Some of the process in the four year project at Abbey Road Studios to digitally remaster the Beatles catalog and get the Beatles remastered CDs and "The Beatles: Rock Band" released was outlined in a press release issued this week by Prism Sound.
The project, which involved 13 albums of music, took four years and many hours of work by Abbey Road's engineering team. The work was led by project coordinator Allan Rouse and included 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).
The first part of the process, which was undertaken by Guy Massey and Paul Hicks, involved transferring each song from analog tape to the digital domain. Prism Sound's ADA-8XR multi-channel modular ADA converters were used to transfer the material into Pro Tools and the songs were then formatted into 24 bit/192kHz and video referenced.
Simon Gibson, using a SADiE 5 system with built-in Cedar Retouch, then began the careful process of restoring the audio without compromising the character of the original recordings. De-noising technology was used subtly and sparingly to remove noises such as audible clicks and pops from mics and faders, but performance-based imperfections, such as breaths and coughs, was retained, the company's information said.
"The integration of Cedar Retouch into SADiE 5 has literally changed the way I work by making the whole restoration process much quicker, easier and more precise," Gibson says. "The visual element provided by SADiE was essential on this project because I was able to zoom in and actually see what was happening to the audio. By changing the zoom I could look at the mid and low range frequencies and see how to get the best out of them. Each song on each album had its own issues, but with SADiE 5 and Cedar Retouch I could easily identify problems such as tape drop outs because the broad upper frequency shading was interrupted by a thin strip, which indicated where the audio needed gating."
While Gibson was restoring the album tracks, he also used a SADiE5 and Cedar Retouch system to help Giles Martin and Paul Hicks create the audio for "The Beatles: Rock Band" video game.
"In order to use the original songs within the game we had to isolate individual instruments and voices so that players can have individual control. Given that many of the Beatles earlier recordings were done on two or four track tape, this was quite a tall order. However, with SADie 5 and Cedar Retouch, I was able to pick them apart note by note and effectively rub out the frequencies we didn't want. It was incredibly labour intensive and took ages to do, but the results were worth it because the majority of The Beatles catalogue can now be used in the game."
Throughout the entire restoration and remastering process, care was taken to maintain the authenticity and integrity of the original analog recordings. The team deliberated every change at every step of the way to ensure that the audio remained as pure as possible.
"We didn't want to have a negative effect on the resulting audio," Gibson says. "Instead, we wanted to end up with audio that was as close as possible to the original, recorded studio sound. In terms of audio restoration this meant taking a subtle, almost forensic approach to the job. I was fortunate to have both the time and budget to do this."
Following restoration, all 13 albums were mastered by Steve Rooke and Sean Magee, who handled the stereo and mono recordings respectively. A SADiE Series 5 PCM 8 DAW were used in the mastering process and Prism Sound converters were used to transfer the audio back into the analogue domain and for noise shaping. Most of the EQ-ing was done on Abbey Road's 1972 EMI TG mastering console, but a Prism Sound MEA2 was also used for additional EQ where finer steps or specific target frequencies were required.
The 13 remastered albums were released through EMI Music and Apple Corps Ltd. on Sept. 9. Graham Boswell, sales and marketing director for Prism Sound, called it "an extradinary honor" that the company's equipment was involved in the process.
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