+1 The sound of that album probably doubles my enjoyment of it. By contrast, I enjoy the music of LZII and LZIII despite the sound quality.
Thing to remember is that LZ1 was done very quickly and on a budget by a bunch of guys not totally clear on where it was all leading. LZ2 was recorded whilst on tour from several locations. I can forgive if both sound a little rough at times.
When Led Zeppelin did an inventory of everything they had in their archives in 2003, Page said they located all the original multitracks for all the albums. He said they were all in good shape. One problem with doing a remix of this stuff is that part of the performance was in the mixdown. For instance, that middle part of Whole Lotta Love was done live during mixdown when Page and Eddie Kramer just started moving controls around on the mixing desk. Replicating that would be very difficult (if it were me, I'd just leave that section from the original mix and use a stereo-to-5.1 converter for any 5.1 mix). Likewise, the ending of When the Levee Breaks swirls around quite a bit. Ditto Out on the Tiles. Hey, if we can put a man on the moon, we can duplicate a Led Zeppelin mix. The question is, does Jimmy Page want to take the time to do so.
I think the question is does he really need to make the time to do so. Would it be nice to hear? Yeah proboably. Is it essential? Probably not. Hence I doubt he would make the time for something like this. Eddie
That album and material on it should sound raw. It's what makes if great to me. To have it cleaned up and pasteurized with NR, smiley EQ or otherwise to me is tantamount to heresy. Perhaps a little strong wording on my part but Zep I is in my top 3 all-time albums by any artist., but of course all IMHO Page claiming use the original masters is hyperbole at the very least and an outright lie at most. I think Zal has stated several times including in this thread, that Marino was given same tape copies Barry got. There was some sample testing by Jamie or someone else that shows they were from same source as well. Not saying it would hold up in court of law, as it would not, but anyone with an IQ above 2 digits should realize Page was handing us a line of marketing crap or worse. I am a huge fan of Page's Zep music, but nothing else about him. Back in 1990 he would have said anything to haul in a buck, probably to support one habit or another.
Must you persist with the unnecessary Page bashing? IMHO, it's far worse than the use of hyperbole that you claim. The use of the term “from the original masters” for the Marino/Page remasters is no more or less hyperbole than just about any other remaster release. I’m glad we have insights from Zal which seem to indicate that the same tapes were used for most of the titles for both BD and Marino/Page, which clears the air on some of the claims fans have made. But these insights only reinforce that Page feels strong enough about these masters as being the “original masters.” Whether they truly are or not is probably known by only a handful of people. And someday we may well hear that better versions exist and/or that the multi's get used for new mixes, but again, this is hardly anymore hyperbole than many, many other releases and is certainly not worthy of your persistent claims against Page, which are largely personal in nature.
Good points. I think some of us here forget sometimes that the perception of what constitutes "mastered from the original master tapes" (or variations on the wording is not carved in stone. While we may think it's a matter of taking the original mixdown tape and digitizing it directly using state-of-the-art A/D converters and then applying master moves (for digital media) or cutting a fully analog LP from the same original mixdown tape (for LP), an argument could be made for using a flat digital transfer of those tapes as has been done for every LZ release since 1990/93. By John Davis' own admission on this forum, the 2007 Mothership compilation was mastered from a flat transfer of the original 1/4" master tapes done in the early 90's. The comparison tests done by Jamie that ricks referred to were actually a comparison of Mothership tracks with Marino master tracks and not Marino versus Diament. The latter comparison would be impossible since the analog tapes were played both times and the basic theory of this test is that analog tape never plays back exactly the same speed. Jamie found that the Mothership and Marino tracked he compared lined up digitally so they were from the same tape analog playback session. Davis later confirmed this. Anyway, perhaps in Page's mind, these WERE all mastered from the original master tapes. I've already pointed out that there's a glitch in the last track on LZIII in the Classic Records vinyl reissues that could only be from a different master so clearly either Classic or both CD reissues (neither of which have the glitch) were not from the same "original masters". In fact, what Zal and Barry Diament have said seems to indicate that all LZ CDs have been mastered from the Atlantic US copies of the LZ masters. I believe Classic used the UK copies and the originals are probably stashed in Jimmy's attic somewhere!
I was just recounting what I read in a lengthy interview with Page in Guitarist or Guitar World magazine from around 92/93. They asked him about the remastering as he had brought along to the interview his logs and notes from the original sessions to comment on stuff. He stated that (and I'm paraphrasing here from memory) they had (at the time of the remastering in 1990) managed to track down around 85% of the original master tapes for the project. He did mention that unfortunately some of the remastering had to be done from 1/2 gen copies. Now what Page considers masters/copies etc. is anyones guess. I guess he's maybe not so anal about it as some of us are. I remember the article fairly well as I was pretty interested in that stuff back then.
While on vacation this week, I found these at Boo Boo Records in San Luis Obispo for $8 a piece. These are the Diament masters (except for LZ4), correct? I would be grateful for some confirmation. The HOTH is RCA record club, does this matter? Thanks!
