The well respected US audiophile publication Stereophile Magazine has a fascinating three page feature surrounding the upcoming Pink Floyd remaster release programme, in its highly anticipated October 2011 issue. Sought after in itself for its Recommended Components feature, the October edition of the magazine each year is a consistent quick seller.
In the magazine, in US stores now, and selected outlets worldwide as an import, feature writer Robert Baird chats to Nick Mason. Nick: "For a long time, we felt that actually there were enough out there, and that one was trying to milk the thing. My feeling now is that if you don’t release things, they'll be bootlegged anyway, and the people who are interested, really are interested. I'm over that thing of thinking we're milking everything. Now it's like, let's just release everything and let the people who are interested have it, listen to it, obsess. The argument tended to be about whether to release virtually everything that we've got, which is pretty well what we've done."
One of the many highlights of the DSOTM Immersion set is the recording of the 1974 Wembley show. They explain some of the background to this, why it sounds so good, and a surprising detail about Nick's drums. 'Though the concert was originally a BBC radio broadcast, the tape Andy Jackson worked from for the release came from a separate feed run to the Island Mobile recording unit parked outside the stadium. Jackson says that while the original multitrack tapes, overseen by the band's then studio engineer, Brian Humphries, were in fine physical condition, some heavy lifting was required. One kickdrum track was entirely unusable and had to be recreated from samples. He suspects the microphone on that drum had been pointed the wrong way.'
They also quiz Nick on how many Floyd live shows might be in the vaults. "We didn't [record live shows]. Not nearly enough. It's a great shame, really. We should have, absolutely should have. We never really discussed it. Again, it's a different world now..."
Our thanks to Lars Moestrup and Joseph Attalla for their help in this story.
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