Wrong Masters for the ‘Glyn Johns 1969 Mix’, and Japan to the rescue.

44 Responses

  1. Michael says:

    That’s interesting, and hard to understand why they do that, however I am interested in the vinyl edition – what can you say? Is it equivalent to the ROW CD pressing? (I have only purchased the vinyl box).

  2. Ronald Ankers says:

    So the 1969 album remains unreleased – apart from Teddy Boy! It occurs to me they could have used the unused 1970 mix of Teddy Boy – by Phil Spector! You have only commented on the first 40 seconds of Get Back. Is it just possible that Universal might take the opportunity of releasing the genuine 1969 version on its own. At least that would give the opportunity of having the LP on its own, at a reasonable price……?

  3. Ciuzo says:

    They should put out an individual release of the Get Back album on LP, with the correct 1969 mix. That would solve the mistake.

    • Win Corr says:

      That’s what Record Day is for! 😉

      • Franco Manning says:

        they probably will; 2 months after i get the asian one — the whole JAP is limited on secondary markets and close to 200 bucks. After watching the “Get Back.” sessions; i am obsessed with the Johns’s mix any this sounds legit to me. worth a shot to get the intended “LIVE,” mix/takes

  4. Andy says:

    SHM-CD sounds like a marketing gimmick. How can one medium for a digital signal sound different from another if it’s the same numbers encoded on each? It might last longer but a set of numbers is the same whether it’s written, typed or projected onto the moon. Or am I missing something?

    • admin says:

      We always had the same thought in mind. Digital music is a string of ones and zeros no matter which carrier it’s on. But I believe that’s a discussion for a different kind of forum.

    • Ruedabeat says:

      “Placebo effect” among audiophiles. One is One and Zero is Zero here and even in Japan.

    • Mr. Snake says:

      Here’s a good video about the format. And yes, it’s nothing but snake oil:

      https://youtu.be/ljXTZYm3S8A

    • OSCAR says:

      No sir,it is no mastering gimmick,it is only another kind of polyurethane covering the cd surface,this is supposed to help the laser reads more data and subsequently have more fuller rich sound.This is the official explanation,anyway in at least 90 percent of the cd releases the japanese mastering is much much better,and it is clearly audible

      • Valet2 says:

        just take any cd and grab the audio track from it in wav 10 times. you will get the same, byte-to-byte, file each time. there’s no “more data and more rich sound”.

      • Glenn Milam says:

        Mastering is a different issue than the physical medium. The same file should sound exactly the same whether on a silver CD, USB stick, home burned CD-R or an SHM disc.

  5. So if we bought the super deluxe CD set, the 5LP set and the picture disc, will we get at least high-res downloads of the right version of the Glyn CD? That could be done pretty easily…or shall we wait a day or two for the underground people?

  6. JH says:

    I’m curious about “I Me Mine (1970 Glyn Johns Mix) on Let It Be EP too.
    Does it also have awful hiss?

  7. seanroper13 says:

    Has anyone confirmed which version was used for the vinyl set? My set-up is currently dismantled so I have yet to listen to mine.

  8. Rich Cornock says:

    I very much doubt this was an accident

  9. Abner Wizzle says:

    Who Cares? This is just a whole lotta nitpicking about very little.

  10. Ted P says:

    The Japanese set is already sold out?

    • Michael says:

      Yeah

    • Michael says:

      Hello, now the SHM-box is available again! I ordered immediately. I’m sending the vinyl box back because there are pressing errors (e.g. on the EP, track I Me Mine)… Although I like LPs more than CDs, but this just won’t do… and I don’t think the EP will be re-pressed! Also, Ringo’s cymbal sounds very shrill on Get Back side A, there’s something wrong there too…. crap!

  11. Michael says:

    Isn’t that a bit of a bold thesis? I mean, how do you know all this? The SHM edition is advertised with the following information: “The contents of this release will be identical to the worldwide release, except for SHM-CD format and a description & lyrics with Japanese translation.”
    I mean, then they would also have to have given false information, or am I seeing it wrong? What else can you believe? I really don’t get it, sorry!

  12. ANGEL says:

    what does it mean “I’ve Got A Feeling” is completely out of sync” ?

  13. tulirepo says:

    What a pitiful mess! Maybe they should have left the whole Get Back Album thing aside. It now feels as much a fake as all the bootleg versions of it. Just better sounding than most (all?) of them.

  14. Glenn Milam says:

    So which version was leaked and eventually became the Kum Back LP? 1969 or 1970?

    • Ronald says:

      Neither of them! John C Winn’s Lifting The Latches (pp286-296) tells the story in detail. Kum Back” contains the first acetate made by Glyn Johns. It contains only some of the songs which ended up on the Get Back LP. It also contains The Walk ( now in the box) as well as a Get Back from 23 January and a Let It Be from 26 January which I don’t think is the same take in the new box set. The tape had been obtained by a radio station WBCN-FM, but was broadcast first by a New York station WBAI-FM. Meanwhile, a second acetate (an earlier version of the first Get Back LP with slight variations – e.g. Dig It is a minute longer, Get Back does not have the coda from the 28 January take) was broadcast by another radio station – WKBW-AM in Buffalo. It gets even more complicated after that. Acetate #3 with the Get Back LP that should have been on CD4 was not bootlegged until 1975. Winn says it is not clear how that acetate “fell into collectors’ hands”. Winn’s book and Doug Sulpy’s 2007 edition of “Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image” are recommended reading alongside the excellent new Get Back book!

