Carried out important experiment under non laboratory conditions this afternoon in a not double blind test
2016 Half Speed Abbey Road Mastered Edition: Fire & Water by Free (cost £13)
2016 Box Set Edition: Fire And Water by Free (as part of 7 LP box set cost £90)
Method: Vinyl placed on 2 connected decks, played through the same system.
Observation: The BSE had more top range and a cleaner sound whereas the HSM had more low end frequencies resulting in a lively punchy bass and grittier vocal feel
Result: Its completely subjective which you prefer, neither is better but tere is definitely a difference in the sound produced by the different cut vinyl. Whether is is down to the mastering or the production of the vinyl is unknown
Possibly this half speed mastering thing isn’t just magic bean bullshine. Why the covers are different in hue and colour saturation is unclear. The investigations continue…..
Its also still music for adolescent boys or those who can still take themselves back there. So it’s all right now
I inherited a shagged pink label vinly of this in the summer. It is a subtly huge, fantastic record.
As a friend of mine observed when I was playing it, a band has to be pretty confident to leave this much space in the mix and to play this slow. Try playing along with this – they aren’t in a hurry.
I don’t need anything else by this band. No-one needs to generate excuses to listen to it at floorboard-bothering volume. (see above^)
THIS is rock.
Oh yes forgot to add – its a belting album and that’s really all that matters
True.
It’s just a good excuse to play it again.
I wish I had friends who would make observations when I play records, other than “turn that bloody noise off!”
You have us!
I’m currently playing Agnes Obel’s Citizen Of Glass. Any comments?
I ain’t heard it, bruv. But I like Agnes so I aspect it’s gud.
(this is the kind of quality exchange-of-opinions you come here for)
At least you didn’t comment on the lack of wind instruments.
Parrrp!
You may not NEED anything else by Free, but you will surely WANT the 2nd album, titled Free, and the 4th, Highway. You might even want Free live.
Here is Mourning Sad Morning from the album Free, chosen for no other reason that it features Chris Wood playing flute. One of the very tracks with extra musicians playing:
I love Heartbreaker. Just saying.
Me too. Except the credits.
Chris Wood is very underrated. Traffic weren’t the same without him.
My grammar’s gone for a burton the neet.
On the first Free album Tons Of Sobs, someone named Steve Miller is credited with “piano thumping”.
This Steve Miller, of course, had nothing to do with either of his more famous American namesakes. Neither was he the Steve Miller who played bass for British progsters Harsh Reality. Our man’s distinctive ‘piano thumping’ can also be heard on LPs by The John Dummer Blues Band, Carol Grimes & Delivery and Alexis Korner, to name but three. He also recorded a joint album with Lol Coxhill
In 1971 did he go prog and turn his hand to organ-pounding?
And when the internet arrived he stayed home every night and took up pud pounding
Hang on. There’s more than one Steve Miller?
This might be a revelation akin to the classic Dave Stewart mistake.
To leave that much space you need a dead good rhythm section with perfect timing, which luckily they had. The bottom end ting is probably something to do with the groove being cut better – bass is notoriously hard for vinly to cope with, requiring more space which is why super bass heavy mixes tend to be on 12″ singles. I think the answer to which album is probably all of them, though the Free Story comp is a good one hit option.
The vinly was a numbered limited edition. ..here’s mine 🤗
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i449/charlieboy14/Afterword/20161030_133516_zps4mydectt_edit_1477834747085_zpsezg97bbo.jpg
I’ve always wondered why some pressings of The Free Story were numbered with an “A” and others weren’t. Here’s my two copies, both without the “A”.
Also on a nerdy record collecting theme, The Free Story was originally intended to have the catalogue number ISLD 3, but this was changed to ISLD 4 at the last minute. Both of these copies have a sticker over the catalogue number showing the new number.
http://i.imgur.com/YhItBE2.jpg
As far away from Free as possible, I used to have this bad boy:
https://www.discogs.com/Kraftwerk-Showroom-Dummies/release/182461
For some reason EMI UK had simply used the rather brutal 7″ edits of Numbers and Showroom Dummies on the 12″ rather than reverting to the album versions. As a result SD in particular was quite fantastically loud. 2’38” stretched over the side of a 12″ – lovely.
