mrlowry
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Posts posted by mrlowry
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I will buy the package day one. It is my favorite post-Zeppelin Jimmy Page project.
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John Paul Jones had another solo song called "Baja" but I don't think it meets your description as well but worth checking out as a possibility if it isn't "A Foggy Day In Vietnam."
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John Paul Jones had a pre-Led Zeppelin single called "A Foggy Day In Vietnam." Have you heard that? Is that it possibly? It kind of meets your description.
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19 hours ago, woz70 said:
Not an oversimplification at all.
As a real-world example, here's the actual track setup for Ramble On (the tracks might not be in the order the are on the original multitrack tape, but they are (copies of) the original multi's and it's how I've got them arranged in my studio):
Track 1: Acoustic guitar
Track 2: Bass (Judging by the spill that can be heard it was recorded simultaneously with Drums and acoustic guitar)
Track 3: Drums L
Track 4: Drums R
Track 5: Electric guitar - obviously recorded as an overdub, but it was recorded on a pristine empty track, so only first gen. tape hiss - same as the Bass, Drums and Acoustic Guitar. Adding this overdub has not added any more tape hiss than was already there, and the same goes for the following overdubs:-
Track 6: Guitar overdub - twinkly guitar but in the pre-chorus, plus one part of the harmony guitar solo - again an obvious overdub (it says so on the track sheet), again recorded on a pristine track so, again, only 1st gen. tape hiss.
Track 7: Vocal - very obviously not recorded at the same time the rest of the band were tracking (the spill you can hear contains acoustic guitar, electric guitar and harmony solo), so an overdub. Again, only 1st gen. tape hiss.
Track 8: Vocal doing a double of 'Ramble On' for the chorus, plus second part of harmony guitar solo. Again an overdub, but only 1st gen. tape hiss.
So in this song:
1: no need to bounce any tracks to another and add generational noise;
2: only first generation hiss on EVERY TRACK;
3: only 8 tracks available; and there are still points with four guitars playing simultaneously, thanks to good planning of what each track would be used for.
Just to reiterate: overdubbing on a pristine track will not add any more tape hiss than is already there.
So that covers:Next point:
No. Black Dog has 3 quite distinct guitar parts in all. One panned hard left, one panned hard right, and finally the solo. The 'thick' sound is all down to how it was recorded, and how the mixing engineer dealt with processing those tracks during mixdown. Lots of people (you, and a few people I have worked with amongst them) seem to think that you fatten up a guitar sound by recording multiple stacked version of the same part. Weirdly that can actually make a track sound thinner, and usually two versions of the same part recorded with different amps/guitars and panned apart sounds much fatter than 5 guitars playing the same thing - which, depending on the guitarist can often end up sounding like a right mess.
I have done, for over 40 years.
I've covered this above - overdubbing does NOT (necessarily) mean more hiss. The apparent 'muddiness' is not down to fidelity, it's down to eq choice during tracking and at mixdown, which means that's exactly how Mr. Page wanted it to sound.
"Celebration Day" is definitely complex, but there are only ever 3 guitars playing at once, usually panned hard Left and Right, sometimes one in the middle too. You're probably going to say 'but the guitar solo is surely two guitars - I can hear different sounds in each ear'. But.... they are the same part, the same track, split onto two channels on the desk at mixdown - one panned left, one panned right and both treated with different eq/delay/reverb/compression - another good way to make one part sound BIG. Kevin Shirley used this technique a LOT on HTWWW.
So I count 2 tracks of drums (so they can be stereo), 1 track of bass, 1 track of vocals, 3 tracks of guitar, leaving one track free for the synth drone and the guitar solo. No need to bounce, no need to have anything other than 1st gen. tape hiss.
"Dancing Days" is possibly four guitars (or three guitars and a synth) at it's most dense, but again : 2 drum tracks, 1 bass, 1 vocal is only 4 tracks, so plenty of room for four guitars.
"Ten Years Gone" - Wikipedia says Page recorded 14 guitar parts for the harmony section. I think that's rubbish.. well certainly an overexaggeration. However this is the first track you've mention that probably does have some track bouncing involved.
