Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced (UK Mono) (1967) [FLAC] {24-96 Prof. Stoned Remaster}

Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced? - The UK Mono Version
24bit/96kHz (High Resolution Audio for DVD-A burning)

01. Foxy Lady
02. Manic Depression
03. Red House
04. Can You See Me
05. Love or Confusion
06. I Don't Live Today
07. May This Be Love
08. Fire
09. Third Stone From the Sun
10. Remember
11. Are You Experienced?

Produced by Chas Chandler
Engineers: Eddie Kramer & George Chkiantz (Olympic Studio), Mike Ross (CBS Studio)
Dave Siddle (De Lane Lea)

Line up:
Jimi Hendrix: Vox, Guitars
Noel Redding: Bass, Backing Vox
Mitch Mitchell: Drums

All tracks Mono
All of these mixes are officially unavailable on CD except Tr. 03 & 10.

Source: (Side 1:820 143 A 2 / Side 2: 820 143 B 1)

Technics 1210mk2 w/ AT-150 MLX stylus -> Yamaha CA-1010 (1979 Solid State Amp)
->RME ADI-2 A/D/A Interface (conversion to 24 bit, 96kHz) -> Click Repair (Cl: 20, Cr: 0)
-> Adobe Audition 1.5 -> Nuendo 2.0 -> CueListTool v1.7 -> CueSplitter -> Traders Little Helper (Flac 8)

(NB: Audition 1.5 used for editing (incl. manual removal of clicks/pops), gaining, and making cue points.)
Nuendo 2.0 used for mastering )

Vinyl Transfer, Restoration, Mastering (& endless stream of words) by Prof. Stoned
Artwork by....Jellycat

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If you've ever heard the original UK Track pressing of this album,
you will know that this recording is no sonic masterpiece.
Yet, the stereo version sounds fairly well recorded

Why is that ?....

Listen to this and hear how the album sounded before it was compressed
to hell and stripped off of all its high-end during the original LP mastering.

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Prof. sez:

I'm proud to present you -what I believe is- the best sounding mono version of this album
that you have probably heard so far. Let me tell you why...

Like any other vinyl lover and Hendrix fan, a reasonable well preserved copy of the original
UK Track pressing (available in mono only) of this album has always been on my wish list.
Until I picked up a French 1970 re-issue of AYE recently (with a picture of Hendrix at the Isle of Wight),
aware that Barclay had been using the mono mix for this release.
Unlike what I expected, it didn't sound like the crummy & dark recording that I had heard on various
needle drops from the UK Track LP (or worse: the UK Track mono 'Smash hits' LP that I once had).
It sounded a lot closer in fidelity to the best sounding CD issues of the stereo mix.

So I did an A/B with a flatly mastered 24/96 UK Track needledrop and my suspicions were confirmed;
the UK Track LP had practically all of its high-end stripped off.
Basically, it was mastered to sound like AM radio but then with huge bass.
The Barclay revealed a previously unheard brilliance and snap in the higher frequency regions,
a far more natural soundstage.
Not to say it is not compressed ('Fire' still sounds pretty squashed) but compared to the UK Track
this source has plenty dynamic range and it's mainly the drums sound that benefits from this.
There can be no doubt that this is a lot closer to what Chas Chandler, Hendrix
& Eddie Kramer heard in the studio while mixing the album.

So far 'Experience Hendrix' has failed to re-release the mono mix of this album in any format.
There were plans to do so in 2002 when they did an audiophile mono pressing of
Axis: Bold as love in cooperation with Classic Records but it did not materialize.
This may have something to do with the fact that some of the 1967 mono master tapes
are missing in action, among them the tracks that were done at the CBS studio in 1966.
Eddie Kramer used two inferior sources on the 1997 AYE UK re-master: the fake
stereo version of Stone free & the mono Red House needledropped from the UK Track.
In 2006, a new 45rpm box set called 'The Classic Singles Collection Vol. 2" once again
demonstrated that EH had not yet succeeded in finding the missing tapes or a better alternative.
Stone free was replaced by (the mono version of) Foxy Lady as the B-side of the Hey Joe single
but it appeared to be a needle drop from the UK Track.
Finally, you will be hear be able to hear Red House & Foxy Lady and the other tracks in a much
better sound quality.

