Stereo Vs. Mono-A Battle Breaks Out over Beatlemania

[thebes]

I guess it's no longer a question of weather you will buy the new re-masters but which flavor.

To compliment the other thread, I attaching two warring articles from todya's Washington Post. Strikes me as funny to see this type of a debate in a newspaper in 2009. Didn't even know any of the newsies could tell mono and stereo apart anymore given all the HT stuff, blu-ray etc.

First up the stereo guy:

Refusing to Let It Be: The Beatles in Stereo

In the late '60s, with a little prodding from his sons, my
father finally gave in and replaced his monaural Garrard turntable with a
stereo one. Suddenly, Sgt. Pepper's band sounded so much bigger. And clearer. I
could hear two distinct guitars playing, not just a generic guitar sound.

Two decades later, in 1988, I finally broke down and bought a CD player and
the first of many Beatles CDs -- now, that was a jump from what I'd been
hearing on vinyl for years. There were so many more instruments I'd never
noticed. And notes I'd never heard.

On Wednesday, things are about to change once again, as the sound of the
Beatles' music takes another giant leap forward.

Twenty-two years after the original release of the Fab Four's British
catalogue on CD, the group's music will finally be reissued, the release
bearing the fruits of a 4 1/2 -year project by engineers at EMI's Abbey Road
Studios in London to remaster the entire catalogue. All 13 original albums,
from "Please Please Me" to "Let It Be," plus the "Past
Masters" collection (now a two-disc set, culling from both sides of all of
the group's many non-album hit singles), are being reissued in stereo,
individually and in a boxed set that lists for $260. The artwork in the new
releases is fully expanded from the simplified four-page booklets of the '80s,
with loads of never-seen photos from Apple's archive, along with historical and
recording notes.

In addition, for purists and curious fans alike, there is "The Beatles
in Mono" box ($298), a collection that contains all 10 of the Beatles'
albums as originally released in mono (plus a "Mono Masters" set).

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So what's different from those CDs you already have? As any surviving
Beatle will tell you -- and both are known to say it -- the Beatles were
"a great little band" -- a rock band. What comes through on
the new stereo masters is the power and quality of the original recordings of
that rock band -- the quality the Beatles themselves would have heard and
intended when those recordings were created.

That means you can now hear John Lennon's raucous vocal in all its
powerfully shredded glory on "Please Please Me's" "Twist and
Shout" (the result of recording the group's first album in one day, with a
cold, no less). The Beatles' first four albums were, until now, available on CD
only in mono. "A Hard Day's Night's" title track always was a great
way to start an album, but its full stereo mix, now presented with vigorous
dynamics intact, provides a serious kick. And "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band's" launch once again reminds listeners they're hearing what was
the cutting edge of rock-and-roll and creative recording of 1967, its rich,
unusual soundscape including some sounds that couldn't be replicated even
today.

(For those wondering about "master tapes" and
"mastering," the "master tapes" are the original stereo
tapes Beatles producer George Martin and his engineers created -- the finished
product from their recording sessions. "Mastering" requires the
expertise of an engineer who specializes in that next step -- adjusting various
bass and treble ranges and other fine-tuning before the disc heads to the pressing
plant. "Remastering" means, in this case, using current technology to
finalize the recordings so that they sound optimal for modern ears.)

"The technology now is far superior to what it was in the '80s, when we
did them in the first place," Abbey Road Beatles project coordinator Allan
Rouse told me recently at a private listening session in Hollywood. Rouse, who
was accompanied by one of the project's mastering engineers, Guy Massey, joined
the studio in 1971. Rouse explained that the massive improvements in digital
transfer technology had grown so much over the course of two decades that more
of the magnetic tapes' content was recorded into the mastering system than had
been done in the '80s.

George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on "The Beatles"
(a.k.a. "The White Album") reveals the presence of a Ringo Starr kick
drum that was integral to rock's greatest rhythm section, alongside Paul
McCartney's bass -- a beat that drives the song with a robust heartbeat not
heard before. Not heard, that is, outside of the studio control room at Abbey
Road when the song was mixed in late 1968 -- until now. On Abbey Road's
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer," one can even hear the tip of Starr's
drumsticks as they tap his cymbals -- before, we just heard the ringing of
cymbals. Ringo was always there, we just didn't hear him.

In the days of vinyl, Paul and Ringo, though they played with enough punch
to "make the needle jump off the record," never got a chance to
actually make that happen. A powerful bass line like McCartney's on the 1966
single "Paperback Writer" (found on "Past Masters") had to
be toned down during mastering for disc, because such bass recordings would, in
fact, cause a phonograph needle to jump from the groove. According to original
recording engineer Geoff Emerick, the sound from McCartney's bass speaker
cabinet on that track was actually recorded using a similar large speaker
cabinet placed face to face with McCartney's, to act as a microphone -- in
order to nab all of it. That's what we hear on the new "Past Masters"
-- all of the harmonics and dynamics, high and low, of McCartney's Rickenbacker
bass guitar.

