The Rolling Stones - Their Satanic Majesties Request (US Mono Version)
16 Bit / 44.1 kHz (Audio CD Burnable)
01. Sing This All Together
02. Citadel
03. In Another Land <Performed by Bill Wyman>
04. 2000 Man
05. Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
06. She's a Rainbow
07. The Lantern
08. Gomper
09. 2000 Light Years from Home
10. On with the Show
Bonustrack:
11. Sympathy For The Devil
(Total time: 51:06)
All tracks Mono
All of these mixes are unavailable on CD except Tr. 3, 6, 7 & 9.
Sources:
1-10: US London NP-2 (Side 1: ARL-8126-1C / Side 2: ARL-8127-1C)
11: UK Decca LK4955 (Side 1: XARL-8476-4A)
Technics 1210mk2 w/ AT-440 MLa stylus -> M-Audio Microtrack 24/96
(A-D conversion 24 bit, 96kHz) -> Click Repair (Cl: 25, Cr: 0) -> Adobe Audition 1.5 ->
Nuendo 2.0 -> CueListTool v1.7 -> CueSplitter -> Traders Little Helper (Flac 8)
(NB: Audition 1.5 was used for adjusting DC bias, editing, (incl. manual removal of clicks
and pops), folding the stereo channels together, adding gain, and making the cue points.
Nuendo 2.0 was used for downsampling from 96 to 88.2 to 44.1
and dithering to 16 bit using the Apogee UV22hr.)
Vinyl transfer & Restoration / Torrent Produced by Prof. Stoned
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Prof. says:
Often criticized for being a poor imitation of Sgt. Pepper, ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’
is definitely somewhat of a oddity within the Stones Discography.
There are likely very few Stones fans who will name this one when asked for their favourite album.
But who can resist the spacerock anthem '2000 light years' or the classic 'She's a rainbow' ?
It could even have been a great album if 'We love you', 'Dandelion' & 'Child of the moon' (of which
an early take was recorded during the TSMR sessions) were added in favour of
(pretty bad) tracks like 'See what happens' & 'Gomper'.
This was the last Stones album to get a monaural release in the States.
Although Decca UK would continue to release mono Stones albums up to Let it Bleed,
pretty much all of these are fold downs (= mono mixes created from stereo mixes).
In fact, TSMR was the last Stones album to get a dedicated mono mix (= mix made
from the multitracks straight to mono).
Strangely enough, this dedicated mono mix was only released in the US & Canada on the London label.
Decca UK opted to use a fold down of the stereo mix, whether intentionally or by mistake is unknown *
* (Decca DID use the true mono mixes when they released the She's a rainbow/2000 lightyears single.)
As you may have noticed, I included the opening track of Beggars banquet as a bonus here.
For those who wonder why I did not upload the whole BB album in mono seperately:
'Sympathy for the devil' is the ONLY track on the mono UK Decca pressing of BB
that happens to be a true mono mix.
All other tracks are fold downs of the stereo mixes -including 'Street fighting man' of which a
dedicated mono mix appears on the The Singles Collection 68-71 boxset.
The reason why SFTD had to be remixed to mono was purely the result of a technical
flaw in the stereo mix: when you add the two channels of the stereo version together
the piano will disappear as a result of phase cancellation.
After Beggars Banquet, Decca went on to release two more Stones albums in mono:
'Through the past darkly' and 'Let it bleed', both of these are fold downs (with possible exception
of 2 or 3 tracks on the former).
So far, ABKCO -who holds the rights to all the Stones Decca-era recorded material- has never reissued
the mono versions of Aftermath, Between the buttons & TSMR on CD.
Neither were any of them reissued on vinyl after 1969.
Or so it seems...
In the late 70's, London did a reissue of TSMR with both the (none-3D) sleeve and label on the record
carrying the word stereo(phonic).
But this record was cut from the original '67 mono lacquers and thus has dedicated mono mixes
on both sides. Said pressing was used as the source for this transfer.
WHY would you want to hear this in MONO when we have stereo ?
Answer: because the mono mix sounds more powerful: it has a more ballsy low-end and -most
importantly- a better balance among the vocals and instruments.
You will most certainly hear subtle differences if you are well familiar with the stereo version.
And even if you like the stereo version better, it's always fun to hear a familiar album from a
different angle.
So here it is. The last run of Rolling Stones mono material which has never been available on CD
so far (ok, apart from the 'Brown Sugar' promo single, but I don't have that one).
If you are only familiar with the (Russian) import mono CD of this album which predictably uses the UK
Decca LP as its source (= the stereo folddown), you'll be pleasantly surprised to hear how good the true
mono version actually sounds.
The records were professionally and carefully cleaned in three steps using Audio Intelligent’s
Enzymantic formula, Super Cleaner Formula, and Ultra pure water on a VPI 16.5
(using VPI brushes) and Nitty Gritty mini-pro 2.
I spent a lot of time manually declicking the wave file (after Click Repair had already been
applied with a medium setting) to make sure the cleanest and most natural sounding result
possible was achieved. A few pops could not be removed without causing hearable artifacts,
and so these were left alone.
Those of who familiar with my work know that my needledrops are usually flat transfers.
However, due to the extremely bright nature of the source material used here, I have conservately shaved
off a bit of high end (one setting) on the whole recording (save from Tr. 11).
I felt this decision was justified because it makes the listening experience that much more pleasant.
I used Universal Audio's Precision EQ <http://www.uaudio.com/products/software/preceq/index.html>
Even now, some tracks are still a bit too trebly but I wanted to keep the sonic differences
with each track intact rather than mastering them seperataly.
The artwork folder contains a few scans I found online. I simply do not have the correct sleeve
of the US mono pressing because the record I used is a mispressing in a regular stereo sleeve
(as I mentioned above).
Enjoy!