Mixology: The Mono/Stereo Mix Differences Podcast
Aug 11, 2026 · 31 min · 13 segments
Hello Friends! We're back in Holliesland this month on the show, with a look at the group's greatest pure-pop LP, 1966's *For Certain Because...*. Notable for being the first LP by the group composed…
Oh, when these things mean so much to us.
Well, that's all right.
You do well at things that interest you.
Released on the 9th of December 1966, For Certain Because is a very key album in The Hollies' discography.
It's the first of a classic trilogy of albums all entirely written, at least at the time, by Clarke, Hicks, and Nash.
So that's Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, and Graham Nash, who only wrote a selection of tracks on the previous four albums, mainly due to the allowance given to them by their producer, Ron Richards.
Rather, the label put out a collection of Beatles oldies, which doesn't feel like such a competition by comparison.
What was really interesting to me, though, was following on from our look at Would You Believe, where I established that many of the tracks there were mono mixes created from stereo reductions, and our look at Evolution a couple of years ago, where we decreed that the entire mono mix was summed from a stereo reduction of a stereo mix that was created with a s- mono reduction mix in mind, if that makes any sense at all.
So what would this album in between entail? Coming off Would You Believe, and not really digging into it deeply in my mind before, as I've only ever owned a mono LP, I thought, "Surely, this is probably actually just gonna be a fold-down." But upon immediate inspection, this was immediately clear that this was not the case, and in fact, every track here is indeed a dedicated mono and stereo mix, which is just fantastic news.
And to top it all off, we don't have any extraneous mixes, at least in my estimation and from looking around.
And I think that stems from the fact that this was all recorded in quite a tight-knit period of time, aside from one track that stems from the Would You Believe sessions, but clearly was mixed with the rest of the For Certain Because tracks just due to the sound and panning of it.
That said, I think it's about time we actually get to the meat of the episode, and that is, of course, digging into the tracks themselves.
Oh, when these things mean so much to us.
Well, that's all right.
You do well at things that interest you.
Released on the 9th of December 1966, For Certain Because is a very key album in The Hollies' discography.
It's the first of a classic trilogy of albums all entirely written, at least at the time, by Clarke, Hicks, and Nash.
So that's Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, and Graham Nash, who only wrote a selection of tracks on the previous four albums, mainly due to the allowance given to them by their producer, Ron Richards.
Rather, the label put out a collection of Beatles oldies, which doesn't feel like such a competition by comparison.
What was really interesting to me, though, was following on from our look at Would You Believe, where I established that many of the tracks there were mono mixes created from stereo reductions, and our look at Evolution a couple of years ago, where we decreed that the entire mono mix was summed from a stereo reduction of a stereo mix that was created with a s- mono reduction mix in mind, if that makes any sense at all.
So what would this album in between entail? Coming off Would You Believe, and not really digging into it deeply in my mind before, as I've only ever owned a mono LP, I thought, "Surely, this is probably actually just gonna be a fold-down." But upon immediate inspection, this was immediately clear that this was not the case, and in fact, every track here is indeed a dedicated mono and stereo mix, which is just fantastic news.
And to top it all off, we don't have any extraneous mixes, at least in my estimation and from looking around.
And I think that stems from the fact that this was all recorded in quite a tight-knit period of time, aside from one track that stems from the Would You Believe sessions, but clearly was mixed with the rest of the For Certain Because tracks just due to the sound and panning of it.
That said, I think it's about time we actually get to the meat of the episode, and that is, of course, digging into the tracks themselves.
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