Beatles Please Please Me Album Stereo Mix- MFSL Version

So you're making definitive judgments about the 1st pressing without ever hearing it?

It doesn't seem strange at all. There could be any number of explanations for it - including they didn't request a flat copy. Our host has made a career of identifying correct tapes and returning incorrect cutting masters presumed to be original mix down masters by guys in the tape warehouse.

Ummm, the LP is evidence. That's what makes your theory (and a largely speculative one based on circumstantial evidence and the fallacious Argumentum Ad Ignorantium) that there wasn't an unprocessed master a bit hard to accept.

 

-I'm not making definitive judgments, I'm just saying there are no discussions about that cut, no one claims that it comes from an uncompressed master.

-To me it sounds strange that they request an uncompressed master, EMI complies, and then in Germany they release it compressed the first time, and uncompressed on a later edition. And that other countries didn't request it too if it existed.

-I don't have any theory about the existence of an uncompressed master, I'm just saying I don't think they would send a different master to the one used and approved for the UK and the rest of the world. In this case, speculation comes from the people claiming otherwise, since it didn't happen in any other country. The LP doesn't prove it, the difference in sound can be attributed to other factors.

 

I think if we asked Lt Columbo to investigate this case this is what he'd say:

"Oh this is a tough one Sir. But....the key are the words "EQUALISED COMPRESSED TAPE" on the tape box. Now why would somebody make it a point to write those words on a tape box? To differentiate this tape from another tape that WASNT Equalised and Compressed....thats why sir.
Which means, somewhere , theres another tape without the Equalisation and Compression.

Oh..just one more thing sir........

 

That is just the final 'mix' of the twin-track session tape - an 'EQ'd and compressed copy' of that tape (which is all it really amounted to).

 

It's an more 'EQ'd and Compressed copy' of the Less-compressed and Less-equalized Final 2 track mixdown tape, not the Session Tape.

 

That phantom tape again, that is documented nowhere, and which has never been used for any other release (including the 2009 remasters)...

 

@lukpac

What are your thoughts on the origins of the tape that was used to cut Die Beatles?

 

And you are employing the fallacious Argumentam ad Verecundiam (ie, an appeal to authority): Steve says so, and he is an expert, so it must be true.

No one has produced any evidence that there was an unprocessed master tape produced prior to the cutting master. The documentation we do have, as well as the auditory evidence cited by Slane, makes this unlikely. The difference in sound can be accounted for by EQ and rebalancing of the channels. If someone is going to claim the sonic differences are caused by something else, the burden of proof is upon them to provide evidence to prove this.

 

Correct, I read years ago that the German copy tape was sent out in Jan 1964 (for the first German release in Feb 1964) and the opening and re-sealing dates show that time frame.
It's also worth posting once again what EMI's Allan Rouse said on this forum back in 2009 as there's so much confusion regarding the EMI master tapes due to the "Equalised and Compressed Tape" notation on the boxes; the eq and compression was an integral part of the mix process.

 

True, the burden of proof lies with the claimant, but I fail to see how anyone thinks there weren't mistakes and lost or misplaced tapes, un-noted dupes, inconsistent notation and logging at EMI during the sixties and in The Beatles canon. There might not be proof positive of the uncompressed, unequalised tape, but there is proof positive that mysteries and anomalies abound in the subject.

Here's a few reasons why I say what I do.

This looks like proof it's possible.

Look at the Let It Be box here:

The Beatles

"A "stereo model master" with only one box for both sides? This is a "corrected copy tape" to be used "for cutting only (use original master for tape copies - AR16216)". There are no notes regarding cutting or level changes on this tape, so the reason for a dupe being used is unclear. Nevertheless, it is this tape which was used for vinyl cutting, and this tape which was supplied to MFSL by EMI.

The "other tape" was used to make tape copies for Sweden on 15 February 1976."

So MOFI got the "stereo model master" for cutting only...so what did Sweden get?



Mysterious, rare mixes have popped up here and there throughout the years demonstrating, I think, that things were sometimes pretty disorganised at EMI with regard to The Beatles . Here are three rare mixes I know of (and own). Note: they might not be so rare now.

