How do you make something sound louder, clearer and bigger without altering the originality and purity of a song…? Add to that, the pressure of remastering the biggest band of all time, nothing is digital and the songs your re-mastering are over 40 years old on tape… NO BIG DEAL RIGHT?

I am of course talking about The Beatles Re-mastered. This art of mixing and mastering is a very personal and subjective process that changes greatly depending on the style of music and sound wanted from the artist. Add on the fact that everyone and their mother has an opinion on the “sound” that is The Beatles plus the passion for that old school original Beatles Mono recordings that every indie band longs for, I would say that the four years it took to remaster all the Beatles albums is quite short when compared to the legacy that is The Fab Four.

The Abbey Rd Engineers

Ok, so let’s get in our Magic School Bus and go back in time to 1963! Free love, cheap grass and the government thinks everyone is a commy! You get the phone call from EMI Records; they want to record your first album!!! You did it man you did it!! So you get on the phone… no no, that will take too long. You jump on the bus and run to your bandmate’s parents house to tell them the good news, grab the gear and float your way into Abbey Road Studios faster then you wrote your first love song after she broke your heart and ran away with the lead singer of that band whose name you can’t remember but you know you hate them because it’s just easier that way.

You walk in the front door and receptionist greets you… She’s quite old to be working at the coolest studio in England you think to yourself, but rumour has it she makes a mean cup of tea. You’re too nervous to drink or eat for that matter so you roll yourself a cigarette, light a match, and sit with your legs crossed on the burgundy leather couch wait patiently. Your engineer come out to greet you – he’s wearing a white lab coat very similar to a medical doctor or a scientist. He explains the state-of-the-art features you will be using at this new studio, including a 4 track analogue desk – portable, however if you want it moved you will need 4 engineers in white lab coats to move it while 1 engineer in a brown lab coat stands by monitoring the safety of the move. The studio has an array of microphones to record with however this technology is so new and undiscovered you don’t have any point of reference to compare with just your mind, and that Beach Boys album you got for Christmas last year. You will have one engineer, no electric tunners, no effects pedals, no synth, and what the hell is MIDI!? Nothing, just a bit of reverb on your vox amp and a slight distortion when you crank the gain, so what are you waiting for??? Get in there and make it happen… No?? I think it’s safe to say – the times, they are ah chang’n’.

Nowadays all you need is a good quality pre-amp, a Pro Tools rig, some internal effects and a kick ass microphone and you’re well on your way to recording your first EP, live band jam, that late night magic moment you had, or even practice your radio voice for your triplej debut! Acts such as Gotye or Paul Dempsey have done in there home what bands in the 80’s and early 90’s would spend thousands and thousands trying to get that high quality recorded sound. I think it is safe to say that we are the home recording generation and proud of it. The need for a big studio does not have such an impact on musicians and bands as it used to, the strong hold record companies used to have with being associated with these big studios has taken a backseat and nowadays I find most bands are using these studios for their signature drum sound, recording the main guitar and bass takes, and taking the rest to work on in the comfort and stress free environment of your very own home. Not to mention a lot of money saved.

So here we have, some of the greatest music of the 60’s and 70’s tastefully altered for your kick ass new 7.1 home entertainment system so you can feel John Lennon’s Epiphone Casion shiver down your spine like someone just shoved an ice cube down your shirt.

So how did they do all this?

Check these facts out:

• The remastering process commenced with an extensive period conducting tests before finally copying the analogue master tapes into the digital medium. When this was completed, the transfer was achieved using a Pro Tools workstation operating at 24 bit 192 kHz resolution via a Prism A-D converter. Transferring was a lengthy procedure done a track at a time. Although EMI tape does not suffer the oxide loss associated with some later analogue tapes, there was nevertheless a slight build up of dust, which was removed from the tape machine heads between each title.
• From the onset, considerable thought was given to what audio restorative processes were going to be allowed. It was agreed that electrical clicks, microphone vocal pops, excessive sibilance and bad edits should be improved where possible, so long as it didn’t impact on the original integrity of the songs.
• De-noising technology, which is often associated with re-mastering, was to be used, but subtly and sparingly. Eventually, less than five of the 525 minutes of Beatles music was subjected to this process.
• Limiting to increase the volume level of the CD – has been used, but on the stereo versions only. However, it was unanimously agreed that because of the importance of The Beatles’ music, limiting would be used moderately, so as to retain the original dynamics of the recordings.
• The albums have been re-mastered by a dedicated team of engineers at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios in London over a four year period utilising state of the art recording technology alongside vintage studio equipment, carefully maintaining the authenticity and integrity of the original analogue recordings. The result of this painstaking process is the highest fidelity the catalogue has seen since its original release.
• With the exception of the Past Masters set, newly produced mini-documentaries on the making of each album, directed by Bob Smeaton, are included as QuickTime files on each album. The documentaries contain archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-heard studio chat from The Beatles, offering a unique and very personal insight into the studio atmosphere. (The bonus content on all original albums (ie not including Past Masters) is a mini-documentary which tells the story of the album using original footage from the Beatles’ own archive as well as other rare footage and the voice-over is entirely spoken by the Beatles themselves and George Martin.)