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[kylenz]

Hey guys,
I've only just gotten round to actually listening to the CD after having had the deluxe '1+' blu ray for a few weeks now.

I'm actually really impressed by how the remixes sound. I haven't been a fan of Giles Martin, but to his credit, he's added a fullness to many of the songs. Not all of the songs sound superior to the original mixes, but overall I actually think he actually did improve them!  Now that's a bitter pill for me to swallow, having not been a fan of mixing for surround sound etc. He has shown a distaste for having the vocals panned on the side, but he has still been able to maintain a beautiful well-panned stereo mix regardless. The vocals seem to have a nice full reverb behind them and seem nicely-spread.

My favourite mixes would be Ticket To Ride, Help, We Can Work It Out and Paperback Writer. He did such a lovely job bringing a bit of oomph and fullness to those middle-period Beatles songs that sometimes lacked that middle and bottom end due to the technology of the time.

And I really like what he did to the latter-period stuff too. The Ballad of John and Yoko still sounds nicely spread in the stereo picture. Let It Be is very well done too (my only grumble being it's the single version and not the album version with that searing guitar solo).

Has anyone else heard these remixes? I know this is like treading on sacred ground but I feel he did a truly decent job!

[kylenz]

Just a few little side notes about the remixes -

1) Does anyone have any idea why the first 3 songs (Love Me Do, From Me To You, She Loves You) were newly-remixed - but in MONO?? It seems a ludicrous idea to do that, given that we know that stereo versions of these songs exist (the best mixes of these songs I feel are on The Beatles 1962-1966 Red double-LP), so surely Giles Martin would've had access to the stems to do a nice new stereo remix like he did with the rest of the songs. He obviously did have access to these stems because they certainly have a vibrancy to them, especially 'Love Me Do' in the drum dept - but it seems crazy not to mix them in stereo to give uniformity to the whole album (I Want To Hold Your Hand for instance, has a nice stereo mix).

2) The clipping issues of the original '1' compilation have mysteriously resurfaced. The 2009 remasters were remarkably free of distortion, but these brand new 2015 mixes are full of it. Some of the examples where the mixes are almost intolerably unlistenable compared to the original mixes are:
-A Hard Day's Night
-Penny Lane
-Lady Madonna
-Hey Jude (percussion is wayy too trebly to the point of distortion)

And yet other mixes seem like they've been beautifully maxed for loudness but without inducing clipping, such as the mid-period tunes I mentioned in my previous post, and also the likes of Get Back, Something, Come Together, The Long and Winding Road etc. It's quite mystifying the inconsistency involved in the mastering. You would think they would instantly spot this on first listening, especially Giles who surely must know the anatomy of the original mixes inside out.

But those quibbles aside, it's good to have some new mixes of Beatles songs.

Note to Giles: I would actually like to hear ALL the Beatles albums remixed this way someday! 

[2 of 3]

my only grumble being it's the single version and not the album version with that searing guitar solo). 

Yeah, I wonder if they'll ever get around to remixing Let It Be? Or have they? or am I thinking of Naked?

I wonder if Giles runs stuff past his father? I wonder if anything has been vetoed?

[kylenz]

Good point. I wonder if George trusts his ears enough these days. But he surely must feed Giles with info on the songs and how to set them up. I really like what he had done in spreading the vocals across the sound picture. Why couldn't he do that to the first 3 songs? Therein lies the mystery..