Beatles "Let It Be" (5.1 surround & Dolby Atmos mixes out in October!)

[sjcorne]

I thought it'd be interesting to compare the new 5.1 mix of "Let It Be" with the prior multichannel version from the 1/1+ Blu-Ray set. It's hard to believe these were mixed by the same team!

The new mix has Paul's lead vocal and the guitar solo isolated in the center speaker (with some support in the front channels as well), whereas the older mix barely uses it at all. I tried soloing the center and it sounds like a low-level mono summation of the front channels, like on those old Miller Nevada DTS-CD's that used transfers of '70s quad mixes.

On the 2021 remix, the rear speakers are deployed for isolated choir, brass, keyboard, and organ. If you mute the rears, all of those elements disappear. There's a particularly cool moment at 1:45 where the keyboard in the left rear channel is answered by the church organ in the right rear channel. The 1/1+ mix also features isolated choir and brass in the rears, but both elements can be heard at slightly lower level in the front channels.

"Let It Be" (2015 1/1+ 5.1):

"Let It Be" (2021 Let It Be 5.1):

As with Abbey Road, one of the coolest aspects of the new 5.1 mix for me is being able to hear Billy Preston's contributions isolated in the rear speakers. The electric piano part throughout "Get Back" in particular really stands out in a way I hadn't noticed before. Great work by Giles & Sam!

 

[Quadwreck]

Well I think “Two of Us” is a great quintessential Beatles song and has always been one of my favorites on the album.

And is Doris a horse, or just some lucky randy bird?

Doris Day, as referenced in "Dig It".

 

[Guy Robinson]

Cracked open this astounding box set an hour ago and am listening to LET IN BE in 5.1. And to my ears .... A TOTAL TRIUMPH!

And Markie, you're not alone in luvin' the 5.1 remix. Here's blu~ray.com's review of the box set [they MUCH preferred the 5.1 over the ATMOS remix]:

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Beatles-Let-It-Be-Blu-ray/299283/#Review

Thanks for the link to the review. Their bias seems to be mainly volume related. I actually took the 5.1 and using Audacity expanded it out to 7.1. It sounds even better than the 5.1 to me and the best of all the mixes.

 

[ar surround]

Thanks for the link to the review. Their bias seems to be mainly volume related. I actually took the 5.1 and using Audacity expanded it out to 7.1. It sounds even better than the 5.1 to me and the best of all the mixes.

Nice! So what did you do to expand it to 7.1 in Audacity? Any trickery other than duplicating the surrounds?

 

[Guy Robinson]

Nice! So what did you do to expand it to 7.1 in Audacity? Any trickery other than duplicating the surrounds?

Just duplicated the 2 rear channels into the back channels. Imported it as a 24 bit 8 channel wav file. A wav because my receiver does not recognize 8 channel 24 bit flac files.

 

[marcb]

Oh boy, a little complicated, thank you.

It’s not that complicated. Simply put, the finished songs from the Let It Be sessions ended up on Let It Be. The unfinished songs from those sessions which were finished a little later during the Abbey Road sessions ended up on Abbey Road.

 

[stormchaser]

I'll just echo previous comments that this is a triumph. While I have always, and WILL always find this to be a flawed album, this version sounds amazingly intimate and has startling clarity at times. I have only listened to the ATMOS mix so far and find it wonderfully immersive but not at all gimmicky.

 

[stereoptic]

LIB was indeed released after Abbey Road. But the Abbey Road sessions were done sometime after the the LIB project. George Martin produced Abbey Road. He was not involved in LIB. It was produced by Phil Spector. There are some tracks that were rehearsed during the LIB sessions that showed up on Abbey Road.

Good info, except that George Martin was involved with some of the recording process at Apple and the rooftop performance. More than I realized! It is documented in the book included with the boxset.

 

[citysoundman]

I've been listening to the 5.1 release, and overall really love it! Honestly I never gave this album much of a listen before from beginning to end. The surround mix is fun to listen to, with nice separation in the rears that let you hear Billy's piano and provide a nice spread for the guitars. The album really starts with a bang - the mix on Two Of Us is spectacular! Ringo's kick drum just punches right through and the vocals and guitars sound warm and just beautiful. Then Dig A Pony also sounds amazing. Across The Universe is a beautiful song but I've never liked whatever treatment they put on John and his guitar, it just sounds phasey and cold. If you've heard the alternate take, last track on CD6 on the 2018 White album release you can hear John in all his natural beauty and it is awesome!

They did a very nice job also on the scrap book graphics that slowly unfurl, a nice touch.

 

[ngv99]

If it was possible, a 5.1 mix of You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) could've been fun.

 

[rusinurbe]

If it was possible, a 5.1 mix of You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) could've been fun.

Revolution #9 was nice I see no reason why YKMN would not

 

[ar surround]

If it was possible, a 5.1 mix of You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) could've been fun.

