Production Master Tape

At top right is a scan of PARLO 392, the side 1 production master tape of Please Please Me.


This single 1/4" 15ips tape on 10.5" reel was supplied to EMI (Australia) in November 1974 for the purposes of cassette production; the LP already being pressed from UK-supplied mothers. This is side 1 only; side 2 was on a different reel filed as PARLO 393.


It appears the tape was first used in June 1975 for cassette production.


After then you can see the tape was retrieved:

  • in June 1976 to cut I Saw Her Standing There for the A-8105 single reissue. Single and EP recuts were taken from whatever tapes were found in storage with matching tracks on them.
  • in November 1980 by Otto Ruiter to recut side 1 of the album (YEX 94-2). The orange label would have been affixed around this time.
  • in June 1982 by Allan Parsons to cut Ask Me Why and Please Please Me for the A-8080 single reissue.
  • in December 1986 by Clive Lipman to do a further recut of side 1 (PCSO 3042 A-3 YEX 94-3).

Oddly, this was not the first set of tapes sent to Australia for this album. An earlier set of tapes, filed as PARLO 221/222, was originally prepared for Australia on 14 July 1972, a mere two years earlier. That set of tapes was used for the fourth cassette mastering on 7 February 1980.


The tapes weren't used for the digital remasters as they were cut from CD by Paul Bryant (up to and including Rubber Soul, plus Magical Mystery Tour and Past Masters) and Allan Parsons (Revolver to Let It Be) over the 12/13 November 1988 weekend.


At bottom right is the file sheet of the original mono release Acceptance Sheet. Every album, EP and single released by EMI had one of these (foolscap size) Form 22 Acceptance Sheets (obviously the template changed over time). Each had about 4 pages that were separated and provided to the different Divisions (ie copyright, cutting, printer, engineer...) throughout the manufacturing process. Notice the initial label order: 600 labels! EMI (Australia) was certainly not expecting a big seller! Mere months later, however, they would commission 20,000 labels for the initial mono pressing of A Hard Day's Night...