The Loved Ones - Magic Box
AUS W&G 4 Track Stereo 7.5 IPS Reel, WG-PTS.5266
First released October 1967
01 - The Magic Box
02 - Shake, Rattle And Roll
03 - More Than Love
04 - Ever Lovin' Man
05 - Blueberry Hill
06 - Love Song
07 - A Love Like Ours
08 - The Woman I Love
09 - I Want You To Love Me
10 - The Loverly Car
11 - Sad Dark Eyes
12 - The Loved One
==About the album==
Original LP liner notes written by Peter MacKennal, Manager of The Loved Ones...
No group in Australia's short history of pop music has had such a thoroughly deserved and meteoric rise to success as THE LOVED ONES.
Every single record they have made has crashed in to the charts in every state. Their record popularity is only exceeded by the excitement they create with their sensational personal appearances.
THE LOVED ONES took Australia by storm with their dazzling originality. They won many Australian awards in 1966 and have maintained the pace of their development in 1967.
THE LOVED ONES are made up of:
GERRY HUMPHREYS - Lead Singer
ROB LOVETT - Bass
TREVA RICHARDS - Electric Piano
GAVIN ANDERSON - Drums
DANNY DE LACY - Lead Guitar who hails from Los Angeles, U.S.A.
I personally feel that when you hear this LP you will agree that THE LOVED ONES truly have a style and originality to be compared with groups of international standing.
==About this transfer==
"But this album is already on CD?!" I hear you cry.
Well, yes and no.
You can buy this album on CD--in fact, this album is one of the very few Australian albums that has never been out of print--but you will be sorely disappointed. For reasons seemingly unknown, all but one track on the CD was mastered to mono from the left channel of the stereo tape! This explains why there's silence, or quiet bleedthrough, during most of the solos, for they were in the right channel!
I've been trying to find an NM original copy--mono or stereo--on LP for years. But every copy I've found has been trashed or has some kind of manufacturing defect.
But then I found this reel. Sure, it's not the preferred mono mix, but it has a clarity that I have never heard on any LP copy. It is easily the best that I've heard these tracks sound.
"Magic Box" combines the band's 1966 singles with newly recorded tracks to make up the album. The new tracks are, allegedly, among the first tracks ever recorded in stereo in Australia. And it shows.
Fortunately, the 1966 singles stay largely in mono, although "Sad Dark Eyes" gets an odd treatment where the mono track is mixed predominantly to the left channel (it moves closer to centre 17 seconds in, an obvious mix choice) and a new keyboard and backing vocal track is mixed to the right. Unfortunately though, on every copy I've heard, either mono or stereo, there's occasional phasing/panning of the sound between the two channels on these mono mixes, suggesting a head alignment problem at some point during the recording, mastering or duplication process.
The new stereo tracks were recorded on a Scully 280 1/2" 3 track machine and are largely rhythm left, vocals centre and effects/solos right. Ah, primitive stereo!
To further add to the "colour" of the music there was a band lineup change just prior to going into the studio, so one can hear two distinct "sounds" on this album: the raw, moody and gritty rhythm and blues sound of the earlier lineup and a more rock and rolling sound of the later lineup, heard easily through the guitar work of Danny de Lacy.
This album contains everything the band released with the exception of the first single flip-side "This Is Love".
Now, while in my opinion sounding superior to the LP and CD releases, the reel is not without its flaws. The channel panning/phasing seems more prominent on the reel, and there are a few very minor tape dropouts and some kind of tape fault between 0.38 and 1.07 of "The Woman I Love" that I couldn't repair. But I think overall these are minor distractions.
Hopefully one day this album will get the proper mono/stereo deluxe treatment that it deserves. Its cult status in Australia is certainly warranted!
==Reel transfer and 24bit mastering by Q==
Source Matrices
01-12: N/A
Hardware
- Akai X-2000SD Reel To Reel Player
- Denon PMA-700AE Amplifier
- Cakewalk FA-66 Audio Interface (set to 24bit/96kHz)
Software
- Audition 3.0.1 (audio capture and editing)
- iZotope RX Advanced (resampling and dithering to Red Book audio specifications)
Artwork included