Get Back To Mono: Beatles’ Recording Engineer Ken Scott On The Best Way To Hear The Fab Four

Sunday, September 21, 2014

For most music lovers, there can be no such thing as “too much Beatles.” But there have been stray notes of skepticism surrounding the much-hyped Beatles In Mono vinyl box set that hit stores last week. Particularly among millennial fans, the very concept of mono recording conjures images of quaint lo-fi discs intended strictly for purists and those stranded in the past. Surely this 14-record set is a dive into minutiae, an extraneous curio designed solely for the Beatlemaniac audiophile? This could not be further from the truth. The Beatles In Mono is perhaps the most crucial Beatles release for those who were not privileged to live in a time when the four Fabs roamed the Earth. For a start, just use your ears. Far from a relic, the sound is more alive, full, and frightfully contemporary than ever before. And that’s not just our opinion-

it’s also the opinion of Ken Scott, the music industry great who got his start as the Beatles’ recording engineer. Prior to his groundbreaking work with a list of legends including David Bowie, Elton John, Jeff Beck and Supertramp, Scott was in the room when some of the Beatles’ classic recordings were being made, and had his hand on the fader when the original masters were created. Who better to say how these records are meant to sound?