Today I played the 1968 second Moby Grape LP Wow. I’d forgotten that the last track on side one Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot is cut at 78prm. There is a spoken introduction warning of this and reminding you to change the speed. Not only that, the track won’t start to play until you lift the tone arm and move it forward a little. Otherwise the needle just sits there in an endless groove.
Of course, most people don’t have the 78rpm option on their record players these days, so it really does hark back to old technology.
I wonder how they presented that on CD?
Probably much like they present the “double-grooved” portion* of Monty Python’s Matching tie & Handkerchief – ie by just presenting the two bits side-by-side as they are supposed to be heard. Booooring!
Like looped run-out grooves it’s an element of having fun with the vinly that isn’t available in other formats, although on CDs you can get the – ha-ha-ha – absolute hilarity that is the hidden track. (I enjoyed music in the 90s…. apart from those bloody things)
*The clever thing about that was that it didn’t start until some way into side two. A lot happens on those albums, so you could be forgiven for not noticing the first few times you play it. And then, like my mate did, thinking that your stereo has been possessed by demons.
PS. Further trickery: if you play “We’re Not Supposed To” off the first Supergrass album at 16 rpm (as one does) it comes out at “normal” speed. Here’s what it usually sounds like.
https://youtu.be/3C2OSwRUKU8
Given the song’s title, I assume this is deliberate.
The main theoretical benefit of half-speed mastering is better treble, so if the Box Set Edition is brighter, I’d probably put that down to EQ during mastering.
As Twang says, loud bass is easier to cut at half speed, or at 45rpm, too.
£13 is a really good price for a half speed cut copy of “Fire and Water”. Would you mind sharing the place where we can purchase ?
I picked it up for £13 in HMV a couple of weeks ago. Good price indeed!
Yikes !! £29.99 now 😩
Yeah, worth checking in the shops anyway. It was sold out @HMVonline when I went to get one but found a couple in the racks still at £13
It’s the 2nd album that’s the jewel for me.
I don’t just think it’s Free’s best album, I think it’s the best album of 1969.
You do realise that a certain other LP was released that year with a cover of four gentlemen walking across a zebra crossing that is objectively the best album of all time ever?
Funny to think of it in the same year as Led Zep II. Not sure I could choose a favourite of the two. Like choosing a favourite child…
I always find it amazing that the first four Zeppelin LPs were released by 1971. They did it all while everyone else was just getting started.
To be fair, a lot of the writing had been done 3 or 4 decades earlier 😉
True, but we could say the same about Dylan.
Nice to hear some love for Free. These days they are usually intrinsically linked to snidy remarks about tangerine coloured singers etc. Hur Hur.
Unfortunately my wallet won’t stretch to the box set -but I have to say the half speed mastered version (which A few people have picked to pieces on certain forums) sounds brilliant to me-certainly much better than the mid 70s palm tree copy I had (which is now in the racks in my local second hand shop). I would also urge anyone to buy the recent half speed mastered version of John Martyn’s Solid Air from the same series which is one of the finest sounding albums I’ve heard
I have the half speed Solid Air and you’re right, it’s a remarkable improvement on the original vinyl. Rabbit’s keyboards on I Don’t Wanna Know are worth the price of admission alone.
I have Fire and Water and The Free Story. I’d like to think that Kossoff’s guitar on the title track would jump out at me a bit more than it does as the track opens. It always seems to lack that oomph I’d expect. Is the half-speed really that different?
I have to be honest Nick I’ve never owned an original of Fire & Water-but it’s about the 4 th copy I’ve owned-& it’s definitely the best I’ve had-proves beyond a doubt that Simon Kirke deserves to be ranked amongst the finest