Harry,(I started to type the following and before I knew it, I'd written a history of LZ mastering since the mid-80s or so. Heck of a way to spend a Friday evening!)
Zeppelin was mastered originally for CD in the mid-80s by Atlantic's in-house mastering engineer Barry Diament for all albums except the 4th, which was done by Atlantic's mastering engineer in LA Joe Sidore.
In 1990-93, George Marino at Sterling Sound in NYC remastered the entire Led Zeppelin catalog for the crop circles box sets. Shortly afterwards the tracks were reassembled into the original albums and at that time, two tracks from these were remastered again by George Marino to better match hiss levels for their segue (You're Time Is Gonna Come & Black Mountain Side) where they segued (the guy who did this work is on the Steve Hoffman forum, user name Zal).
Up until Mothership, all commercial Led Zepplin releases on CD have been based on these Marino remasters. The CDs are often labelled with stickers "remastered by Jimmy Page" but this is a marketing strategy more than reality. Jimmy sat in on some or all of mastering sessions, but it was George Marino who actually did the technical work (some CDs I've seen credit both Page and Marino).
Around 2001, selected Led Zeppelin songs were remastered for a special compilation put together to promote the use of Led Zeppelin music in films, but this set was never available to the general public. I believe only a limited number were produced (250 comes to mind). I've read comments by a couple of people who've heard this and say it sounds better than the Marino remasters.
The Japanese and European mini-LP replica CDs released in 2003 are sometimes called new remasters, but they're just the same Marino remasters with some volume boosting on a couple of tracks. I saw stats (the log files from the freeware program Exact Audio Copy)for these posted somewhere on a web forum once and the difference were mostly subtle, although Custard Pie for instance was boosted by about 3dB. I have the 2003 mini-LP of PG so I compared it to my older copies of the Marino remasters and got the same results.
Mothership on CD was mastered by John Davis at Alchemy Mastering in the UK. There is no mention of what he used for sources but a mastering engineer on the Steve Hoffman forum, username Jamie Tate speculated yesterday that Davis in fact used the pre-EQ digitized masters from Marino's sessions because the waveforms line up to be almost identical in terms of time. The idea here is that when analog tapes are played back, they almost never play at exactly the same speed so if Davis had used the original analog master tapes, his tracks would not line up so perfectly with Marino's. This is the first I've heard of this notion, but I did try one experiment last night with the three CD versions of Whole Lotta Love I own (original Barry Diament mastered LZII, Marino remaster, Mothership). The Diament one (which I know to be from Atlantic's LZII analog master tape because Diament told us so in a forum thread) is off by about 200ms towards the end of the song (seems like a small number perhaps but it's enough to sound like a significant delay) whereas the Marino and Davis versions were almost perfectly synched.
If this is so (it seems to be), it's disappointing because digital technology in 2007 is significantly more advanced than it was in 1990. Look at what Abkco did with the pre-1971 Rolling Stones catalog back in 2002. Everything was done on hires DSD masters (and they sound incredible).
Surprisingly, the vinyl version of Mothership was mastered separately by well-known mastering engineer Stan Ricker. A Hoffman forum member wrote him asking about the sources and he replied by saying that some of the tracks were done from analog sources and others from digital. Presumably this means the mastering is done and there's some other reason why the vinyl version of it and TSRTS are being delayed until next spring. Word has it the resurgence in vinyl popularity has swamped all available pressing plants for all releases so perhaps that's why.
As for other vinyl masterings since the beginning of the CD era, there were the Classic Records reissues of the entire catalog, but these were abruptly ended as of August 31, 2007. Since from what I've read reissue contracts usually end after 3 year periods, and the Classic releases were staggered over a period of time, the fact that they all ended at once suggests Zeppelin and/or Atlantic wanted them all to stop at once for a reason. Speculation is that the entire catalog will be reissued next year. There is also a Warner Germany 180g pressing of LZIV still available that's billed by one online UK vendor as "remastered from the original analog master tapes" but no one I know or have asked has ever been able to give any information about this release.
Lately there have also been colored vinyl versions of LZII out of Mexico appearing on the market, but these are rumored to be bootlegs.
Anyway, that's all for now. If anyone has anything to add to this, I'd love to hear it. I've been focused on the different versions of Led Zeppelin studio recordings for awhile now.
Regards, Steve. harry p wrote:
A few questions for the audiophiles here... when was the re-mastering done on the original CD's? 1994? 2003? are the mini-LP CD's from Japan or UK re-mastered? I buy mothership but still looking for older stuff.. I must be crazy or something.. also what is the scribing on the inner part of the earliest (best) of LZ2? thanks Harry ____________________________________________________________________________________Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how. http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/__________ NOD32 2665 (20071117) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com