Please Please Me (original stereo studio mix)

The mono mix and stereo mix were made from different takes, although the five sections of harmonica are the same on both. The harmonica overdubbing was only done once.

The stereo version has the famous collision in verse 3 on "You know you never even try"/"Why do I never even try", followed by the laugh on "Come on come on". Some have explained this difference by saying the mistake was repaired for the mono mix by editing in a replacement for just this section. However, the two versions have differences all the way through, so they must be two different complete takes. For example, in verse 1, compare the sound of the word "try" in the second line, and in the bridge, compare "reason with you, oh yeah" in stereo against "reason with you, whoa oh yeah" in mono. John's voice is rougher all the way through the mono take.

In stereo, the harmonica appears in the right channel, the same as the vocal. During the first 4 segments, which occur between vocal lines, the bass guitar sound also comes way up on the right, and the whole ambience changes much more than in mono. During the last segment, which overlays vocals, the harmonica is less audible than in the mono mix, which is puzzling.

Lewisohn reports in Recording Sessions that the mono mix was from "unknown takes", meaning he saw no studio documentation for takes. The easiest explanation is to suppose that the mixing information was already missing in February 1963 and that it led to the staff accidentally editing the pieces into the wrong take when they did the stereo mix, three months after the mono. The changes in ambience therefore are the difference between two takes.

David Prokopy on r.m.b. has proposed that a tape reel was lost, so that the harmonica survived only on the mono mix itself, and that therefore the stereo mix was made by synchronizing the mono mix with an alternate take. This explains why the first 4 segments don't have just the harmonica by itself on the right, but have bass and some of the other sound as well (i.e. the right channel is a processed version of the mono mix), and why the last harmonica segment is at lower volume, namely to hide that it doesn't really match. The last particularly would mean they were deliberately using a different take for want of the correct one.

The following release uses a fold down of this mix for mono:
US: Capitol T 2309 The Early 1965.