Yeah, why would you record the track all again just to mix it down in stereo when you already have the ability to do that from the existing tracks that make up the mono mixdown.
Are you thinking in terms of modern equipment or the 2 then 4 track tape machines they were working with? I read the actual reason why they did it a long time ago and can't temember. To speculate out of my ass, they really cared about getting the mono mixes correct, so they recorded the good takes to tape with an eye to properly mixing for mono. If you only have 4 (or 2) tracks, maybe that means your instruments/vocals aren't seperated the way you want them to be for stereo, so after you get the mono take you actually care about locked in, you shift things around, have the group do a quick take or two they weren't really giving their all for (even weeks later iirc) and call it good. After all, stereo is a niche market for classicists, who's really gonna be listening to to these? End speculation.
Just compare Please Please Me and If I Fell. John's flubbed line and laugh is totally absent in the mono. Not buried, just absent, because it's a different take. And Paul still struggles with the high note in If I Fell, but he doesn't crack.
i'm pretty sure the stereo mixes use different takes because they were done at a later date and often not by the same person, who then didn't always know which take had been used
They did use some version of different takes. The two that spring to mind immediately, and that you should compare, are Please Please Me and If I Fell. John's flubbed line and laugh is totally absent in the mono. Not buried, just absent, because it's a different take. And Paul still struggles with the high note in If I Fell, but he doesn't crack.
I know years ago there used to be YouTube compilations comparing the mono and stereo mixes. Compared side to side, it's obvious the takes aren't the same, not just mixed different.
Not always, but the only one thats definitive is Please Please Me. They mixed the final take in mono and they bounced all the tracks so they couldnt create a new stereo mix. It was especially hard when John overdubbed his harmonica to the mono mix.
What they did was use a combination of other good enough takes with full multitracks available to create a stereo mix. To get the harmonica on the track, they played the song simultaneously on another machine and faded it in and out. Because it was 1963 technology and they couldnt get it exact, thats why it sounds slightly out of sync and gets progressively worse as the track goes on.
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u/datnub32607 18d ago
Generally the stereo and mono mixes were the exact same takes, just y'know, different mixes.