Revolution #9 was nice I see no reason why YKMN would not

I thought that the only version of YKMN is in mono?

 

[Simon A]

Well, it looks like our friend Marpow is one lucky feller. The Japanese box set includes a different Glyn Johns version of a Harrisong. I think it's fantastic news but I'm sure there will be lots of bitching and moaning about this.

While listening to the streaming version of Glyn Johns' May 1969 mix of the Get Back album, from the new Let It Be Super Deluxe Edition, keen-eared collector Yosi Noz noted that 'For You Blue' was actually Johns' 1970 mix, which contained a new lead vocal recorded in January of that year. It was once he played his physical copy of the Japanese SHM-CD Let It Be SDE, that he noted the correct "1969 Mix" of 'For You Blue' was in place, rather than the 1970 mix he had heard in the ether.

It has now been verified that the true 1969 mix of 'For You Blue' appears exclusively on the Japanese SHM-CD Let It Be SDE (Disc 4, Track 7). All other digital platforms, including the universal SDE and its hi-res counterpart, include the 1970 Glyn Johns mix (prefaced by the complete introduction with two false starts) which is erroneously labeled "1969 Mix."

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thre...japanese-let-it-be-sde.1113990/#post-28052725

 

[ngv99]

I thought that the only version of YKMN is in mono?

I think the version on Anthology was stereo.

 

[marpow]

Well, it looks like our friend Marpow is one lucky feller. The Japanese box set includes a different Glyn Johns version of a Harrisong. I think it's fantastic news but I'm sure there will be lots of bitching and moaning about this.

Well, there it is, track 7, For You Blue (1969 Glyn Johns Mix) 2:54 DR 9.
It seems strange to me they would add a song on the SHM CD, not on others. It is certainly not a game changer in this box set, I listened to it, whatever, it's not that great. It was not advertised. I think it was put in there to create spin with the die hard Beatles fans.

 

[Simon A]

Well, there it is, track 7, For You Blue (1969 Glyn Johns Mix) 2:54 DR 9.
It seems strange to me they would add a song on the SHM CD, not on others. It is certainly not a game changer in this box set, I listened to it, whatever, it's not that great. It was not advertised. I think it was put in there to create spin with the die hard Beatles fans.

The SHM-CD contains the same number of song. The difference is that the Japan CD contains a different version of the song. All other version sout there physical and for download/streaming contain the other version. The Japan set is unique for this different version of the song.

 

[citysoundman]

Interesting quote of John about the recording of Across The Universe I found on Beatles Bible. Seems like John really disliked the release!

It was a lousy track of a great song and I was so disappointed by it. It never went out as The Beatles; I gave it to the Wildlife Fund of Great Britain, and then when Phil Spector was brought in to produce Let It Be, he dug it out of the Beatles files and overdubbed it. The guitars are out of tune and I’m singing out of tune ’cause I’m psychologically destroyed and nobody’s supporting me or helping me with it and the song was never done properly.
John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

 

[JonUrban]

It's a great song, but there are quite a few different Beatles versions of it, official and not official. Hopefully one of them is close to what John wanted it to be.

It's very OT, but the version done by Fiona Apple that plays at the end of the film "Pleasantville" is a particularly nice one, a bit haunting at that. I remember watching that movie on DVD way back when, and at the end when that song came on I was pretty much floored. Not just because the version was pretty damn good, but because they used that song. One of my fav's from way back when.

 

[citysoundman]

It's a great song, but there are quite a few different Beatles versions of it, official and not official. Hopefully one of them is close to what John wanted it to be.

It's very OT, but the version done by Fiona Apple that plays at the end of the film "Pleasantville" is a particularly nice one, a bit haunting at that. I remember watching that movie on DVD way back when, and at the end when that song came on I was pretty much floored. Not just because the version was pretty damn good, but because they used that song. One of my fav's from way back when.

That IS a haunting interpretation, and beautiful! I’ve always been partial to Bowie’s cover with John from Young Americans, it’s so very soulful.

 

[JonUrban]

I compared the Anthology "Let it Be" with the new mix. The new mix is far superior. While the Anthology mixes were really remarkable in their day, and lead to much "Beatles in 5.1" speculation, some of them have been bettered - not all of them, but this one has.

Of course, these are two different takes of the song, so a true comparison is impossible. They are musically different

The one thing about the Anthology version is that it may end up being the only reminder of the version of the lyric at the end where Paul sings "There will be no sorrow, Let it Be". When they put the video from the film of the Beatles singing this song on the "1+" release, they edited the video and audio and there is no trace of Paul singing "There will be no sorrow". One wonders when the Disney+ special and eventual BluRay are released of the film if they will modify the film in the same manner as they did for '1+'? If they did, then the Anthology version might be a forgotten curio.

Here's a look at the wav's. Top is anthology, bottom DTS HD-MA from the LIB Box