Beatles Please Please Me Album Stereo Mix- MFSL Version

I probably like the sound of Please Please Me more than any Beatles album.

"You are there."

 

Well, that depends on your criteria. They're 1/2 speed mastered, dynamic, and on quiet vinyl.

That said, the midrange has had much of the life sucked out of it due to the EQing. So the bass and treble are exaggerated, giving it unnatural tonality. The better the system, the more this is revealed.

If you can find a '60s UK or Australian pressing, the music will be alive and sound more natural.

 

Its not a matter of harshness with the mfsl Beatles. Its a matter of poor eq choices.

Sorry, but from your posts I cant tell that you understand a thing about mixes, eq or even the recording process in general. Most if not all of what youve stated is to simply guffaw at those who do not think the mfsl Beatles was done very well. And done with the underlying attitude that somehow they dont know wth they are talking about. When its really the other way around.

Why dont you dig around these forums a bit and learn a few things. Then get back with what you are educated about concerning sound quality.

 

Harsh, but true.

I have been buying Beatles records and listening to them for a half a century. I bought many of the MoFi releases when they first came out, then only having my original US pressings with which to compare. I started to buy Japanese copies as well.

In the mid -'90s, I started to purchase and listen to pressings from the UK as well as those from Australia using Parlophone stampers. Someone with a better system than I had showed me how deficient the MoFi's.

There is a hifi aspect to them which are appealing, for sure. But they don't sound natural nor musical.

If you want to hear a surprisingly wonderful fully analog Beatles experience, get an early stereo UK of Help! and listen to side 2.

I liken a Beatles MoFi with going to a Best Buy and seeing the TVs with the contrast and color turned up. You'll likely say, "Wow, how vivid!" But all that nuance has been sucked out of it. Once adjusted properly, you'll get a more natural image, with detail in shadows and more lifelike tone.

 

Really? Wow. I guess 43 years a drummer and 30 years in tbe nyc recording studios playing and producing all those tracks were worthless. Gee thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

They were 'wow' - inducing and sounded great included on the system I had in 1985. On the system I had in 1999, not so much. That was the last time I listened to them. Don't know how I'd react to them now.

I will say that that the vinyl ... JVC "Supervinyl" I think it was ... was incredibly silent, high quality stuff. Wish all records played like that and were manufactured with that level of care.

 

This particular example doesn't apply (I second Ondra's commentary) but, I've always found hearing the unmic'd instruments a fun quirk of the twin track mixes.

McCartney's bass plucking can be heard on Till There Was You, especially during the solo when he's not singing, but his mic is still faded up.

 

Don't we all.

jeff

 

As DRM said, the sound of the PPM recording is really great. A lot of people slam it because they think it's a bad stereo mix, unjustly IMO. It's a much more sophisticated mix than most realize.

What I love about it is the live performance capture. As a live band, the Beatles are totally on top of their game, and Martin and Normal Smith got it down on tape. They would never be the same due to Beatlemania..

 

100% correct. Great post.

 

Really???

Your post shows you know very little about the subject matter.

An amplifier outfitted with a particular type of tube with a certain sonic signature can , and will, Drastically change the EQ of the source played through it.

Real word case in point......play a flat recording through a 12Ax7 designed amplifier stacked with 1960s Sylvania 5751 Gold Brand tubes.
Your recording's former "flat" EQ will now feature a pronounced bump in lower midrange 250-500 Hz area.

That is tubes changing the EQ.

Why dont *you* dig around these forums a bit and learn a few things. Then get back with what you are educated about concerning sound quality.

 

As do I. This is the Beatles album with the least studio "processing" of their music. Allowing for the minor piano or celeste overdub here and there, this is what The Beatles sounded like in a club in 1962. Other than some parts of "Beatles For Sale", they never really showed that again on their albums, with the possible exception of "Get Back".

 

The MoFi albums are an easier listen on tube gear. I agree with the OP though. The tubes don't change the initial EQ choices.

 

Tommy: Sure it can. You have to know what kind of tubes to use, thats all.
There are certain vintage tubes that will roll those extended highs right off!! You just have to know what tubes.

 

No problem

 

Well....sure. But what you *didnt* mention was that many people LIKE that type of EQ.
It is a matter of CHOICE, nothing else. For every post on the SH forums bashing the sound of those LPs, there are probably 10 on the Beatles forums praising it. Whose right?

 

Touché. But what I understood you to say is that the eq that the moves the mastering engineer did will somehow magically be changed due to a tube chain. There is only so much one can do. One cant change much what has been dialed in by an engineer.

 

Well, I cant agree with your statement, since I know what certain tubes can do EQ wise. But its the kind of thing where you would need to hear it yourself to understand.

 

And...funny(?), though: that's the one group of tracks the two U.S. incarnations of that album didn't bastardize the SOUND of (except for VJ cutting off half the ISHST count-in).

 

Will the tubes bring back the midrange?

 

Certain tubes will do a pretty good job at it.
Certain Amperex tubes from the 1960s are, quite frankly....amazing. What some of them can do to a bad recording is mind boggling.

A tape played thru Tube A may sound great, another tape will sound awful. The trick is matching the source to a certain type of tube. You might not know that there are certain industrial tubes from the 1930s that have a sound that is almost 3D. Cant really be replicated today because the manufacturing techniques and materials cant be.

Joe Meek, for example, used a 1930s BBC limiter modified by himself on a lot of his recordings.
This imparted a very unique and one of a kind signature midrange to his music that no one else really was able to duplicate.

 

Some time around 1974 or 1975 I bought an original stereo (!) copy of Songs, Pictures and Stories of The Fabulous Beatles for $4 (one of VJ's many repackaging of that first group of tracks) and I was blown away by the both the sweet tone and clarity on that one.

No, I don't have it anymore. Frankly, the SQ has probably been beat elsewhere, but that's certainly a valuable issue now.

 

Hmm. Well, Id like to hear that. NYC is a long ways off though for this little country boy.

 

Whereabouts are ya?

 

Texas