According to Wikipedia, which references a book about Zep's songs by Dave Lewis, "the hiss is feedback from an echo unit." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant_Song Regarding the sound quality of the song, the latest version I have is from the Deluxe edition of the third album. To me, it sounds as good as the rest of the songs on that album. There's an intentional echo/watery quality to the guitar in places that's unusual, but otherwise it sounds similar to the rest of the disc.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep an eye out for it.

In general, they are what quora described, a standard against which other tracks can be compared to make sure they sound similar. There are programs that let you load the reference track into your mixing or mastering session and compare it on the fly to what you're working on. It lets you hear the differences between the two at the press of a button. There are also programs that let you copy the EQ of the reference track and apply it to the one you're working on, and others that let you copy the dynamics of the reference track to the new one. This kind of thing is helpful if you have an early mix of a song you like and want to make sure later versions of it sound similar. However, the reference track can also be a different song from the one you're working on and you use it to make sure the other songs on the album sound similar to it. In regard to the companion audio tracks specifically, the songs I listened to recently that are labelled reference mixes sound more like final mixes with slight, if any, variations from the versions that were originally released on LP back in the day. I suppose they could have been used as references, basically to say "hey, we're almost there. Make sure when we add the last few touch ups that the final version sounds like this."

I'm not sure when it was cut. I assume it was done right before an album was sent to be pressed to vinyl, so the original multi-tracks probably still have the low end intact. My assumption is that because the formative years of Jimmy's musical career were during the LP era, he still takes the truncated low end as being the way recorded music should sound. And because of that, he didn't take advantage of one of the big benefits of digital technology, namely deep bass, when he remastered the Zep catalog. Of course all of that is just a guess on my part, but it seems to fit the work he's done recently on the Zep remasters.

Thanks. I'm glad you like it. I sent you a message with the link.

I was a computer programmer for much of my career so I may have too much faith in technology, but I really think there will be a solution for shows like Bath. I'm not sure how long it will take, but things move quicker than you might expect. Although it's obviously a different situation, here's an image showing how fast computers evolved in their ability to create human faces from scratch. The group of black and white pictures on the left were generated in 2014 and the two color ones on the right were done in 2018. Here's the full article on how the faces were created for anyone who's interested: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144356/ai-image-generation-fake-faces-people-nvidia-generative-adversarial-networks-gans

For the studio recordings, I assume his bass sounds however Jimmy wanted it to sound. If it was supposed to be up front like on Ramble On, it was. If it was supposed to be farther down in the mix, it was. Also, the low end of his bass was absent from the original records because it was difficult to encode deep bass on LPs. The grooves had to be so large that the needles would jump out, so the low end was cut as a matter of course to prevent that. In concert, his bass would have had a tremendous impact, but the cassette decks on which most audience recordings and soundboards were made don't accurately capture it. The reason bands in the '70s initially started to play so loudly was because the PAs were inefficient and needed tons of power to produce bass that hit you in the chest. Doing that made the low end loud, so everything else had to be turned up to match it. (Eventually sheer volume became a bragging right, but it started out with an actual purpose.) And even if professional multi-tracks from live shows back then captured the power in Jonsey's bass, Jimmy isn't going to remaster them with killer low end like someone today would mix a rap album. He's just of a different era where that couldn't be done for so long that it's not part of his repertoire, even if it's easy to do today with digital technology.

Tried that one, too. It sounds different, but not really better than the original. I also tried 9/4/70 and some other famous audience recordings as well. Same thing happened. The problem is that each of them has a basic sound that is "baked" into them. I can make them sound different, but making them sound significantly better is difficult. And it's not just audience recordings either. I have the same issue with the 1980 soundboards. I can make them sound a little better, but not enough to make it worth the work I put into each release. I will definitely keep trying with the 7/7/80 show for sentimental reasons though, but the past few times I worked on it did not yield anything promising. I pick up new tools occasionally, so maybe one of them will help. Or I'll learn some new technique that can make a noticeable improvement.

Already tried it. No meaningful improvement. I do think one day a computer will be able to analyze a show like that and give us a midi track of each instrument and from there we could use samples of the band playing other live shows to recreate the performance. I'm not sure how far out in the future that is, but I think it's our best chance to resurrect poor sounding audience recordings. I know some of that technology already exists in simple form (e.g. listening to a guitar play and identifying the chords.) I haven't looked into it recently so maybe it's more advanced than last time I looked. The goal of splitting a mono recording into stereo tracks was a pipe dream for a long time and now it's available at the push of a button, so we may be closer to the midi thing than I realize.

Thanks. For me, technique is always a servant of the music, never it's master. I'll take some kid who just learned his third chord over a Berkeley graduate any day if I find the kid's music more exciting. And I know there has to be some minimal level of competence, but once you're there all I care about is how much your music moves me.

I met one of these guys back in the 90s. He had all the heavies (basically everything on the original Tarantura label, Antrabata, Akashic, etc.), plus all the regular stuff I'd find at record shows as well. He said there were packages coming from Japan a couple of times a week. He made CD-Rs of everything I asked for just because he knew how much I was into Zep. We met in person at the '98 Page/Plant show in Cleveland and he was as cool as you'd imagine. I also asked him about what must have been some eye watering credit card bills and he said he and his wife made good money and she knew it was his hobby so she didn't give him a hard time about it.

