JaneSmith
Historian And Yes I'm A Dreamer
I am also so excited, I cried with the news and now I look forward to everything that is coming I wait for it like nothing else
The Beatles Anthology 30th Anniversary (Audio: Nov. 21st & Doc: Nov. 26th)
- Thread starter DukeViking
- Start date
JoBeatles
Active member
It's amazing how those boys can still bring us to tears. And it's amazing that we are united in our love for them!I am also so excited, I cried with the news and now I look forward to everything that is coming I wait for it like nothing else
JaneSmith
Historian And Yes I'm A Dreamer
Oh yes, it's wonderful all the connection we have thanks to them, and without a doubt today and forever they will have us very excited with everything they do, they will always have that unique something that makes us feel like nothing else
DukeViking
Test Engineer//Musician//former 2Legs & founder
greenovation
Well-known member
Finally, something we haven't heard already. This is what it takes to get one in the mood for the new release.
DukeViking
Test Engineer//Musician//former 2Legs & founder
Real Love 2025 makes a remix statement; good, bad or indifferent. But I personally enjoy it.
NowhereMan
Member
I pre-ordered the CD box set with the limited set of photos sometime ago, I don't know when it will arrive but I'm waiting for it. Anthology 3 is one of my favorite Beatles-related pieces, the entire Get Back Sessions era is full of rough diamonds in the form of music that was never formally recorded to be released on an album, so many covers, reworks of old songs and unreleased songs from that era that there are enough for two more albums, and the content that Anthology 3 brings, despite falling short in some aspects, satisfies a large part of my admiration for that particular era in Beatles history.
Although I would have liked Anthology 4 to be all new stuff pulled from the vault, including Carnival of Light, the 16th day take of I've Got A Feeling featuring Lennon in a raspy voice, or the version of that same song sung entirely by Lennon. The improvised cover of She Said She Said, the faster, rockier version of Across The Universe, Watching Rainbows, In The Palace of The King of The Birds (of which there is a known worked version that was used in the credits of Get Back episode 2), and many more songs that could have been included. I'm satisfied with what they gave us and I hope they release a Get Back Sessions box set or a Magical Mystery Tour box set with Carnival of Light someday.
And the new mix of Free As A Bird is incredible, it gave me chills to listen to it, very good, although personally I would have liked Lennon's voice to have double tracked, it was something very typical of him to use that effect and I feel that it would have been great to counteract the fragility of his voice, even so, that fragile tone in the mix they released gives it that melancholic and final touch that the song had in its previous mix, so incredible and I'm really looking forward to the new mix of Real Love, considering how good the Free As A Bird mix was.
Although I would have liked Anthology 4 to be all new stuff pulled from the vault, including Carnival of Light, the 16th day take of I've Got A Feeling featuring Lennon in a raspy voice, or the version of that same song sung entirely by Lennon. The improvised cover of She Said She Said, the faster, rockier version of Across The Universe, Watching Rainbows, In The Palace of The King of The Birds (of which there is a known worked version that was used in the credits of Get Back episode 2), and many more songs that could have been included. I'm satisfied with what they gave us and I hope they release a Get Back Sessions box set or a Magical Mystery Tour box set with Carnival of Light someday.
And the new mix of Free As A Bird is incredible, it gave me chills to listen to it, very good, although personally I would have liked Lennon's voice to have double tracked, it was something very typical of him to use that effect and I feel that it would have been great to counteract the fragility of his voice, even so, that fragile tone in the mix they released gives it that melancholic and final touch that the song had in its previous mix, so incredible and I'm really looking forward to the new mix of Real Love, considering how good the Free As A Bird mix was.
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greenovation
Well-known member
I am anxious to hear it. I have high hopes
greenovation
Well-known member
OK... so now I've heard it. It sounds beautiful. Honestly, though, I still think Now And Then is the best of the 3. But very worthy upgrades to 2 songs that desperately needed it.
In today's world, we get remixes of Beatles, John Lennon and many many others that aren't really needed.Some are nice, but they aren't needed. Free As A Bird and Real Love really needed it, and I'm appreciative.
nobodytoldme
Active member
Alright, here we go... 'Real Love' 2025 remix.
Let's not even get into the fact they have an extremely rare and precious moment in music history on tape: George Harrison playing guitar on a John Lennon composition for The Beatles in the 90s, and then ditching it from the verses. Let's just talk about amateurish they made the vocals sound.
The issue is the way they treat demixed audio. Abbey Road Studios have only started using proper source-separation tools on the last couple of projects, even though truly usable vocal–piano separation has existed since for about a decade already. Until recently, they were still proudly stating in press releases things like: “we played the mono orchestra back into a room, recorded it with two mics, and now it’s stereo.”
