Rolling Stones - Flowers UK Mono Export

Thought it would be interesting to share some info about this.

Here's some background on the album and it's pressings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_(The_Rolling_Stones_album)
http://www.stonesvikings.com/DECCA files/Flowers/Flowers.htm

I've gotten my hands on a copy with the following information in the deadwax ARL-7752-2A & ARL-7753-3A.
After extensive comparison with various sources, I'm convinced that the high-end was quite jacket up for this mastering,
which sometimes results in poor sound quality.
The single tracks sound quite good but can be found in better sound quality elsewhere.
With the UK Aftermath & Between the buttons album tracks, things are a bit more complicated.
The UK mono Aftermath suffers from an extermely poor mastering on all 6 of its original cuts and thus the SQ of Tr. 9 & 10
is actually an improvement to that. But compared to a foreign mono version on vinyl which I have recently discovered (and which identity
I will not reveal at this point, so don't bother PM-ing) it sounds a bit less good.
The two tracks from the UK BTB sound better here too, but the reason for that can easily be explained. Read below why.

The big surprise was to find that the so-called US version of Out of time was in fact a dedicated mono mix, different from the UK mono version.
The reason why I wanted this LP were of course mostly the 3 exclusive tracks: 6, 11 & 12.
Tr. 6 turns out to be a reduction from the stereo. There are absolutely no mixing differences. It's only the mastering that differs
significantly when comparing this a reduction of the stereo version taken from the 2002 remaster. It's has better EQ on the export
but the soundquality is much poorer. More or less the same thing can be said from the last two tracks, although I'm convinced that these
are actually dedicated mono mixes.

01 Ruby Tuesday (mono mix.)
02 Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? (mono mix. No stereo exists on official releases.)
03 Let's Spend the Night Together (mono mix. Has at least one drop-out that is absent from the remastered Singles collection version.)
04 Lady Jane (stereo reduction, for some odd reason)
05 Out of Time (mono mix, slightly different from Flowers Stereo reduction and altogether differrent from UK mono mix, more reverb on band but drier vocals.
The 'Flowers' stereo mix also differs from Aftermath UK stereo mix in the same way. This shorter version was probably prepared with a single in mind)
06 My Girl (stereo reduction)
07 Backstreet Girl (stereo reduction. The UK mono 'Between the buttons' uses an off-speed stereo reduction. This version - however- has the same speed as the stereo mix,
indicating that it was folded directly from the stereo master. No idea why this song was not given a true mono mix. Other than this and 'Please go home' all tracks on the
UK mono BTB are true mono mixes and save from 'Miss Amanda Jones' run in the same speed as the stereo version.)
08 Please Go Home (stereo reduction. The UK mono 'Between the buttons' uses an off-speed stereo reduction. This version - however- has the same speed as the stereo mix.
The reason for this not existing in true mono probably has to do the tape echo on the vocals which was done during the mixing and took a long time to get right. )
09 Mother's Little Helper (mono mix)
10 Take It or Leave It (mono mix)
11 Ride on Baby (mono mix, I'm pretty sure... Vocals tend to a bit more 'within' the mix than stereo reduction during the choruses. No other descernable differences.)
12 Sittin' on a Fence (mono mix. Guitars slightly more at even level with vocals. Other than that no descernable differences )

 

Yes I have an electronic copy of a needledrop of a mono Flowers. And I beleive your observations are correct. This is the only official Sittin' on a Fence in mono. One of my fav stones tunes.

 

Bump for those who missed it.

 

Hey Professor - very interesting! I'd love to hear that.

Bobby Sutliff

 

I just listened to this album and was curious to see what had been written about it and ran across this old thread. I've had it for awhile, but hadn't listened to it in at least 5 years.

I can't comment on how the individual songs sound compared to other versions because I haven't done a direct comparison (although I do agree that the UK Aftermath is not a good sounding LP).

But I can't agree that it sounds like the high-end was jacked up. Perhaps in direct comparison to other versions it does, but all by its lonesome, it sounds just fine to me. I didn't notice any issues at all with a tipped up top-end (and, in fact, I was listening to some of the new Beatles mono vinyl right before listening to this LP and I didn't notice anything peculiar about the Flowers LP vis a vis the new Beatles LPs.)

Now my copy has slightly different matrices from what you indicate above. Mine are 3A/2A (rather than 2A/3A), so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

Thanks for this thread! I loved to read your observations on this LP.