      • admin says:

        In Mojo #336, November 2021, Glyn Johns says that “I went to San Francisco, and I took with me, at George (Harrison)’s request, a copy of the album. He wanted me to play a song to (producer) Denny Cordell, for Joe Cocker. I lent this acetate to Denny for 24 hours and during that period, it must have got bootlegged.I can’t believe it was Denny but somehow it got out”.

        • Ronald says:

          Thank you. John C Winn’s Beatlegmania vol 4 says the “definitive”speed-corrected bootleg album was only released by Yellow Dog in 1984. A long and winding road indeed. Will the “definitive” legitimate LP be released soon?

          • Ted Pastuszak Jr says:

            Just curious why EMI couldn’t have just pulled and released Glyn’s Get Back album masters AR14271/2, (as documented in John C Winn’s “Lifting Latches”) without the need for the editing and restoration work. On the independent side, its seems that many people over the years tried to cut and paste Glyn’s 1970 version of the album, only to inadvertently remove subtleties that were originally there. It would appear that happened here, but commercially.

  15. Shad Radna says:

    I don’t really understand what these speed differences represent. The 2009 remasters typically run slower than the 1987 versions, even though those were (or should have been) – for the most part – taken from the very same piece of tape. For example, the 2009 version of Two Of Us goes out of synch with the 1987 version by more than a third of a second across the track. That’s most likely because they were captured on different tape decks, and tape decks don’t play at the same speed. Surely no one is expecting the 1969 and 1970 mixes to stay in synch with each other? Or are these speed differences comparing the new version of the 1970 mixes with some bootleg with an unknown history?

    By the by, the new Giles Martin mixes stay in synch with the 2009 remasters. Which is remarkable given that they’re sourced from different tapes (i.e. the multitracks rather than the masters). I can only think that they captured the multitracks and then adjusted them in software to synch them to the 2009 remasters. While I can think of reasons why they might do that, I really hope the synching was done using a decent bit of software.

  16. No info about ‘Dig It’

  17. Marc Miller says:

    Do we know which version is on Apple Music or other digital services? Is it the correct 1969 mix or is the mix on the European discs. The audio fingerprint is the same on Get Back as it is on the single version on Past Masters of Get Back, so not sure if that helps or not.

  18. Jason Paris says:

    What about track 11?

    • Ronald says:

      Dig It. All the different versions depend on the length of the original recorded by Glyn Johns on 26 January. “The Beatles Kum Back” (Retrospective Collection) CD now has all Glyn’s initial acetates, finally put together. I have at long last realised, from John C Winn’s Lifting Latches, that they were reels E69738, E69739, and E69742. The last reel had only previously largely been available in mono on Celluloid Rock. All these are now in excellent quality, including, as far as Dig It is concerned, the 8m 30s recorded on EMI tape. The only songs omitted, from the second reel, are Get Back 27.71 and 27.72, which I would have noticed before if I had read Winn’s book carefully. As these acetates were all done before Glyn started compiling his Get Back LP, I don’t think the mixing is relevant as such, as far as Dig It is concerned. More the content. These acetates included Get Back (23 January), Let It Be (26 January) and I’ve Got A Feeling (27 January), all three still not officially released. The Let It Be box set included different takes of the last two, recorded on the same days. The final take recorded in the entire sessions, of Let It Be, most of which was in the 1970 film, was also finally released. As for Get It Back, two other takes, recorded on 27 and 28 (the single coda version) were included in the box, rather than the temporary “best” take from 23 January. I managed to get the SHM Get Back original mix some time ago. That was essential because it contained George’s original vocal on For You Blue, “As nature intended”, to coin a phrase.

      • Jason Paris says:

        Thanks Ronald.

        What I meant was, “why, in the original article, was there no comparison of the Japanese and ROW track 11?”.

        • Ronald says:

          Possibly because it has never been mixed. It’s just a jam, not a real song. John was making it up as it went along, just as he did in the 24 January version. Good fun though. The 29 January version, where John lists all the songs they’ve been performing over the previous 4 weeks, definitely deserves an official release.

  19. Glenn Milam says:

    So did we ever determine if these are different mixes or just a different source tape with maybe different mastering? Except For You Blue, which is obviously different vocal takes.

  1. November 8, 2021

    […] The lush sound of Let It Be, in stereo or surround, is in sharp contrast to the originally proposed Get Back album.  While this box presents the first official release of Get Back, it's been widely bootlegged over the years.  In fact, the first leak of Get Back happened before Let It Be even existed when promotional copies were distributed to radio stations.  Glyn Johns mixed Get Back at least twice from the sessions held at Twickenham Film Studios (January 2-16, 1969) and then at Apple Studios (January 21-31) including the Rooftop Concert of January 30.  All of these sessions were recorded with film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg's omnipresent cameras rolling.  The compilers here have chosen to include Johns' May 1969 master but some doubt has been cast from various sources as to whether this presentation is an accurate reflection of that mix.  (The mystery stems from the fact that the Japanese SHM-CD release of the otherwise-identical box has a subtly different Get Back disc.) […]

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