Beatles MONO

[jkerr]

Advance copies of the pulled mono Sgt Pepper cd!? I've seen a photo of a mockup of the set but never heard of anyone actually getting a copy. There was a rumor in Europe that someone had it but turned out untrue.

[Grant]

I spoke with a guy in California who says he has one, but I can't confirm his truthfullness about it or if it is a legit copy.

Originally posted by Steve Culton:
I'm not nuts about the mono Pepper either.

To each his own. I prefer the mono.

[ September 25, 2001: Message edited by: Grant T. ]

[Matt]

Regardless, if they are willing to put mono and stereo versions of Pets Sounds on one CD, they should do that with Sgt. Pepper's. It would be under 80 minutes, and furthermore, it would be nice to hear the mono Pepper cut flat from the original tape. From what I understand, the best sounding vinyl copies of it still sound terrible, partially because of excessive compression and so forth. It would be nice to see if the mono can sound good.

[Evan]

I have a LP copy of the mono version of Sgt Peppers and a copy of the bootleg mono CD. Don't know if the CD is a needle drop or sourced from the pulled mono Sgt Pepper CD, but the CD is the same mix as the LP. The mono version sounds slightly rougher than the stereo version. It has more "punch" and sounds more like a "rock" album to me. It would be a great twofer like Pet sounds (which I love. The DCC mono CD still rules, though. Thank you Steve! I am grateful). If only they would allow a competent mastering engineer to remaster them for CD with a tube console. There must be some competent mastering engineers besides Steve out there, somewhere, unemployed, living on the streets, living hand to mouth, with little signs that say ‘will digitally master music for food”, I just know it. :D

86

[Bill S]

I bought my boot of the mono Sgt. Pepper about 8 years ago from a place in CA called Discovery Gallery of Music. Anybody remember those guys? They used to advertise in Goldmine all the time - full-page ads with all the early Beatles stuff on stereo/mono two-fers and all the later stuff in mono. I picked up Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, MMT and the White Album and paid dearly for them, and though they were advertised as gold CDs, they were actually CD-Rs with cheap paste-on labels for the inserts.

However, I always thought the sound quality was incredible so I didn't send them back. This was the early days of CD-R and I didn't know if I'd ever find other copies. They claimed these were from the "original master tapes", and if I didn't know better I'd swear they were. I only had the US Capitol vinyl of Sgt. Pepper and this CD blew me away with it's clarity.

Anyway, I saw their ads in Goldmine for a couple more months, selling everything from the complete Rolling Stones in mono/stereo to Jimi Hendrix mono. Then one day I called them and their phone was disconnected. Never found out what happened to them (although I can imagine.)

Just curious if anybody else ever bought any of these CDs and their thoughts on the sound quality.

[Sckott]

They also sold Rolling Stones "Metamorphosis" and Buckingham/Nicks and they too were on CDR, Gold/Greens in the older days of CDR. Yes, they disappeared into the cold, dark night. Lucky for you, your purchases were good. Mine? Well... Bad needle drops. Yes big ads in Goldmine as I remember. Attractive titles, but... :(

[ September 26, 2001: Message edited by: Sckott ]

[Unknown]

Clearly, the best solution would be to release titles in the original mono and stereo mixes. Even though I don't prefer, say, the mono Pepper, I'd still like to have the option of listening to it.

They'd also make a mint if they released the Capitol versions as two-fers...

...sadly, I don't see either happening in the near future...