1969.04.27 Sitting and Thinking

[SteveZ98]

I've created a stereo version of the second set from the 4/27/69 show a while ago, but I'll likely never release it as I don't think I'll be able to get it to sound as good as I want it to. This show is definitely a case where I hope AI eventually comes to the rescue and can transform this recording into something resembling an official release, but that level of AI is likely years away and I like Sitting and Thinking, so here's the version I did:

 

[1975NQ]

Fantastic. Glorious. You've done it again, my friend. Thanks for sharing this.

[luvlz2]

Sounds excellent! Nice work!

[drpete]

Steve,  I adore all your work.   Do you think AI will be able to transform poor sounding aud tapes into something great eventually? What the Beatles did is stunning and I am excited about what it could possibly accomplish.   Hope I live long enough to enjoy it 

[ohjimmy]

This is great! Thanks for sharing. 

[SteveZ98]

34 minutes ago, drpete said:

Do you think AI will be able to transform poor sounding aud tapes into something great eventually? What the Beatles did is stunning and I am excited about what it could possibly accomplish.   Hope I live long enough to enjoy it 

I think parts of it are already possible, although I'm not sure if/when the rest will happen. For example, we already have AI that can clone someone's speaking voice. It seems a fairly short step from that to having them clone their singing voice, so turning Robert's voice on a poor audience recording into something resembling how he sounds on official releases seems doable in the relatively near term. The next easiest thing should be doing the same kind of thing for drums, mainly because they have such a limited range of sounds compared to other instruments. There is already software that lets you replace one drum sound for another, so it should be possible for either AI or traditional software to do that for an audience recording once Bonzo's kit is isolated, which we can already do. I'm guessing doing something similar for a bass guitar would be possible, although the range of sounds on a bass guitar is much greater than a drum kit. The thing I think will be hardest is an electric guitar, particularly the way Jimmy plays it. As an extreme example, I don't know that AI will ever figure out how to make a guitar sound like it's being played by a violin bow. 

I think a lot of the future developments in AI will be driven by commerce. The Beatles recent release is a great example of a band having an incentive to apply this technology. From a Led Zeppelin perspective, I'm not sure how much incentive there is for them to do something similar. I can see them releasing stereo versions of the BBC sessions as there is probably a market for that, and maybe using AI to grab the drums from the soundboard of the 5/23/75 show to help make the multi-tracks from that show usable for an Earl's Court boxset, but I don't know how much of a market there is beyond that. I'm sure a lot of us here would love official versions of every soundboard, but we're a very small market compared to the majority of Zep fans who don't even know soundboards exist, so I'm not sure it would be worth the band's time and money to release them given how few people would likely be interested in purchasing or streaming them.  

[SuperDave]

Great job as always Steve.

[SteveZ98]

Thanks everybody. It's strange how much worse the second disc/set of this show sounds compared to the first. Too bad, as the first is really enjoyable to listen to. I'm guessing a lot of people skip the second because of the poor sound, even though it includes a couple of rarely performed songs.