Led Zeppelin

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Phil Elliott
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Postby Phil Elliott » Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:14 pm

... oh, and I've just realised there's either a brief drop out or bad edit at 3.20 on my right. This must be on the master - the same glitch is on the remaster, but the remaster has an additional glitch just before, the moment the reverbed "aahh" vocals come in. I used to think this was an edit (which would have explained the early fade on the remaster), but when you line both versions up and play them in sync, you get a flange effect all the way through...
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lukpac
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Postby lukpac » Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:05 pm

balthazar wrote:
I love Over The Hills and Far Away on HOTH, but I can't stand The Rain Song or D'Yer Mak'er. Those two songs make me gag. Don't know much about the rest of the album.


I got sick of "D'Yer Mak'er" in a hurry; I like "The Rain Song." My favorites are "Dancing Days," which has a Moroccan sound to it and "The Ocean," which is very "poppy," bordering on a doo-wop sound. A lot of people like "No Quarter" which is very dark.


I must have no idea what I'm talking about, since I just picked up HOTH (pre-remaster), and "The Rain Song" isn't the song I was thinking about.

Ahh, here we go...I was thinking of "Fool In The Rain". Sick of that one.

I guess I have heard Dancing Days before. Not bad, I guess, but it doesn't do a whole lot for me. No Quarter is interesting - probably one of my favs on the album. Ok, I guess I've heard The Ocean too. Not bad, but not a thrill.
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krabapple
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Postby krabapple » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:48 am

lukpac wrote:
balthazar wrote:
I guess I have heard Dancing Days before. Not bad, I guess, but it doesn't do a whole lot for me. No Quarter is interesting - probably one of my favs on the album. Ok, I guess I've heard The Ocean too. Not bad, but not a thrill.


I grew up with this one but hadn't listened ot it all the way through for some time. Did so last night (remastered version). Is it my imagination or is the first song recorded less well than the others? I've always held to prejudice that this was a thin- or shrill-sounding LZ album, but listening again it seems it's mostly the first track that sounds that way, and maybe The Ocean (which must have been recorded live in the studio, from the sound of it).

Anyway, I've always heard this one (and IV, to an extent) as LZ's answer to prog rock -- the release date fits, and there's the multi-part structure and long 'virtuoso' instrumental passages of the first track and 'Over the Hills', the mellotron work on a couple of songs, and the freaky time sigs on 'The Crunge'. JP Jones claims prog had no influence on him, though, so maybe I'm just biased (or maybe he's full of shit). I still find there too be too much filler on what's already a short album -- I can certainly do without frequent listens to 'Rain Song', 'D'yer Mak'er' and 'Dancing Days'. LZ IV and Physical Graffiti are still their pinnacles to me. On Hosues they sometimes seem to be trying too hard.
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balthazar
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Postby balthazar » Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:17 pm

Ahh, here we go...I was thinking of "Fool In The Rain". Sick of that one.


I'm sick of it too. It's one of those songs I got sick of in a hurry.

I never felt In Through the Out Door was a very strong album, although "Carouselambra" has grown on my over the years. I think it has more of a prog sound than the material on HOTH.
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Andreas
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Postby Andreas » Fri Sep 09, 2005 12:47 pm

Done another comparison between original and remastered CD: Led Zeppelin II.

Surprise: The channels are reversed between my two CDs. I have heard about that in the cases of III and IV (where my original CDs are not reversed), but not II.

Mastering: The same comments as usual. No apparent difference in terms of fidelity or clarity. Unless I am again overhearing drop-outs, I would say, the same tape was used for both. But the considerably enhanced eq on the upper midrange on the remaster is apparent on every track. It adds some presence; it gives you the impression of being closer to the performance. But it also makes the drums and vocals a bit too aggressive for me. The hiss is actually louder (or more noticeable) on the remaster because of the eq. I clearly prefer the older CD for every track, for the same reasons that I preferred the original Houses Of The Holy.

(Sorry for the lack of detailed A/B comparison notes. Of the classic first six LZ albums, this is by far my least favorite. Uninspired songwriting, jams and soli instead of variations and codas, and probably one of the worst recording quality of any major rock album. Whole Lotta Love is a classic, however.)

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lukpac
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Postby lukpac » Fri Sep 09, 2005 1:03 pm

Andreas wrote:Done another comparison between original and remastered CD: Led Zeppelin II.

[...]

I clearly prefer the older CD for every track, for the same reasons that I preferred the original Houses Of The Holy.


Sorry, gotta call you out on this one...

Andreas wrote:My thoughts about Luke's samples:

[...]

Whole Lotta Love: I like the drum sound much better on the first sample. I'd say, the remaster is the second sample.

What Is And What Should Never Be: No difference.

The Lemon Song: Obvious upper midrange boost on the second sample, which makes it a candidate fo the remaster. The first sample sounds a bit dull, but still much better and fuller. The biggest difference among these.

Thank You: No difference.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

Andreas
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Postby Andreas » Fri Sep 09, 2005 2:10 pm

lukpac wrote:Sorry, gotta call you out on this one...

That's the difference between a blind test and a sighted test.

(The truth: I was too lazy to listen critically to those two samples back then where I found no differences.)

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lukpac
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Postby lukpac » Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:34 pm

Just pointing out that perhaps the differences aren't quite as "clear" when you don't know which is which...
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

Andreas
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Postby Andreas » Sat Sep 10, 2005 4:14 am

lukpac wrote:Just pointing out that perhaps the differences aren't quite as "clear" when you don't know which is which...

No doubt about that. LZ III is the only example where the difference is huge throughout. For LZ II, the difference is smaller, but at least consistent for all the songs. For HOTH, it varies, some tracks sound really identical, others very different.

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krabapple
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Postby krabapple » Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:27 pm

krabapple wrote:
lukpac wrote:Yeah, that pretty much jives with what I was hearing. Although I didn't hear any huge differences between the channels.


Actually the differences are much more 'regular' than I thought. The shapes of hte EQ curves for left and rt channel are essentially the same, just the magnitude of change varies (but it varies consistently too). Check out this graph of the frequency boost /cut of new versus old for both channels (download as a Word doc), it gives a much simpler picture of what's going on than my description above:


Communication Breakdown


I'm re-linking this to the same data in a format I prefer (log values for Hz). I'm assuming images are still not cricket here, so it's a link.




Communication Breakdown, remaster from 10-disc set vs. original Atlantic CD
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krabapple
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Postby krabapple » Wed Oct 11, 2006 5:01 pm

I'm wondering, btw, after having made a few dozen of these, whether whenever I get a 'smooth' curve like the ones on this graph (versus the very 'spikey' graphs I get on most), it's because the same digital source was used for both CDs in the comparison... or maybe even the same analog source? The former would mean that the Marino/Page remaster for LZ I used Diament's digital transfer as a source. I'm less sure the same analog source would give such smooth difference curves, given the vagaries of tape playback.

These days, too, instead of normalizing I would show the data after level-matching via replaygain.
"I recommend that you delete the Rancid Snakepit" - Grant