Yes, those are the Diament/Sidore mastered CDs. I'm not familiar with that catalog number for LZIII, but the others are all the same catalog #s as the 1977 North American Atlantic vinyl reissues (minus the SD or KSD prefixes and with an additional" -2" at the end. Perhaps that A249128 is a European version (can't check Discogs right now).
I prefer the sound of LZ II over the others. Whole Lotta Love is pretty awesome and the stretch of Maid, Ramble On, and Moby Dick is killer....especially the drum solo which is seriously an "in the room" experience...so realistic.....
Yup, looked at the fine print, and it's a Columbia house. Does this mean it's different that the Diament ones, or is it likely the same? Thanks!
Hi katstep, When I created the CD masters, clones were sent to Atlantic's regular pressing plants as well as to the record clubs. They all received exactly the same thing. Keep in mind though that when the CDs were remastered, they probably sent clones to the record clubs again. Best regards, Barry www.soundkeeperrecordings.com www.barrydiamentaudio.com
Thanks Barry, I bought the LZ cube box set a while back and foolishly sold nearly all of my original 80s CDs, thinking they were sonically inferior. When I joined this forum I began reading about your masterings and out of curiosity I compared one of the ones I kept, and lo and behold, they sound more like my vinyl! The new re-masters sound harsh to my ears, so as a result, I have recently begun to re-collect the original 80's versions with the intent of selling my box set once I get them all. I never would have thought! Thanks again for your excellent work!
I prefer all of the older CDs too, but I keep the box for the better artwork, and for the extended Coda.
I have the Japanese P20P LZ I, LZ II, LZ III, LZ IV, Presence and i noticed some kind of clipping/distortion/crackles on the LZ I (Good Times Bad Times) and LZ IV (Stairway to Heaven) cd's, maybe there are more issues like this on the other CD's/songs Are problems like these present on the US CD's? Are my CD's faulty or what?
I saw Jimmy...and I saw the sourcetapes...And when the tapes came back from the remasterings, they were the same boxes...tapes... WHY would Jimmy NOT have the actual masters used for them IF they were available?????!!! In my understanding, the tapes used for the original CDs and the remasterings...were one and the same. I, for one, don't believe that there are masters lurking somewhere in the wings. That said, I am not up on the latest, or actually, what has transpired over the last few years concerning this matter. So, if anythings appears to be moot, it may very well be.
Zal, the question I've had is if the tapes you saw were from the Atlantic archives or did Jimmy bring them along from the UK? There's also this statement from John Davis on this very forum: Do you recall anything about the 1610 flat transfer John mentioned? As I wrote before, Jamie T compared a couple of Mothership tracks with their Marino counterparts and found that they lined up perfectly digitally, thus suggesting that they came from the same digital source. I know you worked on only a handful of tracks, so chances are good that the ones he checked didn't come from your work, but from what I've understood from your previous posts on the forum, all the other tracks you used to recompile the original album sequences in 1993 came from the same 1990 remasters. I've always thought that perhaps John Davis simply misstated the year, that the 1610 flat transfer he mentioned was really done in 1990. That brings up another question, do you know if George Marino mastered only the tracks done for the first "crop circle" box set in 1990 then went back into the studio with Page in '93 or '93 and continued to master all the remaining tracks found on the 1993 second crop circle box set, or was the LZ entire studio catalog remastered in 1990 and then the tracks chosen to compile the box sets when each was released?
I always remember seeing the same tapes....in our tape library...over the years at Atlantic....and to my (mind's) eye, they were the exact same boxes. I had "heard" that there were (newfound?) master tapes, and that they were used, but when I saw the tapes return to our tape library after the boxed sets were done, the same tapes came back. The librarian and I mused that there were indeed no "new" tapes used for those remasterings. Now, as a reference point...I used to take a walk through our tape arsenel every so often, and pull out tapes to look at them. And, of course, when I came across the Zep tapes, way before their reissue, I puilled 'em out to take a look...who wouldn't? Those tapes were the ones Barry used, I was told, and those were the ones sent for Marino's masterings...unless, of course, Jimmy had tapes he took with himself,and they used "our" house tapes as reference. But, he COULD have done that with LPs or CDs as they would be all he would need for reference, especially considering it was Barry who mastered them (the CDs), and his style of keeping the mastering to the spirit of original vinyl releases. I don't know anything about the1610 (actually, 1630) transfers. Nor do I know (for sure) if all of the tracks were mastered all at once or it there was a break of a few years between the two boxed sets, but, that said, I FEEL that there probably WAS. One more, and to my mind, significant note about those tapes. And I can't say this about all of them... I remember the tapes having splices. Not like copies which usually have none (or are minimal) and are one long piece of tape spanning all the songs on a LP side. And that means that these were compiled, more like a master than a copy. But who knows if these single songs spliced together were copies or masters? YEAH Ya never know!
