BEATLES - PAST MASTERS (2LP) VINYL

For years the most anticipated vinyl reissues have been from the one, the only Beatles catalog. Finally, after a delay due to the meticulousness of the remastering process and assorted other hurdles, that day has come. The Beatles catalog is getting the audiophile treatment! 180-gram vinyl pressings cut at Abbey Road Studios using the non-limited 24-bit digital masters sourced from the original master tapes!

These titles update the Beatles classic albums, which have continued to sell strongly and attract new generations of fans long after the quartet disbanded in 1970. For this reissue, individual titles were sourced from the original master tapes. Then each title was copied into 24-bit/44.1 kHz files and cut to lacquer at Abbey Road Studios. It was a painstaking process with maximum attention paid to every detail.

The Beatles were so prolific during their decade-long reign, full-length albums couldn't contain all their music. In England, the Fab Four often released singles that never appeared on their British albums. Some of the quartet's best-known material saw the light of day on EPs and 45s. We're talking internationally recognized songs ranging from "I'm Down" to "Across the Universe." These non-LP tracks are wondrously and seamlessly assembled on Past Masters. Once two separate releases, the anthologies are combined here on a double album for the enjoyment of fans everywhere.

For its Beatles' Stereo Albums series on LP, Capitol/Apple turned to a crack team of engineers to remaster the entire studio catalog from the original sources. The team, including Guy Massey, Steve Rooke and Sam Okell with Paul Hicks and Sean Magee undertook a four-year restoration process for the LP versions, combining state-of-the-art equipment, vintage studio gear and rigorous testing to meet the highest fidelity standards and produce authentic unsurpassed sound rivaling the original LPs. There is no longer any need to pay hundreds of dollars for Japanese pressings!

Savor the rising harmonies on early classics such as "She Loves You" and "From Me To You," and witness the edginess and palpable electricity flowing through raw, rock n' roll numbers "Long Tall Sally" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand." The second half of the collection, beginning in 1965, spotlights equally influential, timeless singles like the grandly distorted "Revolution" and poignant "Across the Universe." Listening to the set in order also functions as a microcosm of the band's evolution in the studio as, for the first time in analog, distinctions pertaining to equipment, recording techniques, and studio ambience can now fully be detected.

Extensive testing was done before engineers copied the analog master tapes into digital files using 24-bit/192 kHz resolution and a Prism A-D converter. Dust build-ups were removed from tape machine heads after the completion of each title. Artifacts such as electrical clicks, microphone vocal pops, excessive sibilance and poor edits were improved upon as long as they were judged not to damage the integrity of the songs. The 24/192 transfers were done to produce an archival copy of the tapes and then those files were reduced to 24/44.1 kHz files for final mastering. De-noising technology was applied in only a few necessary spots and on a sum total of less than five of the entire 525 minutes of Beatles music.