Pink Floyd @ Hollywood Bowl 1972-09-22

 


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Pink Floyd 1972-09-22 Hollywood Bowl
Original live quadraphonic sound

Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA, USA, 22 September 1972

01 - Speak To Me
02 - Breathe
03 - The Travel Sequence
04 - Time - Breathe (reprise)
05 - The Great Gig In The Sky
06 - Money
07 - Us And Them
08 - Any Colour You Like
09 - Brain Damage - Eclipse
10 - intermission audience
11 - One Of These Days
12 - Careful With That Axe, Eugene
13 - Echoes
14 - A Saucerful Of Secrets
15 - encore audience
16 - Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun


Pink Floyd toured with a hybrid stereo & quadraphonic sound system. The quad speakers were arranged in "diamond quad" - center stage, middle of venue left & right, and back of venue. They had a large stereo PA at the stage as well. Any mic or input from the stage could be sent to either system at any time. Live mixes could be aggressive with circular pans of vocals and instruments and with delay fx and tape fx in quad.

Apparently Pink Floyd never made a quad soundboard tape. Their soundboard tapes were stereo at most and more aimed at letting them critique their performances than capturing their live mix panning and fx. The quad mixes were just not preserved. The couple of officially released multitrack based recordings from the early days are only mixed to stereo. A handful of shows with multiple audience recorders have revealed remnants of their live surround mixes. Usually brief moments of surround mix elements at best. On some occasions a recorder would be right next to a quad speaker stack for that unique perspective.

Pink Floyd never captured one of their live quad mixes but these 6 tapers did! There would have been almost no way in 1972 to know that they would all actually be working together. Tapers usually go for good seats as close to the stage and centered as possible. Leading to similar recordings in many cases. Capturing a quad mixed Pink Floyd show would require strategic recorder locations to capture the multiple speaker channels. We might not have one taper next to each speaker but we have a lot to work with here. Recorder 1 was centered behind the mixing board in the middle of the venue directly between the side quad speaker stacks capturing them in stereo. Recorder 2 is close to the stage and center with the best fidelity and up close sound. Recorder 3 was close to the left side quad speaker. The back quad channel is left distant but this gives us a strong quad image of the stereo stage system and front quad channel vs the side quad channels. And then a closer mic on the left quad channel.

New lower generation copies of these recordings have been discovered and expertly digitized. Current digital audio tools allow for the precision micro speed adjustments required to synchronize these recordings with perfect lossless audio preservation. This leads to realizing a multitrack recording of the event to work from to restore the live sound with more natural balance and discrete surround.

These recordings have been favorites for their already above average sound (for audience recordings) and a high energy show. Combined they reveal a full sounding live quad mixed concert with an early DSOTM with its unique quad fx in place. Short of the band discovering a multitrack recording and then producing it in the style of the live show in surround, this is as close to experiencing one of these shows as we're likely to get.

* Tapers and original recording methods *

Recorder 1 - Larry, who was Jon Wizardo's partner (recorder 6). Larry used a large Concord reel-to-reel, ½ track stereo and two Shure SM57 mics. This recording was pressed to the Crackers triple LP, The Amazing Kornyfone Label Record 3969 and the original reels appear to be lost.

Recorder 2 - Donald Carey using borrowed Sony ECM-22P mics and a Sony TC-770 ¼ track recorder, taping at 7½ ips. He returned the equipment and master to Harv Kaslow. Donald was 40-50 feet back, slightly right of dead centre in a box that was no more than three to six boxes deep from the stage. The TC-770's motor was dying. 

Recorder 3 - we don't have the taper's name or know his approach. The close proximity of the L side quad speaker in the recording places him near it.

Recorder 4 - we can't be certain about the details but it is likely that the taper recorded at 3¾ ips in ½ track mono. He was located in box 1432. 

Recorder 5 - Steve made a stereo recording. He was positioned alongside a filmmaker judging by the chatter that can be heard on the tape.

Recorder 6 - Jon Wizardo on a large mono Radio Shack ½ track reel to reel recorder with an omni-directional mic and 1800ft reel. Both Jon and Larry were centre house, about halfway back, just behind the front of house mix position. 

* Mastering notes *

The main quad image is recorder 2 front left/right and recorder 1 rear left/right. Their center rear quad speaker gets lost in the mix here. Most noticeable in Money when the guitar pans to the rear towards the end of the solo. No one was back there recording (that anyone knows of). The main stereo PA and front quad and the side quad channels are captured well. R3 is used for some audible surround elements captured better from the closer recording. The best sound in general is recorders 2 & 1 and the other recorders were only added for isolated passages. The quad image from R2+R1 is genuine from the show. R3 is used accurately as a spot mic for the left side quad. The other recorders are used to fill gaps however they sounded the best.

The PA is loud and even pushed to distortion in the loud parts. The tapers did a commendable job considering. The guitar solo in Careful With That Axe, Eugene and the ending of A Saucerful Of Secrets are the most blown out. It probably sounded great at the show even while pushing the system. Recording something already pushed escalates it more. The sound in all the recordings is edgy and bright in the high mids in all but the quietest parts. These elements were the main fidelity challenges.