Towards the very end there are very clearly two guitars going on in each ear, and then another starts panned centrally. That's 5 distinct guitar parts, and because it's recorded on 8 track tape, there's obviously not enough discrete tracks for: 2 drums, 1 bass, 1 vocal, 5 guitars and a backing vocal, so somethings going on here. I reckon two guitars were bounced to one track and another two guitars to another track, leaving two free. One for BV's, one for the extra guitar at the end. It's worth noting that 'Ten Years Gone' is considerably hisser than many of the other tracks on Physical Graffiti, so that's probably down to the two second generation bounced tracks.
It's also worth noting at this point that they didn't have to go through the rigamarole of bouncing all 8 tracks to a separate tape machine - if you haven't filled all 8 tracks you can submix any (or all) of the other tracks onto an empty one and then re-use the tracks you have bounced from. This is a great way of ensuring you don't get 2nd. gen. hiss on all the tracks - only the bits of a track where you've had to do a bounce. You might lose a bit of fidelity on the re-used tracks - depends how 'hot' you recorded the original signal.
By the time they got to 'Achilles' there were not only improvements in noise reduction, but they were also using 16 track tape. Much more 1st. gen. tape to record on. They may have decided by then to record the drums on more than two tracks.... but I doubt it somehow. Page seems to be a 'get the sound right in the room and track it' type of producer, rather than spend hours making decisions on what compressor to use on the snare drum at mixdown etc.... Even 'Bohemian Rhapsody' which was recorded on 24 track tape (I've got a copy of that multi too....) only has two tracks of drums.
So, based on their usual formula: 2 drum tracks, 1 bass, 1 guitar tracked with the band, 1 vocal - that leaves 11 pristine tracks for overdubs.
Page was using a much less 'thick' guitar sound and going for 'glassier' tones generally at this time too - less thick means less frequency spectrum filled, which means everything sounds a bit more roomy and separate. That's be another reason why it sounds cleaner.I did cover this in my previous post:
Sly Stone was notorious for going out, getting wasted, inviting a load of randoms to record their parts on the master multi tracks, and then having to erase them the next day.
Totally ruined the tape because of a) too much playback, and b) too much erasing and re-recording.Yes - the multitrack harmony vocals are a nightmare to navigate - their mix engineer had an unenviable job sorting that lot out. Multiple nested bounces, and because they did it all on one 24 track tape there are no 1st gen. versions of those vocal parts available any more, so they couldn't do what Giles Martin has done with The Beatles back catalogue (they kept EVERYTHING) - go and find the earliest generation of each part and piece it together with Pro-Tools to do fabulous remixes with only one gen. of tape hiss. Again, shows the skill and diligence of those engineers at Abbey Road.
Finally:That's because Zep generally prepared LOTS before going into the studio. Most of the arrangements will have been really well worked out, rehearsed and sorted LONG before they went into the recording studio.
Why waste time and money pratting about in a recording studio trying to figure out parts? Musicians get bored/drunk/stoned and don't stay focussed if you spend too much time recording - you won't get the best, freshest performance.
Work it all out first, in a much cheaper rehearsal studio. Use as little studio time as possible, spend as little money as possible. The end product sounds better, because it's well rehearsed and not made up on the spot, and also you can use that time to plan how best to use the limited track space available to you.
I think that Zep were one of the most successful bands that literally spent the absolute least time possible in the recording studio.
Some bands used the studio as a composition tool : The Beatles, 10CC, Queen to some extent, Jimi Hendrix after Electric LadyLand was built.... but that's a really expensive way of recording an album, unless you own the studio or in The Beatles case, your record company gives you carte blanche and a bottomless cheque book.
Wow, That's a lot of great information. So do you feel that the slightly muddy or murky sound on many Led Zeppelin recordings is a creative choice and not a limitation of the recording technology?
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Is this the first master that had too much dynamic range for the turntables of the day and caused some needles to jump out of the groove?
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On 10/17/2020 at 5:30 PM, woz70 said:
A typical zep multitrack might look like this:
Track 1 & 2: drums
Track 3: bass
Track 4: guitar
Track 5: guitar overdub 1
Track 6: vocal
Track 7: backing vocal
Track 8: guitar overdub 2 and solo
No need to bounce, no need to add generational tape hiss.
