MFSL Magical Mystery Tour - What the ....?!

I know that reviews have been mixed on MFSL Beatles, but I have enjoyed Rubber Soul, Abbey Road and Revolver. They're certainly not perfect, but I like them better than the standard CDs.

But I just bought a MFSL Magical Mystery Tour on ebay, and something went horribly wrong with Side 2.

Hello Goodbye and Strawberry Fields sound OK, but the left channel on Penny Lane is a disaster! It's barely even there, with a lot of heavy, distorted bass sound. All You Need Is Love is just as bad.

It's definitely not my system; the other tracks sound fine. I A/B'd the problem tracks against the standard CD issue and its left channel sounds normal.

Has anyone else heard this?

 

MFSL used the Capital master tape to press this lp. This was not the true masters stored at Abbey Road for this release. Actually, it never was an official lp release in the U.K. The German Pressing (early 70's) is the one to have. Apparently, they got all the original master tapes from Abbey Road and put the lp together the way it should have been completed to begin with. What you are hearing on the last three songs is processed stereo, not true stereo. On the German pressing they used the true stereo mixes of Penny Lane, Baby your a rich man now and All you need is love. Hope this helps.

 

Could it be ......fake stereo?

 

Unlike their LP, Mo-Fi did issue the full, true stereo "MMT" on their cassette version though.

 

Since the US MMT master was used, we get the true US LP issue warts and all...Why they used that always puzzled me. I sold my MFSL box set years ago.

 

Re: Re: MFSL Magical Mystery Tour - What the ....?!

I thought that Steve said that MFSL used a UK dub of the Capital Records second generation master....

 

I bought the MFSL box after reading in an article in the Sunday New York Times about how great the records sounded because they used the original session tapes from Abbey Road. As I recall, the article raved about having the ability, thanks to MFSL, to now hear the squeak in Ringo's bass drum pedal. After playing the records in chronological order (it's a disease, I tell you), I came upon the Duophonic majesty of MMT, bursting that little bubble of hype. I figured that, eventually, they'd HAVE to come out with the real deal.
Still waiting.

 

Absolutely correct about the German tape!!! I have a piece of the Beatles "Beat" collection on CD, with MMT being one of them. It used the German tape( I thought Iread that somewhere), and all is in Glorious, Wonderful, as it was meant to be, unreprocessed, real Stereo.

Chris

 

What about MMT in the EP Collection? What master is being used for this? It has both stereo and mono.

 

David, glad you could verify that for me; it had always been the rumor, but of course a vinyl hound would spring for the Lp, not a cassette, a medium at the time not much better than 8-track. This points to a problem I'd always had with MFSL: they did some great masterings, but they really screwed up sometimes, and this one but good. Funny thing is, the German Lp had already been out for years when MFSL got around to doing theirs; they just used the US LP masters, and that means second and third generation sound for everything. Not only dumb, but negligent. And repeated for the famous Beatles 'black box.'

ED

 

Allow me correct that to third and fourth generation masters, then. Sheesh....

ED

 

Presumably the british tapes. Whether first generation or a copy, who knows? That MSFL box was so untrustworthy for sources I can't blame anyone for selling it. I would, but can't bring myself to do it....the true collector's dilemma.

ED

 

They were NOT Duophonic. Let's get our terms straight here. Duophonic was a proprietary system that only Capitol used for their reprocessing. They sort of comb filtered the tracks also using delay to give an amorphous ping-pong effect to the tracks. This can be heard on I Want To Hold Your Hand, This Boy, She Loves You, I'll Get You, You Can't Do That, I Feel Fine, She's A Woman, Yes It Is, Ticket To Ride, I'm Only Sleeping, And Your Bird Can Sing, & Dr. Robert on the original US Capitol LPs. However, MMT used traditional rechanneling, with all the bass frequencies on 1 side, and all the treble on the other side. Beatle tracks like this are, Love Me Do, P.S. I Love You, Penny Lane, Baby, You're A Rich Man, All You Need Is Love, & Only A Northern Song. Capitol also ruined many a Beach Boy cut with Duophonic, especially the all-Duophonic nightmare that was Pet Sounds .

 

FWIW, although Duophonic may have been Capitol's proprietary system, it was pinched by others now and then. One example: the DC5's MORE GREATEST HITS, Epic BN 26221; 1966]; some are conventionally rechanneled, but several are right out of the duophonic handbook, i.e. "Reelin' And Rockin', 'At The Scene,' 'Try Too Hard', Don't Let Me Down.'. The band's first HITS album was a conventional rechanneling. It should also be mentioned that Capitol tended to use Duophonic when most or all of the album was not available for stereo, i.e. PET SOUNDS. If it was just a few tracks, they usually did the same fake job everybody else would have done.

ED

 

Just by looking at the Beatles tracks I listed, you can see this is not true. Only 2 tracks from Meet The Beatles, 3 from The Beatles' Second Album, 2 from Beatles '65, 1 from Beatles VI, 1 from Help!, 3 from Yesterday...And Today, yet all are Duophonic. The only reason Love Me Do & PS I Love You are bass-treble is that George Martin himself mixed them that way, rather than Capitol's butchers. By MMT, Capitol had abandoned Duophonic & had reverted to traditional rechanneling. It's just that the Beach Boy's LPs were all mono that they became all Duophonic (Sufrin' Safari, Today, Summer Days...And Summer Nights, Party, Pet Sounds). By 1967's Smiley Smile, like MMT, Capitol had abandoned Duophonic.

 

MMT in the EP Collection uses the correct U.K. mono and stereo mixes.

And just to recap:

Cuts that are in fake stereo on the 1967 U.S. MMT LP (and the 1976 U.K. MMT LP):
Penny Lane
Baby You're a Rich Man
All You Need is Love

The 1976 U.K. MMT cassette has the 1971 stereo mixes of PL and BYARM, the same ones used on the official MMT CD.

AYNIL was mixed in stereo in 1968 for the U.K. and U.S. Yellow Submarine stereo LP.

A bonus on the U.S. MMT stereo LP is the original 1966 stereo mix of Strawberry Fields Forever, which has never been officially released on CD. This mix is also used on the 1973 U.S. and U.K. red album LPs.

 

I stand corrected. Maybe I just keep trying to forget that entire period and some of the things they did to those stereo Lp's....regardless, rechanneling is rechanneling no matter what the process, and it sucks all the time. Of course if Mr. Wilson had forked over stereo mixes for those albums to begin with, rechanneling would not have been an issue...and he knew damned well what Capitol would do if he didn't. I know hindsight is 20/20 , but what would have been worse: imperfect stereo, or mixes Brian didn't necessarily want us to have, or the rechanneling we got instead? At least these days we're fairly guaranteed of mono or stereo, sometimes both, but rechanneling? Today, that would take guts...or stupidity.

ED

 

Some things are still put out in rechannel stereo...."Call Me Lightning" on the Who's Ultimate Collection is in fake stereo....in 2002! Unbelievable!

 

How utterly depressing...but then think of the source. Depressing, but not surprising. How about

ED

 

Or "See My Way" on the new stereo master of A Quick One.

 

I was using Duophonic as the generic term for crap. You know, like Kleenex or Xerox.

 

Just a point to make here: Mofi DID use all the original master tapes on all the rest of the lp's in the Beatles catalog. I believe Steve Hoffman confirmed this once. They just got lazy on the MMT lp.

 

Hello to all.

The tape boxes in the MFSL box jackets pictures are all the same type.

Is there a chance that the one for MMT is a fake, as it doesn't come from EMI?

Thanks in advance.

 

Of the double EP. Does not include the extra tracks.