The remastering team also removed technical flaws,
such as pops, clicks and other non-Beatles sounds, leaving the recordings
pristine. Gone are McCartney's "p" mike pops (those annoying puffs of
air one makes when saying words like "popcorn" or
"whisper," in McCartney's case) from "Let It Be," but you
can still hear Starr's squeaky bass pedal on 1963's "All I've Got to
Do" (from the group's second album, "With the Beatles").
"We weren't trying to change history," Rouse said.

[thebes]

Here's the mono guy. Let the debate begin!

You sit down at your favorite neighborhood restaurant and
order beef bourguignon. Soon a team of waiters approaches and lays it out in
front of you -- but unassembled, each ingredient in its own little saucer:
floured and browned beef cubes, sauteed pearl onions, a carrot, a carafe of
full-bodied Beaujolais, some garlic, the whole Julia Child rigmarole.

It's all perfectly prepared, but still. No matter how fine the individual
components, they're not what you want to eat. You want beef bourguignon. And
that's also why, when it comes to the lavish new Beatles box sets, you might
want to choose the finished dish: "The Beatles in Mono," rather than
stereo. Especially if you like to listen through headphones.

Now, there's no question that the stereo versions of these familiar songs
are clearer and more vivid than they've ever been. But when the musical
elements of a recording from that era are pulled apart for individual
examination, things can come undone and unbalanced. On "Slow Down,"
the drums are sequestered in the right channel, so that when John Lennon sings "try
to save our romance," the rifle shots meant to punctuate the line are
muffled, nearly silenced. This is a song where Ringo Starr proves he can do
everything for his band that Charlie Watts did for the Stones, but stereo
relegates him to a bit part. Likewise, on "She's a Woman," almost the
entire band is way off to the right, distant and vague, while to the left,
clear as can be, we hear . . . maracas! The 1964 engineers' spatial arrangement
of the vocals and instruments has thrown the song, as we remember it, out of
whack.

Particularly on the more raucous Beatles tunes, such as "Good
Morning Good Morning" from "Sgt. Pepper," mono produces one
great galumphing roar -- the wall of sound, in Phil Spector's famous appellation
-- that transmits the exuberance rock is meant to have. On "I'm Down"
in mono, it's like Paul McCartney is desperately screaming throughout the final
choruses just to be heard above his bandmates. (In stereo, he doesn't seem to
have that problem, and it's all much more polite.)

The mono mixes, not just the stereo, have been cleaned up and refurbished
for this release. So "Paperback Writer," for example, here sounds as
noisy and vital as it did blaring from a transistor radio in 1966. And in stereo?
I differ with my colleague Matt Hurwitz's assessment. Yes, you can certainly
hear McCartney's bass line as never before, and you can hear every nuance of
his vocal (because it's now six times as loud as anything else on the track).
But the rest of the band might as well be playing in County Cork. The tune is
sapped of its blast, its exhilaration. The beast of mono has been tamed, and
what we are left with is "Paperback Writer" lite.

This isn't some sort of flat-Earth diatribe. There's no reason for anyone to
record in mono today; there was no reason 25 years ago. But in the mid-1960s,
mono was the common currency among listeners, and stereo was for Brahms and
"hi-fi" gimmickry. (People used to buy sound-effects records and
listen to a ping-pong ball bouncing back and forth from speaker to speaker.)
Pop songs were primarily introduced to people by AM radio, which was as
monaural as you can get.

Recording-studio technicians, of course, knew all this, and they fashioned
pop music tracks to shine their brightest in that format. From the booklet that
accompanies the new stereo release of "Beatles for Sale" (1964):
Producer George Martin and engineer Norman Smith "spent two and a half
hours mixing five songs into mono and just half an hour mixing four of them to
stereo."

AM, in turn, further fussed with the music's sound. Using compressors and
limiters and other equipment from Dr. Frankenstein's lab, they processed the
radio signal to make songs punchier, more hopped-up. There were no quiet
passages in songs -- technology rendered everything equally loud and urgent,
every second. If you were 14, this was exciting.

Allan Sniffen, who runs a Web site devoted to the old Top 40 format of WABC
in New York, recalls that the station pumped itself up by adding boomy reverb
to every sound it emitted: commercials, station ID jingles
("W-A-Beatle-C!"), DJs' blather, all of it. The objective was to
sound "tight, bright and out of sight," says Don Geronimo, who grew
up listening to the Beatles on Washington's WPGC and eventually became a DJ
there (as well as at other AM powerhouses, like WLS in Chicago).

This effort to pummel and overpower a listener is what's present in the mono
mixes and often absent from the stereo versions. Not just for the Beatles,
either, and not just on CD: Many geezers can recall buying the stereo LP
version of, say, a Four Tops or Martha and the Vandellas song, only to confront
a tepid, feeble-sounding travesty of the clamorous mono 45 that they so loved
and wore out.

A final difference between mono and stereo in the pop music of the 1960s and
'70s is more of a philosophical one: It's the question of whether you want to
know how the magician does his tricks. Some listeners prefer that everything in
a song be as clear and distinct as possible, and stereo was made for them.
Here's the snare drum, there's a trombone, and that? Well, that's got to be a
mellotron. Here's what the singer is singing, and I think it means XYZ.

