Led Zeppelin Remasters

Hi Barry,

I have a couple of questions that have come to mind after reading this fascinating thread. I realize it was over 20 years ago, but anything you can remember is sure to be fascinating to those of us who are Zeppelin fans as well as to others.

1. You've mentioned Coda and ITTOD as having been given to use as "EQ'd Limited" copies. Do you remember the lineage of the tapes for the other albums.

2. If those other albums were not "limited" when you received them, did you have to apply a lot of limiting?

3. Have you heard the Marino masters? If so, what are your thoughts on them? I'm sure you don't want to criticize a fellow professional but do you think these could have been done better.

4. There are rumors around the internet that the Zeppelin source tapes are quietly being digitized for possible future releases. Have you heard anything?

Regards,
Steve.

 

Steve, I'm not Barry, but in the meantime you can find the answers to questions 1 & 2 in this very thread already. Hopefully Barry can chime in on 3 & 4.

 

What exactly is an "EQ'd Limited" copy?

 

Otherwise called a "cutting" or "production" master. A tape made for pressing vinyl.

 

A tape copy of the master, with all of the "mastering moves" built in, so all the cutting engineers have to do is thread it up and let it go.

 

Hi Steve,

I believe the other Zep tapes were "flat" copies of the original masters. I don't know who made these or how.

I do not use compression or limiting at all in my work. There was one CD I used it on once, at the insistence of the producer. ("Learning To Fly" was the title I believe... by Freedy Johnston) This was not for level but to achieve a "sound" the producer wanted (despite my best efforts). Nowadays, I only accept projects where it is clearly understood that I just don't squeeze dynamics, period.

On the Zeps I worked on, I sometimes applied some gentle EQ, often right at the analog playback machine. That's it... the rest was level adjustments to make tunes flow together properly (so the listener doesn't have to).

I don't believe I've heard the latest versions of the CDs.

Sorry, I haven't heard anything about this.

Barry
www.barrydiamentaudio.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

 

Hi pig whisperer,

It was always common practice during vinyl mastering, for the engineer to have an analog recorder (usually 1/4" at 15 ips, often with Dolby A) connected to the output of the mastering console.

In this way, all the changes in level, dynamics and EQ done for mastering the vinyl version would be caught on tape. Now the studio would have a tape copy reflecting the "sound" of the vinyl.

In the early days of CD, the perspective of many record companies was to create CD masters that had the same EQ (and compression) as the vinyl record. I suppose the idea was that this was the "sound" approved by the producer and artist.

Comparing the sound of these "EQ'd limited" copies (from all sorts of mastering facilities all over the world) with the original tapes from which the mastering engineers worked was an education, to say the least. With enough examples, one could hear the "style" of each mastering house and/or each engineer.

In many instances, when an "EQd limited" copy was all I had to work with, I found it sonically beneficial to re-EQ, sometimes to Un-EQ... to the extent that I found possible. On other occasions, I found it best to just run with the tape as it was.

Barry
www.barrydiamentaudio.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

 

I think that might have been 'Can You Fly' by Freedy Johnson....

Thanks for all of your input here Barry. I'm throughly enjoying reading all of your posts. Did you think that you would be discussing your CD masterings 20 years after the fact?

 

Thanks Barry. Very interesting. I didn't know that was how things were done.

BTW. Think we need to have a "find Mr. Diament an Avatar" contest

 

Very informative post, Barry. Thanks

I'm a learning a lot from your posts.

 

Hi Barry,

I agree with the others. It's fascinating to read your posts and very educational. Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

One major difference I've noticed when comparing your original Zeppelin masters with the Marino remasters is in the high frequencies. Yours tend to sound much smoother, more analog like and natural. Sometimes, it's subtle but there's still a better sense of fidelity with yours, as if you went flat all the way up whereas for the remasters the top of the range was rolled off and the remaining highs boosted with compression. It gets to the point where ride cymbals start sounding too much like splash ones! It also kills the natural sense of air, especially when combined with noise reduction. For example, I really noticed this on the guitar at the beginning of Zeppelin's the Rain Song or Over the Hills.

This brings me to a question I've had for some time now. I assume the EQ applied to these tapes intended for vinyl mastering included the RIAA curve. When mastering for CDs, did you manually roll off the highs and boost the lows or was there some kind of gear involved in compensating for the RIAA curve.

Steve.

 

The RIAA curve is always applied during the cutting of the LP, it is never contained on a tape.

The beginning of Rain Song sounds bizarrely unnatural and narrow on the remaster. That is much more than just a few eq moves.

 

Hi Steve,

What Andreas said:

The EQ I was referring to when I spoke of "EQd limited" copies, made during vinyl mastering, is the EQ applied to alter the tonality of the recording, not the "functional" EQualization used to effect playback via a stylus.

Barry
www.barrydiamentaudio.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

 

Technically, the *very* top of the range -- 20-22 kHz is simply *gone* in the old LZ I, prehaps reflecting more aggressive A/D filtering back then. The newer one has visible spectral content out to 22 but I doubt it's audible, much less musical.

