sgt. pepper mono
dmac
472 Posts
Anyone know of a source (CD/MP3) for the mono mix of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper?After talking with a friend about how she really needed to hear the original mono mix, I started looking on eBay for a bootleg CD, but to no avail.
Comments
does that dude have access to master tapes or does he just have clean vinyl copies to rip...and rip in a way that makes beatles fans bust a nut
I quite like George Martin's use of stereo seperation - yes, there's a lot of hard panning going on - but it's very clever in my opinion. Listen to the right and left channels on "strawberry fields" for example.
I knew a jazz collectro who bought a mono cartridge for his valve system. he mostly liked blue note type stuff from the late 50s early 60s. He swore that the stereo on them was "fake" and most of the information was only in one channel, since back in the day, stereo lps were formatted to sound good on mono players
All the Beatles records, leading up to and including Sgt. Pepper, were originally mixed down on one speaker. That was the set-up at Abbey Road at the time.
So that's sorta the way it was originally intended to be heard. Stereo mixes were done to satisfy the relatively new market for stereo rock records. After 1967 the major labels pretty much switched over to stereo and stopped releasing mono LPs.
Not saying the monos are better, but there is a punchiness to the sound that you don't hear in the processed stereo. It was like hearing Sgt. Pepper for the first time when I found my mono LP.
That was what I was trying to convey to my friend, hence this thread.
Word. Thanks! It was late last night we were talking about this, so I didn't think to search for a downloadable version. duh.
i'll be getting those then
peace
I'm fairly certain that some significant effort was going into stereo mixes of Beatle records by Sgt. Pepper. It's not processed stereo.
......hmmmmm, but do you have a MONO Sgt Peppers' OST?
I hear these are only worth $$$$ if they are low numbers stamped in the run-off grooves.
MONO HOT STAMPER DEMO DISC
THE PUNCHIEST BASS I'VE EVER HEARD
$799.99
No doubt that's true. I apologize if I implied Sgt. Pepper was a processed stereo record. Proper stereo mixing was definitely done on Sgt. Pepper by Geoff Emerick.
According to Wikipedia:
"The Beatles were present during the mixing of the album in mono and the LP was originally released as such alongside a stereo mix prepared by Abbey Road engineers led by Geoff Emerick, the Beatles themselves didn't attend the mixing of the stereo version."
While Wikipedia is a suspect source at best, this does back up my statement that Sgt. Pepper was originally conceived in mono [by the Beatles themselves, no less]. And therefore should *definitely* be heard.
Does it include the original phased multitracked vocals of Steve Martin on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"?! Genius!
I think "conceived in mono" might be reaching a bit. I've read that the Beatles were "present" while the mono was being mixed but who knows exactly what that involves. I mean, it could very well be a romantic take on a couple of them just happening to be in the studio while guys in lab coats were mixing the record. I still think people mostly make a big deal about mono peppers cause they are rarer and most people aren't used to hearing it that way. I've had 'em and didn't really feel the need to keep one on hand for the full experience.
A big deal has been made about virtually every single thing the Beatles committed to tape. But unlike demo versions, backing tracks, etc., etc., etc.--that were never meant to be officially released--that get obsessed over by Beatle-heads, the fact that there are two different official versions of a Beatles album warrants them both being heard.
Given the well-known fact that the Beatles delighted in studio experimentation and had given their musical career(s) entirely over to recording by the time of Sgt. Pepper, I do not think it is a stretch to say they were actively involved in final mixing. Of course, I don't have that book that documented every single day the Beatles spent in Abbey Road, so I am just guessing.
Speculation aside (on both of our parts) about the Beatles' direct involvement, there is a distinct difference in sound between the mono & stereo versions.
I fully agree.
Cosign on mono White album; see also German Magical Mystery Tour.
What's so different about it?
the beer is better, and you get bratwurst
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Different mix, true stereo.
How bout All You Need Is Love 12"?
Isn't this site about shoes and beer?
WTF??
