Four Seasons in Mono

I see that Real Gone Music is planning to do cd issues of original mono albums from the Four Seasons.

Did I miss them posting that here? Anyway, it interests me very much, so here's what the company is saying on their site.

http://www.realgonemusic.com/

• Now, Real Gone Music Is Embarking on a Monaural Tour of the 4 Seasons Album Catalog by Releasing Each Album in Its Original Mono Mix

• Remastered from Tape by Bill Inglot, Who Has Extensively Worked with the Band’s Catalog

I hope it won't be too expensive...

 

Ooo I hope these turn out well. I thought some of the mixes were lost though?

 

Looks like I picked a good time to get into the Four Seasons. Ever since I got the Classic Albums box-set I was noticing the unbalanced stereo on some albums and wondering about mono mixes. The website says release date is September 11, with preorders coming soon. I heard the mono mixes were lost/burned,? I dont really know anything about it but either way I'll be fine without these using the master tapes, I hope they turn out well! Does Real Gone Music have a good reputation in regards to how their stuff is mastered?

 

Of course you realize their final mono release was the Philips LP "New Gold Hits" in 1967 and they had a bunch of stereo-only albums after that. The only mono mixdowns were for the single releases and many of which were radio station only. Last year Rhino came out with a CD boxed set of most of their albums past their disco years and all were the stereo versions. A few of the songs were inexplicably in mono, as they had been released in stereo before. Also, most of the VJ stereo tracks were a crude 2-track versions like the early Beatles recordings. They were obviously never intended to be in true stereo. Vocals were usually in one track and the music in the other. What this means is that with a flip of the mono switch, you've probably got the original mono mixes. This Rhino boxed set had 2 of the albums that had missing or the wrong songs on them. Rhino took care of it and sent out the corrected replacements. All the CDs came in spot-on miniature versions of the original album covers, including gatefold. The CD boxed sets were bargain priced and still can be had for $70. The set includes 18 albums.
So, if you want to wait and pay for Bill "Mr. Mono" Inglot(he called me up years ago and chewed me out for calling him "Mr. Mono") to flip the mono switch, wait. If you want to buy the stereo set that is out now and flip the switch yourself, then buy the set now while it's still cheap. The mixing is a little more complicated than that. It would be best to run the stereo CD's through a 2-channel mixing board down to a single mono output. You might have to pot-up the vocal channel to make sure the vocals don't get covered up through the compression.

 

I'll definitely get the singles collections (New Gold Hits), but I don't need everything they did.

 

Well despite the name, New Gold Hits is actually not a singles collection. I'm sure they'll release a compilation though; the Four Seasons dont really have a good reputation as an album group (Which I agree with, at least until Rag Doll).

 

That's what I had thought.

Darryl

 

I am a HUGE Four Seasons fan, so these are more than likely a "must buy", but by reading this very detailed blog from around 2008, I have to ask, just where did they dig up these mono tapes from?

http://movementbureau.blogs.com/cha...-style-parent---margin0in---margin-botto.html

 

They don't have single version tapes, or multi-tracks , they do have mono lp masters.

 

Doesn't the "Jersey Beat" box have the early singles in mono?

 

No they are not the single versions, mono yes, lp versions.

 

Any word on the sound quality of the first two Real Gone mono album releases?

 

Or, you could just buy the mono CDs.

 

That is very true Automated...It is generally agreed by most fans/collectors that that stereo mixes were done by the Vee Jay engineers as an afterthought. In fact stereo issues of the VJ albums generally followed the release dates of the mono albums sometimes by several weeks.

You still will not get Bob Crewe's original mono mixes which sometimes include additional instrumentation, echo and sometimes different vocal takes from the ones used on the stereo. But even the stereo CD reissues are not the same masters used on VJ, they are stereo comps with the same track listing as the VJ albums. For example Big Girls Don't Cry used on the BGDC album is a different version than the one used on the Sherry album. But the stereo CDs and the Real Gone mono CDs used the Sherry version on both album reissues.

 

And if you listen to the stereo CD's, you will find that many of the tracks are two-track versions used to make the mono mixdowns. The mixing style sounds very similar the the early Beatles recordings which were recorded on a 2-track machine. I believe that the Four Seasons used the common 4-track or maybe even the 3-track recorders common in the U.S. back then. There is no reason to have a vocal track separate from the instrumental track unless it was recorded on a 2-track recorder or to be used for the mono mixdown. If you have the stereo CD's, you can make your own mono mix.

