Heres an idea lets put the drums and all the instruments in one ear and the vocals in the other

heres an idea lets put the drums and all the instruments in one ear and the vocals in the other

why are the stereo mixes so fucking retarded

Because stereo panning is a gimmick.

no one bought stereo mixes back then so the artists didn't really care

headphones probably weren't popular and panning probably wasn't very understood

I don't mind some of their stereo mixes but holy fuck Taxman is a nightmare

It's a good thing most phones have a built in mono selection because stereo is terrible for every Beatles albums before Abby Roads.

Revolution is also terrible.

Just listen to all their albums in mono, except Abbey Road and Let It Be.

Although some say Tomorrow Never Knows has a great stereo mix.

Yeh fuck experimentation!!

Also it's fine on a stereo, people weren't consuming their music on shitty ear buds back then.

Personally I think people should listen to The Beatles in both mono and stereo.

If you listen closely, a lot of songs are actually different version in mono and stereo. It's not just a question of mix or production. On some occasions, the songs are actually different takes.

No one knew what they were doing in the 60s with stereo mixing, so they just put things all over the place and went "woah dude, trippy, eh?"

I never had to have someone school me on placing sounds in a stereo field. It should be intuitive since we all have two ears. Maybe it's more to do with the equipment used to mix and consume the mixes, as others have mentioned.

Most of this era's stereo recordings were meant to be played on consoles, with the speakers no more than 3 feet or so apart, which explains the separation. Mono or console was the way to go in the 60's.

>It should be intuitive since we all have two ears
It wasn't because back then it was a novelty.

Also The Beatles in particular were recording on 4-track and bounce many instruments down to one track. So in the end, they would have no choice but to have (what we'd view as) an intuitive stereo placement.

For example, the final stems for Sgt Pepper (the song) is this:
Track 1 - drums, rhythm, guitars, bass
Track 2 - horns and audience sounds/cheering
Track 3 - lead guitar
Track 4 - vocals

So just think how would you even mix that to have a modern sound stage? You'd have no choice to have all the guitars, bass, drums and vocals in the center, and then the lead guitar to the left and the horns on the right, or whatever.

Or you just mix it to mono, which is what The Beatles were primarily gonna do anyways.

Doesn't express yourself do this

for as forward thinking as beatles were it's kind of funny they didn't care about stereo until later on

people back then probably thought stereo was supposed to replicate live music with actual speakers (not headphone listening), with some band members "standing on the left" and some "standing in the middle" and some "standing on the right", which is why they hard-pan instruments. yes it is quite silly.

IMO:

Please Please Me: Mono
With The Beatles: Mono
Hard Days Night: Stereo
Beatles For Sale: Stereo
Help!: Stereo
Rubber Soul: Mono
Revolver: Mono
Sgt Pepper: Mono or 2017 Stereo Remix
Magical Mystery Tour: Stereo (German Horzu)
White Album: Stereo

left out abbey road?

It's only in stereo.

all beatles albums before the white album should be listened to in mono. the band literally said they didn't get didn't give a shit about it and thought it was just a gimmick until then

Please Please Me: Mono
With The Beatles: Mono
Hard Days Night: Mono
Beatles For Sale: Mono
Help!: Original 1965 Stereo mix
Rubber Soul: Original 1965 Stereo mix
Revolver: Stereo
Sgt Pepper: 2017 Stereo Remix
Magical Mystery Tour: Stereo
White Album: Stereo

I really don't know why George Martin bothered with those 80s remixes of Help and Rubber Soul

$$$$$$$$

Wrong.
Because he didn't like the original mixes. He thought Help was mixed too quickly and not enough care was put into it originally. And he had used extreme separation on Rubber Soul so that it could collapse into mono easier, which in hindsight was a dumb idea.

I think the original stereo Help is great, and while the original stereo Rubber Soul is a bit weird, it's better than his 80s mix.

i personally love the early worse quality stuff

"The Beatles was the last Beatles album to be mixed separately for stereo and mono,[148] though the mono version was issued only in the UK and a few other countries. All but one track exist in official mono mixes; the exception is "Revolution 9", which was a direct reduction of the stereo master.[35] The Beatles had not been particularly interested in stereo until this album, but after receiving mail from fans stating they bought both stereo and mono mixes of earlier albums, they decided to make the two different."

Martin would spend weeks mixing the mono version and slap together a stereo version in a few days. the white album is the first time the band was involved with the mixing and actually cared about it sounding good.

Did you quote the wrong user?

yes

Stereo was still so new at the time and they were "experimenting" with it, so while the mixes did turn out terrible, you can't really blame them (I know the Beatles or George Martin weren't there for the stereo mixing of a lot of their albums).

I have original Canadian pressings of Rubber Soul in stereo and mono and I definitely prefer the mono. That may be due to the mastering/pressing though.

>I definitely prefer the mono.
Sounds a bit muddy to me.

track 1 in the center 2 and 4 on the left and 3 on the right

>vocals not centered
kys

Was this a problem before the new remasters? I feel like I've heard stereo mixes before more recent remasters that weren't as retarded as the ones Martin's son oversaw.

I'm just glad we can agree that the 2017 stereo mix of Sgt Pepper is the new definitive version

Sounds like your opinion is more retarded than anything on a Beatles reissue

how so?

The remasters improved the entire catalog

So you don't agree that the panning is sometimes so extreme that it ruins the songs? Idk how many remasters there have been, the ones I'm talking about were released in 2009 I think? And as some people have already noted, Taxman is a total hack job. Were the original stereo mixes that extreme?

>So you don't agree that the panning is sometimes so extreme that it ruins the songs?
Do you not understand the difference between a remix and a remaster?

I found a reissue of Revolver recently
mono mix with the flipback style sleeve
I forget what year, I know there were two remaster campaigns recently and one had the apple sticker and the other had just a plain white one with the text
I almost bought it but all 4 corners were dog eared and I already own the '87 capitol purple label reissue so it seemed pointless
Just thought I'd bring this to your attention since you seem to think all the remasters are stereo

they werent really meant for headphones

actually
mono>headphones
stereo>hi fi/speakers

this is the only truth

I suppose I'm conflating the two a little, that's valid. Maybe I'm out of the know, but I remember being really excited to get a copy of the new releases on vinyl and being literally disgusted with some of the renditions on Revolver, and never got another copy after that.

Noted. I think I heard the mono remasters as well. Honestly I feel like there are so many different versions that I don't know which ones are the product of whom. All I really was curious about from my op is if for example the original stereo mix of Taxman had all the super indulgent panning.

This is interesting. When mixing myself I just try to make a mix that sounds good on both formats, which I think can definitely be done.

>When mixing myself
>I don't know the difference between a remix and a remaster
>>>/soundcloud thread/

You're deliberately interpreting this as generously as possible. I'm just asking a question I think is pertinent, was the 2009 reissue merely a 1:1 remaster of a previous mix, or were there mixing decisions as well? You're being unnecessarily pedantic.

Sorry, I meant "as ungenerously as possible"

this guy knows what's up

The problem is you are thinking stereos were, well, stereo. That was more of a 70s thing. In the 60s you were lucky if there was more than a couple of feet of separation between the speakers. Hifi was furniture.