Due to the complexity of this recording, more detailed notes can be reviewed below. As far as a number rating I can honestly give this a 9.0/9.4 due to the fact it is indeed a welcome upgrade to a great show that we can finally put away the countless other versions of!
LED ZEPPELIN – 1973-03-16 – Vienna – NEW 4 SOURCE MATRIX
Disc 1
01. Introduction [0:57]
02. Rock and Roll (Bonham, Jones, Page, Plant) [3:48]
03. Over the Hills and Far Away (Page, Plant) [6:41]
04. Black Dog (Jones, Page, Plant) [6:18]
05. Misty Mountain Hop (Jones, Page, Plant) [4:27]
06. Since I’ve Been Loving You (Jones, Page, Plant) [9:09]
07. Dancing Days (Page, Plant) [5:53]
08. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (Jones, Page, Plant) [6:26]
09. The Song Remains the Same (Page, Plant) [5:20]
10. The Rain Song (Page, Plant) [9:19]
— [* = board tape available / optional disc division @ 58:19]
Disc 2
11. Dazed and Confused (Page, Holmes) * [28:30] contains:
San Fransisco (Phillips)
Mars, the Bringer of War (Holst)
12. Stairway to Heaven (Page, Plant) * [10:59]
13. Whole Lotta Love (Bonham, Dixon, Jones, Page, Plant) [25:36] contains:
Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Wexler, Berns, Burke)
Boogie Chillun’ (Besman, Hooker) *
(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care (Leiber, Stoller) *
Let’s Have a Party (Robinson) *
I Can’t Quit You Baby (Dixon) *
14. Heartbreaker (Bonham, Jones, Page, Plant) * [8:01]
Jimmy Page – guitars
John Paul Jones – bass, organ
John Bonham – drums
Robert Plant – vocals
MATRIX NOTES:
The general aim was to provide the whole concert in as consistent and upgraded a listening experience as could be stitched together from the various recordings which are all incomplete. While there are always some downsides to matrixing analog recordings that have been manually synchronized, it is hoped that the benefits, such as the improved stereo dimension, of the results outweigh those deficiencies. Further lesser quality audience sources than those described below also exist but were not used.
AUD source #1: The master was reportedly a TDK SA 90 cassette, which matches the 45 + 45 minutes which are extant and captured tracks 2-8 & 12 and parts of 1, 9, 11, 13. Winston Remaster used for the first part (which is unmatrixed on that version). Best of the audience recordings overall, recorded close to the stage towards one side. The guitar is somewhat buried here.
AUD source #2: A lower/medium quality cassette recording at a greater distance to the stage, used only to patch missing AUD sections of tracks 1 & 9-11 (and the encore break before 14).
AUD source #3: Captured most of the concert except for the introduction and notably two gaps in DAC. The master reported to have been recorded with Sony mics to Uher Report reel-to-reel. Close to the quality of AUD.1 but with a different sound balance (guitar is prominent, vocals somewhat buried) and recorded towards the other side of the stage. Matrixing with AUD.1 thus allows reproducing the occasional stereo panning effects of the house mix (which are not present on the SBD): guitar break in Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, bow solo in DAC, Theremin in WLL.
SBD source: Apparently a 60 minute cassette which contains most of tracks 11-14. However, several minutes of 11/DAC & 13/WLL are missing, as the tape was not flipped immediately when the side or reel A ran out. There was probably another cassette on which the first hour of the concert was recorded (or copied), including the beginning of DAC, with the engineer likely missing some two minutes of the song between the cassettes, after the first one stopped and until recording resumed on a fresh tape. The reason why only the second cassette is available (for this and also certain other dates) is perhaps that someone in or with the band wanted a listening copy of just the songs with improvisation. The mix that was recorded is not exactly the same as what was played over the PA, as some of the delay/reverb effects (particularly on the vocals), as well as the panning, heard on the audience recordings are not present.
Track by track breakdown:
tr.01: AUD.2+1. AUD.2 contains half a minute more of the pre-show compared to AUD.1, none of which is on AUD.3.
02-08: AUD.1+3. SBD not available for the first part of the show but AUD.1 & 3 run practically without breaks until the end of BYAS.
09: AUD.1/2+3. AUD.1 has breaks during the intro and its side A completely cuts out @ 1:30 into TSRTS; the taper evidently did not flip the tape and resume recording until well into DAC which gap has here been patched with AUD.2.
10: AUD.2+3. AUD.1 thus does not exist for The Rain Song; the lower quality tape of AUD.2 used to substitute.
11: AUD.2/1+3. AUD.1 continues recording @ 5:00 while AUD.3 cuts out around 6:45 for one minute. Both gaps in DAC have been patched by matrixing with AUD.2, except for the section between roughly 2:50 and 4:00 where that tape itself has a discontinuity.
11: SBD & AUD.1+3. SBD cuts in about 15 seconds after AUD.1, i.e., around 5:15 into DAC from which point on it is the main source for the matrix but augmented with AUD.1 & 3 – and some patching from AUD.2 – as far as they are available.
12: SBD & AUD.1+3. AUD.3 has short cuts in the introduction; SBD cuts out after STH ends as the tape side ran out.
13: AUD.1+3 / SBD & AUD.1+3. Side B of the AUD.1 cassette runs out around 10:15 into WLL but SBD continued recording 4 minutes before that.
13-14: SBD & AUD.3. The segment containing the last 13 minutes of WLL and nearly all of Heartbreaker is therefore a matrix of SBD and AUD.3 since AUD.1 was no longer recording. The encore break is largely cut on both sources between the songs: AUD.3 misses about 2:20 of atmosphere while SBD loses only 1:30 and has the first notes of Heartbreaker intact. For the sake of completeness the missing part has again been patched from AUD.2 although the change in sound is noticeable.
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