Other listeners just want to be overtaken by the melody and chords and
overall feel of a song. They don't care if they can't make out all the words;
they actually like it if they can't quite identify all the instruments. These
folks want pop music to retain some mystery, even some spookiness.
(Encountering "I Am the Walrus" for the first time on a faraway AM
station in 1967 -- in mono, of course -- I was frightened by its densely
packed cacophony, which was only enhanced by radio static. I'd never heard
anything so sinister.)

So, back to the restaurant. The latter group of listeners doesn't care
what's in the beef bourguignon: It's just a complex, flavorful stew that
tantalizingly withholds some of its secrets. For them, may we suggest "The
Beatles in Mono." Bon appetit!

[oldtimer]

It's a nice way to hype both flavors without cannibalization. Of course the next article will point out that any real fan would buy both.

[seti]

Collect them all of course : )

[thebes]

Oh come on now. I find some of the statements they make hard to take:

"In the days of vinyl, Paul and Ringo, though they played with enough punch
to "make the needle jump off the record," never got a chance to
actually make that happen. A powerful bass line like McCartney's on the 1966
single "Paperback Writer" (found on "Past Masters") had to
be toned down during mastering for disc, because such bass recordings would, in
fact, cause a phonograph needle to jump from the groove."

I've got a test record with a famous test tone, designed to make the stylus skip, but it's high-pitched, not a bass thump.

[oldtimer]

I guess they really had to edit down John Bonham then eh thebes?

[oldtimer]

Or maybe abbey road had improperly mounted turntables?

[oldtimer]

Wrong stylus for stereo?

[oldtimer]

I've got it! They had beef bourguignon in the grooves...

[seti]

Oh come on now. I find some of the statements they make hard to take:

"In the days of vinyl, Paul and Ringo, though they played with enough punch
to "make the needle jump off the record," never got a chance to
actually make that happen. A powerful bass line like McCartney's on the 1966
single "Paperback Writer" (found on "Past Masters") had to
be toned down during mastering for disc, because such bass recordings would, in
fact, cause a phonograph needle to jump from the groove."

I've got a test record with a famous test tone, designed to make the stylus skip, but it's high-pitched, not a bass thump.

Your intuition is correct and that needle jump actually false. Paul and Ringo were upset at how their work was subdued. It was an older engineer who made these decisions. Not sure when this practice changed.

[oldtimer]

Not the whole dish mind you, but I recall hearing through the grapevine it was a piece of garlic.

[thebes]

OT, I suspect ,or get a hint, or a whiff perhaps, that you are not exactly in love with the cooking analogy. I'd say beef bourgeoisie, but as you can tell, I can't spell it.

This one puzzles me though:

"Many geezers can recall buying the stereo LP
version of, say, a Four Tops or Martha and the Vandellas song, only to confront
a tepid, feeble-sounding travesty of the clamorous mono 45 that they so loved
and wore out."

m not so sure that's true. Sounds like they had a system that couldn't do a decent job with stereo. A mass market direct drive TT with a $10 stylus trying to capture something an engineer had done.

Of course, I could be wrong. It's impossible to place myself back in those moments, examine and analize what moved me in the music in 1966, besides budding testerone that is.

[garymd]

So, all my MOFIs are now obsolete? Darn. I now have to spend $300 to hear Ringo's cymbol more clearly on Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

[dollar bill]

I am a fan of whatever the original mix was and for years thought the only real "magic" recordings, had to be in stereo to have the depth,soundstage, positioning, whatever you call it.

Then I heard a original UK Mono of Kind Of Blue and changed my mind,

Still haven't heard any stereo press that comes close and have listened to just about every issue, from the standard to the high end 45rpm pressings.

Even the great Rudy Van Gelder of Bluenote fame, was mixing down amazing stereo recordings,only using one speaker !

The era of Beatles that most have difficulty choosing Mono or Stereo is not the early material, but when stereo was used to enhance their psychedelic sound.

[seti]

The era of Beatles that most have difficulty choosing Mono or Stereo is not the early material, but when stereo was used to enhance their psychedelic sound.

Pass the shrooms and put on Sgt P [H]

[The Dude]

The era of Beatles that most have difficulty choosing Mono or Stereo is not the early material, but when stereo was used to enhance their psychedelic sound.

Pass the shrooms and put on Sgt P

I second that, My first Beatles album(vinyl for that matter) was Sgt P, now were did I put those shrooms from last weekend......

[fini]

Heh, I've a mono box in me grubby little hands...

[seti]

The era of Beatles that most have difficulty choosing Mono or Stereo is not the early material, but when stereo was used to enhance their psychedelic sound.

Pass the shrooms and put on Sgt P

I second that, My first Beatles album(vinyl for that matter) was Sgt P, now were did I put those shrooms from last weekend......

I'll be right there.

Sgt Peppers was one of the first records I spent my own money on. It was the picture disc and it was $25 which was allot of money at the time.

[seti]

Heh, I've a mono box in me grubby little hands...

Excellent ! ! ! ! Are you playing them on the Thorens ?

[thebes]

Actually hard to figure out all the fuss over a pop group. Me, I'd be in the studio working on remastering the early mono recordings of a real British rock band, these guys: