Your Favorite MONO mix vs. Stereo

I like that term, creampuff stereo

I usually call it 'thin and pale'

same difference tho

 

These mono productions are more enjoyable for me, perhaps it's because I grew up with these versions.

 

Simon and Garfunkel's Parsely, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme features the best album-length mono mix of the 60s, imho. The Beatles' "Revolution" may well be the best 45 mono mix.

The mono Axis: Bold as Love is very interesting, even though, as someone has already noted, many of the "swirling" psychedelic effects on the guitar don't translate well to mono. But the fantastic mono bass and drums make up for that.

 

Watching the River Flow -the original mono single is massive: the stereo (as available on 'More Bob Dylan Greatest hits') is a limp-wristed, impoverished, undanceable, pale imitation of the original and should be banned.

 

Cream -- Fresh Cream. Like SF Sorrow, it's one where you really need both mixes (stereo to enjoy the double tracked guitar on "Sweet Wine" for instance) but I think it's greatest virtue is as a tight, proplusive LP, so the mono wins by a nose.

 

I'm a big fan of stereo... and I still have good memories of discovering the balance knob as a kid when playing the Beatles Red album. I love having a choice between hearing a dedicated mono mix and a stereo mix. I remember there was a thread a few weeks ago where Steve questioned how a meaningful stereo mix could be made for "Lovely Rita" and I see his point, especially how when the first "Lovely Rita meter maid" vocals kick in it is very jarring in stereo. On the other hand the "ahhhh-ahhh-ahh-ahhhhhhh" vocal in the intro has a cosmic depth is stereo that I feel is limited in mono, so aside from a few of the obvious commonly mentioned songs like Paperback Writer and Revolution, I really can't say I prefer mono mixes over stereo.

 

Who on Earth mixed the stereo version of Sexy Sadie? There's a barely audible bass line to the left, vocals in the centre, and absolutely everything else to the right. It's just....bad.

 

Not everyone agrees with you or me, though. We Americans never got a mono White album, so most casual american fans only know the stereo mix. If you'd only heard the stereo mix for 20 or 30+ years you might not be very receptive to the mono mix, as I've found out when playing it for people: "Hey, where's the blisters on my fingers?"

 

And Sgt. Pepper too...save for the last chord of A Day In The Life...it rules in mono!!!!

 

Blossom Toes - We Are Ever So Clean
Family - Music in a Doll's House
Skip Bifferty - Skip Bifferty
The Kaleidoscope - Side Trips
The Who - The Who Sell Out
Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Safe As Milk
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Yardbirds - Yardbirds (aka Roger the Engineer)
The Move - Move
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
The Beach Boys - All Summer Long
The Beatles - Revolver
The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday
Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow
Buffalo Springfield - Buffalo Springfield
13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
H.P. Lovecraft - H.P. Lovecraft

The first seven of those, in particular, are quite radically different from (and superior to) their stereo counterparts.

Here are a few others for which both the mono and stereo are essential:

The Pretty Things - S.F. Sorrow
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Blue Cheer - Vincebus Eruptum
Tomorrow - Tomorrow
Idle Race - The Birthday Party

 

Take your pick from here :

 

Happiness Is A Warm Gun rocks in the mono mix.

Much more gutsy to these ears.

 

Just turn up your volume for the final chord.

 

OTOH, the first exposure to the mono mixes may blow you away! I was when I heard Sgt Pepper and the White albums in mono a few years ago.

 

Hearing the Sgt. Pepper mono mix from vinyl (again) was like coming home for the first time in 30 years. I realized my first copy, in 1969 was mono, and all the subsequent versions I would get never sounded quite as good. I bought a clean copy off E-bay, and as it played my jaw dropped. Just the bass on "getting Better" was worth the dough I spent on it. There is NO comparison to the two mixes. The mono mix is amazing.

 

Jackie Lomax-Sour Milk Sea---you gotta hear the mono.You know the differnce between the mono & stereo versions of "Revolution"?--Same thing.
No one else has mentioned:
Gary Lewis & the Playboys
Jan & Dean
Mamas & Papas
First four Rascals' albums
I've Never Loved A Man...-Aretha Franklin
first two Buffalo Springfield LPs (as well as the "On The Way Home" 45)
most of the 4 Seasons singles...

All better in mono......

 

Beatles - Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour

Rolling Stones - Aftermath, Between the Buttons, Flowers

Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde

Velvet Underground & Nico

Pink Floyd - Pipers at the Gates of Dawn

Buffalo Springfields' first 2 albums

13th Floor Elevator's first album

Nilsson - Aerial Ballet

Who - Sell Out

Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society, Something New By The Kinks, Face to Face

Mama's and the Papas - first 2 albums

Simon & Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage..., Sounds of Silence, Bookends

 

All Kinks albums prior to 1970.

 

Bob Dylan Highway 61

The Beatles-The Beatles aka The White Album

 

Yeah I've never understood that, I think people are mistaking Revolver here for Rubber Soul. (Just joking forum members!) But seriously, its Rubber Soul that is so different in mono from its ping-pong stereo mix.

For Revolver I love both stereo and mono mixes, but the stereo is still my preference. But Sgt. Peppers is still a toss-up because they sound so different from each other.

I'd agree on The Kinks Face To Face and Something Else albums in mono. Also most of the early to mid-1960's Dylan except for Highway 61.

 

I just discovered the Mamas and the Papas in mono. I've only found "Eyes and Ears" and "Deliver" (which has some marked variances), but now I'm after the other two and "Farewell" comp.
The separation on the stereo mixes really seems to slow the songs down. In mono the vocals blend together seamlessly, and the backing tracks pump.

 

'I Feel Free' by Cream doesn't do it for me in stereo. The mono 45 has a lot more drive.

On the whole most 60s stuff released on 45 in mono sounds better than its stereo counterpart...be it the Four seasons, Monkees, Who, Manfred Mann, Byrds, Beatles, Spoonful, Zombies, Motown etc etc.

 

Laura Nyro--More Than a New discovery
Nilsson Aerial Ballet
Tull This Was
Fairport Convention First lp

 

There's also a ton of reverb on those stereo mixes it gives it a really different sound.