At right is a scan of PARLO 528, the production master tape used for Rubber Soul from 1979. You'll see this tape was prepared by EMI UK on 8 February 1979, which has a corresponding entry on the UK master tape.
On this tape box, you can see:
- The filing number PARL [sic] 528 (was filed under PARLO 528)
- Side 1 was recut (-3) by Richard Mott on 16 March 1979. This cut went into production alongside a UK cut AND an earlier Australian cut of the same number, suggesting a numbering sequence error within EMI (Australia). You can tell the difference simply by the pantograph engraving (ours looked nothing like EMI UK's)
- Side 2 was recut (-4) the same day. However, this cut did not go into production. It was rejected
- Side 2 was recut again (-5) on 29 March 1979. This cut went into production
- Side 1 was recut (-4) by Allan Parsons on 16 June 1983. This cut went into production
- Side 2 was recut (-6) by Allan Parsons on 16 June 1983. This cut went into production
- The black Parlophone labels were applied at the time of Allan's recuts in 1983
This was not the first set of tapes sent to Australia for this album; tapes were sent (filed PARLO 252/253) back in 1972 for the primary purposes of cassette production, although, once again, they were used for LP production. Presumably they were not considered suitable when the decision was made to recut in 1979 (the release of the blue boxset in late 1978 gave rise to the need to recut many Beatles sides).
This album can be quite confusing for collectors trying to decipher the deadwax info. Here's how best to decode...
- Earliest Aussie stereo copies carry matrices YEX 178-2 / YEX 179-2. These were pressed from mothers supplied by EMI UK that were taken from the same masters used on the first UK pressing (the first cut of each side did not go into production, hence the -2/-2)
- For whatever reason, a new set of mothers were sent here in 1967, this time taken from UK masters -3/-3
- For the next five years or so, Aussie stereo copies could have either -2/-2 sides, -3/-3 or even a combination of the two (usually) -2/-3. All pressed from the UK mothers that were sent over in 1966 and 1967 (stampers made locally of course)
- In 1972, EMI (Australia) recut both sides from the cassette production master tapes sent over by EMI UK that year. For these masters EMI (Australia) used the numbers -3/-3. They seemingly overlooked that they already had UK masters with those numbers. This seemed to cause confusion internally, as over the next 7 years one could find copies with either the -3/-3 UK masters or -3/-3 Aussie masters depending on which stampers were pulled at the time!
- Then, in 1979 as per this (new) tape box, side 1 was recut again, using -3! So we had three different cuts of side 1 all carrying the -3 number
- But it doesn't end there - in 1982, some three years after Richard's recuts, copies (re)appeared with the 1967-era UK -3 on side 2
- Fortunately, this all seems to have righted itself after Allan made his recuts in 1983.
See photos at right [PENDING] showing differences between UK and Aussie pantograph engraving...