Powerful, great sounding true stereo (two track) mixes of I Want To Hold Your Hand and This Boy apparently mixed by George Martin in 1963 then lost and forgotten till it popped up by accident 13 years later. For IWTHYH it is mix "b":

The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations

stereo 21 Oct 1963.
Australia: Parlophone A8103 single reissue 1976.
Stereo mix , the first ever made by George Martin from 4-track, has the rhythm instruments far left and vocal far right, like a twintrack mix, leaving the lead guitar isolated in the center, which sounds odd since it only plays fills. Sending this mix to Australia for a 1976 single reissue must have been a mistake.

I'd call it a happy mistake, because the other stereo mixes of IWTHYH are awful sounding, while 'b' has almost as much power as the mono mix. Went unheard for decades and it is so far superior to the stereo mix that appeared on the UK "...Oldies.." and elsewhere, even keeping in mind it's a twin track stereo mix like PPM and WTB.

Note: I've read it reported that stereo mix 'b' was also released in Canada in 1976. I have it in my Australian Beatles Singles Collection box from 1982. It also appeared (with a tape slip on the intro) on an Australia only hits LP, The Beatles Number Ones or something like that (can't remember -- the tape slip bothered me too much to keep the record).

Ditto the true stereo mix of This Boy, which appears on the B-side of the 1976 Australian stereo IWTHYH and that I have in the '82 singles box.

• • " stereo 21 Oct 1963. edited.
    Canada: Capitol 72144 reissue 1976 [B side of All My Loving].
    Australia: Parlophone A8103 reissue 1976.
    UK: Parlophone SGE 1 (EP) 1981.
    CD: EMI CDP 7 90043 2 Past Masters 1 1988.

The edit removed an instrumental break after the bridge, leaving an abrupt transition to the last verse.

The only stereo mix documented in Lewisohn is of 10 Nov 1966, but a mix from 1963 is known from the tape compilation by John Barrett at EMI, with an intro spoken by Norman Smith who was not engineer on Beatles sessions in 1966. The stereo image is also similar to that of I Want to Hold Your Hand mixed the same day. Does the 1966 mix exist?

The 1963 mix was ignored for many non-UK compilation albums that used mono or locally-made mock stereo, and was finally found and used for the first time for two single reissues in 1976, but for some reason the compilers of Love Songs in 1977 either could not find it or did not know it existed, and instead made yet another mock stereo version."

Ditto the above for the true stereo, all analog mix of Yes It Is, which I have on the Dutch singles collection box from 1982 (beating the Heineken tape by four years), which I imagine was unknown at the time of Brennan's Usenet Guide to The Beatles Recording Variations.

• • "stereo 23 Feb 1965.
    UK: Stilletto/Parlophone SMMC-151 (Heineken beer promo, cassette) Only the Beatles 1986.
    CD: EMI CDP 7 90043 2 Past Masters 1 1988.

The stereo mix must have been well hidden away, not used in 1977 or 1979 for collections. It first appeared on a promotional offer tape from Heineken Beer in 1986, available by mail order for a few weeks. It has a dropout (a tape defect) in verse 1 on the word "I" in "remember what I said tonight", and an extra tone-pedal note under the first word "if".
Part of this same take was remixed to complete the outtake (see above) for Anthology 2."

Magical Mystery Tour (the stereo LP) presents more mystery, as the last sentence implies (my bolds):

"To add insult to injury, the West German arm of EMI issued their own version of the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack in the early 1970s. Germany largely abandoned mono in the early 1960s. Possessing nous that Capitol seemed to lack, the German company requested, and got, stereo mixes of the final three tracks, and a new stereo mix of Strawberry Fields Forever. Fortunately, it is this German version which is now available on compact disc.

Back in the 1980s, however, MFSL simply requested the Magical Mystery Tour album master from EMI in London, despite the fact that the original master resided in Capitol's vaults, and a superior master existed in Germany. Presumably thinking of the money and caring little for quality, MFSL simply cut their release from this tape, clearly marked NAB (the North American equalisation system, as opposed to the UK CCIR (IEC) system), with no dates before September 1976 on the label, and the jarring statement "8dB down on EMI level" on side 1. It sounds, as you may have guessed, like ****.

Stranger still, EMI in the UK had released the West German version of Magical Mystery Tour - the one in full stereo - on cassette, so a master of some description presumably existed at EMI in London at this time."


