Beatles catalog to reach Apple's iTunes by Valentine's Day? - Page 2

Yes. Beatles stuff still sells very well, and the various repackagings sell great.

Moreover, there is the implied endorsement if Beatles material is sold exclusively on iTunes, even temporarily. Face it, there's weird Beatles mojo still at large in the culture. Like Elvis.

It would be cooler if they announced the partnership June 1
The day Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play 40 years ago today...

I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see an iPod ad set to a Beatles tune during the Super Bowl, which is Feb. 4 and less than two weeks before Valentine's Day. Particularly if Apple is going to launch a new iPod or even refresh the line with storage bumps or new colors.

That seems to make more sense than an iPhone ad during the Super Bowl for a product that won't debut until June (though the movie studios routinely feature summer movies during the Super Bowl to generate early buzz).

I don't really want to stop the show,
But I thought you might want to know

The singer's going to sing a song,
But you better not copy it wrong

So let me introduce to you,
the one and only legally downloadable Billy Shears!

Sergeant Pepper's
Digital Rights Managed Band!

Well the same could be said of SO many artists who are already on iTunes. Don't we have the CDS already? Everyone keeps buying them and the Beatles are the most illegially downloaded band ever.

Yeah, That went over really well when Nike used it.

- wiki

I hate to break it to you, but any music that was released on record is incredibly, incredibly compressed.

Records have next to zero dynamic range compared to CDs or MP3s.

Furthermore, any pop music is also incredibly compressed. The only music that's sometimes not compressed is orchestral music and sometimes opera.

"Somebody refresh my memory: I thought the Beatles catalogue had been sold several times, going at least through Michael Jackson? Was that something other than the reproduction rights of the original recordings themselves?"

The Beatles performances have always been owned by the record companies and the Beatles themselves. Michael Jackson (along with Sony) bought the publishing rights, which means if someone else wants to record or perform a Lennon/McCartney song, they have to pay royalties to them.

They have the original multi-track analog tapes in most cases - the quality will be awesome. You don't think they start from an LP do you?

p.s. And, having said that, CDs were mostly never close to the potential of LPs on good gear.

This is the "compelling evidence" cited by Electronista (from Abby Road Beat):

"(1/13/07) There's unofficial and completely unsubstantiated talk that an announcement between Apple and Apple Computer Inc. will be made on, or around Valentine's Day, if all goes according to plan from the rumor we've heard. The announcement will involve "Love," as well. Our source says Apple will have a three month exclusive window for both downloads and remasters. The street release schedule for the remasters was not clear. Conflicting information from our source said that they might be released both all together or in groups, as was done when the first Beatles CDs were released. A compilation is also being discussed, but no firm details are available, the source says."

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/113releaserumors.html

I think Steve's keynote showing Beatles in iTunes is higher on the scale of 'proof' than this stuff...

You mean had the rights to show it in their presentation?


I think maybe JLL meant dynamic range compression, which is different from encoding compression.

But the Beatles music you've always heard has always been incredibly compressed. If they were to play the uncompressed recordings, it would sound (a) like shit and (b) not like the Beatles.

Uncompressed versus compressed audio is like ordering fish at a restaurant and getting sashimi. It's just a different taste, but it's NOT what Beatles fans would be expecting or would want.

In the case of pop music, a better analogy would be like chicken. Unlike fish or beef, raw chicken is dangerously unhealthy, and tastes terrible.

Uncompressed pop is probably one of the least appealing listening experiences you can have.


On good equipment (ie, modern DJ equipment that didn't exist 20, let alone 40 years ago), and a perfect, new record that hasn't been subjected to: time, heat, or ever being played, records peak out at around 70 decibels of dynamic range. Practically, records will never come anywhere near this.

The typical audio CD's range is over 100 decibels.

In other words, a run of the mill CD has a range of over 1,000 times that of the perfect, impossible to achieve record. (Remember, decibels are logarithmic.)

Vinyl is an appallingly bad music distribution medium. Don't make shit up.

Thanks, I thought it was something like that.

Hey, I just thought of something: what if part of the Beatles deal is higher bitrate downloads? It would make sense-- Apple Corps wanting to present the material in the best possible light (especially if they are remastering them), Apple using the occasion to start to move towards better audio encodes to go with the higher resolution video and AppleTV.

