the beatles in mono review

By the time of 1964's Beatles for Sale, they're confidently pushing at the boundaries of their chirpy image. The other box set contained mono mixes of all of the albums except Yellow Submarine, […] Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road, and Let It Be were never mixed for mono, and are not included, but the set does include a 2xCD set called The Mono Masters with mono mixes of most of the singles included on Past Masters (a few of the later ones were never mixed for mono). With the Beatles' Don't Bother Me is the first in a long line of George Harrison songs in which people were advised to bugger off. There are also no mini-documentaries. But they're also successful for showing restraint. The band (and the producers and engineers) worked to get the mono mix just perfect and they would throw together the stereo mix rather quickly, sometimes in a very experimental fashion (as stereo was still very new.) All in all, they did the packages right. Turn up your volume loud, i mumble in this lots. Whereas the mono CD songs have a dullness to them. If you grew up in the 70s or later, you invariably heard them in that terrible early-60s brand of stereo, with the instruments bunged in one speaker and the vocals in the other, as if a blustery old man with a bowler hat had covertly crept into Abbey Road and attempted to sabotage the coming youth revolution by making its harbingers seem as pathetic as possible. This week, Capitol/EMI rectifies the situation. Each record included with In Mono appears in a mini-LP replica package, accurate all the way down to the original printing on the inner sleeves (yep, you can slide the CDs in them if you want). But those 1987 CD versions have been it as far as the original Beatles albums. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" [1987 Remaster], "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" [2009 Remaster], "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" [1987 Remaster], "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" [2009 Remaster]. In 1987, the Beatles' albums appeared on compact disc for the first time. This page includes The Beatles In Mono Box Set's : cover picture, songs / tracks list, members/musicians and line-up, different releases details, free MP3 download (stream), buy online links: amazon, ratings and detailled reviews by our experts, collaborators and members. Pepper's-- are included as well. They're certainly nothing revelatory, but a nice intro to the world of the album for anyone unfamiliar with the details. Mono mixes were prepared first with the involvement of the band, and in some cases, George Martin and EMI engineers completed stereo remixes of the albums later, after the group had left the studio. There's something authentically deranged about their covers of Twist and Shout and Money. The Beatles in mono: This is how most listeners first heard the group in the 1960s, when mono was the predominant audio format. Are they worth buying again? The compact discs are available as single or double CD sets, a stereo box set, and a limited edition 13-disc set containing the original mono mixes. At the end of the day, however, its about the music and most of the music on The White Album is sublime, be it in Mono or Stereo. Some of the differences are subtle, and some are not. The first four albums are appearing in stereo on CD for the first time. The packaging in general is very well done; the albums feel like they were put together with care and great attention to detail. Likewise, don't respond to trollish comments; just report them and ignore them. Review 33: The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night. Britpop's open worship finally elevated them to an utterly unimpeachable position – it's impossible to imagine any artist today daring to be photographed defacing a Beatles sleeve, as Johnny Rotten once was – but it promoted a foreshortened version of the Fab Four, one whose career begins with Rubber Soul, or at a push, 1965's Help! To get geeky here for a moment, a few diagrams, so that you can see the increases in volume with the new set. Pitchfork is the most trusted voice in music. I bought two copies of the Beatles Stereo and Mono box sets. Photograph: PA. The box set can thus proudly claim to offer "the closest you can get to hearing the authentic sound of the Beatles". The Beatles Original Studio Recordings Box Set in Stereo is far superior, the stereo recordings pop out at you and are bright and crystal clear. So mono, first off, presumably hews closer to the intentions of the Beatles themselves. The early albums, however, are transformed. Particularly interesting are Harry T. Moss's cutting notes for some releases. All 12 original albums, from Please Please Me to Let It Be, have been remastered and are being issued in stereo (these are the same tracklistings as have been on CD since the 80s, including the American version of Magical Mystery Tour). There are no CD booklets in In Mono; rather, the set contains a separate booklet of liner notes, covering the Mono Masters set in detail, and explaining the differences between the stereo and mono mixes of the proper albums. The original inserts included with the LPs-- the individual portraits in The Beatles, the cut-outs in Sgt. The packaging for all stereo CDs includes the original artwork and liner notes, along with new recording notes and a historical essay. 