I synchronized all the other recorders to R2. Multiple analog tapes of the same event drift wildly from each other as recorded if you try to line them up afterwards. Even the most stable tape deck motors have speed variation if looked at under a microscope. You might never perceive it listening back. As soon as you try to line it up next to the same recording made on a different device, those slight motor variations mean that the alternate recorders drift in and out of perfect sync. That suddenly makes for very obvious artifacts in the sound if it isn't corrected. Sync'ing them together can require stretches every few minutes to every few seconds. Elastique Pro in Reaper is lossless for veri-speed stretches. (Aka the classic tape style pitch adjustment needed here.) 

All recordings cleaned of recording artifacts like mains hum and close up rustling or banging into a mic using iZotopeRX spectral editing. R1 is sourced from vinyl and needed de-clicking. I used iZotopeRX for this in a 'manual' way. Creating the output of isolated clicks that I can edit to be precise before using it to null out the clicks from the source. All speed sync, assembly, editing, audio restoration and mastering work in Reaper DAW.

Stem separation (ie. trained software to separate a mix into isolated vocal vs drum vs bass vs everything else) using iZotopeRX to isolate the vocal in Money, Us And Them, & A Saucerful Of Secrets to then use to boost the vocal in the mix. (In select isolated spots.) The louder sections have distortion damage on the lead vocal. This led to a way to restore a more natural sound in these spots. Some recordings of different shows were used for samples of the pre-recorded tapes they used for voices and sound fx to reinforce the spots not captured as well in this show. Especially the live rear quad channel elements that sound very distant in all the recorders. Public archive recordings of the same recordings they sampled for the Apollo 8 and the Kennedy assassination broadcasts were used for those spots in Eclipse. These are all examples of the same source recordings used in parallel for no alteration to this unique show.

Each set is complete including audience sounds between songs across all the available recorders. I used as many recorders as possible for the between song portions of audience sounds. Some of these parts only had a single recorder.

Speak To Me
R3 starts the show (left rear - mixed more centered until other recorders enter)
R5 enters front left/right at 1:25
R4 enters right rear at 2:00
R2 enters front left/right 5 seconds before Breathe

Breathe
R2 main front left/right recorder
R5 used in rear center right
R3 left rear

Travel Sequence
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 starts right at the beginning - main rear quad l/r recorder
R3 left rear (Active for 75% of song with discrete fx. Use in mix follows.) 

Time / Breathe (reprise)
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder

The Great Gig In The Sky
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder
The pre-recorded preacher voice coming in with the Moog solo in the rear sampled from 28 April 1972 R1 recorder (made close to a quad speaker) to reinforce the missing rear capture.

Money
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder

Us And Them
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder
R3 left rear - pre-recorded voice fx at the beginning and 4:30
The pre-recorded moaning voice coming in the rear at the beginning sampled from 28 April 1972 R1 recorder (made close to a quad speaker) to reinforce the missing rear capture.

Any Colour You Like
R2 main front left/right recorder (cuts out at 3:56)
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder
R5 front - takes over when R2 cuts out at 3:56 to end

Brain Damage / Eclipse
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder
R3 left rear - pre-recorded voice fx
The pre-recorded laughing voice coming in the rear sampled from 28 April 1972 R1 recorder (made close to a quad speaker) to reinforce the missing rear capture.
Public archive recordings of the same recordings they sampled for the Apollo 8 and the Kennedy assassination broadcasts to reinforce the missing rear capture.
Ending audience segue
R5 - mixed front/back l/r

intermission audience
R3 mixed mono, left rear biased
R6 front 0:25 - 1:06

One Of These Days
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder
R3 left rear - during intro wind fx
R5 front l/r - during intro wind fx
R6 front - during intro wind fx
R4 right rear - enters at 0:39 during intro wind fx
Ending audience segue
R1 rear
R4 mixed front

Careful With That Axe, Eugene
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder
R3 left rear - used throughout for the quad panned live voice and guitar and to reinforce the guitar solo
R4 right rear - used to reinforce 2nd half of guitar solo
Ending audience segue
R1 rear
R3 left rear
R4 mixed front

Echoes
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder
R3 left rear - for pre-recorded Shepard tone voice fx at end
R4 right rear - for pre-recorded Shepard tone voice fx at end
Ending audience segue
R1 rear - enters 1:30 into audience segue
R3 left rear
R4 right rear
R5 mixed front l/r
R6 mixed front

A Saucerful Of Secrets
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder

encore audience
R1 rear - enters 1:49 into audience segue
R4 used for audience segue (mixed front)
R5 used for audience segue (brief 20s moment after fireworks), mixed front l/r
R6 used for only 1st 15s audience segue, mixed front

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
R2 main front left/right recorder
R1 main rear quad l/r recorder

The stereo version is a fold down of the quad mix.
The concert programme scans that can be found in our folder were kindly supplied by Atomicgamer400.

Jimfisheye mastering / neonknight production, September 2023