Abbey Road celebrates the launch of The Beatles remastered catalogue
Following a four-year project by a dedicated team of Abbey Road engineers, the entire original Beatles catalogue, digitally remastered for the very first time, was released on 9th September.
Coordinated by Allan Rouse, the Abbey Road team consisted of Guy Massey (Senior Recording Engineer), Steve Rooke (Senior Mastering Engineer), Paul Hicks (Recording Engineer), Sean Magee (Mastering Engineer), Sam Okell (Recording Engineer) and Simon Gibson (Audio Restoration Engineer). Using a combination of Abbey Road's state-of-the-art recording technology and unique vintage equipment, the team have remastered the catalogue to the highest fidelity seen since its original release, while taking great care to maintain the authenticity and integrity of the original analogue recordings.
The remastering process commenced with an extensive period auditioning Abbey Road's collection of tape machines, from various eras, to determine which would provide the highest quality transfer of the master tapes into the digital medium.
De-noising technology associated with remastering was also used, but subtly and sparingly. Eventually, less than five of the 525 minutes of Beatles music was subjected to this process. Some overall limiting was applied, but on the stereo versions only. It was unanimously agreed that because of the importance of The Beatles' music, limiting would only be used moderately 'to increase the volume level of the CD to relative parity with that of modern music, but retaining the original dynamics of the recordings.
Once all of the albums had been transferred, considerable thought was given to the audio restorative process. To preserve the character of the original recordings, it was decided that any performance-based imperfections, such as breaths and coughs, should be retained. Other faults and noises from the original masters, such as microphone pops or tape dropouts, were addressed on both the mono and stereo versions of the albums.
Following restoration, the mastering process could begin on all 13 albums. Comparisons were made with the original master tapes at every stage and, once an album had been mastered, it was auditioned in Abbey Road's Studio Three 'where all other recent Beatles mixing projects had taken place. Each album was subject to a rigorous approval process, with further EQ alterations performed until the satisfaction of the entire team had been gained.
Simon said of the restoration, 'care was always taken to make sure that whatever we did had no negative effect on the resulting audio - the aim is always to end up with audio that is as close as possible to the original, recorded studio sound.'
The remasters were released on 9th September through EMI Music and Apple Corps.
