The Beatles' Remastered Red and Blue Albums

I’ve been spending time with my son and my mother, all three generations of us big Beatles fans. My son plays drums too and he gets my love for Ringo. I’ve been really enjoying the 2023 remasters of the Red and Blue albums. Most specifically the Red Album because I love the old school Beatles hits and rock n’ roll covers. The thing that is so exciting for me as a drummer is that Peter Jackson’s MAL technology really did something that wasn’t possible before, and you can really feel it in the drums mix.

As cool as that old school sound of hard panned drums can be, stereo centered drums is just better. The clarity of the kick drum is a dream come true- that era of recordings is so hard to really know and feel what the kick drum is doing, it is always so muddy. Not just with The Beatles, but the ‘60s era in general. In a lot of instances, the wash from cymbals and reverb was just overwhelming to the drum sound and it was more of a vibe than any kind of clear sense of what the hell was being played. Ticket to Ride, which is absolutely my all time favorite ‘old’ tune of theirs, is a great example if you listen to the OG mix vs the 2023 remix. Absolutely fantastic. The drums are a dream come true.

Anyway, if you are a Beatles fan like me and you haven’t seriously sat down and listened to those mixes, get on it.