Beatles Remasters! Finally.

Well, it was finally announced this morning, the new Beatles remastered catalog will hit stores on September 9th, the same day Beatles Rock Band is released. I am going to have an empty, sad wallet that day. :(

The best news for me is that they are releasing all the albums in stereo AND mono (where applicable). I really like the mono versions of the albums, in some cases they sound much different from their stereo counterparts. Some can't tell the difference, but when you've pretty much been breathing the Beatles for most of your life, you appreciate any minute difference here and there.

I saw in the press release that Pro Tools was mentioned, which is a digtal mastering tool (this is an extremely simple description). I am a member of the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, where Pro Tools is a dirty word (Steve Hoffman is a well respected remastering engineer). I would have cared about this a year ago, but now I don't. I loved the way the Love soundtrack sounded, which I believe used Pro Tools, so I am really looking forward to hearing the remasters. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that they are fixing edits and extraneous recording noise. This may seem like a small detail, but I think that the "mistakes" (as Sarah put it) lend character to the songs. Probably my favorite Beatles song of all, Strawberry Fields Forever, has a huge glaring edit in it, and I would be heartbroken if it was fixed, because I would never hear it the same way again. I guess this is a minor quibble, we will see what happens on September 9th.

I was planning on buying the limited edition Beatles Rock Band on September 9th. It is supposed to come with limited edition reproduction Beatles instruments, but I was really excited about the music, because I knew that the songs included in the game would most likely be the remastered versions. But now, with both the game and the remasters coming out on the same day, I don't know what to do. I would like to have the instruments, but the music matters more to me. I suppose I could buy both, but I'm estimating (conservatively) that both box sets and the game will cost at least 500 bucks. I'd better start saving my pennies now!