Pink Floyd - 1968-1969 - Celestial Particles [FLAC]

Pink Floyd
"Celestial Voices"
Rover Records (RR CD 002)

Taken from silver bootleg CD: "Celestial Voices."
Ripped with EAC.

Lineage: Silvers > EAC > SHN

Additional lineage, Tracks 1-8, 11 and 12: SHN > WAV (CEP2.1 deglitching) > TLH (SBEs fixed) >
SHN (MKW)

-The Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (August 9, 1969)
01. Interstellar Overdrive (Segment)
02. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
03. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
04. A Saucerful Of Secrets

-BBC Session, Paris Cinema, London, England (May 12, 1969)
05. Daybreak (Grantchester Meadows)
06. Nightmare (Cymbaline)
07. The Beginning (Green Is The Colour) / Beset By Creatures Of The Deep (Careful With That
Axe, Eugene)
08. The Narrow Way (Part 3)

-BBC Studios, 201 Piccadilly, London, England (June 25, 1968)
09. 'Top Gear' Introduction
10. The Murderotic Woman (Careful With That Axe, Eugene)
11. The Massed Gadgets Of Hercules (A Saucerful Of Secrets)
12. Let There Be More Light
13. Julia Dream
14. 'Top Gear' Conclusion


Notes:

The BBC Recordings here do indeed sound better than those included on the current Harvested
Rev.A release of BBC Archives 1967-1969 (HRV CDR 008)!
Nice upgrade! Though, MOB did find evidence that some of the BBC 1969 tracks may have been
processed. I kept the Spectral View of Track 7 that Ron Toon posted, together with this SHN set.

The only unfortunate thing is that there were a number of crackle/pops, most obvious on Track 5,
but other tracks were affected as well. I had to fix these, I felt it was worth the effort.

I ended up fixing the pops/snaps on ten tracks (1-8, 11 and 12). Some 'pops' were VERY minor,
others were quite obvious, like the ones during the first bit of Track 5, 'Daybreak (Grantchester
Meadows)'.
I extracted the SHNs to WAV, then used Cool Edit Pro v2.1 to manually remove the digital pops,
I aligned on sector boundaries with Traders Little Helper and reSHNed with MKW Audio
Compression Toolkit. New ST5 Checksum created with TLH - Jan. 9, 2008.


18b78c0fabcbcb99b4bd1c015ef0b1e6 *Track01.flac
9fafd34319ed8fdc46be82fa3f68ff4b *Track02.flac
1cb1521ea8c68c7e554f3d3da7873b8c *Track03.flac
58723ab6792dd0b5727a5e865c3424ff *Track04.flac
be2bc1a5c864adbd2a9dc51f6ac0b1db *Track05.flac
edfdb69c7339e01ebf06333974afef51 *Track06.flac
56e759470b8c2a6cc6bf20c99b6e2394 *Track07.flac
474c05be5eaeb6d8e38aae231e9d9a5d *Track08.flac
3667fae7e96f04282d421fa59e1b5767 *Track09.flac
b0f68aa7471ea4750bcd90889e034c9f *Track10.flac
2c81e9d1a98e1389faee81fc10bb9aa0 *Track11.flac
c26e90f23c3056d5b39f9e5d9726f1d6 *Track12.flac
bd3762028bda7a00f561926531be99f0 *Track13.flac
a0d0639790b7d50ef72814a00552d825 *Track14.flac


Notes by MOB (from a post on Dime 2008-01-08 21:08:18 GMT):

The 1969 BBC session torrented here is an obvious upgrade compared to HRV CDR 008 Rev.A,
but we already have an even better source for this session (the versions of BBC69 here have
excellent sound quality, but spectral analysis reveals some kind of compression - high frequencies
were "cleaned" by some compression process, maybe mp3). The source we have sounds slightly
more natural and has a pure frequency range.

