The Beatles Remasters: Mono or Stereo

Chair wrote: p0mt3 wrote: Chair wrote: It seems like the preference most audiophiles have is that every album from 'Please Please Me' until 'Magical Mystery Tour' sound best in mono. 'Magical Mystery Tour' and 'The White Album' are claimed to sound better with the stereo mixes. Does anyone agree with this? I'll probably be buying the mono versions of a few of the albums just for comparison's sake. I'm a huge Beatles fan, but never have listened to mono Sgt. Pepper, for instance. Would be interesting to have a choice. That would be nice to be able to only buy a few mono albums, but unfortunately, the mono CDs are only available as a whole. It's all or nothing.

Well then, f**k them.

Problem is, I think the mono releases are only available through the boxset.

It seems like the preference most audiophiles have is that every album from 'Please Please Me' until 'Magical Mystery Tour' sound best in mono. 'Magical Mystery Tour' and 'The White Album' are claimed to sound better with the stereo mixes.

Does anyone agree with this?

Seems interest to hearing the Beatles in full Remastering option.

I believe that one of the reasons that the early albums suffer from seperation is because of George Martin's production technique.He wasn't that experienced in producing 'Rock 'n' Roll' bands. His forte lay in the production of radio shows such as The Goons etc.

Martin was well versed in using special effects and studio trickery to accompany radio sketches and dramas.Placing sounds in different places on the tape almost layering the sounds was still,(and I should imagine still is with just the availability of two tracks and bouncing across) an art as he was,in pre-Beatles/early Beatles days using 2 track recording facilities.

The basic recording of a standard 4 piece band used to be and,probably still is for demo purposes, bass,guitars keyboards etc. on one track and drums and vocals on another. Whenever I have ventured into a studio,most engineers tend to centre the vocal/drum track and pan the 'melody/rhythm' track.

Martin was stiil pioneering production/recording techniques in 1962-1965 so it's understandable why the stereo versions of the original recordings sound unbalanced at times.

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On another note (sic),I was playing the remastered Abbey Road yesterday and the splicing between the tracks on the medley seem more obvious or have my ears become for sensitive?

On The Beatles (White Album) one of my favourite tracks is Long,Long,Long.Wow! I have never heard the intro before as it was buried so far down in the mix as to be inaudible.The other revelation is the wine bottle atop the Leslie Cabinet 'accident'. When McCartney held down a chord on the organ toward the end of the track.It caused a wine bottle that had been put on top of the Leslie Cabinet to oscillate causing an eerie sound.On the remaster,this has been brought forward in the mix and sounds even stranger...fantastic stuff.

Edited by Man Erg - September 11 2009 at 12:02

jammun wrote: p0mt3 wrote: Padraic wrote: It's weird crap like this that's making me lean towards mono.  I'm on headphones all the time, vocals in one channel only would just annoy the hell out of me. Well, I mean, I have heard some songs they changed, but a lot of the issues were left untouched. Makes me think that the engineers just randomly picked which songs to fix and which ones to leave alone. 'Unfinished' is the term I am leaning towards, here. How can a team of modern engineers with a complete understanding of how to properly mix stereo take four years on this project, and only have half the songs properly re-mixed? Makes no sense to me. I hate to give the record company the benefit of the doubt, but...   These are remasters, not remixes, and assuming they are using the original stereo sources, maybe there's only so much they can do with them.    That said, I wouldn't necessarily want to listen to those early 'stereo' albums (I'm now listening to With The Beatles) on headphones.   And don't worry, the remixes will be available hmm 'round about 50th anniversary time, or in four years.  At which time 'The Beatles tax' will be due again.  Let me tell you how this will be...

The problem with that analogy is that some of the songs have in fact been remixed with the vocals in both channels where before they hadn't been.

Face it, the four years story was just part of the campaign to build anticipation. They're just trying to make a buck quick like usual. And here I actually believed they were doing it for the fans. Silly me.

Not much can be done to remix Please Please Me & With The Beatles since they were recorded on 2 track machines. I Want To Hold Your Hand was the first 4 track song and Hard Days Night was the first 4 track album.

Padraic wrote: It's weird crap like this that's making me lean towards mono.  I'm on headphones all the time, vocals in one channel only would just annoy the hell out of me.

Well, I mean, I have heard some songs they changed, but a lot of the issues were left untouched. Makes me think that the engineers just randomly picked which songs to fix and which ones to leave alone. 'Unfinished' is the term I am leaning towards, here. How can a team of modern engineers with a complete understanding of how to properly mix stereo take four years on this project, and only have half the songs properly re-mixed? Makes no sense to me.

p0mt3 wrote: marktheshark wrote: mystic fred wrote: ^very true, but stereo in 1965 was not what it is today, it was still an experimental novelty, though i used to love playing with the balance control on these recordings..   the remaster engineers have only adjusted the sound of the recordings not tha actual mix, which would be difficult to do with only 2 channels....so no 5.1 surround will be available either    ..you could always place the speakers together,  stand back....instant mono!      Well if you listen to the previous 3 (Hard Days, For Sale & Help) albums when Abbey Road upgraded to 4 track, you can hear much better seperation than what was done on RS. Martin had both the vocals AND the instruments spread out more over the two channels. A good example is the track And I Love Her, you hear can John's acoustic on the left channel and George's on the right. I don't know what Martin and engineers were doing with Rubber Soul by putting ALL the instruments in one channel and the vocals in the other. Paul's voice on You Won't See Me sounds so tinty and John's on Nowhere Man as well. But I'm going by my MoFi pressings, I have yet to get the newbies. I'm not in a big hurry. As for 5.1, I've listened to the mixes they did for the Yellow Sub DVD that's now out of print. Trust me, you don't want the catalog done in 5.1, they sound terrible. Remember, most of their recordings are done in 4 track, so there's not a whole lot you can do with those limitations. Abbey Road would probably make for a decent 5.1 mix being done in 8 track. From what I understand, the sh*t placing of vocals are still present even in these new released.

It's weird crap like this that's making me lean towards mono.  I'm on headphones all the time, vocals in one channel only would just annoy the hell out of me.

mystic fred wrote: ^very true, but stereo in 1965 was not what it is today, it was still an experimental novelty, though i used to love playing with the balance control on these recordings..   the remaster engineers have only adjusted the sound of the recordings not tha actual mix, which would be difficult to do with only 2 channels....so no 5.1 surround will be available either    ..you could always place the speakers together,  stand back....instant mono!

Well if you listen to the previous 3 (Hard Days, For Sale & Help) albums when Abbey Road upgraded to 4 track, you can hear much better seperation than what was done on RS. Martin had both the vocals AND the instruments spread out more over the two channels. A good example is the track And I Love Her, you hear can John's acoustic on the left channel and George's on the right. I don't know what Martin and engineers were doing with Rubber Soul by putting ALL the instruments in one channel and the vocals in the other. Paul's voice on You Won't See Me sounds so tinty and John's on Nowhere Man as well. But I'm going by my MoFi pressings, I have yet to get the newbies. I'm not in a big hurry.

As for 5.1, I've listened to the mixes they did for the Yellow Sub DVD that's now out of print. Trust me, you don't want the catalog done in 5.1, they sound terrible. Remember, most of their recordings are done in 4 track, so there's not a whole lot you can do with those limitations. Abbey Road would probably make for a decent 5.1 mix being done in 8 track.