VU Super Deluxe is on sale for $15 The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground (45th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) in High-Resolution Audio » Still haven't decided if I want to grab this yet again for these tracks. Really wanted that long "listenable" live version of Sister Ray from the Martix set in Hi rez....
Hmm, didn't know this was limited. I just grabbed a copy from a 3rd party seller on Amazon.ca, half the price of the Amazon stock. I've held off on the other Super Deluxe boxes, but I might pick up the 2cd versions someday. I'm a little disappointed they chose to include Matrix highlights on the S/T 2cd release instead of Lost 4th album tracks. Other than that, I don't see myself needing anything else from the Super Deluxe sets, as I've heard the Valleydale and Second Fret boots and I have the Sundazed mono LP box already.
I like that one too.. Finally made a playlist of consecutive tracks to choose some of my favorite performances/sound of same songs.
Has this already been noted....near the end of "Sister Ray", it sounds like they transition to the Quine tape version for a bit, then back to the Matrix tapes for the end. Drums suddenly sound clunky and mucho hiss.
Yes this has been noted upthread. Apparently there was a glitch or a gap in the Matrix soundboard tapes they filled with the Quine.
I'm guessing the tape just ran out. 2500 feet of tape on a 10-1/2" reel, running 15 ips, gives you 33:20, some of which would have already been used before the song started. Without a second machine you'll have a gap for the reel change.
Being that this was an amateur, semi-pro recording - I'm guessing they ran the tape at 7.5ips, not 15ips. Your point is well-taken though - the reel simply ran out with no backup machine running (once again indicating the amateur nature of the recording).
I wouldn't call 4-track recording at a club in '69 amateur. Maybe a little reading into who was what at the Matrix Club in'69 would help but plenty of pro recordings of live shows had reel change gaps, check out some Grateful Dead recordings from the era, believe me they tried.(oops @notesofachord I just realized it was you scratch that last comment) Here is some more on these shows if you missed it; in my mind we are blessed with these being far from amateur; but that is just one man's opinion. The Velvet Underground: The Matrix Tapes 4CD Box Set »
I'm tempted to insert the Walter Sobchak meme regarding "amateurs" but this is a family-friendly forum. I have no personal knowledge but listening to the tapes and the relative lack of hiss (considering that these were on a compilation roll, already a generation removed from the master) I'm betting on these being recorded at 15 ips.
Hey I don't want to be over the line! I'm flying blind here but I didn't think the fact that some songs were not kept for the compilation as you say meant they were a generation removed from the masters. I was under the impression that what was available was mixed from the 4 track masters for this release.
All I meant by amateur is that it was not done by professional staff who were working for a record company. However, the quality of the mic setup/equipment shows that they knew what they were doing. I'll stand by my previous statement that The Matrix Tapes box is the archival release of the century so far. It makes one wonder - what else got recorded by the folks at the Matrix club and where are those tapes hiding?
No...not a generation removed. A few songs/intros are either old mixdowns or straight stereo recordings, but most of the set was remixed from 4-track masters. 1) Vocal Mix 2) Drum Mix/Bass/Keyboards 3) Lou's Guitar 4) Sterling's Guitar Peter Abrams was smart to use all four tracks for discreet in-line elements. I would imagine that a lot of "professionals" at the time would have wasted a track or two on room ambience. Today, some soundmen don't even record soundboard feeds and they just mic the room, because they think the mix will be better and it will sound more "live", which irritates me to no end.
The tapes ARE compilations drawn from recordings of complete (or nearly complete) shows - are they not? The performances that didn't make it to the compilations are forever lost. The only way to accomplish this without generational loss would have been to physically cut the performances out of the original tapes. Was this the case?
Finally pulled the trigger on this, got it for £27 at Amazon UK. Since I live in Sweden, it amounted to £32 including shipping. If I would have got it from a domestic retailer, it would have cost me roughly £53 all in all. Good deal from my position then. From the samples I heard on Spotify, it really sounds good, so I thought it was time to act before it goes out of print.
I agree and see what you are saying, and that reminds me of the story where the Grateful Dead took an 8-track machine out in '68 and the label made them take chaperones. “Because our approach to recording was then considered controversial, Warner Bros would not entrust this new [8-track] equipment to us without their engineers chaperoning. The engineers they sent to us were accustomed to recording big-band style, and were not familiar with rock & roll close microphone techniques.” Grateful Dead Guide: Live vs. Studio Dead 1967-69 » The point being the engineers for the bands or the clubs were just as likely more cutting edge at the time when it came to live recording, the Dead for example hauling around a 16-track machine in '69. I think Betty Cantor and Bob Matthews started off at the Avalon before hooking up with the Dead. Also I stumbled upon this so there must be some pretty cool stuff somewhere https://www.discogs.com/label/288697-The-Matrix
I think all of our answers are buried here in this thread somewhere, I remember reading about how Abrams made compilations of every band he was recording, because they wanted to re-use tape due to the cost; the following article seems to suggest for VU he noted the best songs at the time and then at the end of the month went through and made a compilation. I can't find any confirmation how the compilations were made but I suggest he would be spending way too much time dubbing things vs. splicing things, but I am just taking a wild guess. This was already posted in the thread vuexc10 » Also from this thread it appears it was 15ips The Velvet Underground: The Matrix Tapes 4CD Box Set »
Yes. The 4-track masters were spliced into compilation reels. There was no dubbing involved, except possibly in the case of the few 2-track songs/intros, which have noticeably more hiss. All of the existing recordings are on the set.
He couldn't have re-used the tapes then, so what was the purpose of making compilations instead of keeping the full shows?
Maybe some of the answers to the above questions are in the link I posted previously in this thread of an interview with the guy who put this release together.
Great link. The Quine tapes of course are audience recordings, so at least one of those listed isn't a soundboard 4-track mix, but not sure about some of the others. At least some of them should be similar in provenance to the VU Matrix box. One I didn't see the list is the bonus disk in the relatively recent Harvey Mandel Snake Box with Elvin Bishop, Steve Miller and Jerry Garcia guesting.
Of course he could. It wasn't unusual for someone to record onto a re-used tape with splices or bleed-through, even in a professional studio. Read about Chris Bell's "I Am The Cosmos" for an unfortunate example of this. Many early Nirvana sessions were also recorded onto re-used tapes (there is even a picture of a tape box that lists the tape stock as "old s**t").
You're saying he recorded full shows, then cut out the songs he wanted by hand, then spliced the tracks he didn't want back together to use as blank tape? Do you really know this is what he did or are you guessing?
