The Beatles - With The Beatles (Remastered)
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Free Music Notes for With The Beatles (Remastered)
Free Music Review: The mono mix is still superior
Hit: 3 Stars
If you enjoy the stereo effect of "music on the left, vocals on the right"...then this is right up your alley...
As was true with the first album ...This recording lacks the drive The Beatles were known for.
I did what many of you did back on Sept 9th....purchased the entire STEREO catalogue of remasters...and then proceeded to listen to them....only to be very disappointed with many of the stereo mixes
My solution was to go ahead and purchase the MONO REMASTER BOX....it contains the first 10 Beatle albums (up thru the WHITE ALBUM) in true MONAURAL sound...They sound the way The Beatles intended you to hear them...and they capture all the energy and definition of a real Beatle performance.
The benefit of having the STEREO REMASTERS....the enclosed booklet and outer jacket are easily worth the $12....
They should have included BOTH stereo and mono mixes in the remaster package..sort of how they did with the CAPITOL ALBUM BOX SETS
Free Music Review: Sonically it falls short
Hit: 3 Stars
I did an experiment. I have 'The Capitol Albums Vol 1.' boxset released in 2004. The first 4 U.S. releases are in there, remastered, with stereo and mono cuts. I made CDs with all three cuts, the Capitols from 2004 and the 2009 Remasters. You can recreate 'With The Beatles' by adding cuts from 'Meet The Beatles' and 'The Beatles Second Album'. I then listened to the cuts one after the other, choosing from each group of 3 the best to my ears. Out of the 14 cuts that make up the 2009 Remastered 'With the Beatles', only 2 were superior, 'Till There Was You', and 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. 'Till There Was You' sounds better I think because it's a ballad with acoustic guitar prominent. I also found the 2009 Remasters worked better with ballads on the 'Please Please Me' 2009 Remaster. It seems that the rocking songs sounded better on the 2004 Capitol Boxset, with an almost even split between stereo and mono versions. Of course they're all superior to the dreadful 1987 releases.Free Music Review: 5 star for album, but vocals only in right speaker
Hit: 3 Stars
This is a fantastic album, 5 stars like every other Beatles album-- I don't think I have to tell you that.
But I just want to reiterate what others are saying about the 2009 stereo remastered mix... it's just plain awful to listen to, IMO, simply for the fact that all the vocals are in the right speaker. This problem also exists on the Please Please Me album. Outside of those two CDs, as well as some of the tracks from this period on the Past Masters 1 collection, all the new stereo releases are phenomenal and indispensable (well, I also think Sgt. Pepper is better in mono, but that's even an more subjective opinion).
Anyway, they did a tremendous job with the re-mastering, but "buyer beware" before you purchase With the Beatles or Please Please Me. Hopefully they will re-issue the mono versions of at least those two albums separately in the future.
Free Music Review: "With The Beatles" remastered CD.
Hit: 3 Stars
This wasn't the best time period for The Beatles, as songwriters, but it did give them the exposure that they needed, as well as, the beginning of what was later to become, they're signature sound, as a band. After that, the rest was history.Free Music Review: Yuk. Keep your original 1987 CD ... Or Mix to Mono !!!
Hit: 1 Stars
If you don't like your main vocals to only come out of one speaker (Right), avoid this.
It's really a shame you have to fork out $250 to get the first four CD's in mono.
(Of course you get more, but those are the only ones you really need .. maybe Mono Masters too.)
Back when they released the original CD's, the first four were Mono, then all the rest in Stereo,
with good mixes as far as my ear could tell. The Past Masters also contained Mono mixes for some
of the songs.
I've been ripping these new 2009 CD's to the computer, and comparing back & forth.
So far I've noticed a big improvement, except here. I literally hate this one.
So my new plan is to keep the first four + Past Masters, and upgrade the rest.
Hopefully in the future, they'll make those first four available in Mono by themselves.
Update 9-13-09
I have tried the Mix to Mono suggestion a few other reviewers have mentioned. On a Mac I used
Quicktime Pro to export each track to Mono. On a Windows machine, you could use a free program
such as Audacity. (It only takes about 5 seconds for each track.) I have to say that this is
a great idea. I realize we all have different tastes, and so each of us may prefer these albums
the way we remember them. So if you can't afford the Mono set (I fit this category for sure),
then this is the best alternative. I still hope EMI will make the Mono Masters available
individually, so until then this will have to do.