mrledhed Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 I'm addressing this to everyone taking part here: so in light of some of this info Glyn and Ledhed have passed on, is it fair to assume that no Zeppelin soundboard -at least from the '73-'80 era- circulates in anything lower than 1st gen (i.e. not from the master reel or cassettes)? That appears to be correct. So if the 1st gen tapes sound good, think about what the masters would sound like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 The whole cassette/reel thing gets complicated when the master source is a cassette and then it's copied to a reel. Naturally the lineage only states Master -> Reel (1st gen) Which is kind of a fucked up way of doing it, when ya think on it...why not just copy cassette to cassette, instead of cassette to reel? I mean, reel to reel is generally better quality than mere cassette tape...not a perfect analogy, but sound quality wise, it would sort of be like converting an mp3 file to WAV... That appears to be correct. So if the 1st gen tapes sound good, think about what the masters would sound like. Oh, it doesn't bear thinking about If the master soundboard tapes still exist, and were kept in pristine condition, they'd sound mighty fine! Some of the soundboard dubs we've gotten sound flat as a pancake (28/5/77 comes to mind) whereas some of them sound excellent...for copies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrledhed Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 I wonder if the soundboard tapes that were recorded using reels were on 7.5 ips tape or higher? I think I asked some Showco guys this but they didn't remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplet Kick Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 Glyn, many thanks for the SBD sources from RO. I find that kind of trivia utterly fascinating. Drives my wives mad though. Plus it does explain the comparatively poor state of the '73 SDBs. I find the widely variable quality to be astounding, given the stature of the band. I mean, there are soundboards of other bands from the late 60s which are pretty flawless. Funny, innit. From RO - what the soundboards were recorded on. 73 boards were recorded reel-reel (w/a terrible azimuth problem) and wow-flutter 75-reel-reel (flawless) 77-cassette 80-either put through DBX then played back without (pulsy muted shitful sound.some of the more recent ones are better) Thanks Nutrocker. As an aside, my first Zep bootleg was a tape copy of Dallas 5 March 1975 (spoiled from the start, see?) and first CD was Brussels '80, so SDBs have always been of interest to me. Hmm one could make money selling "I'm a Soundboard Snob" t-shirt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrledhed Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilsoncb420 Posted July 7, 2013 Share Posted July 7, 2013 heres my 2 cents: what are the odds that they randomly recorded tapes of their shows ('71-'77) from the soundboard RANDOMLY? I'm talking about odds, since we are speculating. I think that the odds of them randomly recording shows are low. I am mainly referring to their live shows post '71-'72. (examples: 1973 US tours and 1975) I'd like to think that when showco came aboard, every show was recorded for Jimmy's "diary" as he has said the tapes were. He said these shows were his "Led Zeppelin Live diary", or his diary of how his career as a rock star was going. He said they were never made for public listening, but for his own use. (then I'd steal them too!) my young, witty, but often naive brain tells me this: they recorded 95% of their shows after an unknown time that fell between 1971-1973, whenever Jimmy decided to have showco record every show they could (tape from the sound board). Meaning that I feel 99% positive that almost every show from 75 and 77 is on sbd if the tapes survived. Why would they record all Landover 77 shows AND monitor mixes, and not record the 1977 LA GIGS? Their favorite place to play?!?!? Why would they record the houston summit and not NYC? Why the first Cleveland gig and not Pontiac? Logic, to me, but I am young a naive. They did record LTTE and FBO to sbd tapes, IMO. the LA 77 run is on soundboard, somewhere. I'm using logic here, people. And I'm confident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted July 7, 2013 Share Posted July 7, 2013 my young, witty, but often naive brain tells me this: they recorded 95% of their shows after an unknown time that fell between 1971-1973, whenever Jimmy decided to have showco record every show they could (tape from the sound board). Meaning that I feel 99% positive that almost every show from 75 and 77 is on sbd if the tapes survived. Why would they record all Landover 77 shows AND monitor mixes, and not record the 1977 LA GIGS? Their favorite place to play?!?!? Why would they record the houston summit and not NYC? Why the first Cleveland gig and not Pontiac? Logic, to me, but I am young a naive. They did record LTTE and FBO to sbd tapes, IMO. the LA 77 run is on soundboard, somewhere. I'm using logic here, people. And I'm confident. It's good to be confident, but even if all those shows do exist as soundboards doesn't mean we'll see 'em all released...well, maybe our grandkids might Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrledhed Posted July 7, 2013 Share Posted July 7, 2013 heres my 2 cents: what are the odds that they randomly recorded tapes of their shows ('71-'77) from the soundboard