The only other noise that will be added during initial recording, or overdubs, is hiss and hum from Amps, electrical (Johnson) noise added by compressors and other effects, the path of the signal through the desk and the tape machines' electronics, and eventual loss of high frequency response of you play the tape back too many times or do too many takes an overdub (this is why Sly and the family stone's recordings are so muffled sounding)
By the time they got to Presence I think they were on 16 track tape, and ITTOD was probably 24 tracks... So ample room for recorded sources without having to resort to bouncing tracks and adding noise.
Some of this is correct but it's too much of a simplification. Firstly; and most importantly many times Jimmy Page has 4 or 5 layers of guitars playing the same part to give it that thick and heavy sound. For an example if you listen very closely to Black Dog it has one guitar part but that one part is made up of multiple layers of different performances of that one guitar part (probably 5 layers.) You can hear this same approach but with less guitars on "In My Time of Dying" where two different guitars play the same part. One has a fuzzier tone and one has a cleaner tone. Listen to it on headphones, which makes it easier to hear them.
Secondly, many times Jimmy Page would have a guitar-army arrangement with many guitar parts going on at the same and because he was only one person he had to overdub them. Songs like "Celebration Day", "Trampled Under Foot", "Dancing Days", "Ten Years Gone", and "Achilles Last Stand" are all great examples. The first four start to sound a bit muddy because of the multiple guitar parts and layers of tape hiss. By the time "Achilles" comes around apparently tape noise reduction got good enough were it wasn't as much of a problem That's why Presence is probably their cleanest sounding album.
With analog there are two things to worry about. The first is generation loss which is when you copy one tape to another tape when bouncing down multiple tracks to one track to free up recording space, as described by the post above. The second is the loss that occurs every time a piece of analog tape runs through a machine a little bit of the magnetic material is worn off in the process. Queen faced this problem when recording "Bohemian Rhapsody." They even joked about being able to see through the tape by the end of the recording session. Fleetwood Mac (with Rumors) and Pink Floyd (with The Wall) tried to address the issue of tape wear by recording the rhythm tracks on a tape then copied that tape to work on. After all of the other work was done they then went back to the pristine rhythm track tapes to finish the work by bring in the overdubs at that point so the basic rhythm track tape didn't have to go through the machine over, and over, and over, and over again. For the Fleetwood Mac Rumors sessions they discuss that work flow extensively on the Classic Albums documentary that covers it. It's a good DVD if you haven't seen it. To my knowledge Jimmy Page never used this pristine rhythm track method with Led Zeppelin, probably because it would have slowed down the recording process and disrupted his creativity too much.
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Keep in mind that with analog tape every time you overdub something you get an additional layer of tape hiss. Since many times Jimmy Page had multiple layers of the same guitar part or multiple guitar parts at the same time the overall background noise of nearly song that they recorded in the studio was going to be higher. To my ears the worst offender is "Celebration Day" which sounds pretty murky and muddy, luckily it suits the song in a cool way because it adds a touch of mystery.
Another potential issue is that many of the albums were recorded with mobile studios in unconventional locations as apposed to a standard studio.
Noise reduction on tape eventually partially overcame the overdub/tape hiss issue which is why Presence, which probably has the most overdubs still sounds pretty clean.
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Does anyone else think that this case might have been holding up 50th Anniversary or live album plans and things will start moving again?
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Is there any information on how much footage of the Zeppelin performance at the Texas International Pop Festival exists? What is the source? Is the available clip complete or is there more and it is just a sample?
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8 hours ago, mstork said:
Great track, and the ol’ session dog Jimmy fits like a glove. Would’ve been a great Stone if he was so inclined!
Being a member of the Rolling Stones would have been a complete waste of Jimmy Page's talent.
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On 4/30/2020 at 1:49 PM, badgeholder said:
Hey, maybe the documentary will have a companion audio release, you never know
Now thats an interesting idea because the documentary and the Japan shows do cover the same time period.
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I'm surprised that Jimmy Page did not issue a DVD audio or sacd with both 2-channel and 5.1 surround when he did the latest remasters. A big missed opportunity.
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The true 50th anniversary has came and went, with nothing new of consequence being released. I think it's time to close this thread and open a 51st anniversary thread.
