The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators {Deluxe Edition}
[A Prof. Stoned Comp 2023]
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** Stereo Album Demix/Remaster 2023 **
01. You're Gonna Miss Me
02. Roller Coaster
03. Splash 1 (Now I'm Home)
04. Reverberation
05. Don't Fall Down
06. Fire Engine
07. Thru The Rhythm
08. You Don't Know
09. Kingdom Of Heaven
10. Monkey Island
11. Tried To Hide
bonus:
12. Fire Engine (Alternate Version, Stereo Mix)
13. Tried To Hide (45 Version, Stereo Mix)
All tracks Stereo
(Tr. 12/13 are Remasters)
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** Mono Album Remaster 2023 **
01. You're Gonna Miss Me
02. Roller Coaster
03. Splash 1 (Now I'm Home)
04. Reverberation
05. Don't Fall Down
06. Fire Engine
07. Thru The Rhythm
08. You Don't Know
09. Kingdom Of Heaven
10. Monkey Island
11. Tried To Hide
bonus:
12. Reverbaration (45 Version)
13. Fire Engine (45 Version)
14. Tried To Hide (45 Version)
All tracks Mono
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** The Headstone Reel - Remaster 2023 **
01. You're Gonna Miss Me (Alternate Mix)
02. Tried To Hide (45 Version, Alternate Mix)
03. Splash 1 (Alternate Version)
04. You Can't Hurt Me Anymore
05. Take That Girl
06. Monkey Island (Alternate Version)
07. Thru The Rhythm (Alternate Version)
08. Roller Coaster (Alternate Version)
09. Fire Engine (Alternate Version)
10. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
11. I'm Gonna Love You Too (45 Mix)
bonus:
12. Reverberation (Alternate Version, Acetate)
13. You're Gonna Miss Me (The Spades, 1965 Single A-side)
14. We Sell Soul (The Spades, 1965 Single B-side)
All tracks Mono
(Tr. 13/14 are Demix/Remasters)
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Rough Mixes Reel - Remaster 2023
01. You Don't Know
02. Thru The Rhythm
03. Monkey Island
04. Roller Coaster
05. Fire Engine
06. Tried To Hide
07. Don't Fall Down
All tracks Stereo
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** Live at The Sump 'n Else TV Show - WFFA-TV, Dallas TX - Demix/Remaster 2023 **
01. You're Gonna Miss Me (3/25/66)
02. 'Interview With Ron Chapman' (3/25/66)
03. Fire Engine (3/25/66)
04. You Really Got Me (3/25/66)
05. Roll Over Beethoven (3/25/66)
06. Mercy, Mercy (5/9/66)
07. Tried To Hide (5/9/66)
08. Gloria (5/9/66)
09. Fire Engine (5/9/66)
10. You're Gonna Miss Me (5/9/66)
11. Roller Coaster (5/9/66)
All tracks Mono
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** Live at La Maison Ballroom, Houston, TX; August 1966 - Demix/Remaster 2023 **
01. Intro
02. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
03. Satisfaction
04. I'm Down
05. Roller Coaster
06. I Feel Good
All tracks Stereo
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** Live at Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, CA; Sept 2, 1966 - Demix/Remaster 2023 **
01. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
02. Before You Accuse Me
03. You Don't Know
04. Splash 1
05. I'm Gonna Love You Too
06. You Really Got Me
07. Fire Engine
08. Roll Over Beethoven
09. The Word
10. Monkey Island
11. Roller Coaster
All tracks Stereo except Tr. 1-2 are Mono
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Total time: 4h10m14s
Demix/Mastering: Prof Stoned
Research: JWB (most of it) & PS
Special thanks to Johnny, jpstooges, Eugene & whoever contributed to unearthing the source material used here.
v1.0: 19-12-2023
v1.1: 13-4-2024 (few vocal volume fluctuations corrected on Tr 5 Stereo album, it bugged me...)
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Note:
Here's another comp that (hopefully) will rock your world. It collects the majority of surviving studio and live recordings from the '65/'66 era in the best available quality, newly restored and mastered by yours truly. Although all of the material here has been released officially, we have aimed to upgrade the sound quality of every track. This collection is not complete; we have chosen not to include any rough mixes without vocals, a few alternate mixes and the Kazz FM tape (which I felt lacked in quality and does not offer any unique songs).
* The Stereo album was giving the demix treatment but a problem presented itself while working on this: the jug and Roky's banshee wails could often not be recognized by the software for what they are. So the process was mostly used to re-balance. Tracks 4 & 7 exist in mono only, so I re-positioned the vocals within the stereo image to create a "true stereo" version, in spirit with the rest of the album. I also re-worked the official stereo mix of Tr. 1 to make it sound more similar to the rest. The vinyl rip from the original USA pressing was done by 'jpstooges', as were from the bonus tracks that come with the mono album (used here with kind permission).
* The Mono album was newly remastered from my 2020 vinyl rip, which I previously shared here. I feel this new master improves significantly on the old one. I have used a superior 2nd generation tape source of "You're Gonna Miss Me" from the 1972 production master of "Nuggets", which was made just a couple years before the original IA masters were destroyed by Ray Rush* and the version of "Kingdom Of Heaven" from the stereo LP which has better fidelity. I have excluded the tape bleed that can be heard in between tracks on side 2 of the original mono LP but it does appear on my 2020 rip.