For the 1968 BBC session, the tracks here were directly taken from the "master" version of John
Peel 11Aug68 show torrented here some years ago (this torrent also included tracks by Tim Rose,
Leonard Cohen...). The volume has been normalised for the present RoIO but apart from that they
are strictly the same. And for the quality, with the exception of Massed Gadgets which is an obvious
upgrade compared to HRV CDR 008 Rev.A, the gain in sound quality it's not so obvious for the 3
remaining 1968 songs. The "master" versions here have pure spectral characteristics, so they are
probably from a direct transfer from BBC masters, but the tapes appear to have suffered with the
years and there is a lot of tape warble, especially during Murderotic Woman (the exact title
announced by John Peel) and Julia Dream. These tape flaws are NOT present on the corresponding
HRV versions, that were taken from excellent sources (probably 1st gen). So you have the choice
between a direct transfer from slightly "damaged" BBC masters (the current torrent) and the HRV
versions from an older transfer, done before the tapes began to reveal their age. It's a matter of taste
of course, but personnally I don't consider the 1968 tracks as upgrades (except Massed Gadgets),
I prefer the HRV versions for their clarity and the absence of tape warble. The HRV versions are
much brighter and more pleasant to my ears. This is an example where "master" does not directly
mean better sound quality; sound quality depends on the age of the master at the time of the
transfer (in other words, a well preserved 1st gen can sometimes have less flaws than a recent
transfer of a "damaged" master).

Cheers!

- MOB

[Seems a Rev.B of HRV CDR 008 is in our future!]


Other Notes:

'Celestial Voices' is a brand new (2007) bootleg from Rover Records. They offer a recently
uncovered, lost recording from August 9, 1969. According to a review at boot-review.com:

The first four songs come from a recently surfaced soundboard tape of a recording made of Pink
Floyd at the Paradiso in Amsterdam on August 9, 1969. The band's set was professionally recorded
with the intention of broadcast on Hilversum 3 Radio. When this tape first surfaced it was said there
was a malfunction with the microphone for the vocals and the band were forced to play the songs
as instrumentals. This isn't exactly accurate because Waters does still sing in Set The Controls For
The Heart Of The Sun, Careful With That Axe, Eugene, and in the latter part of A Saucerful Of
Secrets. The vocals are present but barely audible.

Neither the audience nor the band seems to notice this and it leads one to the conclusion that the
band's PA wasn't malfunctioning but the radio station's equipment was. Since the tape was unusable
for the radio, Pink Floyd returned to Amsterdam the following month and were recorded by
Hilversum 3 again on September 17th 1969 at the Concertgebouw, the famous The Man And The
Journey tape.

The versions of the two other shows (May 12, 1969 and June 25, 1968) on the Celestial Voices boot
are equally brilliant. The show at the Paris Cinema in London on May 12 precedes the Malaysian
riots by one day. The last tune played that day was called The Narrow Way. It's chilling how it can
describe the political fortunes of both Malaysia and Singapore.

This period of Pink Floyd was also their most liberating with all four members equally in charge and
contributing. By the time Dark Side Of The Moon was made, Roger Waters was in control.
- The Little Chicken




01. Interstellar Overdrive
02. A Saucerful Of Secrets
Shrine Exposition Hall Los Angeles CA
27th July 1968
Lineage: Silver>EAC(offset corrected)>Wav>Traders Little Helper>FLAC8


03. Astronomy Domine
04. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
05. Interstellar Overdrive
First European International Pop Festival, Piper Club, Rome, Italy. May 6th, 1968. VPRO Rebroadcast
Source: fm > unknown > cdr > shn

06. Green is the Colour
07. Careful with that Axe Eugene
08. Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Mont de L'Enchus Amougies Pop & Jazz Festival Belgium October 25 1969

Belguim Radio source taken from HRV CDR031

45837f79c058b45a9dec2e0011ae98ea *01. Interstellar Overdrive.flac
30f58fe17bbe1ecb3a2088fd1cb55acb *02. A Saucerful Of Secrets.flac
c3b543e132985d7a89f4de2e902c9a92 *03. Astronomy Domine.flac
45851c0fad88ad32b20c0b1c45a908c3 *04. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.flac
7cc0c9bfc72d02fedead9d09b30dd64c *05. Interstellar Overdrive.flac
fc78ea90295a4735c8c4233de76b29d9 *06. Green Is The Colour.flac
64493735df313506858dab8858fffb9b *07. Careful With That Axe Eugene.flac
264c8efd84a4b547e56ab1b04ede486c *08. Set The Controls.flac