Pink Floyd
Friedrich Ebert Halle, Ludwigshafen
November 25th 1970
FLAC
VG/VG+
Lineage: 1st gen cassettes (Maxell UDXLII 90 x 2) (Dolby On) > *Technics RS-B965-M (Dolby Off) > Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 > Audacity 1.3 > Wav (24bit/88.2kHz) ----> Adjustments (32bit float/88.2kHz) > Wav (16bit/44kHz) > CDWave (1.98) > FLAC (16bit/44kHz)
*The Technics RS-B965-M is a modified deck - for details see the Tapeheads.net forum
01 [09:23] Astronomy Domine
02 [13:10] Fat Old Sun
03 [11:56] Cymbaline
04 [17:22] Atom Heart Mother
05 [12:04] The Embryo
06 [01:12] Audience/Tuning
07 [03:32] Green Is The Colour
08 [10:12] Careful With That Axe, Eugene
09 [12:44] Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
10 [16:20] A Saucerful Of Secrets
|| [107:59] Total Time
*Original
***Neonknight's Notes***
Copies of this concert usually have a distracting hum and can seem a bit distant. They also appear to invariably run very slow. By contrast the music is closer, more dynamic and detailed on this version, and thanks to Littlepieces, the hum is no longer present and the set runs at the correct speed. The only disadvantage with Marbal's tapes is that they are a little less smooth than the copies that circulate with a master to DAT lineage. This is possibly partly due to tape ageing.
Marbal received the first gen cassettes used for this release in 1981. The master was recorded by Heribert B. from Ludwigshafen on a Grundig reel to reel. I consulted Grolsch who confirmed this, and added that most existing copies were done off HB's safety copy that he did on low grade Shamrock tape. I suspect very few digital clones have been made from the true master reels over the years and they have all been made to DAT. We have no way of knowing for certain whether Marbal's tapes are in fact master>Shamrock>Maxell but it seems unlikely.
I believe that HB's master still exists. However, Marbal confirmed to me that HB's usual practice after recording a master was to copy the smaller reels to a 18 cm-reel, which was cheaper in those days. He would then re-use the small reels for other masters. This approach was quite common amongst tapers, who would often do the same with cassette masters.
When I transferred Marbal's tapes it was necessary to make a very small analogue adjustment using the FSP14 to the recording levels on Side B after completing Side A, otherwise it clipped. Side C was recorded at a lower level than the other two. The songs are arranged on Marbal's tapes as follows:
A: AD / FOS / Cymbaline / AHM (pt1)
B: AHM (pt2) / Embryo / GITC / CWTAE / STC (pt1)
C: STC (pt2) / ASOS
Marbal had some other first gen tapes that he loaned to Yeeshkul! member pinkrudy. These were also made by HB and a photo of them can be seen on GBC's website. HB's cassette recordings were regularly not as good as they could have been in later years because he apparently used a very average tape recorder. Fortunately for this Neonknight transfer, HB used an earlier and better cassette deck in 1981 when he first gave a copy of his recording to Marbal.
***Littlepieces' Mastering Notes***
This is a mono recording that was dubbed as two channel stereo as is often the case. Due to the previous transfers with less than perfect head alignment, the recording has a phase shift that varies from 8-15 samples. The channels SQ started very similar but then at times began to vary in different ways as the recording progressed. It wasn't clear to me which would be better overall so I chose not to eliminate a channel and instead manually aligned the channels to improve the phasing.
The speed of this recording was super slow and by transferring it at 88.2kHz and then changing the sample rate to 96kHz, we were able to avoid a speed correction in excess of 10%. After changing the sample rate to 96kHz the speed was still slow and adjusted from 1.7% - 3.9%.
This recording was marked as Dolby encoded but it was transferred without Dolby. Transferring a Dolby encoded recording without decoding the Dolby on playback is done often when playing the tape back on a different deck than that which it was encoded. The differences in decks often results in the decoding profile varying from the original encoding creating a poor result. Since this recording did not have its Dolby decoded, portions of its high frequencies were left boosted from the original transfer. I utilised and varied modest noise reduction settings working almost entirely above 10kHz to reduce the Dolby boosted effect in the extended upper end where a lot of the hiss resides.
I selectively reduced low frequency hums mostly at ~60Hz (after SpC). These seem to be present and prominent in all sources.
There were several minor drop downs and/or damage that I was able to repair or remove to make mostly transparent. I either removed a short piece of damage or was able to use the other channel to repair the damaged segment. There were a few more short but significant drop downs and/or damage that I only improved to varying degrees. Examples are during GITC and Embryo.
No EQ was used to increase the output above 450Hz with the exception of one segment of AD. For 20s the upper half receded significantly so I increased the output 4dB from ~1kHz-6kHz. The adjustment made this passage transparent. The only other EQ increased used was below 450Hz and was selectively varied throughout. Most of these changes were between 1dB-3dB. At times I selectively used a 1dB decrease in the upper end in the area most effected by the Dolby off transfer.
Very odd carrier signal activity in this recording. At times throughout the recording the carrier signal would jump back and forth between two points 1kHz apart with no change in speed. It would also disappear for long periods often at the time an artifact would occur. To help ensure the carrier signal activity would not interfere with the upper end NR or anything else, I mostly reduced the carrier signal to the level of the surrounding signal.
Interesting and mostly subtle SQ changes occur periodically. Some examples, at ~5.54m of AHM, where I spliced sideA and sideB together, you can hear the slight difference in SQ and also the carrier signal disappears. I removed a pop at 7.52m of AHM where it sounds as if a splice likely occurred as a small bit of content seems to be missing and the SQ slightly changes. At 8.18m and 8.48m of AHM you can hear the upper half slowly increase without any accompanying artifact. At 9.28m of AHM the upper half increases again with a strong variable carrier signal returning. The changes at 5.54m and 7.52m I made some adjustments to make it less apparent. But the changes that occur at 8.18m, 8.48m, and 9.28m were left as is since I felt any adjustments would lower the fidelity of a segment in order to make the transitions transparent. Also, I think these artifacts are interesting and could offer some instruction to legacy and lineage questions.
There were a number of pops that seemed as possible splices. Some examples, 7.52m AHM, ~3.46m of Embryo where it fade downs and back up for 5s with pop in the middle and the carrier signal ends, 10.48m Embryo has odd pop, ~13.33m of STC has loud pop followed by a large drop down and slowly increasing level until back to normal level. With the exception of 7.52m AHM, I didn't get the impression that any content is missing on these examples and I of course removed the pops and improved the transitions where possible. If these are indeed splices it could be related to dubbing from RtR to cassettes.
Periodically you can hear short segments, mostly less than 1s, where the upper end fades for a moment. I suppose this could be tape ageing.
Manually cleaned many tics and pops using the spectral cleaning tool.
Some minor gain changes were made throughout, mostly in the left channel, to help balance the output.
I suspect that people who listen to their music on larger and/or higher fidelity systems may prefer this version over the M-DAT, since though a bit dirtier, it offers a bigger more dynamic SQ imo.
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