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Houses Of The Holy Vinyl Reissue Plays Too Fast?


Fred Blurt

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Just finished listening to the new Houses Of The Holy LP (vinyl) reissue and noticed that it seemed oddly speeded up - song "The Song Remains The Same" in particular is noticeable. So we A-B'd it with a new digital file and a copy of the original vinyl and even synched them - sure enough, the new HOTH is too fast (the song in question finishes 3 seconds early in fact). Has anyone else checked this out yet?

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This morning I gave the two versions a more stringent test, playing TSRTS on both the original vinyl and the new 2014 reissue vinyl 3 times apiece and timing each trial with a digital stopwatch. (I did it three times in order to get an average time, that way to avoid any unintentional variation caused by my reaction time in tapping the start and stop buttons.) I also used a better, somewhat high end Thorens turntable (no pitch control) that I knew to be in perfect and accurate working order.

This time I'd have to say the difference is less than conclusive than yesterday afternoon (which was on a different stereo system) - they appear to be within 1 second of one another. On the original LP the song clocks in at an average of 5:25.4 while the reissue at 5:26.2. I'm tempted to just say "never mind" now but the vinyl geek in me won't allow me that level of humility. ;-)

As an additional geek aside: note that on the label of my original LP, the listed times for each song are quite different from the new edition - shorter, in fact. On the original, TSRTS is printed at 5:24 while on the 2014 one it's 5:29. The listed times for songs on side 1 are as follow: Original LP 5:24, 7:32, 4:42, 3:10 ; New LP 5:29, 7:39, 4:50, 3:17 Apropos of nothing, perhaps, given that, in theory, we have more accurate digital technology today, but still interesting.

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I've always suspected that the studio version of "the Song Remains The Same", on Houses Of The Holy, plays faster than it was actually recorded and that this was done intentionally for effect.

I believe Jimmy has already acknowledged this in various past interviews about the recording of Houses of the Holy. He definitely sped up Robert's vocals. Overall, Jimmy has stated he wanted Houses of the Holy to have a brighter sound than the typical Headley Grange sound the IV album had. He wanted it to sound like a 'summer record'...it was meant for a summer of 1972 release but the cover art problems delayed the release until spring of 1973.

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I believe Jimmy has already acknowledged this in various past interviews about the recording of Houses of the Holy. He definitely sped up Robert's vocals. Overall, Jimmy has stated he wanted Houses of the Holy to have a brighter sound than the typical Headley Grange sound the IV album had. He wanted it to sound like a 'summer record'...it was meant for a summer of 1972 release but the cover art problems delayed the release until spring of 1973.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Last night I almost posted, Are you sure its not just Roberts vocals?

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