David Gilmour Like A Rolling Stone and Learning To Fly Jon Carin Demo broadcasted by BBC Radio One on 28 July 1992 - are they really feature in stereo mode ?

[svaerige]

there is an opinion that David Gilmour Like A Rolling Stone and Learning To Fly Jon Carin Demo were broadcast by BBC Radio One in stereo mode

at the same time the sources of this broadcast circulate only in mono

Tracks 1, 3, 5 and 6 come from a tape that David Gilmour brought to BBC Radio One studios on 28Jul92, for his interview by Nick Horne (promoting the "Shine On" box set). They are from a pre-FM source and sound slightly better than the versions on the previous release, but are still mono. For that reason, the current compilation also includes the versions of "Like A Rolling Stone" (track 2) and "Learning To Fly" (track 4) taken from the stereo FM broadcast ("The Dogs Of War" and "Signs Of Life" were on the tape but were not broadcast during the BBC show)
https://ravinganddrooling.com/forum/...rrents/185746-


I listened to the broadcast versions again - and they don’t seem really stereophonic to me - most likely they are just fake stereo

in that case the mono versions are the actual real sources of these tracks


it's just an opinion

[Alanko]

Like a Rolling Stone was just a sort of off the cuff recording with a kid's keyboard, I think? Not a serious musical proposition. As such, I doubt David would have recorded it in stereo.

[ruben77]

Unless a demo is recorded with an extreme instrument separation and 2 microphones set very apart from each other, you would not notice "stereo". Most demos are recorded with little to no care for "sterophonics" at that time of the process. And in the case of home demos they are usually recorded in limited environments that differ from those of a studio. So even if stereo tapes and recorders were used, you'd barely notice the stereo effect as instruments and voice would be placed very tightly.

[jmr]

The Learning to Fly demo is absolutely, unquestionably true stereo in the FM recording. The drums and percussion parts are fairly discretly placed all over the stereo field in a way that would not come about though "fake stereo" processing. The low tom and clap are significantly to the left, the stick clicking is to the right.

The Like A Rolling Stone recording though, it's harder to tell, but I think there a legit stereo chorus effect in the organ keyboard patch (the long held chords in the background, not the more upfront stacato chords on the upbeats). Interestingly, that organ is noticably less present in the mono pre-FM lossy copy - exactly what happens when a stereo keyboard patch with out of phase content like that that is folded down to mono.

It's such a compromised recording - there is an unfortunate amount of azimuth error in the circulating FM versions. Something like a 150uS delay between the two channels, which makes everything sound kinda out of phase and fake-stereo-y. Thee right channel has a weaker high end as well, which also contributes to that feeling of artificial stereo.

I tried my hand at correcting the phase error and weaker channel, and applied some eq to Rolling Stone bring it closer to the spectrum of the pre-fm recording. I think it makes it clearer to tell what's actual stereo and what's not:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/124z...ew?usp=sharing


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xcl...ew?usp=sharing

[svaerige]

many thank for clarification and restored

[marksturdy]

If it's of interest to anyone, I have a cassette that I recorded of the whole interview back in 1992. It isn't stunning quality but good enough, and it should be stereo (the radio-cassette I recrded it on was certainly stereo). Happy to find the file and upload it if there's the interest.

[svaerige]

that would be really interesting - at least for me

[marksturdy]

Sure thing. Might take a few days but I will get it up here when I can.

[svaerige]

thanks - already looking forward

[jmr]

I'd be curious to hear it too. It looks like some version of it was previously shared on Y! - it's in Nipote's interview list - but the link in the archive is broken.
https://ravinganddrooling.com/y-arch...hread3293.html

[marksturdy]

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/6bj...r_R1_interview

This is the raw recording, exactly as recorded by me at the age of 13 on a Sharp radio-cassette machine on to whatever blank tape I could get hold of at the time. Transferred last year using a Denon DRM-740 and and Edirol R4.

For what it's worth, to my ears LtF is stereo and Like a Rolling Stone isn't. Admittedly I haven't studied them in detail.

[svaerige]

many thanks

[jmr]

marksturdy, I think your tape sounds significantly better than what's already out there. Thanks for sharing this!

Like a Rolling Stone definitely has true stereo content that's not a result of some flaw in your recording or transfer. Here's a plot of the stereo content in side b of your tape.


The first part is Bob Dylan's To Ramona - you can see most of the content is largely centered around slightly above middle (similar to a CD sourced version of the song I just looked up) but occassionally the channel balance drifts, and you can see moments caused by tape drops where there's a sudden spike upwards (to the left channel) or down (to the right channel. During the interview sections, Nick Horne's voice is square in the center, and David Gilmour's voice is further up - it's panned to about 35% left. And finally, there are two sections where there is stereo content spread all over the range. Those are the two demos in question.

The organ patch in Like A Rolling Stone is unquestionably stereo. Fact, not opinion. There maybe a slight stereo reverb on the vocals too but it's not as easy to tell for certain.

Another thing that your tape reveals - the existing versions are slightly too fast! Your tape runs a bit slow, but because you've caught a bit of To Ramona, we can use that a speed reference. We also have a second speed reference in your recording - the 19kHz FM stereo pilot tone is present in your audio. Based on those factors, your tape is 2.27% slow, which means the source used for Secret Rarities was 1.45% fast.

Here's a speed corrected version, with some minor tweaks and corrections here and there. Probably more work that could be done here. I might take another crack at it and make a torrent (assuming marksturdy approves), so consider these works in progress:

LARS: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z_P...ew?usp=sharing
LTF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19kB...ew?usp=sharing

[marksturdy]

That's great - thanks for the analysis. Glad to have added something!

[swanlee]

If anyone is interested I can create stems out of the mono tracks and remix them in stereo. Already done this with alot of mono floyd stuff