Enjoy!

PS: A huge 'thank you' to Jellycat (John) for outdoing himself with the artwork once again.

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Mastering note:

After applying Click Repair, I manually de-clicked the remaining pops and crackles.
Although the original source is mono, the record was cut in stereo from a 2-track tape,
as the channels are slightly different sonically.
(Therefore I worked with only one of the channels because folding the channels together
resulted in phase problems.)

I carefully EQ'd the tracks individually.
Overall, the whole thing needed some more low-end and more body because most the time
the sound was too pinched and thin.
I used the Universal Audio Precision 4-band parametric EQ at 24/96.
This is a piece of hardware that -IMO unlike most digital EQ's- manages to maintain
the warmth of the analogue recording, even when tastefully boosting the high end (which I didn't do).
After exporting the tracks, I adjusted the volume of each track to get a coherent listening EXP.

(Additional note: although it's safe to say that this is a huge upgrade to every needledrop of the
original UK Track, I recognise that this source has its own sonic shortcomings.
The high does sound a little bit gritty compared to the EH stereo CD and there is some distortion
on the vocals on some tracks that is also not present on the EH CD.
This problem seems coherent to the original recordings; the main offenders being the tracks
that sound the most pinched on the record.
I'm not sure whether these artefacts come from the record, stampers, the Barclay mastertapes
or even the mixdown mastertapes.
I can only assure you that they do not come from my system.)

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Some info on the album:

AYE is still regarded by many fans as Jimi's best LP.
The album was recorded over six months in different low-budget studio's and finally finished
off in the Olympic studio, all of them based in London.
Despite the fact that the album had been recorded over such relatively a long period,
it was very much a touch-and-go job.
During the first months, money issue's simply had made it impossible for Hendrix and
his new manager/producer Chas Chandler to spent hours and hours in the studio.
But when the Experience started recording in the Olympic Studio in February 1967
things were looking better for the group and their mentor.
The first single 'Hey Joe' was riding high on the British charts and the business manager of the group,
Michael Jeffrey, had secured a monster deal for the US market with Warner Brothers.
The advance that Warner Bros had paid was immediately used to continue recording the album,
and finish off the 2nd single 'Purple Haze' (of which the basic tracks had been recorded earlier).

Chas had little experience as a producer, and was more or less dependent on the skills
of the house engineer in the studio's he rented.
Therefore some of the early recordings sound quite different to the ones that were done at Olympic.
It was there that Hendrix & Chandler met employee/engineer Eddie Kramer,
the man who would become one of Hendrix' most trusted associates during the rest of his life.
Kramer quickly proved to fit in great with the team, helping Hendrix to realise the sounds
he heard in his head and helping Chandler to learn about recording and mixing.
The threesome would continue recording (and mixing the albums) in the Olympic until early 1968.

The album was finished near the end of April and released in June 1967 in the UK in mono only.
The mono mix was supervised by Chandler, Hendrix & Kramer.
But shortly after its UK release, Reprise demanded true stereo mixes for the US release of AYE.
So Eddie Kramer was sent back to the studio to quickly remix the album tracks
and the A-sides of the first three singles in the summer of 1967.
Supposedly neither Chandler nor Hendrix attended these mixing sessions.
Kramer (mistakenly or deliberately) chose to use a different take
of 'Red House' while his remix of 'Can you see me' featured a previously unheard vocal line
(treated with ADT to create a vocal doubling effect).
Ever since the early 70's, the stereo version has been the standard for any commercial re-issue.
But it is the mono version that should be considered the one true version of AYE
since it was produced under Chandler's & Hendrix' supervision .

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_Experienced

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First released: 2009/01/05 on demonoid.cc

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