Mono singles - looking for a home

lj01

Active Member
Hello,

First, let me introduce myself - I'm a long time lurker (15+ years) and a lifelong Carpenters fan. True story (according to my mom), when my parents drove me home from the hospital shortly after my birth in June 1970, "Close to You" played on the radio at some point in the drive. I was a huge fan in my toddler years, I have faint memories of the day "Now & Then" arrived and of receiving "The Singles" as an early Christmas gift in 1973 from my grandparents. I recall the rainy day in summer 1975 when my I went to the mall with my mom and aunt and saw the "Horizon" display and then listening to it every morning that summer after waking up, reading the lyrics, and doing the same the following summer with "A Kind of Hush".

Although I did move on to other, more socially acceptable music (for the junior high set) in the early 80s, I still kept my records and listened to them when I could. In my later high school years, I discovered used record stores and Goldmine magazine, and, with the little money I had, built a collection of US albums, picture sleeves and 45s. As an adult, eBay came along and I was able to collect still-sealed versions of albums and things like that.

That's a short version of the backstory, which brings me to yesterday morning and the subject of this post. I hadn't thought about it in 30 years or so, but over the past week, I remembered that my picture sleeve of "All You Get From Love..." that I bought back in 1988 had a small bit of writing on it. I figured I may as well take a look and try to remedy that, so I went on to eBay and quickly found a "Buy it now" for a nice, non-written-on PS and bought it.

While I was in the seller's store, I noticed a few promo/mono singles and thought to myself "I should pick these up while I'm here". So I put them in the cart and bought them as well (that would be "For All We Know", "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "I Need to Be in Love").

Shortly after paying, I realized that I didn't really have the means of transferring these digitally to mp3 or other form. That's where you (someone here, i hope) come in - I would like to send these to someone who has the necessary equipment to make a nice digital transfer of these. And you (whoever you are) can keep them for your collection, I just ask that you share the digital transfer with me (and if you have other mono singles in digital format, I would like to hear those as well). I do see there were threads about this way back in the day (like 20 years ago) so I'm assuming these are out there somewhere and hopefully someone who was working on these back then is still interested.

Thanks for reading, please PM or reply if you might be able to help - thanks!
 
The mono Ticket To Ride/Your Wonderful Parade is on the 2015 PBS Complete Singles.

Also one mono mix that was never released in the US and was only released in Canada is the single-edit of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. It’s a scarce single, since not that many copies were produced when you think of Canada’s population back then, versus the US population and the number of radio stations/syndicated programs. In 1980 there were about 8,000 AM & Commercial FM stations in the US. So A&M might’ve printed 8,200 (and I’m assuming 200 for shows like Casey Kasey and other syndicated entities). Whereas in Canada, I can’t find any reliable stats, but I would guess there were maybe just 2,000 to 3,000 similar stations, so there’s maybe 2,050 to 3,050 of the mono Calling Occupants single edit from Canada. Also, as far as I know it’s the only Carpenters single with the MAPL logo on it with the “M” and “L” in black.

 
Just curious. Why do you want the mono versions? Do they sound better or different? Isn't "The Complete Carpenters" suppose to be the versions that were released as singles and played on the radio. I have most of the singles. Maybe I should consider recording them on CD. My Sony turntable acts a little weird though. I push the start button, the arm will go over and drop on the record and then lift back up after a few seconds and return to rest. Sometimes it does that only once and shuts off. Other times it keeps doing it over and over before it finally plays the song. It use to work fine and then I had to replace the needle, and ever since I've gotten that behavior. I didn't find a Sony needle on Amazon, but the one I bought was suppose to work. Not sure if the needle could cause that behavior.
 
Just curious. Why do you want the mono versions? Do they sound better or different? Isn't "The Complete Carpenters" suppose to be the versions that were released as singles and played on the radio. I have most of the singles. Maybe I should consider recording them on CD. My Sony turntable acts a little weird though. I push the start button, the arm will go over and drop on the record and then lift back up after a few seconds and return to rest. Sometimes it does that only once and shuts off. Other times it keeps doing it over and over before it finally plays the song. It use to work fine and then I had to replace the needle, and ever since I've gotten that behavior. I didn't find a Sony needle on Amazon, but the one I bought was suppose to work. Not sure if the needle could cause that behavior.
Sometimes the mono singles featured mixes that never appeared elsewhere.

Also in the 60’s and 70’s most AM radio was mono and there were a few mono FM stations, plus most people only had mono radios in their cars. But if you played a stereo record on a mono station without a proper mono mixdown, the song would end up distorted and out of phase or certain parts might be missing.

The 1970 Merry Christmas Darling was processed in HAECO—CSG which was designed to be a middle road be providing a stereo record to a mono station with having that distortion. Unfortunately in stereo it didn’t sound as good.

In 1974 the Carpenters created a mono mix for Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. This mix, besides being prepared for radio, was also made for TV for their gust appearance on the Perry Como Christmas Show. To date this is the only mono mix made for broadcast to be released commercially as it appears on the 2013 DVD for the show. The show is presented in it original 1974 mono mix (remember in the 70’s TV offered only mono sound, unless they were simulcasting on a stereo FM radio station). The 2015 Christmas Memories DVD, while it has the footage from the Perry Como Christmas Show, the audio has been replaced with the 1984 An Old-Fashioned Christmas stereo remix.

 
Hi - just wanted to check again, if someone might be interested in converting these to digital - I have four mono singles (Rainy Days, For All We Know, All You Get From Love...,I Need to Be in Love) - all look to be in mint condition. Thanks.
 
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