| Pink Floyd - The 'Pictures Of Pink Floyd' Restoration Project (Speed Corrected) |
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| This was probably recorded at the Saarlandhalle, Saarbrucken, Germany (or at the Falkoner Centret, Copenhagen, Denmark, 12 November 1970 - the 2nd show). 'Blues' and 'Atom Heart Mother (reprise)' were recorded at the Stadthalle, Offenbach, West Germany, February 26, 1971. Fantastic audience recording - 'The Libest Spacement Monitor' is brilliant. From the info files: (Info regarding the original recording): Pink Floyd Konserthuset Gothenburg, Sweden November 11th 1970 Stadthalle (*) Offenbach, West Germany February 26, 1971 'Pictures of Pink Floyd' Tracks: 1. Libest Spacement Monitor leading into Embryo 2. Fat Old Sun 3. Atom Heart Mother 4. A Saucerful Of Secrets 5. Blues * Comments: This seems to be the accepted date for this fabulous concert. Often listed as 2/6/70 (or 1971), it seems that November 11th 1970 was the real date. There is a long version of Embryo, similar to the one in Hamburg 3 days later ... and it's one of my favorites! I think it is also farily well known by now that Embryo was never really introduced as The Libest Spacement Monitor but it's rather Roger saying 'Your majesty the Queen, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Nicholas Mason!'. I really like this one since the performance is great. The only drawback is that there are a lot of crackles and pops on my copy (which originated from the ultra rare Pictures Of Pink Floyd LP), so the whole thing can get really annoying on headphones. Overall, this title is really recommended and it seems to be very widespread by now. This RoIO is often refered to as Royal Albert Hall, London, February 6th, 1971. Blues and Atom Heart Mother (reprise) included with this show are from 2/26/71 ----- (Info regarding the restoration): The 'Pictures Of Pink Floyd' Restoration Project This is IMO the most special Pink Floyd concert experience ever recorded. The quality and rarity of 'The Librest Spacement Monitor' justifies all the hype, and at last you can hear it in the best possible manner. First of all, something for you to consider: This was a cooperative effort, requiring the talents and input of several people of different nationalities. The material presented is of sufficient rarity to warrant the following statements: Don't even THINK of auctioning or selling this material for your own monetary gain. Internet auctions will be monitored both in Europe and in the United States. We'll know what to do about that if it happens, the rest is up to you. The message is clear and simple: It's free, keep it that way, we mean what we say. And... don't shoot the messenger. It is strongly recommended that you keep all the files intact when trading this material to other groups. Feel free to add your own comments. Please do not encode to lossy sources when trading this material. Lastly, a great thank you to Mr. (Herr) Peter D., who brought the albums across the Atlantic and back, made it both ways with both his sanity and his records intact, and who has granted me permission to post this material on his behalf. Also thanks to K.F. and E.D. for tea and sympathy. Technical Data: Records were played on a Technics Sl-1200MK2 turntable, using a Layla 3G console directly into a Dell computer. There was no sound card used during the recording process (the Layla generates a virtual card). Music recording was directly processed by Sound Forge 6.0. Too much high-quality percussion existed within the recordings to use a vinyl restoration suite. A digital spot remover was used manually to remove the larger clicks and crackles, then an automatic remover was used afterwards. Results were real-time compared with the raw wav file, both by monitoring from the computer, and by auditioning a test-pressing on a home-theatre system. Unfortunately, there was a major flaw found in the vinyl on side one at around the 5:15 mark. That was 'jiggled' as much as possible after rerecording the entire side and starting over. Side Four (Pictures Vol 2, Side Two) presented special problems. As is generally known, the recording of Atom Hear Mother starts out fine, but gradually gets faster and faster. A map was made by consensus, of the many pitch changes relative to the beginning of the piece. Unfortunately, it isn't just a linear speed change, where it would be easy to 'just slow it down'. The pitch of known musical interludes was manually compared and adjusted via the Sound Forge 'pitch bend' and 'pitch shift' functions. It quickly got confusing and very complicated to do all the changes relative to one another, and about 15 seconds could not be totally corrected. After a while, keeping any adherance to any form of zero crossing had to be discarded. This is because the pitch shift did not always occur during a zero crossing, and nothing could be done about it. Sometimes you will hear a zero-crossing noise during the speed corrections. The end product is not perfect, no one involved was totally happy with it. To do better would have required starting over again, and it might not be any better after finishing. It is listenable to, however and is a major improvement over the original recording. The very slight pitch change of the end relative to the beginning of Atom Heart Mother *may* be part of the original performance. This is a different version of this song than the version on Volume 1! For you sticklers about original recordings, the original untouched fourth side is presented as track four A small amount of noise reduction was used on all record sides. Fortunately, the lowest level of the sound recording is way above the lowest level of surface noise. A sample was made of 'dead space', both before and after the recording. The lower volume level was used to remove noise. No EQ of any sort was used. Finally, the end results were approved by consensus. Now, on to the Music! *Play this music as loud as possible!* To hell with the neighbors! During the 'Embryo' portion, I want to see your cat explode! :-D At a minimum, the announcer's voice should be audible over any ambient room noise. There has been some lively discussion about what the announcer is saying in the beginning of The Librest Spacement Monitor. He is actually introducing one 'Nicholas Mason'. What IS 'The Librest Spacement Monitor?' It's *not* a different version of 'The Embryo', it is a seperate, unique piece all on its own. Whether that was planned, or improvised on the spot is not part of the equation. How is that possible? Artists often incorporate pieces of their existing songs into new projects. Pink Floyd is no exception. If you have ever heard 'The Man' or 'The Journey', you know that song titles have been changed and portions put into other pieces. Need an example? OK - 'The Violent Sequence' became 'Us and Them'. The other titles are also rather interesting. Everybody seems to be singing in tune, even Roger seems to be enjoying himself. Setlist: PICTURES 1 01. The Librest Spacement Monitor [21:16] 02. Fat Old Sun [13:29] 03. Blues [6:13] 04. Atom Heart Mother - excerpt [3:02] PICTURES 2 01. Green Is The Colour [3:52] 02. A Saucerful Of Secrets [17:48] 03. Atom Heart Mother (altered) [19:03] 04. Atom Heart Mother (original) [15:16] Please post comments, we would all like to hear them. By the request of Mr. (Herr) D., no artwork is available. Please check the many available Pink Floyd ROIO sites for artwork. Lastly, we don't know any better than you do where some of this material was recorded. Where do you think? We would like to know. Marbal's Offenbach torrent solved some of the date questions, but not all. Engineered by Doinker in his 'studio' from the original vinyl, all subsequent actions done in a group meeting with other crazy people during the week of March 6, 2006. Enjoy! Don't forget, selling has consequences you don't want to deal with! A DoinkerTape ----- (Info regarding the speed correction of the restoration): Pictures of Pink Floyd Restoration Project originally released by Doinker speed correction by blokhead Doinker's FLACs > WAV > SC > WAV > FLAC The entire album was running slightly fast. Then of course there were the really bad speed problems in Atom Heart Mother. This track needed special attention. I'm quite pleased with the results. blokhead |