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

[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!