To be fair, they did make an effort: in the ’90s they used a double-tracked demo from a high-generation cassette dub, one piano-and-vocal track, with an extra vocal and tambourine overdubbed on top. This time they dug out the pre-overdub take (though as said it isn’t fully the same one used here, one verse differs slightly) to get a big advantage in audio quality. But they still have no idea what to do with it after extraction.
Because what they still don’t seem to grasp is that isolating elements is supposed to give you more freedom in the final mix, not be the end goal. Their mindset appears to be: “we’ve isolated it, it’s now clean, job done,” so they leave the track bone-dry and untouched. But the whole point of having a fully isolated element is that you can now treat it like any other clean studio track. You should EQ-match it to a proper 70's Lennon studio vocal, adjust the dynamics so it sits with the ’90s McCartney and Harrison vocals, and add the same room tone or reverb so it blends as if all three recorded together in the same studio. Instead, the Lennon vocal just sounds pasted on top. The irony is that the crude ’90s method of simply fading Lennon's cassette demo in and out created more mix cohesion and Beatles magic than this supposedly state-of-the-art demix-remix.
Free As A Bird suffers from the exact same problem. And though I'm still on a crusade, begging on my knees, in hopes that the future Lennon solo projects will remain clear of Auto-Tune to the point of artifacts warbles like on some 'Mind Games' outtakes, the One To One concerts and the Walls & Bridges teasers like broadcast on SIRIUS a year ago... the pitch correction tools are actually made for a project with this nature. Hearing it so dry only emphasises that Lennon was singing to a home piano that wasn’t perfectly in tune. If you don’t correct that at points (without altering the modulation), his voice will always sound slightly off against modern, perfectly-tuned instrumentation and harmonies, like it does so badly on 'Free As A Bird' now.
And for both songs, the vocals are noticeably out of sync in places. The lack of quality doesn't surprise me any more, but it does make me sad in a way.
Let's not even get into the fact they have an extremely rare and precious moment in music history on tape: George Harrison playing guitar on a John Lennon composition for The Beatles in the 90s, and then ditching it from the verses. Let's just talk about amateurish they made the vocals sound.
The issue is the way they treat demixed audio. Abbey Road Studios have only started using proper source-separation tools on the last couple of projects, even though truly usable vocal–piano separation has existed since for about a decade already. Until recently, they were still proudly stating in press releases things like: “we played the mono orchestra back into a room, recorded it with two mics, and now it’s stereo.”
To be fair, they did make an effort: in the ’90s they used a double-tracked demo from a high-generation cassette dub, one piano-and-vocal track, with an extra vocal and tambourine overdubbed on top. This time they dug out the pre-overdub take (though as said it isn’t fully the same one used here, one verse differs slightly) to get a big advantage in audio quality. But they still have no idea what to do with it after extraction.
Because what they still don’t seem to grasp is that isolating elements is supposed to give you more freedom in the final mix, not be the end goal. Their mindset appears to be: “we’ve isolated it, it’s now clean, job done,” so they leave the track bone-dry and untouched. But the whole point of having a fully isolated element is that you can now treat it like any other clean studio track. You should EQ-match it to a proper 70's Lennon studio vocal, adjust the dynamics so it sits with the ’90s McCartney and Harrison vocals, and add the same room tone or reverb so it blends as if all three recorded together in the same studio. Instead, the Lennon vocal just sounds pasted on top. The irony is that the crude ’90s method of simply fading Lennon's cassette demo in and out created more mix cohesion and Beatles magic than this supposedly state-of-the-art demix-remix.
Free As A Bird suffers from the exact same problem. And though I'm still on a crusade, begging on my knees, in hopes that the future Lennon solo projects will remain clear of Auto-Tune to the point of artifacts warbles like on some 'Mind Games' outtakes, the One To One concerts and the Walls & Bridges teasers like broadcast on SIRIUS a year ago... the pitch correction tools are actually made for a project with this nature. Hearing it so dry only emphasises that Lennon was singing to a home piano that wasn’t perfectly in tune. If you don’t correct that at points (without altering the modulation), his voice will always sound slightly off against modern, perfectly-tuned instrumentation and harmonies, like it does so badly on 'Free As A Bird' now.
And for both songs, the vocals are noticeably out of sync in places. The lack of quality doesn't surprise me any more, but it does make me sad in a way.
nobodytoldme
Active member
All in all there's very little new to revisit for multiple listens, but take 1 of 'In My Life' alone is worth the price of admission.
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