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.
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.