(Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Rock) [MC] [BL] [24/96] Pink Floyd - Sing To Me Cymbaline. Live At The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, 23.10.70 - 1970, (mono) FLAC (tracks+.cue)

Lineage:
master 5" reels @ 7.5 ips (recorded by Dub Taylor) ->
gen1 7" reel @ 3.75 ips Revox B77 w/Dolby (copied by Mike Martin) ->
gen2 Maxell XLII in unknown cassette deck (copied by Rick Sheehy) ->
Nakamichi MR-1 (balanced) -> Apogee PSX-100SE at 24 bit 96KHz (by JFE)
Mastering in ProToolsHD2
Files are mono 24 bit, 96KHz FLAC (level 8 with internal checksum). Tags include lineage comment. (FYI:

Computer media players and disc burning apps will automatically put a mono file in both stereo channels).

Sound quality A-/B+

2 additional versions are available:
Raw Files:
This is the raw transfer with absolutely no digital manipulations. Files are mono 24 bit, 96KHz FLAC

(level 8 with internal checksum). Tags include lineage comment.

Tape notes:
Dub Taylor recorded this show using a portable 5"- 2 track reel to reel. The tape was recorded at 7 ips in single-track mono so this pint size reel was flipped at least every 22 minutes. This created some breaks in the original recording. Mike Martin copied this concert from the original 5" reels two different times. Details of the 1st transfer (early 1980's) are scarce. The second transfer in 1986 was made with much better equipment, using a Tandberg reel to reel > Revox B-77 reel to reel (w/ Dolby) to a fresh reel. Mike later made a DAT copy of this 1st gen reel (with the Dolby decoder) which is missing IO. Rick Sheehy made cassette copies of Mike's 1st gen reels each time (without the Dolby decoder - ie. recording the encoded signal). The 1st (early 1980's) cassette transfer (TDK SA90) is missing STCFTHOTS and a section of AHM that is intact on the master as well as other audience bits missing at the start and between songs. The second transfer (Maxell XLII) was made with better equipment in 1986 (deck used is unknown at this time) and is much better sounding as well as a complete copy of the master. At this point in time (2009) the gen2 cassette copy is in better condition than the gen1 or master reels. This cassette copy is also significantly better sounding than the earlier DAT copy of the gen1 reel made by Mike. A digital transfer of this cassette made in 2009 with a Audigy 4 Pro interface failed to capture the full quality of the recording but was still much better sounding than the copies circulating at that time. I have seen multiple CD roios that appear to be of both that 1st cassette (with the omissions and fades) and that DAT (missing IO). These are always C or D quality. A 2nd recorder exists from this show which is preserved on the vinyl roio "Cymbaline". This only includes FOS, C, ASOS & AHM. C & AHM are incomplete. The missing section in AHM is almost exactly the same location and length as the missing section in Dub's tape (it cuts 4 seconds before Dub's and comes back in 2 seconds earlier than Dub's - this splice was also edited by inserting a short section about a second long to (unsuccessfully) try to improve the timing which is thrown off by the original splice). This sounds like it was taped from much further back in the hall. The sound quality is D.

Mastering notes:
This is a mono audience recording which was later copied to a stereo reel and then to stereo cassette. I used a single channel to avoid the phasing issues that come up in this scenario. The L channel sounded ever so slightly better than the R (not by much though - nice job transferring mono to a stereo tape in the analog world) so that's what I used. Speed, azimuth and level were set in the analog world on the MR-1. There were a couple of level changes and the speed was somewhat of a moving target. Can't really give numbers - "from 'here' to 'here' on the knob". No digital speed correction was done. The tape was played with correct tape type and eq settings for CrO2 high bias tape. Dolby was left off however. In theory (according to the lineage notes) there should be an encoded Dolby signal on the tape (although it would be a 1st gen dolby signal). In reality it was not possible to get any Dolby to decode. If there really WAS a dolby encoded signal on this tape, it is now too degraded either from aging or the generation loss to decode. The missing decoder should technically create a slightly brighter sound. All I can say is these settings produced the most clear and balanced sounding playback of this tape. In ProTools I fixed as many of the tape dropouts as I could. Although optimum levels were achieved for the A->D transfer there were still various corrections needed here and there. I did add a little low end eq boost to help balance things. I suspect the recording mic just didn't pick up low bass that well. There's a bit of high end loss as well but it wasn't possible to bring it forward with eq without causing damage so no high end eqing was done. No noise reduction was used. No compression or limiting was done - there's plenty of tape compression on the original recording. There were 2 reel changes that happened during songs. The first master tape ran out and was flipped during CWTAE and a splice can be found at 12:07 in track 2. The required flipping and rethreading of the reel to reel took place in the dark so an unknown amount of music is missing here. Additional music was needed to connect the two parts or there would be a very distracting off beat splice. Other parts of the song were copied and edited together to create what would be the shortest section needed (15 sec) to maintain the proper beat and chord structure of the music when bridging together the two parts. The next missing section is 23:49 into AHM where the master tape runs out. Here we know exactly what is missing because it is during an arranged section of the song. There was enough nearby material left along with a bit from earlier in the song to recreate a reasonable facsimile of the missing 27 seconds and preserve the arrangement of the song. The remaining moments of music up to and immediately after the breaks in the original recording were not compromised or further shortened to make the edits.

Recording notes:
This is a mono recording of a concert presented in surround sound. Pink Floyd called this system the Azimuth Coordinator and it was very unique for it's day. Live surround sound is still not commonplace in 2010 and they started doing this in 1967! This system used joysticks to pan the sounds around the hall via 4 loudspeakers in quadraphonic. Keyboards, guitars and any of the sounds could be made to move around the room. The footsteps sequence in Cymbaline was used to show this off with the illusion of someone running around in the hall opening and closing heavy doors. You can hear the evidence of this in this mono recording as sounds closer to the recorder get louder and further off sounds get quieter. This is what causes many people near the taper to exclaim "oh, wow…" from time to time. I'm not sure what causes the reaction of the other gentleman during the 1st part of CWTAE but I have a suspicion… At this point Roger's had enough of trying to play quietly and kicks things up a level. The energy level never drops for the rest of the night. The quietest moments have everyone's full attention and respect. What happened to that guy anyway?

Credits:
A huge THANK YOU to Rick, Mike and Dub! Mike did a great job making and maintaining these analog transfers. This master would not be possible without his dedication to preserving this recording and ultimately starting this remastering project. Thanks Rick for preserving these 2nd gen tapes and trusting me with them! Dub of course made this all possible to begin with.

Please consider keeping and sharing the high res 24/96 files (not just the CD). Someone down the line will thank you. Don't even consider selling this. This is a fan made recording of copyright material made for free trade among fans. And if you're one of those roio "labels" that, swear to Floyd, never sell anything but then grab only the reduced CD version (instead of the high res) to 'reissue' and then write up new notes that omit all lineage and mastering info but claim 'new transfer' and 'best sounding' and read like a used car salesman script… Honestly, what's up with that?

JFE 2010