Pink Floyd
31 October 1971
Fieldhouse, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA
Lineage information
Low gen TrollerWes cassette
Lineage for Recorder 1: Low gen Maxell XLII cassette (1988-89) > Technics RS-B565 > Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 > Reaper v4.76 > FLAC (24bit/96kHz)
Richard K's cassette
Lineage for Recorder 2: Portable mono cassette recorder > unbranded C-90 master cassette > repair and re-shell to TDK AD60 1982-84 screw together type > Technics RS-B565-MH > Tascam SD-20M > WAV (24bit/96kHz) > Reaper v5.983 (trim dead air and export) > FLAC (24bit/96kHz)
Jimfisheye mastering
01 Tuning up
02 The Embryo
03 Fat Old Sun (incomplete)
04 Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
05 Atom Heart Mother
06 One Of These Days
07 Careful With That Axe, Eugene
08 Cymbaline
09 Echoes
Encore
10 Blues
Total running time 1 hour 51 mins 6 secs
Artwork by Richard K
neonknight's notes
Shortly before Christmas 2021, goldenband found Richard K through an online search and introduced me to him. Then, after an enjoyable correspondence, Richard kindly entrusted me with his master tape. It has been a pleasure to work on.
Richard believed the leader of his cassette to be broken but things turned out worse than anticipated because, instead, his tape had snapped in two places many years ago. You'll hear it getting into difficulties at 3'51" in The Embryo on the JFE version. On side 2 of the raw transfer, I believe my splice is in Echoes at 46'.
Seeing that the original pressure pad was missing and that the tape was absent, so inside the shell, I made the best of the already partially separated shell (see photo 3) and prised it open some more, so I could gently ease the master tape out. The shell didn't break but I knew that a donor would produce better results. Fortunately, I had a spare screw together TDK cassette shell which worked perfectly.
I repaired Richard's tape freehand using Tapeline ⅛" splicing tape (see the the photos in the folder) and it worked reasonably well. The slither of tape (picture 4) was somewhat damaged but it played through on each side and the rest of the cassette was in reasonably good shape; spooling back and forth relatively quietly, for example, but necessitating a deep clean of my deck after playback to remove a lot of tape oxide residue. There are also some other areas that had been chewed a bit in the past. You can zoom in to see this damage on the outer edge of the right hand reel in my photos. Our offering here is the result of a single transfer because I saw no point in risking multiple passes.
Goldenband confirmed that Richard's tape runs at the correct speed but his capture, unfortunately, ranks amongst the most distorted Pink Floyd recordings I have heard. Thanks to Richard we have the missing pieces of the jigsaw from an excellent concert, however, including an interesting solo from Rick in Fat Old Sun.
Sensing that something special, befitting of a new master discovered after over 50 years, was possible with a jimfisheye mastering, I reached out to him and he happily took on the challenge.
Richard K's notes
In 1971 I was fourteen years old and had been collecting rock and roll records for a couple of years. I grew up in Toledo, Ohio which is south of Detroit and west of Cleveland, on the Lake Erie shoreline. I owned about fifteen LPs which I played relentlessly and was likewise fascinated with recording music from the radio or TV using a portable Magnavox cassette recorder and microphone that had been gifted to me by my mother. I remember setting up a mic in front of the TV to record the "new" Beatles song "Let It Be" which was to be broadcast, via film, on the Ed Sullivan Show. I carefully arranged the mic and set the recording input for the best quality and released the "pause" button as Ed introduced the Fab Four for the last time on his show. Everything was going swimmingly until my sister opened the old oven door in the adjacent kitchen. The door hinges made a shrieking sound as they opened (and closed) which didn't exactly ruin the already marginal recording, but it was audible when the recording was played back. Patch cords hadn't become a thing yet.
Toledo didn't get too many rock concerts as it was a mid-sized town in what would be considered a secondary market. A couple of old vaudeville theaters presented acts like the James Gang from Cleveland and our local hockey arena would host the occasional roster of Detroit bands like MC5, the Stooges or Alice Cooper but the national touring acts rarely passed through and groups from overseas almost never did so.
Fortunately we also had the University of Toledo which occasionally hosted some of the hipper, more eclectic acts of the era in their basketball field house. These had included Jimi Hendrix, Simon & Garfunkel, Iron Butterfly and Chicago. The Doors almost played the venue but cancelled when the university demanded a deposit from the band(!) of $15,000 which would be forefeited should any obscenity or lewd acts find their way into the performance.
In the fall of 1971 posters, printed in black on pink card stock with a pencil rendering of the PINK FLOYD members, began appearing around the university. The poster advertised an appearance by the group on Sunday, October 31 at the U of T field house. Tickets were $1 for U of T students and $2.50 for everyone else. $2.50 wasn't hard to scrape up even for middle schoolers in 1971 so the show became the destination of choice for those of us who were too old to trick-or-treat anyway. My parents were not terribly enthused about my attending but my friends were all going and the University was a mere six blocks from our front door. Also, both of my folks had attended "the U" so they were comfortably familiar with the place.