* The Headstone Reel are the most important studio recordings after the original albums and appear here in what I believe is the best quality thus far. For some reason, Charly used an inferior master from damaged tape for this. A clean monaural source appears on a semi-legitimate 2CD called "Paradise Lost" from about 20 years and that's what was used here (apart from some missing intro's). The Spades tracks also come from that CD, except for the missing intro of "We Sell Soul" which was taken from a vinyl rip by Bosshoss66. The "Reverbaration" acetate was restored and mastered from a raw unprocessed source.
* The Rough Mixes provide an interesting glimpse in the recording process and have a clarity and directness that is mostly missing from the official versions. These come from the private collection of John Ike Walton.
* The Sump 'n Else tapes are probably the best sounding live recordings currently in circulation, even though the vocals tend to be a bit low in the mix. I have tried to remedy by demixing but please note the vocals were recorded with a low-quality mic and are therefore not as hi-fi sounding as the rest of the band. Everything runs in the correct speed here, which may well be a first.
* La Maison Ballroom is a raw stereo soundboard tape with a couple interesting performances not heard elsewhere. This was first released in clean stereo on the 80s LP "Elevator tracks". I used a mint copy as the source and demixed it for optimal results.
* The original Avalon Ballroom twin-track master tape contains more material and is still held in someone's private archive. A copy was used for a bootleg LP in the late 70s and this new version was mostly transferred from a reissue of said bootleg. Again, demix technology was used to rebalance and 'restore' the stereo image with the vocals now -somewhat- consistent on the left side of the stereo image, rather than the bootleg source where it is all over the place. We believe this offers the best possible sound quality thus far even if the limitations of the source material are obvious. We can only hope the real deal will be liberated in this lifetime.
Enjoy!
[* I'm going to assume you are aware of the sad history of the first two Elevators albums master tapes and why needledrops of the original albums are the only acceptable source material for remastering. If not, there are plenty of informative threads on Hoofman's board.)
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A note about mastering with demix technology:
You may have heard some of my recent offerings where I have used demix pro for spectral extraction. I believe it is the most revolutionary audio processing tool since ages. It enables us to break a mono signal down into dedicated elements: vocals, drums/percussion, bass guitar, guitar, piano and whatever remains after. These extractions can be of such precision they allow for a realistic reconstruction of a mix, but it depends greatly on the source material.
Why is this useful? Well... the original mix may have flaws that affect the quality of the sound. By nature, the process of mastering is designed to improve upon such flaws by applying equalization and/or processing of dynamic range. But what if one element within a recording needs more treble, while another element is already bright enough? At that point, EQ is not sufficient anymore because your choices will affect both. Of course, mastering does not begin and end with just EQ; there are always other ways of emphasizing or hiding elements in a recording. But spectral extraction allows you to improve upon the sound of one element without 'harming' the sound of all the others and also to re-balance those elements if necessary.
I have used Demix pro and now also Spectralayers on some of the recordings here. The remaining material just received a straight forward mastering, also with great care and precision of course.
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I have used the following digital studio gear and monitoring in the making of this:
- Spectralayers 10
- DeMix Pro 4.5.0.
- Cubase
- Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite Quad-Core (incl. various extra plugins I purchased over the years)
- PMC IB2s & iLoud Micro monitors
- Adobe Audition
- Izotope RX9
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Sources (in order of first appearance):
– Sign Of The 3 Eyed Men // Label: Charly/International Artists – IA#14/CD-P Format: CD, Limited Edition, Numbered, Promo, Sampler Country: UK Released: Dec 2008
– The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators // Label: International Artists – IA-LP-1 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo Country: US Released: Jan 1967
– Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 Label: Rhino Records – R2 2006 Format: CD, Compilation, Reissue, Remastered Country: US Released: 2012
– The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators // Label: International Artists – IA-LP-1 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono Country: US Released: Nov 1966
– Reverbaration (Doubt) // Label: International Artists – IA-111 Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single, Promo Country: US Released: Oct 20, 1966
– You're Gonna Miss Me // Label: International Artists – IA-107 Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single Country: US Released: May 1966
– Texas Rockmusic Heritage Vol.2 - Paradise Lost // Label: Lone Star Records (5) – LSR 19630 Format:2 x CD, Compilation, Unofficial Release Country: Netherlands Released:1994 (though it is believed this was actually released in 2003, attempting to avoid copyright issues)
– http://www.finerecordingstudio.com/posts/ReverberationAcetate.aif (now defunct, haha)
– You're Gonna Miss Me / We Sell Soul // Label: Zero (3) – C-10002 Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single Country: US Released: Nov 1965
– The 1966-1967 Unreleased Masters Collection // Label: Collectables – COL-CD-8816 Format:3 x CD, Compilation Country: US Released:1994
– Texas Twisted • Psychedelic Microdots Of The Sixties Vol. 2 // Label: Sundazed Music – SC 11009 Format: CD, Compilation, Mono Country: US Released:1991
– Elevator Tracks // Label:Texas Archive Recordings – TAR 7 Format: Vinyl, LP Country:US Released:1987
– Live At The Avalon Ballroom (September 2, 1966) // Label: Lysergic Record Co. – LP025 Format: Vinyl, LP, Reissue, Unofficial Release Country: US Released:<unknown>
– RokyCDClub#7: Avalon Ballroom, 1966, 2nd gen soundboard clone (only 'The Word')
