The Velvet Forum

arzep wrote:Hello everyone,
I am getting errors with five tracks from the demonoid torrent. My .flac files are errored at different percentages of the files, e.g. Heroin 81% i.e. I can play back and convert 81% of that song but not more. I tried to DL again, and only my errored songs, but same error with identical percentage available. . . Can anyone elaborate, or give a pointer?
Thanks to the torrentor, the rest of the files are absolutley great, best find since the Warhol tapes. It really is a good time to be a fan. Also I am attempting to clean up the crackle from the what i have of the first disc, should sound alot better, without and clipping (cooleditpro). I employ a special technique of isolating the crackle, then subtract that from the original file.


Peace,
AR

I am very interested in hearing the results!
On the other side I am so overwhelmed right now ( I never expected those versions to be THAT different!!!) so that the crackles are not annoying atm....

Many thanks to "upsetter" for this and to Mr. Datsun for his investment.

Ok, I've done 1 pass with the crackle removal over acouple of songs, and still an abundance of pops&clicks so, I will go over the files twice, and see if that doesn't do some more good. A great improvement with the first sweep though. I will keep posting with my results.


AR

These tracks are mono right? If so then there are plugins that remove everything that is unique to one channel - usually pops and clicks are only in one channel (even for mono recordings). This should get rid of most of the cracks and pops without changing the tonality of the music.

Anonymous wrote:These tracks are mono right? If so then there are plugins that remove everything that is unique to one channel - usually pops and clicks are only in one channel (even for mono recordings). This should get rid of most of the cracks and pops without changing the tonality of the music.

this might be a good idea.
another issue: should the 1st LP acetate tracks to be speed corrected? i still have to listen to all of them, but it seems that at least some of them are slow.

what do you think?
Doc

LFSDoc wrote:another issue: should the 1st LP acetate tracks to be speed corrected? i still have to listen to all of them, but it seems that at least some of them are slow.

I wouldn't speed correct them, the acetate is different from the LP, even if it's the same source recordings - I think it's more likely they were speeded up for the production master than slowed down for the acetate....

I would go easy on the crackles too, it's easy to go too far with these filters. I am happy with it as it is - a worn acetate, a piece of evidence from April 1966 - and glad that it's a lot less worn than Sterling's one that became the White Heat EP.

A technical question re actetates - am I right in thinking these are created one by one on a cutting lathe? Olivier's piece on the Dolph acetate talks about Norm requesting it to be 'pressed', but acetates are cut, not pressed, right? It's a small point, but it underlines the uniqueness of each acetate. I'm wondering if Moe's (? - the boot source) copy was originally in the same order as Dolph's. If so, this would probably be the order the tracks were recorded in.

simonm wrote: I wouldn't speed correct them, the acetate is different from the LP, even if it's the same source recordings - I think it's more likely they were speeded up for the production master than slowed down for the acetate....

now that i have listened to the whole thing, i wouldn't speed correct them either
they already are at the proper speed... sorry!

simonm wrote:I would go easy on the crackles too, it's easy to go too far with these filters. I am happy with it as it is - a worn acetate, a piece of evidence from April 1966 - and glad that it's a lot less worn than Sterling's one that became the White Heat EP.

it's hard (if not impossible) to decrackle without altering Eq etc, so i agree with you. but some declicking would do for a better listening experience.

simonm wrote:A technical question re actetates - am I right in thinking these are created one by one on a cutting lathe? Olivier's piece on the Dolph acetate talks about Norm requesting it to be 'pressed', but acetates are cut, not pressed, right? It's a small point, but it underlines the uniqueness of each acetate. I'm wondering if Moe's (? - the boot source) copy was originally in the same order as Dolph's. If so, this would probably be the order the tracks were recorded in.

acetates were cut from a tape, so they will be the same if the tape from which they were derived is the same. the tape could have been in chronological order, but it's hard to tell without recording/mixing logs.

cheers
Doc

If anyone decides to use filters, speed corrections and such, do NOT re-Torrent those files. LFS is right when he says they will mess with the EQ's.

Isn't it a bit weird that if several of these tracks were remixed / overdubbed by MGM / Verve to create the released Velvet Underground & Nico, they do not appear to have a copy of the master tape, which is why there was so much excitement earlier in the year when another copy of the acetate was found and offered for sale?

mg196 wrote:If anyone decides to use filters, speed corrections and such, do NOT re-Torrent those files. LFS is right when he says they will mess with the EQ's.

at least if anybody wants to distribute 'corrected' files it should be made clear they have been modified and how.
Doc

upsetter wrote:Isn't it a bit weird that if several of these tracks were remixed / overdubbed by MGM / Verve to create the released Velvet Underground & Nico, they do not appear to have a copy of the master tape, which is why there was so much excitement earlier in the year when another copy of the acetate was found and offered for sale?

the acetate versions appear to be rough reference mixes, and unless all tapes at the time belonged to VU (and even in that case), they might have been erased (standard practice for labels dealing with relatively unknown musicians as VU were by then), leaving acetate copies as the only source for this material. there's also a chance they have been misplaced in the archives. and there's also a chance nobody cared to look for them while researching for the deluxe edition
after all they couldn't even use Miss Joanie Lee...
Doc