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Pink Floyd - Empire Pool, Wembley 16 November 1974 (Emperor Nobody Rematrix Remaster) (1974)

Track listing:
  1. Speak To Me 2:33
  2. Breathe 2:57
  3. On The Run 5:00
  4. Time 6:30
  5. The Great Gig In The Sky 6:51
  6. Money 7:51
  7. Us And Them 7:53
  8. Any Colour You Like 7:35
  9. Brain Damage 3:42
  10. Eclipse 3:38
  11. Echoes 23:29

Notes

Pink Floyd
Empire Pool, Wembley
London, UK


This is a rematrix of the exceptional 3-source one done by amdig1.

When I d/l'd amdig's effort, I had never heard the Harvested remaster of the pre-FM tape from this show (I only had ever heard the Swingin' Pig remaster) that he used as his main source material, so I came back and d/l'd the Harvested one too, just to see what this one came from.

What I found myself feeling after hearing both a few times was that a compromise was needed between the utterly dry soundboard feed (which is so bereft of live hall sound and applause that you'd think you were listening to a studio album) and the 3-source matrix, which although excellent seemed to me to have just too much of the audience sources in it (so much so as to de-sharpen the original soundboard image and drown out the tape-and-talking parts of the performance so central to the DSotM concept). Also, I saw a compromise was appropriate for the issue of the loooooooonnnnggggg period of intense cheering and tuning between the DSotM portion and the Echoes portion... I thought the Harvested version left in too much of it and the original matrix had none (actually less than none, when you consider that the tape of the airplane that ends the DSotM part was cut off before it ended).

Anyway in the interest of making as many different shades of this essential show available, here is what I did: essentially I just yacked the original Harvested version and the amdig matrix into Vegas 7 and messed about until I had it to where I felt the sources were more appropriately balanced... I used the matrix instead of going back to original audience sources because despite the seasoning being off to my taste, I really loved what amdig1 did with the blending of those two audience tapes. So now instead of a 60/40 split (pre-FM/aud), it's more like 89% soundboard and 11% audience in this version. Additionally, I restructured the transition between the DSotM portion and Echoes so it times out somewhere like a happy medium between the Harvested and amdig1 versions... this one clocks in at almost exactly 78 minutes as opposed to 79 1/2 (Harvested) and 75 1/2 (matrix). Also, the spoken and taped content now comes through super-crisply, but a lot less dryly.

If I had to describe it I'd say this is probably a lot closer to what you'd get if the BBC Strange Fruit label ever put this show out commercially, kind of a classic live-album mix I suppose.

emperor nobody
oakland, california