This is certainly good news for fans, but I've read that none of the officially recorded concerts truly captured the sound of the band because recording engineers forced them to turn down the amps out of fear of damaging the amplifier microphones.
If we consider the length of the song (6:46) it is more likely to be the version recorded at the Fillmore Auditorium on 7 March 1968 and already released on the Eric Clapton's CD-single "After Midnight", and later also on the version Platinum SHM-CD of "Wheels of Fire" .
If you check out the Detroit recording this is the full distortion balls to the wall sound that apparently could not be captured. Not sure why The Who or Hendrix never had a problem around same period. Personally I prefer the cleaner sound Clapton has on later recordings. Bruce’s sound was great and Ginger’s drums mix’d up lovely.
I think "fear" is the operative word here, but maybe they did lose a mic or two before figuring our how to record the beasts. The Ramones had trouble with engineers on their first (demo?) recordings because they just wanted to crank the Marshalls and play and the engineers were afraid of what that might do to their equipment.
Not a fair comparison, since Detroit wasn't professionally recorded. It's pretty good, but it's still an amateur direct to stereo recording from 1967. I don't know if the "the band had to turn down" story is true or not, but if it was, it was likely to reduce leakage into the drum mics, rather than to risk some sort of damage to the mics on the amps. It appears that at Winterland there were Shure SM56s and 546s on the amps, and my guess is the same was true at the other shows. Those are dynamic mics (the SM56 being identical to the SM57, which is still in production, other than having a built-in stand mount) that can take extremely loud SPLs. Shure indicates the SM58 can handle 150 dB at 100 Hz before distorting, which I believe would be well above the level of any individual speaker in a cabinet. Even a Neumann U67, which was a common tube condenser mic at the time, would likely be fine in most cases.
I’m sure you did. My point was Clapton is likely not very involved with reissue product. He probably signs off, but I suspect he isn’t overly concerned with the details.
I think his point is just that the audience recordings capture the amps at full blast whereas the official recordings have the amps turned down somewhat for whatever reason.
Indeed it is enough to gauge what it would of been like regardless of audio quality. Bruce probably played similar but Clapton would loose out the most.
I don't think we know that for certain. The sound of the audience recordings (and Detroit, which isn't an audience recording) likely has far more to do with the way they are recorded than amp volume.
The news of this box set was a big surprise and very welcome, even if almost all of this stuff has been available forever.
Exactly, but it should contain sound quality upgrades. When Levenson posted he was working on a live Cream release earlier in the year, I suspect no one thought it was on unheard tapes. This is definitely something to look forward to.
....on bootlegs. I (and I suspect, most people)prefer to buy legit releases so money can be returned to the artist.
I was gonna post those same links. Thanks for saving me the trouble! @hoggydoggy I have that Ginger Baker album. So now I'm comparing the recordings and The Ginger Baker Album indeed has the same performance as released on the Clapton single, except in mono. Oh well. I got the album for cheap and it's still the only place to get Ginger and Art Blakey's drum battle!!! Good catch. (Full disclosure I have the Fillmore recording via the Wheels Of Fire set, not sure if that was a different mix to the actual maxi-single.)
Thanks for clearing that up - oh well, looks like we've got to wait a while longer, before we learn any more about the true nature of the RAH recording they're using...
The Ginger Baker album claimed to feature Sunshine Of Your Love from the Royal Albert Hall. Despite this, it's in fact a mono mix of the Fillmore Auditorium, which can be heard elsewhere (the After Midnight Maxi Single and The Wheels Of Fire SHM set) in stereo. The question was how the RAH recording sounded on that Ginger Baker Album but obviously it could not provide an answer after all!
I thought @hoggydoggy's question was regarding RAH on the new release, which as far as I knew wasn't in question.
Amazon.fr shows 12/20 as release date https://www.amazon.fr/TBC-Tbc/dp/B0...5031&s=music&sprefix=Cream+goo,aps,402&sr=1-2
@revolution_vanderbilt calls it correctly - I'd seen that particular Ginger Baker compilation purported to have a version of Sunshine from RAH 1968 & was curious as to how it sounded & whether it would provide a hint as to what the new set might sound like. As it turns out, it was mislabelled (deliberately or accidentally, who knows...)
Appears Live Cream, Live Cream Vol 2. and the Live side of WOF will stand as definitive ( Stere0 -that is) And with that I'm out. Goodbye Mono- Enjoy though-
