Sgt Pepper mixes: the difference between mono and stereo?

I'm just now listening to a mono Sgt Pepper disc and I was wondering if those forum members who are Beatles sleuths would point out a few differences between this mix and the stereo mix. The one thing I notice right off the bat is that a lot of the guitar tracks seem louder.

 

A lot of the audience sound effects come in at different times.

"Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" has a nice phase-shifting effect on the vocal that's not on the stereo mix.

"She's Leaving Home" is sped up a bit.

Listen to the transition between the chicken clucking ending of "Good Morning, Good Morning", and "Sgt. Pepper Reprise". This is actually one case where it was done a lot smoother on the stereo version, the edit between the cluck and the guitar note sounds bungled in mono. There are a few extra beats before Ringo's drums come in, and you can hear some Macca scat singing towards the end of "Reprise" that's buried on the stereo version.

 

The drums are a lot heavier too. The crowd effects are in different spots as well, I noticed on the Pepper reprise especially. The ADT on John's voice on Lucy really sounds flangy compared to the stereo version. I'll let the real experts tell you more.

 

"Fixing A Hole" has a longer fade in mono.

 

The last verse of "Sgt. Pepper" has much louder guitar.

 

Yes, there's some nasty tape flutter there. If you load it up in Cool Edit, you can clearly see it in spectral view.

A few other points:

- More compressed.
- Vocals are lower in volume on many tracks, especially "Fixing A Hole".
- "A Day In The Life" fades in at a slightly later point.

As for which is better, to me it depends on the track. "Lovely Rita" and "Lucy In The Sky" are much better on the mono, but the stereo mix of "A Day In The Life" rules.

 

She's Leaving home is sped up.

The laughing after "Within You and Without You" is different.

The guitar after "It's time for tea and meet the wife" in Good Morning Good Morning" has extra artificial double-tracking. Also the guitar track fades just before that part.

I've also noticed, though I never read about this, some phasing effects on Ringo's voice in "A Little Help From My Friends".

 

I also noticed the last note on "A Day In The Life" sounds quieter on the mono....

 

I just received my original UK mono SGT Pepper yesterday, so I'm going to listen for these differences -- thanx!

 

I think it's chorusing, although I'm not sure how they did it (did analog chorus units exist back then? If not, through tape or a rotating speaker, perhaps?). I noticed it in a few other places as well.

A lot of stuff that was done "on the fly" during mixdown is different, as would be expected.

 

Wow, you learn something new every day.

It sure sounded wrong to me when I first heard it... I thought the deck had briefly jammed up while they were mixing it down.

 

It's also quite amazing that the MONO mix of Sgt Pepper has grown in such popularity, next to the White Album, it's one of the most requested Beatle products next to Let It Be, the movie...

 

Just listened to this with my friend and fellow Forum member lschwart last night, and a few other differences come to mind:

Solo guitars are often louder.
Drums and bass are almost always louder.
Vocals sound drier and more up-front.
Phasing and flanging effects abound.
The segue into "A Day In The Life" sounds much smoother to me in mono than in stereo--the intro sneaks in under the crowd noise and you're into the song before you know it, which is just like I like it.
The clarinet/vocal duet in the last verse of "When I'm Sixty-Four" is much more of a duet; the two sounds combine more effectively.
The Indian drone instruments are eq'd and compressed to sound more like electric instruments, and blend more effectively with the Western instrumentation. One good example is the intro to the last repeat of the bridge in "Getting Better"--sounds like a power chord!
There's laughter during the intro to the Sgt. Pepper's Reprise. It may be on the stereo mix too, but it's much more noticeable on the mono mix, and so it's obvious that crowd applause AND crowd laughter bookend the album.
The "fairground" effects in "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!" are louder and in a more intense dialogue with the pump-organ main melody.
"She's Leaving Home" is sped up, as others have pointed out, and so its debt to the Beach Boys is more obvious, especially when Paul goes "Sheeee" on the choruses (and then "fun" goes into the stratosphere).
"Good Morning, Good Morning" has a much more buzzy, nasty sounding mix for the horns. The baritone sax sounds very menacing, and the song as a whole sounds much more venomous.

Can you tell I love this mix?

 

I haven't had a chance to listen to the whole album in mono yet prix, but I did notice right away that the lead guitar on the title track is just 'left up' in the mix instead of being faded in and out like on the stereo. It rocks!

 

Ah--very interesting (as per usual!). That helps explain why the mono mix rocks so much harder, and sounds so much more "in the room" (instead of "behind the speakers").

It also explains a certain "glassiness" in the upper-mids at times, I guess?

 

Someone burned me a copy of the mono & I thought that edit was a defect because I'm so used to the stereo version as well. He ended up copying it twice for me & I still thought is was defective. I know better now.

 

Hee hee. I'll tell her the Tonmeister insisted.

FWIW, I'm listening to a mono (summed with double-Y connectors) needle drop on a CD-R, not to the bootleg. My source is a -1 original UK mono y/b LP. No tweaking, so I'm guessing what I hear is a little treble boost on the EMI "battleship" mixer EQ or somewhere during mastering. It's intermittent, so I don't think it's my system, though that's always a possibility. And it's almost always guitar that sounds that way; vocals sound wonderfully lifelike. Finally, it's the LP, not the digitization, because I hear it on the vinyl, too.

 

I noticed that too.

That's why I prefer the stereo mix of that song.

 

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The spastic guitar solo at the end of Sgt. Pepper before With A Little Help From My Friends is much more prominent on the mono version. It is going on right as Paul is singing the last 'baaaaaaaaaand!'

In fact I had never noticed it on the stereo version until after I heard the mono. It is on the stereo, but very buried in the mix in the right channel.