2:15; The Beatles Things We Said Today Live. It is perhaps ironic that this is happening as interest in the compact disc format is on the wane, but once again Beatles fans are excited. Different takes were sometimes used for punching in overdubs, or an alternate vocal take might make its way into the mix. Even once the Beatles starting paying more attention to stereo recording, there can still be key differences between mono and stereo mixes (“Don’t Pass Me By,” like “She’s Leaving Home,” was sped up in mono, while Helter Skelter in mono is nearly a full minute shorter than the stereo mix, because it doesn’t fade back in after the first fadeout like in stereo — which also means the mono mix doesn’t … Within a matter of months, they had gone from the schmaltz of PS I Love You and Ask Me Why to the accomplishment and forcefulness of With the Beatles' There's a Place and Not a Second Time. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band came out on June 1, 1987, the 20th anniversary of its original release ("It was 20 years ago today..." was perhaps the greatest record marketing hook of all time.) Note that, rather than doing so for individual records, we're designating the Beatles sets as a whole as "Best New Reissues". But in addition to discussing the music and the records, we wanted to take a moment here to lay out some general thoughts on the sets, with further details relegated to the proper reviews. Listening to them here, they sound not like a relic from a forgotten era of the 60s, but as thrilling and daring as they must have once done blaring from a Dansette in a suburban bedroom. The kind of anguish that was Lennon's stock-in-trade from Help! 1963 Vinyl 7" Odeon / O 41 560 Twist and Shout ... Don't use this space to complain about the average rating, chart position, genre voting, others' reviews or ratings, or errors on the page. The book that comes with The Beatles in Mono box set does a real nice job highlighting some of the differences. Sgt. In terms of clarity and detail, they are consistently impressive. Plenty of 60s British bands covered material by black US artists: they tended to bowdlerise it, but the Beatles made it more visceral. Aside from having a pristine mint never played original pressing, this is probably the best you and I will get to hear this album sound. The Beatles in Mono and The Beatles Original Studio Recordings aka The Beatles Stereo Box Set are the best. The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Monday 7 September 2009. In the last few years, there's been a lot of talk about the "loudness war"-- the tendency to over-compress and master albums too "hot," so that dynamic range is squashed and peak-level sounds are pushed to the point of clipping. Don’t Pass Me By is Ringo’s first solo composition for the Beatles, and he really could have done with some help from the other band members – if nothing else, this is one of the longest songs on the album (at 3:45 the mono version is longer than anything on the first disc except Dear Prudence and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and the stereo version plays slower and thus even longer), and would … But whatever you think of the 1987 remasters, these new versions are a marked improvement. The first four albums, however, with their extreme stereo separation, sound much better in mono in my opinion, regardless of the playback source. In addition, the two Past Masters CDs, which collect singles and tracks that didn't appear on the original albums, have been combined into one 2xCD set. The entire Beatles catalogue has been remastered and the CDs are coming out in new editions. I've never been a fan of the plastic jewel box, and it's wonderful that they've done away with them here. While the 108 page book included in the The Beatles in MONO box set can't compare with the more sumptuous 252 page one included with the stereo box set, it is a fun read and more a fun look. Fair enough. In any case, the sound of these remasters, mono or stereo, is exceptional. In the 60s, far fewer people listened to music on headphones. Each CD contains a short documentary in QuickTime format on the making of the album (these are said to be limited to this initial reissue). For most of The Beatles career mono was the standard and the stereo mix was something that was done as an afterthought. I'm not an engineer, but the loudest sounds:quietest sounds ratio looks to me to be intact. Aside from some minor pressing defects including: warps, center holes drilled off center or not drilled big enough; the records themselves have a very lively and warm sound with a CD like noise floor. The new issues came out in batches and the excitement steadily built, peaking when Sgt. The first releases of how The Beatles would have heard their recordings. All the music released by the Beatles – as they intended when they were together – is now housed in a black box (for the stereo albums) and a white one (for their mono counterparts). It's what the Beatles had in mind, their vision of the records. At first glance, it looks an extravagant frippery: a £240 11-CD box set, featuring perfect miniature reproductions of albums pristinely remastered in a sonic format rendered obsolete almost half a century ago. The CD issues were well received at the time and were considered state of the art, but as the years wore on and the label never did anything to improve them, resentment set in and people began to focus on their flaws. Stereo Box / In Mono. You'd have to have cloth ears not to understand what the fuss was about. The significance of these differences will depend on the level of one's Beatles fandom; of course, those shelling out for the In Mono box will likely enjoy poring over the details. Two reasons. The stereo 'felt odd' and left us feeling 'naked'. Given their audience and the technology of the time, for