Album Reviews

"Why buy vinyl cut from a file when you can buy the file itself?". That's easy! If you've worked to get your analog front end to sound glorious, magical and the way you want your records to sound and it sounds better to you than your unyielding, unadjustable digital box, you might have the answer.

This doesn't make sense to digital devotees but then to most of them neither does playing records period ! This is not to suggest that the vinyl version of a file will always sound better but depending upon your analog and digital front ends, it most often might. Let's say the D/A converter in the recording studio is superior to the one you have at home, which depending upon what you've got at home, is quite possible. And let's say the lacquer cutting engineer has applied some equalization that he likes and thinks you will too. That's another reason it might sound better (or worse) than the file. You have to take this on a case by case basis.

In this case I think Miles Showell has done an excellent 1/2 speed cutting job and on my turntable in my system I prefer the vinyl to the file played back through a very good digital front end and that's all there is to that. I especially prefer the string sheen and the overall smoothness with detail minus the digital "glare".

In addition, the packaging is very well done and the second record is the complete album in "sessions", which is a very attractive way to present it. In other words it mirrors the album track order but gives you various incomplete elements with detailed annotation for each (this is also on the deluxe CD set that also gives you various takes of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane", not included here).

For instance "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" mixes elements contained on the four tracks of take 9, recorded in two sessions, the 1st and 2nd of February 1967 (so long ago). Drums and electric guitars on one track, Paul overdubbing bass on another. Paul's lead vocal and John's and George's harmonies were recorded during the next session and that's all you get here before the audience, sound effects and French horns were added to complete the song.

When you get to "She's Leaving Home", recorded March 17th, 1967, you'll know whether buying the vinyl was a good idea. The track is take one (of six tries, four of which were complete) of just the lovely string arrangement plus harp written by Mike Leander who got the assignment because George Martin simply lacked the time. Was George upset that he didn't get to write it? Yes he was. You can read the quote in the annotation.

The arrangement was for four violins, two violas, two cellos, double bass and harp with Paul adding his vocals on March 20th. The mono mix was accomplished that evening with the tape recorder sped up to produce a semi-tone pitch shift from E to F. The tape was not sped up for the stereo mix, produced April 17th and that's the speed of the version here that you can dare to sing along with.

When I compare the strings and harp on the vinyl version with the CD version (this is not available on the DVD's high resolution 96/24 file), no contest! But I find that's also true of the actual final song itself when I compared the 96/24 file and the vinyl. Your experience may be different but overall when I want to hear this excellent remix I'll break out the record, which is well-pressed and well-presented in the gatefold LP, which does not have a bar code (thank you)!