Mono vs. Stereo, Beatles White Album

[javasaurus]

Interesting comment overheard recently (there was a Paul McCartney special on PBS recently, maybe that's where I heard it?). Apparently, as stereo was becoming popular, artists would put out stereo and mono copies of their recordings separately. Some just remixed the stereo tracks, other re-recorded the whole album. The Beatles were in the latter category, and the result is that if you get a mono recording (fairly rare!) you'll find differences from the more common stereo recordings.

How true is this?

How extensive is this?

And how difficult is it to find such mono recordings?

Comments

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

short answer - from Rubber Soul onward (1966) the LPs were stereo, but the 45s were still mono for radio airplay and the fact that most 45s purchasers (the kids) didn't have high quality equipment. this included any 45s released for the White Album. these were the same master tracks, just 2 different mixes. you can only get the mono mixes of post Rubber Soul material by looking for old 45s on eBay, and expect to pay $100 minimum for them if they play at all.

long answer:

the only recordings the beatles ever made are either out on cd, or they suck, or (in the case of about 1/3 of the archeology 6 cd series) both.

the beatles LPs prior to rubber soul were all released in mono, but they did remaster them from the original multi-track tapes. in those days they usually played into a 4-track (vocals, lead guitar and/or piano, guitars and bass, drums), mixed down into mono. if a single also appeared on an album (that was actually fairly rare in those days; they often were rereleased as extras on the film soundtrack albums Hard Days Night and Help), it would be the same mono mix.

George Martin decided to play purist with the remastering of those tracks back in the '80s for the first cds and mixed them down into mono as close as he could to the original sound. some suggested he update the sound and mix them into stereo, but he refused.

rubber soul to magical mystery were recorded to 8-track machines, usually using 6 tracks (lead voc, backing voc, john, paul, george, ringo), leaving 2 tracks left for george martin to lay down any extras, like the string quartet in elenor rigby (recorded 2-track stereo; the master tape of that is on archeology 2 without any of the rest of the band and its pretty cool), the piccolo trumpet in penny lane, the messed up caliope tape for Mr. Kite, etc.

sometimes, they would demo into the other 2 tracks raw (or sometimes just 1 track if it was a simple accoustic thing like Blackbird), use them as guides for recording the other 6, then wipe the first two (or not; some of THOSE demos survived into archeology) and leave those out of the final mix.

these 6 tracks would generally be mixed down to stereo for the LP, and for am radio's 45s it would be mixed down in mono for best broadcast quality. there was only the one master recording, with the 2 mixes. George Martin did most of this. any LP released in CD that was originally in stereo, GM preserved the stereo sound.

The White Album was done mostly from bits and pieces. They'd layed down the 2-track demos, leaving the other 6. some of the others were filled in, others were not, and GM just took the best of what he had, added the special effects, got George Harrison to lay down some serious guitar, and there's a double-album for you.

Let It Be was done on much better equipment, so they had much more multi-tracking and put together a very lush album. as a result, GM had the opportunaty to do the opposite and strip all of the overdubs out and created Let It Be Naked a couple of years ago that presented that album as if it was done in the original 6-track style.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

thank you! Most of that makes sense, and really emphasizes how much work (and effect) is in the post-recording part of making an album.

The re-mixing idea makes sense generally, but I understand that at least one song on the white album was performed at different speeds mono vs. stereo, and there are different sound effects between the two. If that's true, then it's not simply a matter of re-mixing from the same original tracks. But maybe there were only a couple of such examples?

Thanks again for the info!