"Introducing the Beatles on iTunes: in high resolution sound that's only somewhat worse the the CDs you already bought!"

I'm no expert on analog tape recording, but wasn't ~80dB about the best that was around at the time of the Beatles original recordings? Inotherwords, the best that a remastered audio tape to digital recording will ever be is only as good as the original (i. e. 80dB)? Just curious.

Sir, your language is not appropriate in this forum.

It is a far more complex issue that your somewhat arrogant and certainly rude post suggests...
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=375592

Right. Digital data can be way better than the original CD standard, and has a dynamic range exceeding the limits of human hearing. Every bit you add to the bit depth adds an extra 6 dB of range.

The original CD specification, what we're talking about, still, and always has had, over 100 dB of range, which is still 1,000 times than vinyl. The fact that other advances have made records sound even worse is irrelevant.

About Philips' issues, originally they wanted 14-bit sampling (versus the 16-bit sampling that ended up being in the final standard, at Sony's insistence). This would have resulted in a product with only around 90 dB of dynamic range, or 100 times better than vinyl.

Sony won though; the CD, even back in 1982, always featured the full 16-bit sampling it does today.

No what we are talking about, or I am, was to disagree with you that the Beatle's original recordings will not be able to sound great in the modern digital era due to compression or whatever limitations were around in the 60's.

My premise is by going back to the original master tapes (obviously not the very early stuff) and using modern technology they will be able to create amazing sounds. Let us wait and see shall we?

Since you changed your post, I guess I'll respond to that too

"paul_b_18-ga" has one of the most oft-repeated misunderstandings about digital versus analog sound, that digital sampling throws out information that records perfectly preserve. This is untrue.

While the process of sampling does throw out information, so does the process of putting something into plastic. Grooves can only go so deep before the needle gets stuck and breaks. Only so much information can be packed in before the valleys and troughs become smaller than vinyl molecules. Dust, broken pieces of vinyl, warping, and pressing errors introduce "noise" that often overpowers the signal.

This is why vinyl is so bad. Sounds quieter than, say, 50 dB below peak, just can't be heard because they're overwhelmed by noise. To compensate, you have to significantly compress the audio (increase the loudness of the quieter noises) so that these will be heard and not fade out entirely. Also bad for vinyl, if you're playing a record at around 100 dB, you have at least 30 dB of constant noise and hiss, more on cheaper equipment or an older record.

Again, CDs aren't perfect and do have problems, but again, these imperfections aren't noticeable until you crank the CD up painfully loud to begin with, and are likely to be smaller than the imperfections in your sound system. As I stated before, CDs faithfully record over 100 dB of dynamic range.

The only other benefit of vinyl in that thread, by rayljr-ga, is that records can theoretically hold information above 22,500 hertz, whereas CDs clamp them here. While these frequencies, individually, are inaudible to humans, recent research seems to imply that we can hear the effect they have with other, lower frequencies when played simultaneously.

Of course, as rayljr points out, you need a really expensive needle and system to pick these up, but also a record that hasn't been played more than a few times before, since needles will eat away at this information after a few plays.

The only genuine solution to hear these is to go with SACD or DVD-Audio.

Well then why didn't you just say that instead of going into some nonsense about how vinyl doesn't completely suck?

That was a p.s. and slightly tongue in cheek in a way but ... I am one of those that used to be able to (too old now) to hear the difference between a CD and an LP of the same recording on studio quality equipment in the early days.

Like I said earlier, I am NOT an audio engineer, and I am not aware of what specific techniques they may use to clean up the original analog recordings that have less dynamic range than what digital recording offers today. Do you, if so, I'm here to learn, or if you have some links, I can read up on their methods myself, TIA.

OK, so while I'm not an audio engineer, I am a coastal engineer, and in that capacity I am quite familiar with data analysis, FFT methods, white noise, and S/N ratios of wave and motion capture data sets. I've been doing this type of work, the nuts and bolts if you will, for about 20 years. I am also familiar with digital filtering techniques, mostly the sine butterworth, but in general FIR and IIR digital filtering methods. This has over the years involved a lot of FORTRAN coding.

