This album is described as "troubled" by Beatles producer George Martin in his autobiography, as he was asked by Bhaskar Menon, the president of Capitol at the time, to approve the tapes they intended to use, and he was "appalled" because they were some of the early twin-track mono tapes they had made and were going to be transferred to stereo for the issue. Instead of approving the album as it was presented to him, Martin reworked the already mixed tapes for every song, reversing the left and right channels and slightly narrowing the stereo on the tracks "Twist and Shout", "I Saw Her Standing There", "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Boys", "Roll Over Beethoven", "Drive My Car" and "I'm Down". Some of the song editing is not clean: for instance, the beginning of the crossfade of "Dear Prudence" can be heard during the fade of "Back in the U.S.S.R.", as originally issued on the White Album.