 

Interesting. So are there three different mono versions of "Big Girls Don't Cry"? Two different album versions and a single version? Are the different album versions different recordings or just different mixes?

 

Which version is used on the "Vault of Hits" LP?

 

As far as I can tell all the mono/stereo Philips releases used the stereo VJ versions. Even the "Looking Back" mono Lp was fold-downs from stereo. However since Philips had their own masters the Philips stuff is either true mono or true stereo...no need for fold-downs. However , if you have the Philips albums you know they are a mixture of mono and stereo songs. Again that's because the hits were done in mono.

 

Two track yes, but not used for mono mixdowns. They were recorded that way by Bob Crewe. Only occasionally did a few of the Four Seasons play on their own records. Most stereo mixes have the previously recorded instrumental track in one channel, the background vocals (with FV singing backgrounds in many cases to make a fuller sound) in the opposite channel then Frankie would add the lead vocal last and that was the third track which is usually centered in the stereo mix.

As explained above it was done because the vocals/instrumentals were recorded at different times, these are not "live in studio" performances. Things were recorded in stages. Combining the two stereo channels does not create a mono single as Crewe added reverb and other effects to the vocal/instrumental tracks before combining the three/four master tracks into a mono mix for AM radio. These effects are not on the dry stereo tapes. It is generally agreed Crewe only did the mono mixes used on the mono singles/albums. The VJ engineers did the stereo mixes a week or so later from whatever they had. The Philips stereo is sometimes better so Crewe may have done some of them...but never read anything about it.

 

Ofcourse the Four Seasons probably didn't play the instrumentation on their recordings, very few did. The Four Seasons were a vocal group. Seen the documentary "The Wrecking Crew" or read posts from Hal Blaine's website? AND, I got news for you, they weren't even playing on most of their TV appearances, plus they were oftentimes lip-syncing. The Beach Boys did it this way also.

By the early-60's, they had pretty much figured out how to mix stereo properly and to have mixed the Four Seasons recordings the way they were was pure idiocy.

As explained above, ofcourse the vocals/instrumentals were recorded at different times and were NOT "live in studio" performances, very few recordings were made this way. The Cameo/Parkway recording sessions were some examples of "live in studio" performances as they were so cheap they often used a studio which only had 1-track recording facilities.

Two stereo channels often do create a mono single, especially when the 2-track mix is done as Crewe did them. You can still add reverb to the vocal track, if you want to. The VJ engineers probably didn't do the stereo mixes, because plenty of properly balanced stereo was coming out of VJ at that time. I think your confusing the Beatles with the Four Seasons. The Beatles were involved in the mono mixes and the EMI engineers did the stereo mixes. When the stereo mixes were not provided and only mono ones were, Capitol Records applied their "Duo-Phonic" process to them. These fake stereo mixes were not applied to the VJ original LP's, but when the manufacturing rights were eventually given to Capitol, they added their fake stereo trick to them.

Crewe and the Four Seasons always owned the rights to their recordings, so they could go to any label they wanted to. After VJ, they went to Philips, then to their own label and the Crewe label. Oh yeh, I forgot the Private Stock label. The Philips re-issued Four Season recordings were the same as the VJ versions. And, on their new recordings issued on the Philips label, some of the stereo mixes were like the earlier 2-track mixes. Some only had mono mixes. Some of the non-hit recordings even at VJ were mixed in a balanced stereo. This leads me to believe that the crude 2-track stereo versions were indeed the basis for the mono single versions.

And yes, I have most of the different vinyl versions, mono, stereo and on different labels.

 

while the Mini sleeve is clearly not made in Japan ,the cd is fine in mono Most of the songs aren't on greatest hits cds....another reason to get these

 

I have the Real Gone mono "Big girls don't cry and twelve others" and the sound quality is great.

This is my first Four Seasons purchase ; I held off buying a collection in the past because of reports of poor sound quality on other releases. This one is very nice.

 

I just received that one with Sherry, and it's a treasure.

But going back to the link I posted in the first post, there is now nothing there. No reference to any more being issued save for the 2 others already on Amazon.

 

Real Gone is one of the best American reissue labels, so it didn't feel as though there was any risk in purchasing these mono versions on CD.

 

There is a third CD on the Real Gone website listed as pre-order for a November 6 release: The 4 Seasons’ Christmas Album

Here's the link

http://www.realgonemusic.com/news/?currentPage=2