David Bowie – The Rise And Fall Of
Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
(1972) RCA Canada cat# LSP-4702
Runout Side A -
APRS 6814 TG
Runout Side B -
APRS 6815 TG
This is my personal one owner copy
of the original RCA Canada pressing.
This release was taken from the
7th play of the A side and the 8th play
of the B side.
Transcription:
Ariston RD-11s turntable
Fidelity Research FR-12s tonearm
Nagaoka MP30 MM cartridge
Yamaha phono stage
M-Audio sound card for A-D conversion
33rpm vinyl rip @24bit/96khz resolution
Post transcription:
ClickRepair 3 Wavelet mode @ A side 33 /B side 34
Manual touchup on missed clicks
Manual touchup on leadin/out areas
Package peak levelled to 96.27%
FLAC conversion by Easy CD-DA extractor
for this release:
no noise reduction applied
no compression employed
no limiting employed
Personal Restore rating:
7.5/10 due to B2 and B6 album mastering
Notes:
This project was almost abandoned due to issues with
the B side. I had made notes back in 1999 to the
effect that a restoration would not be possible.
However, the record was still in factory state
and had never been cleaned. Using a record cleaning
solution, the unknown residue was removed from the
surface and the second dub was completely acceptable.
There are numerous flaws in the original master
of this album, none of which I attempted to correct.
There is some tape hiss audible in some of the lower
level passages and that famous Trident studios piano
sound went missing during the intro of B1 and instead
had a very muffled and mushy sound to the notes. It
seems the "solution" employed on the SACD release of
this title was to roll off the higher frequencies.
There was a temptation to use noise reduction on the
opening piano section of B1 but I noted the resulting
product was actually worse than the original sound so
I left it alone except for removing the clicks.
This unit was a medium gloss vinyl record with some
small surface relief evident due to uneven cooling.
The click count was moderately low and the unit weighed
119 grams which is one gram under the nominal weight.
There was no lyric or photograph insert in this copy
as some were issued with, this was strictly the cover
and naked record. This unit has been stored
successfully in a pvc lined paper sleeve since the
first removal.
This title has been remastered/remixed/altered on
numerous occasions culminating in the SACD release
which has a large amount of digital noise acquired
from all the processing done to the original recording.
There is a spectral view of track B1 in SACD and
from the restored vinyl unit and the difference in
the output is striking. Also included is an output
waveform view of A1 in MFSL vinyl and RCA vinyl
formats. Discounting the -0.21 decibel diffence in
the left channel levels, it is clear from the asymetric
appearance of the right channel waveform commencing at
2:52, that there was some post production work which
was not done on the original RCA issue of this album.
So for the purist who likes the original version as
opposed to the newer and improved versions, I hope
this will suffice.
Due to the inability to replace this item,
there are no scans of the restored unit.
The cover scans were sourced externally but match
the copy presented here.
Even though it is not rare, this edition does not
seem to surface that frequently.
Synopsis:
So much has been written about the recording of this
album that there really is not a lot that can be added.
The original concept had Chuck Berry's Around and Around
tentatively scheduled for inclusion, but the record label
complained that there was no single on the record, so Mr.
Bowie went back in to the studio and recorded Starman.
I would suggest that the Chuck Berry cover song was
removed and replaced with Starman due to the length of
silence at the beginning and end of that track. Most of
the other album tracks are either segued or have a much
shorter inter track gap.
Due to the success of this album, other Bowie records which
had weaker sales picked up dramatically and the back
catalogue suddenly became a goldmine for the record label.
Even though the producer at the time seemed to think this
album would have appeal in America, it was actually not
well received in that market.
The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust usually ends up on
most 'best of' all time lists of popular music and has
endured for 40 years with sales still occuring. Due to
the wisdom of the management at the time, Mr Bowie actually
owned the masters of this recording and as such has been
able to re-issue this title repeatedly and actually keep
some of the sales money, unlike the standard artists from
this period who derive little or no income from these sales.
Track listing:
A1 Five Years 4:39
A2 Soul Love 3:31
A3 Moonage Daydream 4:35
A4 Starman 4:10
A5 It Ain't Easy 2:56
B1 Lady Stardust 3:19
B2 Star 2:45
B3 Hang On To Yourself 2:37
B4 Ziggy Stardust 3:11
B5 Suffragette City 3:22
B6 Rock 'N' Roll Suicide 2:58
Comments:
For the purist, I took the time to do this album
restoration with as little intervention as possible
to preserve all the audio while removing the noise
which is unique to this particular unit.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.