Bearing in mind the anomalies/rarities I listed above (I'm sure there are lots more) I think the jury's still out on the existence of the uncompressed, unequalised PPM tape, especially considering the curious noting from the tape boxes ("equalised compressed tape" on PPM, "stereo model master" "for cutting only" on LIB). No, not proof, but plenty to substantiate reasonable doubt.

In fact, I think the above makes SH's account all the more credible:

THE BEATLES "Please Please Me" original mono? Also MMT German pressing info

#25

"Technically MoFi used the correct British master tape for PLEASE PLEASE ME. However, this tape was SO compressed and EQ'd originally that (if I remember correctly) it says RIGHT ON THE TAPE BOX: "Do not dupe for export, use reel #XXXXXX" or something like that. In other words: "This tape is so radically messed with that we can't imagine any other country using it to cut a good sounding phonograph record.

So, I told the MoFi guys to use the earlier generation tape, the one used for duping export copies. (They never did and that tape (the original twin-track SI reel) has never been used for anything except making dubs for other countries (DIE BEATLES was made from one such dub copy).

I ALSO told the MoFi guys that LOVE ME DO and P.S. I LOVE YOU were fake stereo dubs and shouldn't be used at all and that they should request the proper mono originals, and blah blah blah..... They didn't.

Such is life."

I just did my own little comparison of a UK ~1 mat EMI two box PPM and a ~2 mat Die Beatles earlier today and the UK sounds like what Steve describes above. I haven't listened to it in many years and there's a reason. If the German engineers were able to make the ~2 mat Die Beatles sound like it does using the same source tape as was used for my ~1 mat UK and simply remastering it, I'd say they were magicians. Differing levels aside, the SQ differences are night and day.

 

The French stereo PPM on Pathé Marconi was released in the early 70's and it sounds rather dull if I recall correctly. Can anyone check this? Maybe it was also cut from the export tape?

 

That's all very interesting, but still...

If stereo and mono was (mostly) mixed simultaneously, and those mixes match each other in terms of processing, where could an 'uncompressed' PPM tape come from?

 

Don't know and I'm no expert, obviously. I'm just saying there is reasonable doubt. Besides that, it was a very long time ago -- people's memories get wobbly about what was done or not done. George Martin himself was convinced that a stereo press of PPM didn't come out until "much later", like 1965 or something IIRC, when it actually was released perhaps weeks after the mono and GM himself had to have been there.

 

For those of us who hate the twin track separation, how would the German Hor Zu and/or the MFSL and/or the UK Stereo fold-down?

There's that big hole in the middle of this mix, so maybe the 3 db (or whatever it is) bump in the middle wouldn't occur (or be as blatant) in this case

.

 

But the Barrett notes (and the audio evidence) suggest that the 'mixes' (more of a 'copy' of the twin-tracks really) went to mono and stereo at the same time.

What was done during that 'mix' was printed onto the final mono and stereo tapes, so things like processing and fade-outs are the same on each tape. Ingrained.

How could Germany get a tape with the fade-outs intact, but with none of the processing?

There's perhaps no wonder that George Martin didn't remember making specific stereo mixes of the album - because most of the album tracks had ONE mix.

 

I haven't tried folding down the HorZu. But I would expect it to have slightly less of the instruments channel than a fold of the regular copy (due to the balance alteration), and less boomy bass (due to the EQ changes).

But all stereo versions of the album have nothing at all in the middle, so the 'bump in the middle' is not an issue.

 

Not that it's relevant here, but the UK 'cassette' master of MMT wasn't strictly the 'German' master. While all the Side 2 tracks are the same, Side 1 of the cassette master was compiled from the UK stereo EP tapes (evidenced by it having the UK stereo mix of I Am The Walrus, rather than the US mix that was on the German LP).

The 'cassette' master (which came out on UK cassette c.1973) is what the CDs are produced from. Why EMI didn't release this on their 1976 LP is a mystery.

 

Ok. While waveform shots don't tell the whole story, I think these show the really obvious difference.

First is Twist And Shout (2009 remaster - all I had handy - is at the top, rip of Die Beatles is at the bottom):




I Saw Her Standing There (2009 top, Die Beatles bottom):



All of the other tracks follow this pattern, with an obviously much weaker left channel on Die Beatles, relative to the right channel.

