Beatles’ entire original recorded catalogue gets re-mastered

Music News

By Patrick Luce Apr 7, 2009, 13:56 GMT

Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music have announced plans to release the original Beatles catalogue (which has been digitally re-mastered for the first time) on Wednesday Sept. 9th. The release will tie into the wide release of "The Beatles: Rock Band" video game.

Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music continue to bring The Beatles to the digital age with the re-mastered release of the original Beatles catalogue. © Apple Corps Ltd, 2009The new CDs will come with replicated original UK album art, expanded booklets containing original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited time, the CDs will also feature an embedded documentary about the album. There are also plans for two new Beatles boxed CD collections to hit stores the same day.The albums’ re-mastering process was handled by a team of engineers at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London, and took more than four years to finish. To bring the albums to new life engineers used state of the art recording technology alongside vintage studio equipment. The goal was to release the albums with the highest fidelity the catalogue has seen since its original release.The re-mastered collection features all 12 Beatles albums in stereo, with track listings and artwork as originally released in the UK, and 'Magical Mystery Tour,' which became part of The Beatles' core catalogue when the CDs were first released in 1987. The collections 'Past Masters Vol. I and II' are being released as one title. The release also marks the first time that the first four Beatles albums will be available in stereo in their entirety on compact disc. All 14 albums and a DVD collection of the documentaries will also be available for purchase together in a stereo boxed set. A second boxed set, 'The Beatles in Mono,' will be released with the Beatles’ collector in mind. It features all of the Beatles recordings mixed for a mono release, and contains 10 of the albums with their original mono mixes, plus two further discs of mono masters (covering similar ground to the stereo tracks on 'Past Masters'). As an added bonus, the mono "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" discs also include the original 1965 stereo mixes, which have not been previously released on CD. Discussions regarding the digital distribution of the catalogue will continue. There is no further information available at this time.