| Pink Floyd - Montreux Radio Suisse Romande stereo source (Stratcat58-Neonknight) |
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| Recorded at the Festival de Musique Classique, Pavillon De Montreux, Montreux, Switzerland. Excellent recording, probably taken from a radio broadcast. From the info file: Pink Floyd 1971-09-18 Montreux Radio Suisse Romande stereo source (16bit/44.1kHz) Pink Floyd Festival de Musique Classique, Pavillon De Montreux, Montreux, Switzerland Radio Suisse Romande open air mics recording, stereo source 18 September 1971 Lineage: Unknown lineage featuring a DAT > 7' 3600' reels > Ampex 10 1/2 metal reels > Nak Dragon > cassettes Maxell XLII-S 90 (part 1) and Maxell XLII (part 2) > *Technics RS-B965-M > Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 > Reaper v4.61 / iZotope RX3 / Audacity 2.0.3 / ClickRepair 3.9.3 > FLAC (16bit/44.1kHz) xACT used to create FFP *The Technics RS-B965-M is a modified deck - for details see the Tapeheads.net forum 01 Echoes 02 Careful With That Axe, Eugene 03 Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 04 Cymbaline 05 Atom Heart Mother 06 A Saucerful Of Secrets Total running time: 1 hour 53 minutes 38 seconds An enjoyable stereo recording from what appears to be the same source as the mono off-air recording of this concert. Thank you to Stratcat58 for uncovering this gem and persisting with his contact when it initially seemed unlikely that we would get the chance to work on it. The songs are spread across three sides: A - Echoes, CWTAE, STC (cuts) B - STC, Cymbaline, AHM (cuts) C - AHM, ASOS Commencing work on the cassettes, it quickly became evident that there was a good deal of noisy distortion buried among tonal content - more so than is present on the mono version. I set about trying to remove the distortion using iZotope RX3’s declip tool but it didn't work so I turned to the deconstruct tool. Using a particularly troublesome section of Echoes as my reference point, I utilised the reduce distortion preset algorithm which identified the correct setting to be noisy gain -6.0dB. This had a very positive effect on the distortion levels and, in an unexpected bonus, also reduced background hiss. The new file was slightly less edgy than the original but a smoother, more pleasing listen. I checked a sample of my work with Beechwoods and falbrav at this point and they agreed that the results were good and no artefacts had been introduced. I tried changing the position of the slider bars for noisy gain, tonal gain and tonal/noisy balance. I could add a little bit more brightness back in by reducing the noisy gain to -4.0dB, for example, but doing so re-introduced distortion. Attempts at reducing the distortion further made the sound comparatively dull. After exporting from iZotope to WAV, I used ClickRepair - automated, declick 20, decrackle 20, x3 method; a non-destructive approach to removing many of the clicks and crackles caused by FM interference in the recording. Side C is noticeably louder on the tapes than A and B so I adjusted the gain down. Set The Controls had a digital skip in the same position on A and B, demonstrating that the cassettes have either a DAT or CD in their lineage. As an owner of a large DAT collection it sounds like a DAT noise to me. Then it was over to goldenband for his advice. He identified that the tapes run slow and we applied two speed corrections: Echoes, CWTAE, STC, Cymbaline: +5.15%, and AHM, ASOS: +4.31% Without intervention by someone like jimfisheye, there was no helping the pitch drift/variation in the latter part of ASOS, which drops something like -2.5% by the end of Celestial Voices. One could try to counter it with a larger correction value but goldenband advised that it was better to be conservative and avoid making the start of the song run fast. There also appears to be a little bit of pitch drift in AHM but it is less obvious and, of course, the out-of-tune brass make it hard to be sure. Goldenband also advised me on how to deal with the duplicated content at the end of sides A and B and digital skip in STC. For both of these, the key was to put Audacity in sample-accurate measurement mode, and set it to measure from the ‘Start’ and ‘End’, not ‘Length’, of each selection. I typed the values in, then hit Command-K to delete the audio, and voila, the tape sides were reunited and the backwards skip in STC was edited out. The results both sound and look seamless. Reviewing progress at this stage, I also found a brief digi noise in the applause after STC which I removed. The final step before returning to Reaper for divide and export was to manually adjust a tiny six sample peak that was close to clipping in AHM using Audacity’s pencil tool. *Information about the master* Currently beyond the reach of fans, the Radio Suisse Romande archive master is also stereo and was recorded at 7.5 IPS. It was made with open air mics because the station engineers were more used to recording classical concerts. Radio Suisse Romande is known to have had its copy digitised at 24bit 96kHz several years ago but enquiries about this and the purpose of the work being undertaken have thus far proven fruitless. I have seen documentation that shows that the master lasts 1 hour 58 minutes 15 seconds. It includes some useful details. Part 1 Concert - 60’30 plus 3’35 applause 1. Echoes 23’05, applause and ambiance (a&a) 2’05 2. Careful With That Axe, Eugene 11’20, a&a 0’30 3. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 13’50, a&a 0’30 4. Cymbaline 12’15, a&a 0’30 Part 2 Concert - 54’10 including applause 1. Atom Heart Mother 29’40, applause 2’50 2. A Saucerful Of Secrets 20’20, applause 1.20 The mono version of the recording that I released with Stratcat58 timed in at 1 hour 53 minutes 44 seconds, suggesting that around 4’30 of applause and ambiance is missing from both of Stratcat58’s sources. Stratcat58 cassettes / Neonknight tape transfer, September 2015 |