Winston's is better than mine, so that's the one to track down. Or maybe the recent Nite Owl version, which seems to be the current crowd favorite.

I'm glad your enjoying the 9/29/71 remaster. The performance is just amazing. I'm not sure if or when the rest of it will come out. I'd prefer for Jimmy to release it officially, but if that doesn't happen I'll settle for EV or another boot label putting out the rest so we get to hear all of it from the soundboard. Regarding 3/21/75, I'd only release a show if I thought my version was different enough from what's already been released to be worth my time to work on it and other people's to listen to it. As far as I know, no one else is doing the type of stereo remixes that I am so my version of 3/21/75 will be unique in that regard. Whether anyone likes it better than other versions is up to each person, which is why I provide samples of the remasters so everyone can hear them first to see if they like them enough to download them. And even if someone else released a stereo version of a show right before I released mine and it was better than what I was going to release, I'd happily shelve mine. The only reason I do the remasters is to hear Zep in the best possible sound quality, so if someone else puts out a version that's better than mine then I'll gladly listen to theirs instead. Winston's "The Great Love Affair" is still my go to for the 9/4/70 show even though I've done my own remaster of it, and Liriodendren's matrix of the 7/7/80 show is my favorite version of the last show with Bonzo.

Performance reviews and track listings: http://www.argenteumastrum.com/1972.htm#19721 Recommended version of each show: http://www.bootledz.com/mypicks.htm Also, this thread should probably be in the Live section of the site.

I created a version of the original HTWWW for myself just to decompress it. After the official remaster came out recently, I bought a hi-res version to use as a reference and to try to figure out how they got it to sound the way it does. Based on some tests, the major difference with things I do is the amount of compression that was used on individual instruments. I normally use a limiter (basically a heavier version of compression) on an entire song instead of individual instruments because it gives me more control over how much the song breathes. I like that approach better in most cases, but I have started using compression on some individual instruments to make them stand out more. There's always a line between "easier to hear" and "compressed the life out of the music", and staying on the right side of it is one of the reasons it takes me so long to finish each remaster.

Blueberry Hill. For years, I only had a mono version of the show. It didn't bother me that it wasn't in stereo, but something about the basic sound of the recording put me off. Then I found Winston's "The Great Love Affair", which is based on a stereo recording. Something just clicked, and now it's one of my favorite shows.

I believe I'm the one who did the 1971/09/29 show you mentioned. While Burn Like a Candle (BLAC) is good for an audience recording from 1972, it's not suitable for remastering like the 1971/09/29 was. I just tried it and it wasn't even worth posting a sample, that's how bad it came out. Granted, it took me the better part of two years to finish the Japan show, but I could tell immediately that it could be chiseled into shape given enough time. With BLAC, it can definitely sound better than it currently does, but the ceiling for how good it can sound with current technology is relatively low. My hope for shows like BLAC is that software gets to the point where we can have a computer listen to the show and create midi files of the various instruments. We could then take an existing professional recording and split the instruments on it into samples (e.g. the individual chords and notes played on a guitar), then use a software to play the appropriate samples back when the midi files says a particular note or chord was played. In the case of BLAC, we could have the computer figure out what was played and then use samples from HTWWW when it's time to create the show. That sounds far fetched, but it already exists in rudimentary form for guitars (and I haven't researched the state of the art in a while, so it may be more advanced than I realize) and there are already drum replacement programs that let you take a drum hit in a song and replace it with a drum hit from another kit. I'm not sure how long this will take to come together, and some people may not even consider the result a true representation of the performance, but I think it's the direction that will produce the most listenable results. At least for instruments. I'm sure you could do something similar for vocals, but I'm not certain the results would be acceptable because we're so attuned to the sound of human voices that anything that's not perfect may sound too odd to be acceptable.

Looks like: Mayaku K-Satsu: 12CDs boxExcellent & superb audience sourcesSuperb soundboard + aud sourcesLimited 100 copies / numbered

I'd second the Montreux show except that the balance on existing versions of the "audience" portion of the show are all mixed up (i.e. Robert's in the right channel and Jimmy's in the center.) I'm going to fix that in an upcoming Stereo Project release, so I'd hold off on it for now. Instead, I'd go with the April 8th, 1970 show in Raleigh. I have EV's "World Champion Drummer", which really captures the weight of Bonzo's kit. Bootledz recommends the No Label version of that show instead, which I haven't heard. Regardless of which version you get, it's a really good early '70 performance captured in a fine audience recording and includes We're Gonna Groove as the opener. http://www.bootledz.com/mypicks.htm For 1970, you're also going to want to pick up a version of Blueberry Hill. They'd switched to Immigrant Song as the opener by then, but it's still a classic must have show. Seems like the Nite Owl version is the current crowd favorite.

Thanks. I sent you a link for the show. I did some preliminary tests on a few of the '73 German shows. Sometimes things work out immediately and I can tell I can finish a show relatively easily. That didn't happen for any of those shows. I'll definitely revisit them because they're such good performances, although I'm not sure when I'll get to them. I've got a bunch of stuff about 85% done. Unfortunately, the last 15% is where the magic happens, but it's also the part that takes the most time.

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Glad you like them. Check your messages for the link.

I'm pretty sure Whole Lotta Love and War Pigs go together because you can merge them into one awesome song:

That's good news. Thanks for the info.

Thanks. It helped to have a good sounding recording to start with.