| Pink Floyd - Rotterdam, low gen (Howard Gil-pinkrudy-Neonknight) (24-96) |
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| Notes |
| Recorded at the Hippy Happy Fair, Oude Ahoy Hallen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Very good audience recording. From the info file: Pink Floyd 1967-11-13 Rotterdam HG low gen tape (24bit/96kHz) Pink Floyd Hippy Happy Fair, De Oude Ahoy Hallen, Ahoy Heliport, Rotterdam, Holland 13 November 1967 Lineage: Unknown gen TDK SA90 cassette (1987-89) > *Technics RS-B965-M > Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 > Reaper v4.61 and iZotope RX3 > FLAC (24bit/96kHz) xACT used to create FFP and FLAC *The Technics RS-B965-M is a modified deck - for details see the Tapeheads.net forum 01 Reaction in G 02 Pow R Toc H 03 Scream Thy Last Scream 04 Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 05 Interstellar Overdrive Total running time: 43 minutes 51 seconds Pinkrudy's cassette is a welcome improvement to this important audience recording of the band's appearance at the Hippy Happy Festival festival. Comparing it to other circulating copies this version is far better in the top end. It is easy to overlook that this is the last known live recording of Syd's Floyd. Some commentators describe the gig as weak but, as I have said previously, I believe the opposite is the case. Richard Wright provides typically accomplished keyboard playing and holds the arrangements together. He is backed ably by Roger and Nick. Syd drifts in and out and when he is in full flight his playing is mesmerising. The high point is a unique version of Interstellar Overdrive. The recording was made by Gerrit M, who also taped Utrecht '68. He was a very early taper and Bob Dylan collector, who traded with other early collectors such as Michael K from Copenhagen (recorder 1 for 1971-09-23). Michael and at least one other collector from the US, Dave W from San Jose, obtained copies off the master. Gerrit moved from the Netherlands to the US in 1973. Fast forward to the early 1990s and Rolf Ossenberg tracked him down in New Jersey. It turned out that he left most of his belongings in Holland, thinking that he'd get them shipped later on, but never did. When Gerrit asked 10 years later most of the stuff including his reels had disappeared. At least two sources for first gen copies of Rotterdam are therefore possible through the US or Danish route. Rolf told me that the second gen copies from these reels are both very similar. I believe the versions sourced from Marbal, Bernard White and a second gen I was invited to review last year, are from derived from Michael K. Howard Gill's tape possibly comes from either the Dave W branch or an unknown one. You'll notice that nearly all the audience and tuning before Reaction in G is missing on this source. Gerrit seems to have taken a similar approach to editing his 1968-12-28; many copies of this date are also edited to remove the content before the music starts. I digitised pinkrudy's cassette using Reaper, adding 2.8dB immediately post-transfer, and then made some minor adjustments to the azimuth in iZotope. Then it was over to goldenband for his customary expert speed correction advice. The tape starts out rather fast but gradually slows down. Unfortunately it does so in some weird and non-linear ways, especially toward the latter half of the show where STC and IO ideally require multiple sliding correction values. Plus, of course, the band is sometimes out of tune. The following adjustments were made: Reaction in G: -3.83% Pow R Toc H: -2.93% Scream Thy Last Scream: -2.75% Set the Controls: -1.16% Interstellar Overdrive: -1.01% The changes still leave some parts of some songs running a bit fast but, as always, it's better to undercorrect than overcorrect, especially when slowing things down. Howard Gil tape supplied by pinkrudy / Neonknight tape transfer, March 2016 |