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Looking Ahead: the Next Three Releases - Presence ITTOD and Coda


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For anyone who bought the rough mix of "In The Evening" before it was taken down, it isn't just the same "outtake"/alternate mix that we already have from ITTOD bootlegs, is it? Because that'd be a little bit of a let down.

I just sorta got to thinking/worrying after re-reading the reviews of it on here...

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I don't know, never heard the bootleg version. It's not the same vocal, Plant is much rougher and coarser sounding and some sentences that you had to guess at in the final version, are fully articulated here. There are a LOT of weird guitar sounds in the beginning, parts sound almost like "In the Light" from PG. The riff is completely unchanged from what I can tell. Lot more flute in the "calm break" before OOOhhhh Whatever!

I thought I saw it up on Youtube, under some weird title. I'll post it if i find it.

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Well you will be happy to know the rough mix is NOTHING like what you posted. ^^^

If it was like what you posted I would be pretty disappointed, what you have there sounds like the final product, just muddier. The rough mix has an entirely different vocal take, like I said, he is hoarser, and he enunciates some lines very clearly.

I checked my Amazon Prime account and it's still there for me, I wondered if they were going to "take it back". So I downloaded it to my PC so they can't have it back!

For the life of me, I know I saw it on YT, under some weird title like "Chrysanthemums in the Cemetary" or some such nonsense, but can't find it now. Was prob taken down due to copyright infringement.

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haha! I wish the others who bought it would weigh in.

To my ear, it is an entirely different vocal take, which to me is pretty awesome.

The intro is about a minute, lots of sitars (sounds like) and weird noises.

And the JP solo is very clear, very upfront. And the flutes in the calm break are louder.

I was impressed with it!

Someone else on here was impressed with the HOFN alternate, I was not. Too similar to the original. To each their own!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, The rough mix of In the Evening is now available on iTunes and it's awesome. I could never understand why Plant or whoever, wanted to mix the vocals so much into the music on it or Carouselambra. A rough mix of Carouselambra has been on YouTube for a while with clear vocals, listed as Rare but the quality isn't great but it's decent if turned up. I can't understand them mixing them a little more back but not as much as they did.

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haha! I wish the others who bought it would weigh in.

To my ear, it is an entirely different vocal take, which to me is pretty awesome.

The intro is about a minute, lots of sitars (sounds like) and weird noises.

And the JP solo is very clear, very upfront. And the flutes in the calm break are louder.

I was impressed with it!

Someone else on here was impressed with the HOFN alternate, I was not. Too similar to the original. To each their own!

It's definitely the same vocal take as the final version, it's just not laden with chorus & slap-back delay and buried in the mix.

A much better treatment of the vocal in my opinion.

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haha! I wish the others who bought it would weigh in.

To my ear, it is an entirely different vocal take, which to me is pretty awesome.

The intro is about a minute, lots of sitars (sounds like) and weird noises.

And the JP solo is very clear, very upfront. And the flutes in the calm break are louder.

I was impressed with it!

I am impressed with it too! To my ears, though, it sounds like the vocal take is the same one from the original album version - just a radically different mix in which the vocals are, you know, actually audible. :-)

Well, The rough mix of In the Evening is now available on iTunes and it's awesome. I could never understand why Plant or whoever, wanted to mix the vocals so much into the music on it or Carouselambra. A rough mix of Carouselambra has been on YouTube for a while with clear vocals, listed as Rare but the quality isn't great but it's decent if turned up. I can't understand them mixing them a little more back but not as much as they did.

My guess is that it was Page who mixed the vocals down. And - again only guessing - he might've done it because, as Plant has said, the album was a bit "clean" for a Zep album (Plant said it was because they'd been off the road so long when they made it.) So maybe burying the vocals and the other mixing decisions were intended to add a bit of sludge/murk a la many Physical Graffiti tracks.

If so, it certainly worked for In the Evening - the alt. mix is very cool, but the original album version is much, much more sinister and dark-sounding and feeling.

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I am impressed with it too! To my ears, though, it sounds like the vocal take is the same one from the original album version - just a radically different mix in which the vocals are, you know, actually audible. :-)

My guess is that it was Page who mixed the vocals down. And - again only guessing - he might've done it because, as Plant has said, the album was a bit "clean" for a Zep album (Plant said it was because they'd been off the road so long when they made it.) So maybe burying the vocals and the other mixing decisions were intended to add a bit of sludge/murk a la many Physical Graffiti tracks.

If so, it certainly worked for In the Evening - the alt. mix is very cool, but the original album version is much, much more sinister and dark-sounding and feeling.

I have no problem with mixing them back some to capture the darkness vibe, but they are too far back. I have always felt this way. I mean you need to hear the lyrics to some extent. I spent years thinking on "So Don't You Let Her..." was "So Don't You Run or So Don't You Laugh" among other misheard lyrics before the internet. As for Carouselrambra, I never had any clue what the lyrics were because of the mix.

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It's definitely the same vocal take as the final version, it's just not laden with chorus & slap-back delay and buried in the mix.

A much better treatment of the vocal in my opinion.

Shows what I know. All I know is I heard Plant sounding raspym and some of the chorus "oh" noises were gone. That and the fact he was articulate led me to believe it was a new vocal take. If this is really the same vocal take, then just a different mix, then what Page has in the vaults is really pretty sad. No accoustic versions, no working through a song to get the beat right, no flubs and half-takes...where is all the gold?

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Shows what I know. All I know is I heard Plant sounding raspym and some of the chorus "oh" noises were gone. That and the fact he was articulate led me to believe it was a new vocal take. If this is really the same vocal take, then just a different mix, then what Page has in the vaults is really pretty sad. No accoustic versions, no working through a song to get the beat right, no flubs and half-takes...where is all the gold?

I believe that's the sort of stuff Jimmy would never release, the "warts and all" type of tracks that he would consider imperfect. Sure, it's not something that needs to be considered on the basis of it's perfection; it would just be a true "portal to the time of the recording of Led Zeppelin", giving us a great frame of reference, but that's Jimmy for you.

Think of the new Yes Progeny set with seven complete concerts. There are plenty of imperfections in that set. I could never imagine Mr. Page making something like that available.

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Shows what I know. All I know is I heard Plant sounding raspym and some of the chorus "oh" noises were gone. That and the fact he was articulate led me to believe it was a new vocal take. If this is really the same vocal take, then just a different mix, then what Page has in the vaults is really pretty sad. No accoustic versions, no working through a song to get the beat right, no flubs and half-takes...where is all the gold?

Studio time is expensive - too expensive to go in and rehearse or sort songs out. The Beatles had the luxury of writing in studio, but whilst Zep were pretty rich Jimmy still seems to have spent as little money as possible on actual recording (I'm assuming, as producer, he would've had final say on that side of things). The only reason they went to Polar studios for ITTOD was because they were given a cheap deal....

All that stuff - the gold - will have been worked out in rehearsals before getting to the recording studio and is probably on really rough 2-track or even cassette, and Page will never let the public hear that. Even if they did 3-4 takes of a song, they would only have continued recording/overdubbing with the best take. The other thing is the sheer amount of editing Page did. One song could be a construction from 2,3 or more parts from different takes, so a half-take or a flub could have ended up as an intro/first verse whatever. He's not going to give that sort of studio magic away lightly.

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