The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees mono source for the Rhino deluxe?

Well the only problem is that they are the pre-mixed session tapes. The original final master tape is what was used to create the masters that pressed the albums. So the multi-tracks are just the raw session tapes.

 

I bought a mono copy of BB&M back in the 80's for about $20. Stashed it and forgot about it until I joined this forum. Sold it a few years ago to some guy in Japan for about $650. I'm not usually the type to rub salt in a wound. Until now, I guess.

I also bought that mail order Laurie house set back in the 70s. I loved it for the songs I'd never heard before. The crappy sound didn't bug me because I had a crappy stereo. The idea of any Monkees reunion back then seemed less likely than a Beatles reunion.

 

Yep, I had quite the crappy stereo as well.

Actually not all the songs on that Laurie House set were bad sounding, from what i've been reading i guess even back in 76
Some of the master tapes were missing in action, And they had to use whatever they had to work with.

Man it seemed like it took forever to get that set in the mail.
$650 for a mono BB&M? You made out GREAT brother! I guess it's just as well i didn't get the copy i saw at that shop.

As a kid i didn't take very good care of my vinyl, And it surely would have ended up trashed.
Hopefully whoever got it knew how to care for their vinyl.

 

I found a VG+ looking Mono Birds in a dollar bin on the floor of a record store in Columbia, SC two years ago. One wood glue treatment later and it plays NM. Never thought I would ever find one. My spouse thinks I'm crazy not to sell it!

 

It's the only super deluxe I ever bought. I can't do anymore.

 

Pretend it was the British pressing you saw.

 

Better off , the rest , the cvr packaging fell off except present

 

never had any issues with the packaging on any of the sets. not even on the Haadquarters sessions digipack.

 

My

HA!

 

I had a chance to listen to both of those Monkees cassettes today to and from work.
They both play perfect, & Sound is crystal clear.

The Headquarters tape has a few songs with slightly longer fade outs, & She Hangs Out from the Pisces tape has a couple extra intro beats before the vocals come in.

I think RHINO included that particular version on the deluxe Pisces 2cd set.
Pretty cool.

 

She Hangs Out with the extra beats is from the Arista remix from the 80s.

 

What blows my mind about the above statement is, you have a cassette player in your car? NICE!

 

Sadly you are correct. It sounds great but close inspection on headphones with boosted high end reveals vinyl surface noise on fadeouts (they folded down the channels to reduce some noise). You can also hear some declicking at the beginning of The Poster. In my 45+ years of collecting I have seen almost every 60's holy grail...except for a mono BB&M (and a US mono Traffic Mr. Fantasy). Good luck finding it.

 

HA! That player is vintage 1985, And is like new.
Plus i still have lots of cassette tapes in my music collection.

 

They released The Monkees in mono vinyl set a couple of years ago.
Any one know if the mono BB&M vinyl from that set is from the same source as the deluxe hand made cd set?

The ad on Amazon claims that they went back and used all of the original Colgems mono master tapes .

The Monkees - The Monkees In Mono - Amazon.com Music

 

Just my 2¢, but the vinyl-sourced mono BB&M tracks on the super deluxe set sound really bad.

The big problem is they were obviously recorded with a stereo needle, so there is slightly different information in each channel.

Mono recordings should be identical in each channel. Tracks like "Auntie's Municipal Court" and "The Poster" suffer from a weird phasing effect when heard on headphones.

You can improve the audio of the super deluxe CDs by loading each track into a music editor and pasting the left channel information over what's on the right side (or vice-versa). This will make both channels identical, which is what a mono recording should be.

For real laughs, use your music editor and try doing this:

Select one channel and "invert" it. Then, copy the inverted waveform and combine it to the other channel. (This is not a straight replace, but often called "mix".)

The result will be the difference between each channel.

True mono recordings should result in total silence, but the vinyl-sourced BB&M tracks are anything but. The result make it clear why those tracks sound so lousy.

(FWIW, the invert and mix process can be used on stereo recordings to remove the center channel. If you do it to the Anthology version of the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing", you will completely eliminate the group's laughing jag and actually hear that alternate take clearly (albeit in mono).)

 

Good read there I didn't know everything they went through to get an acceptable release of the mono BB&M for that deluxe set.

Since i have never had a chance to give a full listen to an original vinyl copy, I really could not compare the two.

Oh well, I still enjoy my deluxe cd set anyway & Glad i purchased it( If not just for the bonus material included)

Maby those mono tapes will eventually surface, And i'm assuming that the Monkees in mono BB&M vinyl is sourced from that same needle drop.

 

Actually,it was a Dub of a Silent 45 He'd superimposed over the Music,Scratching it on purpose,even timing it to skip in the right place!

 

That Silent 45 was given to Jukebox owners who'd disliked Rock Records!

 

The wonky vinyl-sourced mono tracks stuck out like sore thumbs to me on account of dealing with the same problem when I had first received my own copy of the LP.

My (then) new turntable had just been delivered around the time a mono copy of BB&M arrived in the mail.

I was anticipating listening to the LP on the new-fangled LaserTurntable, having spent quite a bit to get both things. (Not to mention the VPI record cleaner that was also bought in order to get records clean enough for the LT.)

So, after the hassle of finally getting a mono copy of BB&M, and playing it on the super high-tech player, it was stunning how crummy the record sounded. (I almost called the LT's manufacturer, as records shouldn't sound so harsh.)

It was here that I decided to see what would happen if the LT was adjusted to just play one of the record's two groove walls.

Instantaneously, the sound went from cruddy to amazing.

(The LT's manufacturer had included a switching box that allows you to combine both channels to mono, or just play the left or right channel. Choosing only the left or right channel of a mono record cuts the surface noise in half, which is why that is the best way to go.)

Anyway, the whole affair crystallized why mono records should be presented in "true" mono (100% same content in each channel).

This is also why I knew something was going on with those vinyl-sourced mono tracks. They gave me flashback to the earlier episode with the LT.

 

I'm really surprised that about the quality of the mono versions for the needle drops. What engineer doesn't know not to use a stereo needle for the needle drops. Jeez, just lazy.

 

Is there a preferred channel for each song or doesn't it matter one which I duplicate?

 

When I do it for mono LPs, I choose the channel with less noise. But, for CDs I don't think it really matters. (I tend to gravitate towards the right channel for some reason. It probably out of habit more than anything else.)

 

So there's not a specific channel that sounds better than the other on the deluxe box set?

 

I'm still trying to discover if Rhino has all the multis to "The Monkees" and "More of The Monkees" so both can be remixed. Both of those Lps need a proper, from the ground up remix.

I know that a some years ago, Rhino was going to issue a Surround version of "More", but the project got cancelled.