Search - The Beatles :: The Beatles Mono Box Set

Finally, mono Beatles beyond the first four albums!

Craig Dickson | San Mateo, CA USA | 09/15/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm delighted to see Beatles remasters after 22 years of listening to the original 1987 CD releases. The sound is greatly improved and does not suffer from the more annoying fashions of many 21st century CD releases, such as the use of excessive compression to raise the average volume level.



Best of all, we finally have ALL of the Beatles' original mono masters on CD -- along with the original stereo mixes of "Help!" and "Rubber Soul." This requires a bit of history.



When George Martin and the Beatles began making records together in the early 1960s, stereo was a fairly new thing. Most people did not have stereo systems, and AM radio, which was mono, was the typical way the public heard new songs. Because of this, the goal of the earliest Beatles recording sessions in 1962-63 was exclusively to make a good mono record. Two-track tape was used, with the instruments on one track and the vocals on the other, simply to allow Martin to balance vocals against instruments when mixing down to mono. He never intended the early Beatles singles or the first two Beatles albums to be released in stereo, and he was appalled when EMI did so.



Beginning in late 1963, the Beatles' records were made on four-track tape. Usually Martin recorded vocals on one track, guitars on another, drums on a third, and kept the fourth for double-tracking or any last-minute overdubs. (Later on, as the Beatles' music became more experimental, the situation got a lot more complicated, but this is how they usually did things in 1964, according to George Martin himself.) This makes a decent stereo mix possible, but the goal was still to produce a good mono mix because, again, most record buyers and all radio listeners at that time would be hearing the mono version. Stereo mixes were usually done at the tail end of the recording sessions, and usually tossed off fairly quickly, in much less time than was given to the mono mixes. Mark Lewisohn's book on the Beatles' recording sessions bears this out. So while stereo versions of Beatles albums beginning with "A Hard Day's Night" were made, the mixes generally weren't all that good, partly because mono was where the market was and also partly because Martin himself was learning by trial and error how to make stereo records.



All later Beatles albums up through the White Album were separately mixed for both mono and stereo editions, and both George Martin and Paul McCartney have said in interviews that they regard the mono versions as the better of the two. Over time, the stereo mixes got better, both because Martin was becoming more experienced at stereo mixing and because stereo was becoming more important in the marketplace and thus deserving of more careful attention in the studio. The "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack album, released in early 1969, was the first Beatles album where the mono version was simply the stereo mix collapsed to one track (effectively the same as pressing the "mono" button on a stereo system), and "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be" were released only in stereo.



In 1986 EMI finally got around to digitizing the Beatles' original master tapes for CD release. George Martin was not involved in this process, but when the CD masters were ready, he was invited to hear them and give his approval before release. He was disappointed to find that EMI had used stereo mixes for all the albums -- even "Please Please Me" and "With the Beatles", which, with instruments on one side and vocals on the other, hardly even qualified as "stereo" at all. He voiced his opinion that mono should be used for at least the first six Beatles albums. EMI compromised by using mono for the first four and allowing Martin to create new stereo mixes for "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" since he was unsatisfied with the original stereo mixes. Yes, you may not have realized it, but the versions of those two albums that you've been hearing on CD for the last 22 years are not the original mixes, but 1986 remixes!



Now we come to 2009 and the new Beatles remasters in their Stereo and Mono boxes. The Stereo box contains all the stereo albums, even "Please Please Me" and "With the Beatles", plus the "Past Masters" singles collection. George Martin's 1986 remixes of "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" are the ones used in the Stereo box. The Mono box includes all the original mono versions of all the albums for which mono mixes were made, that is, all of them but "Yellow Submarine", "Abbey Road", and "Let It Be," plus a mono version of "Past Masters" called "Mono Masters" that is missing a few late singles such as "The Ballad of John and Yoko" that were only released in stereo. So if you buy only the Mono box, you do not have a complete Beatles collection; at the very least, you would need to buy the stereo editions of the above-listed albums and "Past Masters." The Mono box also includes, as a bonus, the original 1965 stereo mixes of "Help!" and "Rubber Soul", which have never been on CD before.



A few tracks are duplicated between the Stereo and Mono boxes (that is, the same mono version is used in both) simply because no stereo version exists. The original single version of "Love Me Do" (a different take from the one used on the "Please Please Me" album) is one example. This is consistent with the idea that the Stereo box, despite its name, is intended to be a complete collection of the Beatles' original albums and singles. The Mono box is also slightly mis-named, since it contains not only all of the Beatles' mono mixes, but also the original stereo mixes of "Help!" and "Rubber Soul." But enough nit-picking.



So, all that said, what versions are really preferable? This is a matter of opinion. Some people, apparently, just can't stand listening to mono recordings, and others have sentimental attachments to the stereo editions; these people will probably prefer to bypass the Mono box and just buy the Stereo box. However, I find the mono editions generally preferable. For the 1962-63 two-track recordings, I find the "instruments on one side, vocals on the other" fake-stereo "mixes" unlistenable, especially on headphones. From "A Hard Day's Night" on, stereo is okay (though George Martin really did improve on the original "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" stereo mixes when he redid them in the '80s), but I find the mono mixes to be better up through "Magical Mystery Tour." Stereo placement and balance is generally a bit off on many of these albums, and the greater care taken with the mono mixes really shows. What is particularly interesting is to hear how some songs actually differ in notable ways. To list only a few of the more obvious examples, the tape loops in "Tomorrow Never Knows" fade in and out at different times, "She's Leaving Home" is distinctly faster and a half-step higher in pitch in the mono mix, and the drum solo at the start of the "Sgt. Pepper" reprise is a little longer in mono.



The true Beatlemaniac, of course, will get both boxes (well, I did, anyway). After listening to all of both boxes, I think I will listen to the mono CDs more often than the stereo discs."