At this point in time I didn't own any Pink Floyd records and neither did many of my friends. The older teens and collegiate types had adopted "Ummagumma" as pot smoking music but we had yet to advance to that stage. We just knew PINK FLOYD were a cool band from England and they were coming to our town. Literally, our neighborhood. We also knew a lot of their songs were long, weird and spooky.
I decided that I was going to record the PINK FLOYD concert. I had done so with a Ritchie Havens show the university had presented the previous year. That recording had come out abysmally so I wanted to see if I could do better. I had acquired a surplus US Army musette bag which my veteran father explained was a sort of secondary knapsack that infantrymen used to pack extra gear. It measured about 14 inches (3550 mm) square and held my portable cassette recorder beautifully. It was green canvas with straps and, as Army surplus clothing and gear was an ironic fashion statement at the time, didn't draw the attention of security personnel when I presented my $2.50 ticket to enter the PINK FLOYD concert.
My time at the show was limited as the next day was a school day. I vaguely recall an opening act for the show but if there had been one, I don't remember their name.
Rather than occupying an end portion of the venue the stage was set at what would have been center court for a basketball game and pushed towards the bleachers on the east side of the building. In that way the whole court floor provided "festival seating" as did the bleachers on the opposing side. The four channel sound system was quite large and included PA speakers at each corner of the venue. As has always been their wont, PINK FLOYD made sure the sound was loud, clear and dramatic. The stage was low, no more than four feet from the floor and barely large enough to hold the band and their impressive arsenal of instruments and equipment. As the show got underway it became apparent that lighting was not as important as it would become in the future for PINK FLOYD. I'm unsure if the band traveled with any lighting. They may have depended on what the university had and what could be rented. I remember the band being nominally lit in pinks, blues and purples mostly from the rear and maybe the sides. I don't recall spotlights being used to light from the front.
I had one 90 minute cassette with which to record PINK FLOYD and absolutely no idea what I was recording. I watched and listened and recorded, sometimes fading a song early if I thought it had gone on too long. I moved around the large room several times throughout the show, recording from at least four different positions. If memory serves, I experienced most of the show including the 5-6 minutes of sound effects that oozed through the quad sound system in an instrumental portion of "Cymbaline." Mostly footsteps and horror movie screams and laughter, the effects were perfect for Halloween night. The last song on my tape is the final portion of "Echoes" which I faded out before turning off the recorder to head home. I may have heard a bit of "More Blues" reverberating through the campus but I didn't record it. More blues was what I'd have if I didn't get my butt home by 11pm.
jimfisheye's notes
Recorder 1 is a noisy, distorted, and incomplete recording that takes a strong will to listen through. This new to the scene recorder 2 is also a noisy, distorted, and incomplete recording that takes a strong will to listen through. Sync them together and put them in stereo and the music really comes back to life. This effectively turns the two mono recorders into a stereo unit. There seems to be some genuine motion captured between the recorders from the live surround mix as well. It's still rough around the edges but the band are really on.
These are both mono recordings copied to stereo format tapes in their lineage. In both cases the left channel contained the superior recording which sounded best by itself. Recorder 1 is the higher fidelity recording between the two and has more presence. The stereo mix favors recorder 1 a little, placing it 25% left with recorder 2 100% right which centers the main presence of the sound. Some of the "stereo" here is of course an artifact of different fidelity, dropouts, etc between the recorders. However there are unmistakably panned elements from the live mix preserved. Just having the two recorders reinforces the sound in general and then they cover each other's gaps.
Both of these recorders have the classic 'inside out' volume levels common with many small recording devices. The quieter parts are better recorded and louder and the louder parts are quieter and lower fidelity from overwhelming the recording device with volume. This is re-balanced as well as possible. EQ work to restore the most natural sound possible. Hiss reduced as much as possible without introducing more damage. The worst loud crackles, mic bumps, etc removed.
The Embryo, Fat Old Sun, and the end of Cymbaline captured by recorder 2 alone. The beginning of STC, 1st half of CWTAE, and Blues captured by recorder 1 alone. These parts are in mono. Fat Old Sun cuts off before the end. Recorder 2 cuts out in Cymbaline 30 seconds into footsteps and doors and we lose the stereo. Recorder 1 cuts out 57 seconds later. Referencing the footsteps tape from other shows reveals recorder 2 (alone) comes back in 16 seconds after that point. A nearly complete copy in the end but an unfortunate lost opportinuty for stereo effect. The very beginning of both Fat Old Sun and Cymbaline are missing from the recorders punching in after the start. These are patched using nearby moments to avoid the distraction of starting in progress a beat late. The fidelity drops noticeably in recorder 1 for Cymbaline, Echoes, & Blues.
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