My Obsession: In Search of the 'perfect' Aftermath Mono Copy.
(This was mainly written to illustrate the effort it has taken me to finish this project.
It may also be comforting for people who like me suffer from the disease called vinylitus.)
About three years ago, I started getting into the Stones again after a 15 year hiatus.
I soon discovered that for the early material (>1968) mono seemed to be the preferred format
for this band. Up to 1966, hardly anything had been recorded in true stereo and when
this finally did happen, it would take up until Beggar's Banquet before the stereo mixes were
actually of an certain quality standard. Especially Aftermath sounded extremely weak in stereo to me.
Problematically though, this and the albums following it were only available in mono on vintage vinyl
Luckily, I soon found a neat Dutch mono vinyl copy for a couple bucks. This sounded ok to me,
but the fidelity was lacking and and it had low-end roll-off. Soon enough, I found myself longing for a
decent copy of the UK mono version. And this is where my obsession really started.
So I started bidding on eBay and won a couple red Decca Stones mono's in one buy.
One of them was Beggar's Banquet which turned out to be a keeper. The others were in less good
shape. The copy of Aftermath had a much better low-end response than the dutch press but it
sounded pretty bad. I blamed it on the poor condition of the vinyl.
So back to bidding it was and soon I won another copy in excellent visual shape.
But after listening, I again felt that the vinyl- & soundquality was lacking. This had to do with the fact that
there is over 52 minutes of music on this album and a pretty thick low-end as well, resulting in a very
low mastering level and thus making all surface noise very audible. This also wasn't helped by the fact
that the UK mono lacked some sparkly high-end, which helps masking noise.
I was bugged. Finding a good sounding quiet copy just didn't seem possible.
However, giving the idea up was hard for me, especially after I had produced digital mono versions
of Between the buttons & Their Satanic Majesties Request that did meet my standards.
Then, by coincidence, I got an Israelian copy on the Pax label in my hand one day.
As I always do, I looked at the matrix numbers in the deadwax and these turned out to be from the UK.
But even better, these were cut from the mono stampers; the same ones that were used for the originals!
That of course gave me hope and I started looking for a stone-mint copy on eBay.
Soon enough, I was the owner of an unplayed Pax copy for an affordable price.
I cleaned it on my system and then let the needle slowly sink in the grooves, waiting for the confirmation
that my search was over.
But as soon as the needle hit the grooves, some serious surface noise came out of the speakers and
my heart sunk. The pressing quality wasn't that good and surface noise was present over both sides.
Still, it was the best copy I'd had so far.
Apart from the rumbling and hissing, side 1 sounded quite decent but side 2 sounded poor.
I was aware that the stereofied mono version of 'What to do' on the original US press 'More Hot Rocks'
had a lot more fidelity than this, so how come it sounded so crummy here?
I figured: "it must be worn out stampers or a pressing error" but I should have known better at that point.
So after trying a second copy on Pax which had the same issue's, it became clear that this was not
gonna lead me to Rome.
Next, I stumbled upon a curious UK mono pressing. I found it in Belgium in a used record store.
The label & the sleeve were English, but the deadwax information turned out to be different as usual.
This was not pressed by the of Decca's pressing plants in the UK, as the type of the stamp was different.
After a couple weeks, the question as to where was this pressed answered itself; I spotted the same
matrix stamp on a Belgian Decca 60's pressing. So, it was a Belgian press, disguised as a UK copy.
Upon listening, it turned out that Side 1 was unmistakenably a folddown of the stereo.
Side 2, however, sounded sounded better than the 2nd side of the Pax pressing and for a moment
I was getting my hopes up until I did an actual comparison. Bummer again... it was a folddown as well.
So one year further and I was still looking for that elusive copy. I decided I had to aim high and
get a UK mono Aftermath with low stampers in near mint shape. A well-stocked UK dealer on a
record fair had such a copy, price: 200 GBP. I'd talked to the good man a couple times before
and had managed to impress him with my knowledge about pressings and matrixnumbers,
so I got it for 200 euros instead. This was the final word, I had found the right copy this time
even though I had far exceeded my previous price-for-one-record limit. Didn't matter!
Got home, cleaned it on my machine's and played it.
The surface noise was more tolerable than the Pax but still there was some rumbling and hissing.
And also a hint of groovewear at the end of each side of the record.
The most striking thing though; side 2 still sounded like crap. It was finally obvious to me now:
it wasn't gonna work with these UK pressings. I had pretty much
heard all the different cuttings and they all didn't sound right and had vinyl quality problems.
Luckily, the record fair lasted two days and I got to exchange the record for something else.
However, being me, I couldn't let this go past me altogether. I kept an eye on Aftermath mono pressings
on eBay with the exception of US pressings which were mastered from a reduction of the stereo mix.
Then one day, I noticed a different pressing on eBay from a country I will not identify at this point*.
The seller had bothered to write out the matrix numbers from the deadwax and these were not the UK ones.
I was wary though, because I had previously bought another Stones Decca record from the same country
with similar matrix information and that turned out to be a folddown. In fact, one day after setting a
bid with a sniping program, I tried to remind myself of canceling my bid before the auction ended but never
got around to do it. Then I won the record by a very small margin.
Two weeks later, it arrived on my doorstep. I left the package unopened for a while because I didn't think
it was going to cheer me up. When I did, the first thing was check whether ít was the real mono mix by playing
the intro of Flight 505 which has a sound that can only be detected on the mono mix.
To my surprise, the 'hup' (by Stu, I think) was there. And the piano sounded very very clean.
Then the band fell in. Wow, there was a crispy high-end that I had never heard before with this song.
Full nice round bass too. The vocals sound great. I couldn't believe my luck. This was the same quality
I had heard on the Singles Collection CD & the one track on 'More Hot Rocks' box but never elsewhere.
The record was very dirty and had to be washed thoroughly before I could fully inspect the soundquality.
After doing this, I finally sat down and played the whole thing. Great sound and excellent vinyl quality.
Except, some groove wear occurred during the last two tracks of each side. Nothing major but enough
to distract me. So, the last step in my quest was to find a copy with unworn grooves.
This proved to be difficult as copies seemed very sparse eBay. In fact, I didn't see one at all for 3 months.
But during the last Megabeurs Record Fair in Utrecht (one of the largest in the world) last April
the vinyl gods were with me again. I found a nice EX copy with quiet playing surfaces and clear sound, a
definitive improvement on my first copy. That vinyl copy is the main source for this project.
It only took me 8 previous copies to get there (but I may have forgotten about one or two more).
I hope it will bring you as much joy as it has brought me.
Sincerely,
Prof.
* Sorry, but I'm still looking for a couple more of these for a few friends and I don't want to raise the prices
on eBay, like what happened with the Hendrix mono 'Are you experienced" on Barclay. Don't bother PM-ing.
Thanks for understanding.