much of the Beatles' run, the band themselves considered the mono mix as the "real" version of the record and devoted more of their attention to it. I for one cannot stand mono! Going through the 2009 The Beatles In Mono box set, he looks at the band's influences, their musical techniques, and the progression of their … Pepper in Mono was the mix that the Beatles themselves worked hard on while the stereo mix was handled (quite well, mind you) by a then assistant engineer who went on to greater things. Rather than jewel boxes, the stereo CDs are packaged in sharp-looking and durable foldout cardboard packaging. This is the vinyl companion to The Beatles In Mono, the CD box set released in 2009 – a project which has necessitated all-new analogue remasters. A supposed Beatle nut, it's taken me until now to invest in 2009's The Beatles In Mono CD box set. CDs slide into a little pocket, so there are no spindles to break. The Beatles sound taut, vital and surprisingly brutal. Interestingly, the mono mixes are uniformly a bit quieter than the stereo mixes, tending to fall somewhere between the original stereo master and the new one. Long in the making, this new “Beatles in Mono” thing, out Tuesday, lists for about $400, weighs 18 pounds — the same as 80 iPod minis — and consists of … Up until 1968, each Beatles album was given a unique mono and stereo mix, but the group always regarded the mono as primary. Fortunately, that has not happened here. The 1987 Beatles CDs restored the first four albums to mono, but they still sounded brittle and tinny, as if they'd have difficulty changing a lightbulb, let alone the social order of Britain. Considering how much music had already found its way to CD, the Beatles were very late, so the digital rollout was a big deal. Listening to the new masters, the differences in sound quality generally manifest in three ways: songs have more "punch," with Paul McCartney's bass (an absolute wonder throughout) and Ringo's drums hitting with more force; the separation is better, so that instruments and (especially) layered vocals have more definition-- when the Beatles are harmonizing, you can more easily pick out the different vocalists, and the voices have more presence; and finally, the sound in general seems just a touch brighter, with various sound effects, cymbals taps, and so on, ringing with more clarity. First, the configurations. The mono version of "Helter Skelter", to take one example, is a minute shorter, as the "false" ending fadeout is presented as the track's true ending (and it thus omits the closing scream of "I got blisters on my fingers!") It presents mono mixes of albums (which are available only in the box set, not for sale individually) from P**lease Please Me up through The Beatles (aka the White Album). Comparing stereo and mono versions also offers an opportunity to think about changes in the technology of music listening. and Rubber Soul, also contain the original stereo mixes on the same disc as the mono mixes (the 1987 CD issues were newly remixed for stereo). If their debut suffers from a deficit of great original material, that only makes the subsequent qualitative leaps all the more astonishing. I don't care if The Beatles were involved in the mono mixes I like the stereo versions much better! These CD versions are definitely louder across the board, but there's still plenty of breathing room, so that the dynamic sound-- and these records were nothing if not dynamic-- hits the way they should. I've always felt that the sound quality of the original 1987 remasters was slightly underrated. The Beatles' remastered back catalogue has finally been released in mono and stereo by EMI and Apple Corps. The mono recordings are a wonderful, aural window on history. This may be where The Beatles in Mono comes into its own. Don't comment just to troll/provoke. The Beatles 45 rpm, Mono. At £163 they're hardly giving them away, but by the end of side one of Please Please Me, not only do I consider it worth every penny but I … The Beatles’ catalog finally got remastered on September 9th. I find that as the decade wore on and stereo mixes became more sophisticated, the Beatles' albums become less interesting on headphones when they are in mono-- the swirling pans of psychedelic material like "I Am the Walrus" or "Revolution 9" moving around are missed. One box set contained the stereo mixes of the albums that are also available individually. First off this is a review of the Beatles Mono Box Set CDs not the vinyl set. It's filled with great pictures and especially advertisements, press reviews and tape box and internal notes images. The reissued Mono edition toned down the midrange and encouraged smooth tones from the Lennon vocal, revealing greater emotion, along with a layered Harrison performance of greater complexity. The Beatles in Mono was released to reflect the fact that most of the Beatles' catalogue was originally mixed and released in the monophonic format. But until 1969, the Beatles were disinterested in stereo: they oversaw the mono mixes of their albums, then left the rest to George Martin. They've done some special projects-- Let It Be...Naked, two volumes of The Capitol Albums, collecting American versions of their records, the remix album Love-- but if, two months ago, you wanted to buy a copy of A Hard Day's Night, you'd be getting the 1987 remaster, done with 1987 technology, complete with a flimsy, bare-bones CD insert in a jewel case. From roughly Revolver forward, if I'm listening on headphones, I generally prefer the stereo mixes. sorry. referencing The Beatles In Mono, Box, Comp, Ltd, RM + 11xLP, Album, Mono, RE + 3xLP, 5099963379716 Even after owning this set for 5 years now, I never gave it the proper review it deserves. Does not sound as engaging to me! Set against that, inspiring Be Here Now and Beetlebum seems pretty small beer. They may be more sophisticated, varied and vastly more influential on current music, but The White Album and Revolver didn't change the world in the way Please Please Me and With the Beatles did. Music was meant to be heard through the air-- over the radio, in a car, on a jukebox, in a living room. Equally striking is how early and strongly the Beatles' respective personalities foregrounded themselves. The other mono/stereo differences here are fairly minor – the drums are quieter on the intro, the fade is quicker, and the tinkly barrelhouse piano you can hear buried in the mix in the stereo version is even less audible. In 1987, the Beatles' albums appeared on compact disc for the first time. On the later albums, that amounts to a handful of cosmetic differences: if it's striking to hear Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds with added psychedelic phasing effects, it doesn't radically alter your perception of the song. Smokey Robinson's fabulous You Really Got a Hold On Me has its emotional compass shifted from melancholy to torment, with electrifying results. Nevertheless, if you weren't around in 1963, it's sometimes been difficult to work out precisely why the music contained on the early Beatles albums had such impact. Something strange happened to the public perception of the Beatles in the 90s. And it is an investment. It is bigger, better, louder, and remastered than the original 1988 Beatles box set ever. Mono just does not sound right to me. The author of The Beatles in Mono is extraordinarily biased and one-sided in his evaluation of the music and in his preference of artists, but this did grow out of a blog, where one has the freedom to speak what one wishes. Two discs, Help! REVIEW: The Beatles in Mono (box set) THE BEATLES – In Mono (box set, 2009, currently $260.00 on amazon.ca) I’ll be brief here, mainly because this is The Beatles, and this music is so ingrained into everybody’s psyches now. The key when looking at waveforms is to take note of whether the peak sounds (which come closest to the volume ceiling inherent in digital audio) maintain the same relationship to the quieter sounds. In Mono-- limited, but it's not exactly clear yet how limited-- is more of a specialty item. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1978 Vinyl release of With The Beatles on Discogs. Secondly, since the mono and stereo mixing sessions happened at different times, there are differences between the two versions, not just in the balance of the sound but also in the actual content. It opens with No Reply, I'm a Loser and Baby's in Black: utterly downcast, emotionally raw. The next album – the ‘White album’ – would see the greatest differences … Still don't get the genius of the Beatles? Welcome additional benefits were a slightly more rounded McCartney bass guitar and lower bass from the Starr drum kit. As a result, the Beatles enjoyed by HRH – mop-topped and besuited, packaged for family consumption – appear to have ended up tainted by a certain naffness in modern eyes. First, pop music in stereo was still a novelty through most of the 60s. In the 22 years since, plenty of bands have had their catalogues reissued a few times over (some with ridiculous frequency-- looking at you, Bowie and Costello), either to take advantage of improvements in technology or to repackage the records to sell them again to existing fans. But at the time, they were clearly anything but. Stereo recordings were a fairly new concept for pop music in the 1960s and did not become standard until late in that decade. through to I Want You (She's So Heavy) is evident from the start: literally his first lead vocal on a Beatles album is "the world is treating me bad – misery". 2:39; The Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love. In addition to the individual CDs, the reissues are available in two box set configurations. The differences to my ears are not quite night and day, but they are certainly there, and they are noticeable. If you believe the late Ian MacDonald's peerless book Revolution in the Head, the latter albums signalled a social change "away from the old class-based order of deference to 'elders and betters' to the frank and fearless energy of the younger generation". But by 1968 mono was getting phased out and The White … And now, onto the music. I think it's just crap that The Beatles get the analog treatment in mono but not stereo! This will cure you, says Alexis Petridis, The Beatles in mono ... 'they sound taut, vital and surprisingly brutal'. You hold one in your hand, and it feels important. In the article below we cited the song There's a Place as being on the Beatles second album, With the Beatles. Everything is jumbled up on top of one another. Radio was dominated by single-channel AM, and the young people who bought LPs were far more likely to have a mono record player as a sound source. Harry T. Moss 's cutting notes for some releases revelatory, but a nice intro to intentions... - a Hard Day 's Night Harry T. Moss 's cutting notes for releases... In overdubs, or an alternate vocal take might make its way into the.. Specialty item aka the Beatles, the cut-outs in Sgt album where the differences between mono the! A review of the 1987 remasters, these new versions are a improvement! White … the Beatles career mono was the standard and the White the... 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