'Velvet Underground 1966' boot CD

[feelingfresh]

Are you sure? I've not heard the 45th set but the view seems to be that it's a rip of Move Back - the diginoises in Heroin are certainly there.

Yes, I'm sure. 'Move Back' literally removed about 10 or 15 seconds of yelling/singing from 'Melody Laughter', presumably because they wanted to try to make the performance sound more fluid (I repeat, the performance itself is completely edited). '45th Anniversary' does not have this edit.


I'm speaking of one single segment, towards the end. Apparently there are more:

There's definitely more than just the one cut on the 'Move Back' version. Just playing about with the files (I've done a rough speed adjustment to match them up) there's about a minute, possibly more, missing. There's a 6 second cut somewhere between the 5 and 7 minute points and another cut around the 12 minute point. I haven't pinned the cuts down precisely, I was just curious to check if anything else missing, and there absolutely definitely is. Perhaps somebody with more time would like to do a definitive investigation?

[iaredatsun]

Yes, I'm sure. 'Move Back' literally removed about 10 or 15 seconds of yelling/singing from 'Melody Laughter', presumably because they wanted to try to make the performance sound more fluid (I repeat, the performance itself is completely edited). '45th Anniversary' does not have this edit.

A 10-15 second edit in one and not the other? That's pretty weird as the performances on the different CD tracks are the same length. So if they removed 10-15 seconds from one then they removed 10-15 seconds from the other. Also look how exactly the wave forms match up throughout, ending at exactly the same point in the file with around a minute of ambient sound at the end of Move Back version. Here's a grab scaled to fit the web page width. And then there's a second grab zoomed in to show how both files start at the same point.

If you can hear an edit in the Move Back version, then could you please tell us exactly what time it occurs?

45th first, Move on Back second in the windows.

[logic]

Nay, that's a rip of the original vinyl release which just has the instrumentals. There's a CD version from the '90s which has the whole thing.

Looks like the rest is on the DOWN FOR YOU IS UP[CD/LP], i only do have the vinyl version(Italy 1986). Correct my if i'm wrong, but the date for this is : 66/11/04.

[feelingfresh]

Oh my god, the cut is on the '45th Anniversary' version. I made a mistake, back when I evaluated this version. And I'm realizing how bad the cut sounds. Totally artificial and out of place. Start listening to the ruined version around 27:00 and compare to the appropriate point on 'velvet underground/1966' or 'Caught Between the Twisted Stars'. By the way, I think 'Twisted Stars' has lower sound quality?

[iaredatsun]

Oh my god, the cut is on the '45th Anniversary' version. I made a mistake, back when I evaluated this version. And I'm realizing how bad the cut sounds. Totally artificial and out of place. Start listening to the ruined version around 27:00 and compare to the appropriate point on 'velvet underground/1966' or 'Caught Between the Twisted Stars'. By the way, I think 'Twisted Stars' has lower sound quality?

There is no artificial sounding cut anytime after 27:00 minutes on Melody Laughter on the 45th Anniversary version. I cannot hear one. The two versions (45th and '1966') have diverged by as much as two and half minutes before they get near to the 27 minute mark. They don't even seem to be playing at the same speed.

[feelingfresh]

Listen more carefully. Compare to 29:29 on '1966'. Listen to each of them very carefully for about a minute.

[Kill Mick]

Listen more carefully. Compare to 29:29 on '1966'. Listen to each of them very carefully for about a minute.

Feelingfresh is right. From the 30 min mark on '1966' there is about 15 seconds of fast "ba ba ba"s that are missing on the Super Deluxe edition. They should be at about 27:27 on Super Deluxe, after a short instrumental break and before the slower "ba ba ba"s come in. I've never noticed the cut on either Super Deluxe or Move Back, I actually don't think it's very noticeable, but when you do a direct comparison there is definitely a portion missing. God damn.

[iaredatsun]

Mick thanks for confirming it. Apologies to feelfresh for saying it didn't exist. I thought it was a tape glitch. Given I never noticed, that the sound on 45th is so much better and the fact that the 1966 version seems to be running at about 90% of the correct speed, I'm not too worried about it.

[Mark]

I can't hear any 'diginoise' in Heroin nor see anything obvious in the spectral analysis. At what time does it occur? I can hear a few tape glitches towards the end of both versions of Move Back and 45th. I haven't listened to 1966 version all the way to the end.

It's from approx 5.43 to 5.55 on the 45th version. Might not be digital (tape deterioration maybe?), but the equivalent portion of the song on 1966 is clean.

1966 does have the "this is called Heroin" introduction, but it's on the end of the previous track, IWFTM. It doesn't have the bit of tuning afterward though.

Seems to me like the ultimate version of the Columbus show, based on the sources we have, would be a speed-corrected version of 1966 with the missing snippets between tracks patched in from Move Back.

It's kind of frustrating that there hasn't been a better transfer of this show since 1996/7 (and UMG clearly HAVE just used Move Back with a few little edits and light remastering). Presuming the tape hasn't fallen to pieces by now, techniques of transferring analogue tapes to the digital domain have come a long way since then, and we could have a much nicer-sounding version at this point if they'd bothered to go back to the master.

[schnittstelle]

Thank you very much for the great research!

Speaking of speed correction: Did anyone ever notice that the Live Max's Kansas City LP ran too fast?
Someone made a speed correction of the LP and it sounds more natural to me. Have a listen at https://archive.org/details/Max1970_172

From another discussion I've read that even the deluxe CD may not be at the correct speed.