beatlhelp

The Beatles – Help

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • With two outstanding Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Everything that’s great about Help is here on this UK pressing – jangly 12-string guitars, Tubey Magical electric pianos, harmonically rich tambourines and claves, and, the sine qua non of any Beatles album, breathy, present vocals
  • If you’re like us and think the new Beatles Heavy Vinyl reissues are boosted in the bass and way too smooth in the midrange, whether mono or stereo, take comfort in the fact that this pressing is neither of those things, because it sounds right
  • Side one alone boasts 7 classics: “Help!,” “The Night Before,” “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” “I Need You,” “Another Girl,” “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” and “Ticket to Ride” – whew!

Want to hear The Beatles at their Tubey Magical best? Just play “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” on this very copy.

One of the reasons this song stands out in a crowd of great tracks is that there are only acoustic instruments being played. There’s not an electric guitar to be found anywhere in the mix, one of the few tracks on side one for which that is true.

We flip out over the Tubey Magical acoustic guitars and harmony vocals found on early Beatles albums, and this song can be an exceptionally good example of both when you’re fortunate enough to have the right pressing playing.

Those of you with Hot Stamper pressings of the album can count themselves among the fortunate.

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We Get Letters – “The first time I listened, that moment elicited an involuntary cry, ‘Wow!’”

More of the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Dear Tom and Fred,

I just got through listening to my latest haul of records, including a few Pink Floyd White Hot Stampers. They are just fantastic. As is the SRV The Sky is Crying, and every other record I’ve bought from you. They are transformative.

One that deserves special mention is the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto I just got. I expected the violin to sound amazing, and it does. I did not expect to be blown away when the full orchestra joins in. The first time I listened, that moment elicited an involuntary cry, ‘Wow!’

The second time I listened, it evoked the same response. It’s simply magical. Thank you.

Finally, I got a WHS of the Beatles Help! I really love the album. Nearly every song is great. One song that did not move me as I hoped was Yesterday. I read on your blog that some German pressings have amazing versions of Yesterday. Even if the rest sound like crap, I’d be very interested to buy one if you have it laying around.

Thanks again for all you do. I should mention that another of your loyal customers, ab_ba, turned me on to your work, and is largely responsible for helping me find my way.

Dear Bill,

Some thoughts:

As for the Tchaikovsky, glad to hear you liked it so much. Finding a recording that gets the orchestra right is ten times harder than finding a record with a good sounding violin. This we have learned through experience.

I used to think these Heifetz records were a bit crude, but now I realize I just couldn’t play them right back in those days.

As for Help!, we don’t buy the German pressings anymore because it is just too hard to sell a record at the prices we charge in which only one song sounds great. You can find them easily enough if you want to go that route.

As for ab_ba, glad he was able to help you find a better way.

We both owe him a debt of gratitude in that respect.

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Listening in Depth to Help

Hot Stamper Pressings of Help Available Now

More of the Music of The Beatles

Presenting another entry in our extensive Listening in Depth series.

Much like we said about the Please Please Me Hot Stampers, on the top copies the presence of the vocals and guitars is so real it’s positively startling at times.

Drop the needle on You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away and turn up the volume — on the best copies it will be as if John and Paul were right there in your living room.

The best import copies of this album sound AMAZING, but the typical one is pretty mediocre. Most tend to be dull, with not enough extension up top, as well as thin, lacking weight and body from the lower midrange on down.

Side One

Help! (A Number One Hit)
The Night Before

One of the biggest problems we found with this album is that the top end tends to be somewhat lacking. On the better copies, the cymbals on this track will sound correct and lively.

You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away

One of the reasons this song sounds so good is that there are only acoustic instruments being played. There’s not an electric guitar to be found anywhere in the mix, one of the few tracks that can make that claim. We love the Tubey Magical guitars and voices found on early Beatles albums, and this song is a good example of both.

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Letter of the Week – “[My wife] jumped out of her seat on the couch after the percussive intro to Shout was over and the song launched.”

More of the Music of Tears For Fears

Hot Stamper Pressings of Help Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

I know you must have a TON of e-mail traffic to sort through but wanted to send accolades for the latest shipment of hot stampers from you! Simply incredible!

I don’t know how you managed to get the TFF Big Chair LP to play SO clean because it looks atrocious. If I would have seen that in a used record store I would have put it back but when the stylus touched down, dead silent surface and throughout the whole record. The sound is incredible as advertised. I played it for my wife who is enjoying these pressings with me and praises you after reading your descriptions. She jumped out of her seat on the couch after the percussive intro to Shout was over and the song launched.

The Beatles Help album was also incredible. Compared to the MoFi I have it now sounds overly bright and goosed. The UK 1970’s press sounds more cohesive and even across the spectrum. That title was missing from my others of that same pressing era.

All the jackets that have come with the LPs so far have been very nice. The TFF was crisp and new.

I am HOOKED on your hot stampers, Tom. My system is up to reproducing these as you hear them and with the play grades you rate them at.

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The Original Pressings of The Beatles Albums Are the Best Sounding, Right?

beatles help labelHot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

No they are not. At least the ones on the label you see pictured are not (with the exceptions noted below).

We think it’s just another example of mistaken audiophile thinking.

Back in 2005 we compared the MFSL pressing of Help to a British Parlophone LP and were — mistakenly, as you may have already surmised — impressed by the MoFi. We wrote:

Mobile Fidelity did a GREAT JOB with Help!. Help! is a famously dull sounding record. I don’t know of a single original pressing that has the top end mastered properly. Mobile Fidelity restored the highs that are missing from most copies.

The source of the error in our commentary above is in this sentence, see if you can spot it:

I don’t know of a single original pressing that has the top end mastered properly.

Did you figure it out? If you’ve spent much time on our site of course you did.

Original pressing?

Is that the standard?

Why? Who said so? Where is it written?

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Help – Germans Versus Brits in 2011

More Help

More of The Beatles

We’ve heard some excellent German pressings before, but this time [circa 2011] nothing could match up to our best Brit copies. What the best British copies have is more of the TUBEY MAGIC that can typically be heard on early pressings, due no doubt to the fact that they are mastered with tube equipment.

One reason we were so crazy about the German pressings is how amazingly clean and clear they can be. I can’t tell you how many distorted Brit copies we’ve played of this album over the years.

Some of the old cutting equipment clearly adds its own layer of distortion to the distortion that already exists on the tape for many of these Imports. A clean, clear, super low distortion Brit copy like this one is certainly the exception and NOT the rule. (more…)