RANDOMLY? I'm talking about odds, since we are speculating. I think that the odds of them randomly recording shows are low. I am mainly referring to their live shows post '71-'72. (examples: 1973 US tours and 1975) I'd like to think that when showco came aboard, every show was recorded for Jimmy's "diary" as he has said the tapes were. He said these shows were his "Led Zeppelin Live diary", or his diary of how his career as a rock star was going. He said they were never made for public listening, but for his own use. (then I'd steal them too!) my young, witty, but often naive brain tells me this: they recorded 95% of their shows after an unknown time that fell between 1971-1973, whenever Jimmy decided to have showco record every show they could (tape from the sound board). Meaning that I feel 99% positive that almost every show from 75 and 77 is on sbd if the tapes survived. Why would they record all Landover 77 shows AND monitor mixes, and not record the 1977 LA GIGS? Their favorite place to play?!?!? Why would they record the houston summit and not NYC? Why the first Cleveland gig and not Pontiac? Logic, to me, but I am young a naive. They did record LTTE and FBO to sbd tapes, IMO. the LA 77 run is on soundboard, somewhere. I'm using logic here, people. And I'm confident. For crying out loud, it's common knowledge that they recorded EVERY CONCERT from 1971 ON when Showco was hired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilsoncb420 Posted July 7, 2013 Share Posted July 7, 2013 if we could only find them/hear them. Off topic, but my 1st wish would be 1972 US Tour SBDs, because this was Zeppelin at their peak. Those first 3 1977 LA shows are equally incredible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chef free Posted July 7, 2013 Share Posted July 7, 2013 But does jimmy still have possession of those tapes? Remember, tapes were stolen from Jimmy, we have no idea how many went missing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jabe Posted July 8, 2013 Author Share Posted July 8, 2013 I'll swing far out on a kudzu vine and venture that all band members plus the Bonham estate have an extensive collection of the soundboards. Interesting how some members of the forum aren't touching this thread with a ten foot pole.I pretty much expected that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 I'll swing far out on a kudzu vine and venture that all band members plus the Bonham estate have an extensive collection of the soundboards. Hard to say...I'd be inclined to say Page is easily the biggest collector of the bunch, I can't see Robert Plant having a large stash of uncirculating LZ soundboards... Interesting how some members of the forum aren't touching this thread with a ten foot pole.I pretty much expected that. Even more innaresting is that members you'd expect to be all over a discussion like this aren't participating. Mind ya, over at other LZ sites a discussion such as this would probably already be censored all to shit, if not deleted altogether and all the participants banned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glyn Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 There's not much to censor here, yet, and the censoring has already been done (re: "Master" -> Reel). So, about the tapes that were stolen, they were taken from Pages home sometime in the 80's and as the story goes it was someone close to Page (a house sitter, or someone the house sitter let in?) took the recordings while he was away. Page has said, under oath, that "virtually everything was taken." I would assume most of the stuff taken was the demos/rehearsals/outtakes. I would guess that most of the 75-77 boards come form a Showco employee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glyn Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 I'll swing far out on a kudzu vine and venture that all band members plus the Bonham estate have an extensive collection of the soundboards. Jason is said to be a collector (and it's been discussed that he's the one leaking to EVSD....which is pretty preposterous). I'm sure Page would let Jason hear/get a copy of whatever he wanted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melcórë Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 They did record LTTE and FBO to sbd tapes, IMO. the LA 77 run is on soundboard, somewhere. I'm using logic here, people. And I'm confident. We know that they recorded (via SBD) the 1977.06.23 (i.e. Badgeholders) concert, because Jimmy gave a sample of his guitar/noise solo from that night to his laser technician (known online as "Photonbeam") for reference prior to the Knebworth dates, and this sample has been online for a few years now. I've wondered lately how SBDs from 1972 would sound like... Jason is said to be a collector (and it's been discussed that he's the one leaking to EVSD....which is pretty preposterous). Some wanker over at Dime was claiming that they "knew" Jimmy was the one leaking the SBDs -- via a friend-of-a-friend, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Some wanker over at Dime was claiming that they "knew" Jimmy was the one leaking the SBDs -- via a friend-of-a-friend, of course. Isn't that always the way? "A friend of a friend said so and so said such and such about such and such..." :lol: So much (at the very least) second hand information goes round in bootleg collecting -not just when it comes to LZ but their collectors are particularly guilty of the trait, I notice- that's it's not even fuckin' funny. Somebody's always claiming to "know" 'something' but they always seem to pass the buck regarding the source of the info on to somebody else, it's very rare it seems that anyone is willing to cop to it themselves... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melcórë Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Isn't that always the way? "A friend of a friend said so and so said such and such about such and such..." :lol: So much (at the very least) second hand information goes round in bootleg collecting -not just when it comes to LZ but their collectors are particularly guilty of the trait, I notice- that's it's not even fuckin' funny. Somebody's always claiming to "know" 'something' but they always seem to pass the buck regarding the source of the info on to somebody else, it's very rare it seems that anyone is willing to cop to it themselves... It is! And, of course, when you call anyone out for it, they pant and whimper and threaten to go to ground with any info or sources they have...good riddance is what I say! (I should rectify my statement a bit, though: He claims to be the friend of someone close to the band, who apparently "knows" that Jimmy is the one leaking SBDs...what a load!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 It is! And, of course, when you call anyone out for it, they pant and whimper and threaten to go to ground with any info or sources they have...good riddance is what I say! No shit, I mean we're not talking state secrets here, investigative reporters meeting covertly in parking garages at 3am with the deputy director of the FBI ala Watergate Quite frankly the only reason I can see people backtracking after divulging too much 'secret' information when it comes to bootlegs/tape collecting is if there was money involved somewhere along the line, and by blabbing too much they stand the risk of blowing the deal. Or their part/stake in it... (I should rectify my statement a bit, though: He claims to be the friend of someone close to the band, who apparently "knows" that Jimmy is the one leaking SBDs...what a load!) "Friend of someone close to the band"...Ross Halfin? :lol: Seriously, though, these people always seem to "know" this shit, but where's the fucking proof? Once ya ask 'em that they scurry away like rats deserting a sinking ship never to be heard from again. Not that they'd be expected to actually tell the truth about the matter, mind ya, the 'truth' probably being more along the lines of, "I just made up this story outta whole cloth because I thought it would make me look cool and accepted by the elitist collectors crowd" or some such stupid shit... (Once again, I can think of other sites where a statement like the above would have been deleted as soon as it was posted because it would probably strike too many nerves...It's already been pointed out in this thread that there are people with ample knowledge on this subject who are pretty conspicuous by their absence...I am starting to wonder why that is...could it be that some of things that have beeen mentioned in this discussion cut a little too close to the bone for some people? I'm just sayin'...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geezer Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 For crying out loud, it's common knowledge that they recorded EVERY CONCERT from 1971 ON when Showco was hired.And what's your source?Zep played at least 270 shows after Showco was hired. How many post-71 soundboards have been released? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 From RO - what the soundboards were recorded on. Thanks for posting that list, Glyn. I meant to mark the original post for reference, but forgot. Now I don't have to slog backwards thru time. But what about the gear used to record shows pre-1973? It's astonishing to hear some of those poor 1973 or 1971 soundboards and then hear some amazing soundboard from 1969. I'm sure Bill Graham/Wolfgang had his own setup at the Fillmore/Winterland venues. But did Led Zeppelin use their own setup to record the shows or just use Bill's machines? Note to chillumpuffer: Led Zeppelin did release a live album before the 1977 tour: The Song Remains the Same, which came out in 1976. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glyn Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 All I know about the actual equipment is that people have said Page used a Nakamichi cassette deck. If that was in 77 or 80, I do not know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jabe Posted July 11, 2013 Author Share Posted July 11, 2013 http://bootstrappub.com/showcoindex.html Wonder if the frat bros. were the masterminds... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 http://bootstrappub.com/showcoindex.html Wonder if the frat bros. were the masterminds... Goddamn, I want that fuckin' book...probably be an innaresting read! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 ^^^ No shit. I'm surprised a book on Showco wasn't written sooner. Should be a real page-turner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geezer Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 The author of that book is a member of this forum. I'm fairly sure he posted earlier.http://forums.ledzeppelin.com/index.php?/topic/19646-4-may-1973-atlanta/#entry677745 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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