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I always wondered this... In the US, Piper's Of The Gates Of Dawn was released with See Emily Play. The LP is in either stereo or mono... On the stereo LP, was Emily in true stereo? Or falsified stereo like on the countless Floyd bootlegs? Anybody know?

I think Emily is fake stereo on the Tower LP. There is no true stereo See Emily. Unfortunately the Emily multitracks are long gone. A major bummer as supposedly the single was edited down from a much longer performance. Actually, all of the Piper multitracks are gone as well save for one 4 track reel of Matilda Mother takes.

A 4 track reel from the Arnold Layne sessions does survive though. The tape box is really confusing though so the exact contents of the reel are a mystery. I imagine it's missing some final elements but we really don't know.

Chris M wrote:I think Emily is fake stereo on the Tower LP. There is no true stereo See Emily. Unfortunately the Emily multitracks are long gone. A major bummer as supposedly the single was edited down from a much longer performance. Actually, all of the Piper multitracks are gone as well save for one 4 track reel of Matilda Mother takes.

They were actually destroyed? Or just can't be found?

lukpac wrote:

Chris M wrote:I think Emily is fake stereo on the Tower LP. There is no true stereo See Emily. Unfortunately the Emily multitracks are long gone. A major bummer as supposedly the single was edited down from a much longer performance. Actually, all of the Piper multitracks are gone as well save for one 4 track reel of Matilda Mother takes.

'

They were actually destroyed? Or just can't be found?

According to engineer Peter Bown they were likely bulk erased. There is a book that documents all of the Syd era PF recording sessions in a Lewisohn fashion called Random Precision. The author went to EMI and researched all of the Syd era PF tapes in the vault and there is only that one 4 track reel from the 5 months of Piper sessions. It depresses me to no end that the PF version of Syd's She Was A Millionaire is basically lost forever. They do have nearly all of the post Piper stuff that was done with Syd.

IIRC many of the Odessey and Oracle and SF Sorrow multitracks are gone as well. I guess the Beatles were one of the few 60's acts where they kept everything (except, of course, for PPM, WTB, etc)

i guess there isnt much to look forward to for Piper's 40th anniversary next year...

The following songs have never surfaced in stereo:

Arnold Layne
Candy And A Currant Bun
See Emily Play
Point Me At The Sky
It Would Be So Nice

wasakithis wrote:i guess there isnt much to look forward to for Piper's 40th anniversary next year...

There are a few interesting unreleased mixes that exist. There is an early mono mix of Matilda Mother that pre dates the editing that is on the released version. Everything after the first edit will be unheard PF music. It contains vocals so it should be interesting. It's also a good bit longer than the released version.

Let's see, they had an underdub of Interstellar. It's basically the unique French EP mono mix but it runs to the end.

They do have all of the post Piper stuff with Syd so there is stuff like alternate Veg Man takes, alt versions of Jugband Blues, In Beechwoods, the John Latham soundtrack, Scream thy Last Scream, No Title, the stereo mix of Apples, etc. The '67 Peel sessions also exist in perfect quality. The BBC producer kept his copies. If they wanted to they could put together a really nice 2 or 3 CD set of all of the Syd era PF stuff.

thats true... I would love to see my fav PF song Apples And Oranges surface on a not-so-hard to find CD... its strange how that's the only A-side to appear in stereo... I would love to hear a stereo version of Point Me At The Sky though... are the master tapes for It Would Be So Nice and Point Me At The Sky destroyed as well?

wasakithis wrote:I would love to hear a stereo version of Point Me At The Sky though... are the master tapes for It Would Be So Nice and Point Me At The Sky destroyed as well?

No they probably exist. All the "Sacuerful" tapes exist including tons that they didn't use so I assume that those singles do too. I would be interested to know if they ever did a stereo mix for those songs like they did for Apples/Paintbox back in '67.

wasakithis wrote:thats true... I would love to see my fav PF song Apples And Oranges surface on a not-so-hard to find CD... its strange how that's the only A-side to appear in stereo... I would love to hear a stereo version of Point Me At The Sky though... are the master tapes for It Would Be So Nice and Point Me At The Sky destroyed as well?

Yeah, it amazes me that Candy and a Currant Bun, Apples and Oranges, It Would Be So Nice and Point Me At The Sky are essentially no longer in print. No idea about the IWBSN and PMATS tapes. I would think they have them but then they don't have the Apples session. Then again they do have the Paintbox session tapes. There is a version of Paintbox that has some backwards Syd guitar stuff. I know that some of the live Ummagumma reels are not at Abbey Rd..

Oh shit you're right Chris. I'm looking at Random Precision and there are no multi-tracks listed for "Apples". Also, for "Paintbox" there are two tapes with Takes 1-9 on them but the second tape says "for best see E66563" but there is no further tape with that number. Perhaps the multi for "Paintbox" is missing as well?

I always get confused about the Saucerful sessions. For the longest time I was lumping in Apples with all the other De Lane Lea tracks and I didn't even realize that it was recorded at Abbey Road. My brain hurts.

JWB wrote:Oh shit you're right Chris. I'm looking at Random Precision and there are no multi-tracks listed for "Apples". Also, for "Paintbox" there are two tapes with Takes 1-9 on them but the second tape says "for best see E66563" but there is no further tape with that number. Perhaps the multi for "Paintbox" is missing as well?

I always get confused about the Saucerful sessions. For the longest time I was lumping in Apples with all the other De Lane Lea tracks and I didn't even realize that it was recorded at Abbey Road. My brain hurts.

Good catch on that Paintbox reel number. I guess they don't have that reel with Syd's backwards guitar after all. There is definitely a lack of documentation (recording sheets, etc.) for the 1967 singles. I think they edited the masters onto a singles reel and junked everything else. Maybe that Paintbox reel(s) survive becasue it was still labled "Untitled".

Chris M wrote:Good catch on that Paintbox reel number. I guess they don't have that reel with Syd's backwards guitar after all. There is definitely a lack of documentation (recording sheets, etc.) for the 1967 singles. I think they edited the masters onto a singles reel and junked everything else. Maybe that Paintbox reel(s) survive becasue it was still labled "Untitled".

Maybe they junked the master reels when they mixed it for stereo? I wouldn't put it past those dopes! Imagine if somebody had enough sense to take the "unwanted" tapes and put them in their basement, but it seems nobody did.

Yeah. I had hoped for a while that stories of "junked" multitracks were just more acceptable than "missing" multitracks, and that we'd eventually see a multitude of "we found the SLY multitracks!" reports. I guess that's looking less and less likely...

When was the singles reel edited together? It says it was done in the 90's in book. The singles multitracks were probably gone by 1971 when "Relics" was put together because "Arnold/Emily" were fake stereo and "Paintbox" was the vintage stereo mix.

I wonder what is on that freaking "Arnold/Candy" multitrack? Why would they keep the outtakes and junk the mutli-track?