong @ICBM The 50th Anniversary edition is a Giles Martin remix, as is the upcoming White Album release:

On 26 May 2017, the album was reissued for the album's 50th anniversary in four different formats: a single CD, a double CD set, a double vinyl set and a six-disc super deluxe edition. The first CD contains a new stereo remix of the album produced by Giles Martin. Created using modern and vintage technology, the 2017 mix retains more of the idiosyncrasies that were unique to the original mono version of Sgt. Pepper's. Unlike the original album, first-generation tapes were used rather than their subsequent mixdowns, resulting in a clearer and more spacious sound.[330] The other discs contain alternative mixes and previously unreleased session tapes. The six-disc box set includes four CDs as well as a documentary and 5.1 surround sound mixes of the album in both DVD and Blu-ray form.[331] The 50th anniversary edition topped the UK albums chart after its release

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

You are wrong @ICBM The 50th Anniversary edition is a Giles Martin remix, as is the upcoming White Album release:

On 26 May 2017, the album was reissued for the album's 50th anniversary in four different formats: a single CD, a double CD set, a double vinyl set and a six-disc super deluxe edition. The first CD contains a new stereo remix of the album produced by Giles Martin. Created using modern and vintage technology, the 2017 mix retains more of the idiosyncrasies that were unique to the original mono version of Sgt. Pepper's. Unlike the original album, first-generation tapes were used rather than their subsequent mixdowns, resulting in a clearer and more spacious sound.[330] The other discs contain alternative mixes and previously unreleased session tapes. The six-disc box set includes four CDs as well as a documentary and 5.1 surround sound mixes of the album in both DVD and Blu-ray form.[331] The 50th anniversary edition topped the UK albums chart after its release

Interesting... you're right. But it doesn't *sound* like a remix, in the sense of being a new mix. The mix - the balance of the instruments, and the overall dynamics - which is so often ruined in remixing or remastering, sounds just as it's always done to me - only everything is far clearer. It's not at all like a typical one where things jump out as oddly different or wrong when it's an album you're very familiar with. It's remarkably so given that the new version is stereo, but with different panning from the old crude stereo version.

I do know that a huge amount of effort was taken to make sure it was like that, it was certainly far different from any remixing (or even remastering) project I've heard of before. Anyhow, whether it's a remaster or a remix, if you love the Beatles then have a listen to it - it really made me like the album better, even including Getting Better and Lovely Rita, the two tracks I never really liked before.

RandallFlagg

ICBM said:

RandallFlagg said:

You are wrong @ICBM The 50th Anniversary edition is a Giles Martin remix, as is the upcoming White Album release:

On 26 May 2017, the album was reissued for the album's 50th anniversary in four different formats: a single CD, a double CD set, a double vinyl set and a six-disc super deluxe edition. The first CD contains a new stereo remix of the album produced by Giles Martin. Created using modern and vintage technology, the 2017 mix retains more of the idiosyncrasies that were unique to the original mono version of Sgt. Pepper's. Unlike the original album, first-generation tapes were used rather than their subsequent mixdowns, resulting in a clearer and more spacious sound.[330] The other discs contain alternative mixes and previously unreleased session tapes. The six-disc box set includes four CDs as well as a documentary and 5.1 surround sound mixes of the album in both DVD and Blu-ray form.[331] The 50th anniversary edition topped the UK albums chart after its release

Interesting... you're right. But it doesn't *sound* like a remix, in the sense of being a new mix. The mix - the balance of the instruments, and the overall dynamics - which is so often ruined in remixing or remastering, sounds just as it's always done to me - only everything is far clearer. It's not at all like a typical one where things jump out as oddly different or wrong when it's an album you're very familiar with. It's remarkably so given that the new version is stereo, but with different panning from the old crude stereo version.

I do know that a huge amount of effort was taken to make sure it was like that, it was certainly far different from any remixing (or even remastering) project I've heard of before. Anyhow, whether it's a remaster or a remix, if you love the Beatles then have a listen to it - it really made me like the album better, even including Getting Better and Lovely Rita, the two tracks I never really liked before.

I agree mate, it's stunning way to revisit Pepper. Hopefully the White Album will be as good