Once all of the Pepper sessions were done, they were all there to mix the album, and as some of you know, Side 1 was originally programmed differently. Anyway, there were a number of elements in the mono mix that were not heard in the stereo mix, and vice versa. Since mono was more important, everyone involved wanted to be sure to put a lot of things in the mix, such as phasing effects in "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" that isn't in the stereo mix, additional guitars, or sequencing the sound effects differently. One of the more obvious parts is the "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)" in the intro break. Instead of hearing the normal beat as heard in the stereo mix, the mono mix has laughter coming out of nowhere after the 13th bar. Also in the mono mix, you realize that it was Paul who was screaming something at the end of the Reprise (you barely hear it in the stereo mix). There are also a few other things, but as with pop and jazz, producers and engineers would make sure that in a mix, it would be as good as they could do it because of the limitations. Once everyone agreed to the album, the band went and did their own thing. However, that left a separate stereo mix that had to be done, and that was pretty much secondary. When mono was phased out and mono pressings were no longer available, everyone became used to the stereo mix, be it on wax or on the radio. The album would sell millions of copies, but anyone who bought the mono (and there were many) beat them to death. By the late 70's/early 80's, people were finally talking about the differences in mono and stereo mixes, whether or not certain mono pressings were just fold downs of the stereo mixes, and that of course lead to the Both Sides Now publication, what we all know now as BSNpubs.com.
If one wanted a quality pressing of a mono mix, one could hunt down the Japanese pressings that were done in the late 70's and early 80's. The diehards bought it, making it impossible to find soon after their initial release. On top of that, we also know that Japan pressings were considered of audiophile quality, so that made them more desirable.
As for Magical Mystery Tour[/b], that was a Capitol entity. MMT came out as a double 7" EP in the UK, but the US felt a need to come out with an album. They used all of the songs on the EP, plus the three remaining songs on singles The Beatles released in 1967 (in fact, "Hello Goodbye"/"I Am The Walrus" was released a few weeks before the MMT album, so Americans probably felt the single was a preview of the album, for a movie that most people in the U.S. didn't get to see until the mid-70's). Because of how MMT worked as an album, EMI-related labels around the world would import the U.S. pressing. However, when Capitol Records put together the album, there were no proper stereo mixes for some of the songs, specifically "All You Need Is Love" and "Baby, You're A Rich Man". These two were released as a 45, and of course those were mono. Since those weren't made for albums, there was no need to make stereo mixes. Instead, Capitol used their Duophonic process to make "fake stereo" mixes, and anyone who had bought the MMT album up until the mid-80's always heard it that way. It wasn't unti 1971 that EMI-labels around the world would press up their own editions. The first to do it was Odeon in West Germany. By then The Beatles had split, each one had at least one solo album on the charts. I believe when Odeon requested master tapes from EMI, they also wanted to have proper stereo mixes of those two songs. The requests were granted, and with the exception of the second half of "I Am The Walrus", the entire album could now be heard in full stereo. This was the only pressing one could hear those songs in that way, so for years that became one of the holy grails. Even when Japan released their own MMT, their pressing was based on the Capitol master.
Collectors have also arguled that the German pressing sounded better, and that's due to whoever mastered the tape to vinyl. It's easier to hear the German pressing with some of the Dr. Ebbett's bootlegs out there, where the Dr. simply does "needle drops" (vinyl transfers) of the albums and releases them as CD, all of which can be found digitally if you know where to look.
Believe it or not, early/rough mixes of Abbey Road[/b] were done in mono for the sake of the group being able to take home those tracks in order to hear what went down. However, since this was also done in a brand new recording studio with brand new equipment, they could afford to mix the album in stereo, which is why the album sounds as good as it does without any sacrifices. The Beatles[/b] was the last album where there was a mono/stereo counterpart, although a small handful of songs would not have stereo mixes until the 80's and the 90's, including "Only A Northern Song" and "You Know My Name (Look Up My Number)".
Now, if a lot of you think this is all anal, there are a lot of collectors who are complaining about the new digital remaster DVD of the movie Help![/b], because it features a brand new stereo mix and a 5.1 mix, but not a proper mono mix as it was during its original theatrical run. Another reason for the complaint is that the mono mix of "Help!" in the film was completely different from the mono mix released on the 45.
So there you go.