Production Master Tape

At right is a scan of PARLO 83, the side 2 production master tape of Beatles For Sale.


When it came to Beatles LPs, EMI (Australia) initially imported mothers from the UK as it was considered more economical due to unknown likely sales quantities. In 1964, once The Beatles were more than just a household name, the decision was made to obtain tape copies instead to mitigate waiting for replacement metal parts if they were subsequently required and also to provide greater flexibility for the increasing number of locally conceived single and EP releases. Thus A Hard Day's Night, Beatles For Sale and Help! were cut locally from master tape copies provided by EMI UK. For whatever reason though, this approach didn't last long, with EMI (Australia) reverting back to importing mothers for Rubber Soul and subsequent albums.


This tape was prepared for Australia on 5 November 1964, the same day that the UK master tape was compiled.


There's really not too much exciting to decode on this tape box, apart from the following:

  • This tape is an LP production tape, not a cassette production tape like most tapes sent to Australia. It is a straight copy of the UK YEX 143 LP master tape
  • It was filed locally as tape 83 in the PARLOphone range (tapes 80 and 81 were for the mono release and tape 82 was side 1 of this release)
  • It was mastered locally on 4 December 1964, allocated the local matrix number YAPAX 1004
  • The first track on each side was transposed for the local cassette release - red handwriting refers. This makes the Aussie cassette sequencing rather unique
  • The side was recut on 20 October 1982 by Don Bartley. You'll see it states -3, signifying third recut.
So what happened to the second recut? And the subsequent recuts that we know exist? Well, these were actually not the only stereo tapes that EMI (Australia) held for Beatles For Sale; they also held stereo tapes filed as 510 and 511, which had been requested in September 1978 (dispatched by EMI UK on 22 September 1978). So why would EMI (Australia) request tapes if they already had a useable set? Well, when EMI UK announced a pending box set for late 1978, EMI (Australia) reviewed its existing albums. Most were still using original parts and at least one, Help! was found to have a track jump that had existed there for a number of years! So in those cases EMI (Australia) requested new tapes. Presumably they didn't realise they already had tapes for Beatles For Sale (remembering that most early albums were pressed from UK metal parts rather than cut locally from tape). Anyway, the other set was used for most recuts but for whatever reason this set was pulled in 1982 for one of Don's recuts.