Pink Floyd - Big Pink LP, Hamburg (neonknight) (24-48)
 
Album info
 
Recording Date  : 12-03-1970
     
Length  : 42:49
Format  : FLAC
Track List
 
01 The Embryo 09:06
02 Interstellar Overdrive 12:36
03 The Amazing Pudding 21:07

Notes
Recorded at the Kleiner Saal, Auditorium Maximum, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany. Very good audience recording.


From the info file:

Pink Floyd 1970-03-12 Big Pink LP, Hamburg (24bit/48kHz)

Pink Floyd
Kleiner Saal, Auditorium Maximum, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany
12 March 1970

Lineage: LP > 24/48 trade copy > Neonknight restoration > FLAC (24bit/48kHz)

xACT used to create FFP

01 The Embryo
02 Interstellar Overdrive
03 The Amazing Pudding

Total running time 42 mins 48 secs

I was sent the transfer used for this offering by a collector friend about five years ago. Unfortunately, from the details I know of the lineage and what I saw when I first loaded it up in Reaper, the transfer and condition of the vinyl has undermined the potential for this release. It doesn’t sound as good as the various copies of Tails In Pink that do the rounds. However, that version has tape bleed through during the second half of Atom Heart Mother which is not present on Big Pink.

My restoration approach:

* ClickRepair - automated, declick 20, decrackle 20, x3 method; a non-destructive approach to removing some of the clicks and crackles.
* iZotope RX3 - high quality digital clipping single setting declip of the whole of each side. This was an unsubtle approach with a sophisticated tool but I was not prepared to spend many hours individually repairing hundreds of examples of clipping.
* Reaper - trimming dead air, speed correction, divided into tracks and exported to FLAC.

My thanks to goldenband for his speed correction advice. The values applied to this transfer ranged from -2.04 to +0.58%.

I hope somebody comes forward with a decent transfer of an original copy of Big Pink. It was pressed in 1972 and back then there were two editions. The first, made in Holland, has a matt red cover and an individual pig with matrix numbers XA-44332S and YB-44332S. The second from Germany that came out a few months later, has a shiny yellow cover and the numbers ST-SMML-384-A-PF and ST-SMML-384-B-PF. I don’t know whether one is better than the other. See Discogs for pictures of the Dutch cover: http://www.discogs.com/Pink-Floyd-Big-Pink/release/4844206

Also worthy of a mention is another LP called Pinky, which was apparently released in a 50 copy run in the UK in 1971. See http://www.discogs.com/Pink-Floyd-Pinky/master/389936 for details. There is some interesting discussion here http://www.discogs.com/reviews?master=389936. Also see http://www.floydboots.com/pages/p38.php. I have recently established contact with an owner of the LP who is considering selling.

Neonknight, January 2015