____twoism

If it was anyone else I'd tell you to do it straight away, but I have to admit that I'm still a little bit suspicious after the Closes thing. As I said, I'm no expert and if anybody else knows more about spectral analysis it would be worth waiting for their opinion. I have a strange feeling that this could be the result of recording the mp3 to tape and then making a transfer from that tape, but I really don't know if that could result in the spectrum we see here.

SmackSmash wrote:If it was anyone else I'd tell you to do it straight away, but I have to admit that I'm still a little bit suspicious after the Closes thing. As I said, I'm no expert and if anybody else knows more about spectral analysis it would be worth waiting for their opinion. I have a strange feeling that this could be the result of recording the mp3 to tape and then making a transfer from that tape, but I really don't know if that could result in the spectrum we see here.

I understand your skepticism, and respect your opinion.
Hopefully an expert can come along and verify/deny for me.

SmackSmash wrote:I was ready to trash you after the whole Closes debacle but this looks pretty convincing. Here are the spectrals...



I'm no expert so I can't say for sure, but it looks like we have more detail in the flac version.

I'm not an expert either, but I've seen some spectrums of rips from say, vinyls. That reason the FLAC rip is lighter than the MP3 copy of the image is because that is most likely the hiss coming from the machine used to rip the tape or the tape itself.

What I also notice is that the second channel on the FLAC rip shows a lot more detail than the second channel on the MP3 version.

I have literally no fucking clue what I am talking about, but that's my view on it.

Can you rip BMX track for a test?

You should just do both sides in single files to be honest. If we can reach a consensus on the spectrals then, I'm sure someone would be able to lend a hand with the proper ripping process.

Basefree wrote:Can you rip BMX track for a test?

You should just do both sides in single files to be honest. If we can reach a consensus on the spectrals then, I'm sure someone would be able to lend a hand with the proper ripping process.

I will do that now. Recording.
*EDIT: Then I'm going to sleep. If you all reach a consensus, then I'll rip the entirety at a friends house, or a studio. And tomorrow I will post AFOT samples.

Basefree wrote:Can you rip BMX track for a test?

Ugh, BMX track sounds so fucking good and now I feel like running around in the woods but I desperately need to sleep. Why did you do this to me, haha.

BMX Track: https://www.dropbox.com/s/clvzsy503fit9 ... Track.flac
There's some flutter in the beginning which I attribute to warped tape. This is the only song that does it, though, so that's one good thing.
*EDIT: Going to sleep, now. If spectrals come out with positive consensus tomorrow, I'll do AFOT samples. And if those are good, I'll find some way to rip the tapes in "side a, b" format, and someone can split the individual tracks up if they'd like.

I've no idea what to make of this. The Buckie High track seemed to have a deeper bass and this one is perhaps even muddier than the mp3s that I have. And my ears might be doing tricks on me. I'll refrain from concluding anything.

WeHadNormality wrote:Fuck sake, here we go again.

Spectrals for BMX Track.



Not as impressive as Buckie High due to the lack of white noise filling out the higher frequencies, although the spectra are quite different. The mp3 version reminds me of the Boc Maxima remaster that was posted recently; filtered hiss, and emphasis of the existing frequencies resulting in a louder, clearer mix, albeit with less detail. I still can't tell if this is genuine, and TBH I don't know if it really matters as there is still very little difference in overall quality. Would be nice to have a genuine flac though for the completionists.

SmackSmash wrote:Not as impressive as Buckie High due to the lack of white noise

Doesn't this mean that it can't be legit? Such differences shouldn't be possible between tracks that come from the same source? Unless Boards did something wrong ages ago, but I suspect this because there is a 160/192 rip floating around of OTV2 that has both remastered and untouched tracks. The qualities of these posted tracks fall within those: Buckie is similar to the 192 'remaster', and BMX is similar to the untouched track that I haven't seen a remaster of, anywhere.

Puzzling though that there are some noticeable differences with Buckie High, such as the hi hat which you pointed out earlier.

If you need to look at spectrals to comprehend the difference its probably not worth the trouble anyway.

Basefree wrote:

SmackSmash wrote:Not as impressive as Buckie High due to the lack of white noise

Doesn't this mean that it can't be legit? Such differences shouldn't be possible between tracks that come from the same source? Unless Boards did something wrong ages ago, but I suspect this because there is a 160/192 rip floating around of OTV2 that has both remastered and untouched tracks. The qualities of these posted tracks fall within those: Buckie is similar to the 192 'remaster', and BMX is similar to the untouched track that I haven't seen a remaster of, anywhere.

Puzzling though that there are some noticeable differences with Buckie High, such as the hi hat which you pointed out earlier.

The hi-hat sound is just sampled white noise, which it why it fills out those frequencies. In transcodes and mp3s you tend to get a sharp cutoff so you won't see any areas that have frequencies going up towards 22kHz as we see in the new flacs. Even on BMX track you can see some frequencies extending to around 18kHz (significantly above those in the mp3) which makes this look like it might be legit. There's also a strange shelf at 16kHz in the mp3 that isn't there on the flac version. I think that any differences from the mp3 source are a good indicator of legitimacy as it would be very difficult to manipulate the sound in such a way as to imitate these properties without adding noticeable artifacts to the sound. As I've said before though, I'm no expert so it would be great to hear from someone with a little more experience with this stuff.

I think you should just rip it for the sake of it. Who knows? Maybe it is the real deal.

yeah just rip it, #YOLO

Alright, I'm going to begin ripping it to an external HD now. If all is well, I'll do AFOT as well. It should be done/processed/uploaded in about two hours.

Basefree wrote:

SmackSmash wrote:Not as impressive as Buckie High due to the lack of white noise

Doesn't this mean that it can't be legit? Such differences shouldn't be possible between tracks that come from the same source? Unless Boards did something wrong ages ago, but I suspect this because there is a 160/192 rip floating around of OTV2 that has both remastered and untouched tracks. The qualities of these posted tracks fall within those: Buckie is similar to the 192 'remaster', and BMX is similar to the untouched track that I haven't seen a remaster of, anywhere.

Puzzling though that there are some noticeable differences with Buckie High, such as the hi hat which you pointed out earlier.

I had BMX Track going to my computer at a different volume. I have a direct out from my deck, and a meter to control the volume in the "headphones." Buckie High was recorded louder. Nevertheless, the full recording is all going to be one level, I'm just going to turn off the speakers and leave the recording going for a while.
*EDIT: Zander II has the most notable differences from the .mp3 version, in my opinion.

Okay, my external HD idea was a bust. It's not working, likely because I haven't touched that particular one in ages. The best I can do is do one side at a time, upload it, and then erase it from my computer in order to conserve space. Where can I upload large .flac files?
EDIT: Fuck it, I'm putting it on Dropbox. Side B of OTv2 uploading now. Side A is recording.

Forgot how much I liked Sir Prancelot Brainfire. Just a question, did Mike and Marcus ever touch these tapes, or were they just duplicated and sent off, factory style?

If you can, just rip both tapes straight away A/B style without waiting for approval. It's faster, and probably worth it, since the two showcase tracks show some good results.

Even if the tapes weren't real, I still want to say thank you at this point. I appreciate the gesture of wanting to share the tapes with the community.