You are right though that the top of the range in the new one was otherwise rolled off *in comparison to the old one*, assuming the evidence from Communication Breakdown is typical of the series.

I put that phrase in emphasis to allow the possibility that the source tape for Mr. Diament's LZ I already had LP production EQ applied, or that he added a bit of EQ himself, rather than the CD simply being a digitization of a 'flat' tape ('flat' meaning, the original master or an analog clone of it). So for example *if* highs were boosted on the source tape, compared to the original master tapes, then the 'rolled off' highs seen in the remaster could actually be more reflective of what's on the OMT. Without a definite flat digitization of a flat source tape for comparison, I can't know for sure how similar either CD version is to the original masters.

I'll emphasize again, that the vast majority of LPs we grew up with were quite understandably mastered for...LP. They aren't likely to be 'flat' transcriptions of the master tapes, and the transcriptions ARE likely to have taken the characteristics of the vinyl storage/playback system into account. That's one of the main things mastering was *for*! We in the cheap seats can't know how sonically faithful the LP was to the master tapes. So when a CD issue sounds different from the LP (or a CD mastered from an LP production tape), we can't know if that's because it sounds more like the OMT, or less.

 

Thanks for the reply. I'd forgotten about your Communication Breakdown comparison. It does seem to show rolled off highs on the remaster. Is it more reflective of the OMT, perhaps. It might also be the result of some aggressive noise reduction. I suspect the guitar intro to the Rain Song is a victim of this as it sounded quite muted compared to the original.

I don't have time now to go back through the thread, but I think Barry mentioned that he did very little EQ. I also think the difference I'm hearing isn't just that the highs are rolled off, the "shape" of the cymbal transients sounds different to me (if that makes any sense). It's very much like Steve Hoffman describes in his tutorial on here somewhere about compression: like if you see someone press their face against glass, it flattens out the face. When this approach is taken to music, the natural attack and decay of the instruments is altered.

 

I have a cd-r copy of West German Target CD of Houses of the Holy and I'm here to tell you that it blows the doors off the Remastered version. The remastered version sounds a little bright and harsh and somewhat thin in the low end but the WGT CD sounds so natural and full it's the best version I've ever heard. Now if I could only obtain a WGT of Zeppelin IV.

 

Alternatively, you could obtain an unremastered US Atlantic CD and burn a copy with reversed channels.

 

Just a reminder for those that don't want to pay inflated prices, the standard US first issue of Houses features the same mastering as the W German target. And yes, it sounds quite good.

 

I found Japan and US copies of II and PG, I have the WG of IV and we know HOTH was also made in WG but are there either Japanese of WG copies of I and III or WG. Does any have either I and III on anything but US pressings and is there a difference. I also have a "Gold" uk CD single of Whole Lotta Love/Traveling Riverside Blues/Baby Come On Home does it use the same Marino mastering?

 

Yes- this was released to publicise the Remasters Box set release. Also-IIRC the middle section of Whole Lotta Love was edited out

 

Any word on some new remasters in the works guys? I'm just curious. I've just spent about 1.5 hours reading every post in this thread and have learned a lot. Especially from Barry Diament's posts. I'd say about 2/3 of the people who commented in this thread prefer the Diament original CDs over Marino's remastered ones.

I have copies of both and have yet to fully decide which I prefer. What I really want is a Zep II RL vinyl.

Also, does anybody know what really happened to the original master tapes of Led Zeppelin II?

 

Just wanted to say I tracked down a Diament mastered PHYSICAL GRAFFITTI last weekend and it sounds darn good! Just as good as people say, very natural sounding - it sounds unlimited/uncompressed, it breathes. Thanks Barry!

 

There are specific rumors of new remasters. Page did mention that all the original multitracks for all the studio albums were located and intact during the search for material to put on the 2003 DVD and live CD releases. He also mentioned in another interview that he likes 5.1, but also that remixing the studio stuff for 5.1 would be a lot of work. Late last tear, Page also mentioned that in addition to the solo album he wants to release this year, there are "a couple of Zeppelin things" he's working on. One of these is a rumored Zeppelin biography, and another is a remastered Song Remains the Same DVD. A contributor to the FBO Led Zeppelin mailing list claimed that both Page and Plant visited a post-production studio where the guy worked last summer to listen to 5.1 mixes for the DVD. There was also the thread on here about www.becausesoundmatters.com, a WEA site that will supposedly sell vinyl and DVD-A reissues of WEA releases, which could include Led Zeppelin. Of course Classic Records has the licence for vinyl Led Zeppelin re-issues. There's never been any indication that they plan to release DVD-As of these as they've done with some others.

As for the master tapes for Led Zeppelin II, I brought this question up a couple of months ago, but the thread was immediately closed and removed by a Gort who told me we're not allowed to discuss the master tapes on here because of Steve's connection to the music industry. You might join a couple of Led Zeppelin mailing lists and ask the question there.

 

Huh?