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An Earls Court release is long overdue. I'd like to see a best of full concert video and a boxed set of audio CD's of all the full concerts. It would be a great 50th Anniversary release but a ton of work. If it isn't ready now it won't be happening this year. Sadly, it's looking more and more like there won't be any live video or audio releases this year.
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It sounds like whatever live release that was being planned won't happen this year. Very sad. I dont agree with Mr Page that only things that havent been bootlegged are worthy of release for two reasons, first not everyone collects the bootlegs and second any tape that would be in his possession should be of much better quality.
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Does anyone else think that it's possible that the Stairway To Heaven lawsuit might be holding up a 50th Anniversary live release or releases?
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It would be great to hear all 10 of the demos but they haven't leaked out by now they probably never will.
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4 hours ago, Xolo1974 said:
Well how about the 50th anniversary of the release of the first album? That’s been and gone
I too consider 2019 to be the true 50th anniversary and it should have kicked off with the release date for Led Zeppelin I. Let's be honest though, we are at least 3 months into 2019 and don't have anything major to show for it. It's been radio silence so far with no announcements, let alone new releases. They have live stuff that they could put out, where's Earl's Court (best of the nights to make a full set list or boxed set of all nights), where's Knebworth, where's a release from the Japan multitracks, how about a blu-ray HD release of the 1970 Royal Albert Hall from the original film 16mm negative, That isn't even touching on any of the multitrack tapes that Jimmy probably has that we don't even know about.
They don't owe me anything and I don't want to sound like an ungrateful fan but they started the 50th Anniversary hype-train in motion and got me on board, now I just want to go somewhere.
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It's amazing that something this basic is still a bit of a mystery. If this were The Beatles we were talking about we'd not only know for sure who the back up singer was but what brand of toothpaste they had used that morning.
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I would love to hear the 4-5 unreleased tracks and see a documentary made up of the extensive video footage shot by David Coverdale. This is by far my favorite post-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page project and that includes the two albums that he did with Robert Plant. This album gets revisited often at my house. Day one purchase.
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On 2/22/2019 at 5:16 PM, Mook said:
You can hear Bonham quite clearly on Bron Yr Aur Stomp on DVD.
That slipped my memory. I'll have to give it a spin.
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It's a gentle sounding voice that sounds similar to the voice on Jimmy Page's single "She Just Satisfies." I've heard Robert Plant say that John Bonham had a good singing voice but I don't know if I've ever heard it. I also don't think its John Paul Johns because it doesn't sound similar to his singing on the Thunder Thief album. So I'm voting Mr. Page.
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From what I've heard they were a shadow of their former selves on the 1980 European tour and from the sound of it the audience knew it. Page's guitar tone and playing aren't what they should have been, Plant is going through the motions with little real passion, Bonzo isn't Bonzo, and Jones is trying so hard just to hold everything together. Even if Bonham hadn't passed away I think that Zeppelin was close to the end and Robert was ready to walk away from the band. After the American tour he probably would have quit. Maybe they would have gotten back together a few years later but we'll never know.
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Led Zeppelin, and it's members have given us all some truly awe inspiring music. In addition to their music they helped re-introduce many of us Americans to our own much neglected American Blues past. Because of them I am aware of and enjoy the music of Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Buddy Guy, etc. etc. They inspired a dorky white kid from a small town to dig deep into the blues of the past. Music which most likely wouldn't have been on my radar if it wasn't for them exposing me to it. In an all too brief 12 year history (10 years if we are only talking about studio recordings) they left a legacy that will endure for eternity. The only other band that has that kind of major impact that continues to this day in the same or shorter recording career is The Beatles.
They owe us absolutely nothing at this point. Anything that we receive from them is a gift even if we have to pay money for it. If anything we owe them our continued respect and support for any artistic choices that they make. It's their choice if they want to record music that is Zeppelin-like, completely unrelated to Led Zeppelin, or nothing at all. They don't work for us. These guys are all in their 70's and have earned the right to enjoy the rest of their lives as they see fit without worrying about our expectation or desires.
Pete Townshend's issue
in Led Zeppelin Master Forum
Posted
I think it's part jealousy and part attention seeking. Every time he bashes someone else it makes headlines and gets him and by extension The Who big publicity.