Now, my basic question is this; How does one go about removing broadband white noise (i. e. tape hiss) which exists throughout the frequency range containing the the signal of interest (i. e. the music)? Or more simply how does one restore information, that by it's nature is already lost through the initial analog recording process? Just curious, like I said I'm currently looking at some vexing MoCap data sets with low S/N ratios and I am looking for new techniques to remove the noise floor, TIA.

Anything on CD is technically compressed, but compared to albums that come out today, the dynamic range of songs from the Beatles albums are far more diverse. Just listen to the soft songs compared to the loud songs on The White Album (ie Back in the USSR compared to Dear Prudence).

Most mainstream pop and rock albums today just go after one continious level to not challenge and confuse the listeners and assault the listener to get instant notice. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.

Would these be super- and sub-harmonics (I take it that these would be sub-harmonics?)? These are quite well known to occur in wave records, particularly narrow banded spectra, just curious.

I assume so.

I haven't seen the research first hand, so it may be audiophile nonsense. ("Yes, I can hear that magical, impossible to hear frequency.")

But audiophiles tend to bring it up a lot, and it makes sense, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt here

Hey, I always hated spinach and got laughed at, now scientists admit to the 'Super Taster' phenomenon, those who can taste compounds others can't. Maybe super hearers exist too. 8)

I certainly seem to be able to hear bum notes on American Idol the judges can't!

Whatever, I for one look forwards to hearing what, hopefully, is coming soon to iTunes.

Since tapes can only hold up to 80 dB of dynamic range, audio traditionally has been PRE-compressed before ever being placed to tape. So actually, it's not a matter of having quiet signals lost on the tape (which would sound terrible), or dealing with noise, it's just a matter of "uncompressing" the data. (Of course, this isn't always possible.)

That said, I have never heard of this being done.

The thing is, we actually LIKE a certain degree of compression. It adds a really nice layer of warmth to the sound. While uncompressed audio appeals to some audiophiles, and is ideal for certain types of music (specifically orchestral and opera), it wouldn't sound good, at all, for pop.

Keep in mind that with music, perfect reproduction isn't always desirable. The Beatles have a very distinct sound, that is influenced by the microphones, recording equipment, and processing used. This includes compression. Without this, the Beatles really wouldn't be the Beatles.

Haha, I'm a super taster too, but I like spinach

I've avoided it lately though...

You know, trying to type and watch TV is a bad idea ... I love spinach too, I meant Brussels sprouts ... sorry.

Back on topic, I think Apple+Apple would be perfect for Valentine's Day. I can just imagine the ad now: the two Apple logos dancing, swooping, swirling around each other on the screen against a featureless, white background while "All you need is love..." plays in the background.

Badfinger was on Apple Corps.

James Taylor at the beginning of his career, if I remember correctly.

People seem to get this mixed up, and it is a bit confusing. A record or CD actually has two sets of rights assigned to it, mechanical and publishing. A mechanical license covers the actual duplication of the original recordings (pirated CDs on sale for example), and the use of the original recordings in other media (as a jingle for example). This excludes the rights to covers of the original song, see below.

The publishing rights trace back to the days of sheet music, and still include that. But most publishing revenue is derived from the publishing groups such as ASCAP, BMI, and others. These groups collect fees from radio stations, restaurants, stores, etc. There are also other forms of publishing revenue, including the royalties of any cover versions (think Beatles now). So even though most people's first inclination is to think the mechanical royalties would be more valuable, publishing is actually where the big money is. (Ask John Fogerty)

Now what Michael Jackson bought, or more precisely out-bid Paul on, were the publishing rights. The original Beatles owned the masters and mechanicals rights, but if memory serves, did not own all the publishing. In fact I believe this led to the end if the Paul/Michael friendship, thankfully saving the world from any further live performances of 'Ebony and Ivory'. Not long after the sale, Nike came out with a commercial featuring the original Beatle's recording of 'Revolution.' The Beatles quickly sued, and won because Michael didn't have those rights.

I hope this explains it all a bit, and since its been awhile since music business class, i ask for people to offer corrections. this whole thing is confusing, and that is why so many musicians have gotten screwed by it.

I'm not talking about LPs



The problem is (and I can give you tons of examples) that rereleases today often are very compressed when compared to the original release and the rerelease sounds like sh*t.