 

Hasn't an image of the master tape box been pictured upthread, showing no such "do not dupe" notations as the ones described by Steve in the post you quoted? What do you make of Rouse's statement that no such intermediary master tape exists as is being claimed? If there was such a tape, why is there no documentation of it, and where did it go? Why would they make a mono master that is a first generation copy of the stereo master, if they had the ability to make both mixes simultaneously and save a generation? To me, all these things far outweigh the "I think it sounds too different to be just EQ and rebalancing" argument.

 

Interesting debate, albeit one above my pay grade. Excuse me while I enjoy listening to the awesome sound on DB.

 

If Steve could master PPM for DCC, which tape would he request from EMI/Universal/Calderstone?

 

No. As noted, mix tapes always carried that notation. EQ and compression was used during mixing.

 

The master tape box.

I find this interesting in this context:

"Copies of Beatles Master Tapes" Played at CES and RMAF 2013

"Beatles master tapes are not stored in cardboard boxes."

To me the above casts serious doubt on all the reliance placed on the pics of the MFSL box set covers and the idea that anyone has the definitive, final word on the subject.

Sure, according to Lewisohn we know PPM was mixed to mono and stereo simultaneously. What we do not know is is whether what we see on these pics circulating of the MFSL box set covers are the last word on documentation and what the relationship those have with what's stored at EMI. What we have are mysteries and some theories with which to explain them. Reasonable theories, logically arrived at, but still just theories.

Reasonable doubt is all over the place on this topic and reasonable doubt is all I'm suggesting here. I don't know, and neither does anyone else that's here.

He could be right. But, again, it was all a very, very long time ago. George Martin said in a late 1980s interview that a stereo version of the Please Please Me LP wasn't released until long after the mono version, as I pointed out above (it was actually about one month). He said that 25 years, give or take, after the fact. PPM was released 54 years ago. The LIB "model master" I referred to in my previous post inserts a question mark into the topic. As does this quote from Fremer from the same column I linked above:

"If you do a web search on "Beatles master tapes" you will not see even one image of an actual Beatles master tape. Not one. That's how carefully these tapes are guarded."

Who knows? Maybe it's locked away in EMI's tape library. Where did the master of George Martin's 1963 stereo mixes of IWTHYH and This Boy go for 13 years? And when they surfaced and were used (only) in Australia (and perhaps Canada), why did they disappear again? Where are they now?

Faulty or inconsistent, decades old documentation maybe? Somebody spill tea on the note sheet or the tape box and smudge the notations?

Who knows? Why didn't that happen with IWTHYH? Martin mixed it to stereo same day as the mono, then the tune was remixed to stereo again (very poorly) in 1965 then again (even worse) in 1966...Why? Did no one keep track of the original GM stereo mix of the iconic multi-million selling hit that launched Beatlemania virtually everywhere outside the UK? Apparently not. After hearing GM's stereo mix one would be very hard pressed to conclude it was insufficient considering that two-track stereo versions of PPM and WTB had been released and considering how completely messed up the 1965 and 1966 stereo remixes sound.

Some dicey documentation perhaps? GM's stereo mix tape lost? In a drawer? Stored with something else?

Each to his own.

I wonder why the undeniably wonderful SQ achieved on Die Beatles, if it was only the result of EQ and rebalancing, couldn't be replicated on later German Beatles releases. I've owned several and got rid of them all for mud and hugely bloated bass (IMO -- some people like them and I suppose if one has a bass shy system they might be fun). None that I've heard came anywhere near the clarity SQ you get with Die Beatles. You cannot not fault Die Beatles for lack of clarity nor is there any hint of bass boost.

So why is Die Beatles unique in the German Beatles canon? One brilliant mastering engineer who quit right after his work on the album? From WTB on, stereo German Odeon's sound mud and bass bloat (the 1971 stereo MMT notwithstanding) IMO. Mastering decision? The German listening public liked mud and bass bloat? Why would there be such a radical shift in mastering philosophy? Doesn't add up. What does add up is there is definitely something very odd about the SQ of Die Beatles, as we've all known for many, many years and cannot explain, except to say it is wonderful and unique.

I'm not saying I'm 100 percent convinced over an uncompressed, un EQ'd tape being used for Die Beatles after all that's been discussed here.

Nor am I 100 percent convinced it wasn't as none of us here knows the full story. We simply don't have the access to know.

Of course, that may not matter to many people.

For my part, I remain open to question.

YMMV.