I though of putting this in the AE thread, but I don’t want it quickly applied. Some of these merges require consideration.
Vinyl releases of Supertramp - Paris have separate recordings because of much shorter track lengths. The printed lengths are only for the songs and do not include any applause or spoken introductions to the songs. There is no further difference between vinyl and original CD release (the remastered CD version is slightly different) and it’s exactly the same when listening to the entire album.
But there are edge cases:
On vinyls Breakfast in America starts with an introduction (more than a minute). It’s the first track on side 2 and will always be a part of this track on ripped files.
CD versions have the index set just before the actual song starts, making this introduction part of the previous track. A file track length from a vinyl will have approx. 4:03 while the CD version has only 2:57. Edit #91843150 - Merge recordings
Slightly different is the “Digitally Remastered” version. The introduction is also appended to Bloody Well Right, but the introduction starts after continuous applause, while on 1985 CD versions the applause fades and starts again after a short silence. Thus it is actually 15 seconds shorter and edited. However, the edit concerns applause… Edit #91843892 - Merge recordings
Currently the remastered versions of 1.1 School and 1.2 Ain’t Nobody but Me are part of the CD recording (added by me), although index 2 was set well after the beginning of the song (the first tunes, though partly covered by applause, should clearly belong to this track) - as a consequence 1.1 is 15s longer, 1.2 15s shorter than the others…
Acoust IDs are roughly the same (and completely mixed up), except Breakfast in America for reasons, mentioned above.
I’ll take care of the date problem later (there’s no Dec 1st on any release, but it may be actually true)
Because of the 2012 remix I have not looked at other recordings (compilations) for further merges. (coming soon )
Any vocal or musical extras - different recordings.
A radio DJ or band member doing an intro - different recording.
A chunk of a track move from end of Recording A to start of Recording B - different recordings.
You say “introduction” but don’t describe it. If this is someone talking, or some extra musical chunk - a separate recording.
Looks like there are vinyl and CD versions going on here. So you end up with two batches - and lots of notes to add to the Recording Annotations to help other people keep them apart.
As to just “printed vs actual” that is very common to get typos on album covers. Some Floyd stuff in the US can be minutes out - but listen to the album and you hear the same music. They are merged.
Vinyl can be tricky. Is it obvious how to “rip” the vinyl in tracks this way? Do bootleggers rip on those times? I have one release where there are three different editions in the database PURELY due to the bootleggers ripping it in different ways. Leading to different Recordings existing. The CD then came along and the band cut the tracks in a clear way - but different to the way the bootleggers had cut it.
Are you saying that the CDs decided to cut the album up differently? And moved stuff from the end of one track to the start of the next? That sounds like new recordings if it is more than just a bit of crowd noise.
AcoustID mess - very common. Once you have split things, then maybe get brave and wade in and disable some if you have enough samples for a pattern.
I’ll look at the edits another time… head is in a funny place this evening.
on stage by the band. It actually belongs to Breakfast in America, but the index was set to the point when the music starts.
That’s the thing with Bloody Well Right/Breakfast in America = side 1 → side 2
Side 2 to 3 corresponds with disc 1 to 2
Side 4 (Take the Long Way Home) starts on CD like on vinyl: short applause, faded in, then the song.
Other tracks have no specific index on vinyls
Yes and no. The CD versions always start with the actual song. My files start with the introductory words to the upcoming song. But that’s not as fixed as on CD.
They moved only the index, and this fact can only be decided at the end/start of one side of the vinyl. But actually the vinyl version is identical to the early CD version.
Most of the tracks are clear merges, but I’m not sure for Bloody Well Right and Breakfast in America with the introduction “moved” and the applause “edited”
And I will write annotations when the content is decided
Left to my own devices I would leave them separate with clear disambiguations + annotations - but @IvanDobsky has more experience with recordings, so I would follow his lead in a discussion.
The following is what I have been taught here at MB, with some common sense mixed it. But then MB is strong on the common sense.
When I listen to an album like this, I ideally want to just merge it all as it is the same music. BUT if there are edits that people can download, then we need to allow for them. When you say “My Files” - is this from a publicly available rip? Then we need to assist people tagging that to get things correct and keep that split.
If “My Files” means you were just being careful to match the vinyl track times when you did your own personal rip, then I’d be more likely to merge tracks. Vinyl and CD are the same concert when you listen to them.
A popular “bootleg” that can be torrented kinda becomes an unofficial release. And I was taught that MB needs to allow for that.
I have a vinyl album in my collection that for years was never on CD. So the bootleggers had created their own 11 track copy. This means MB has a version with track splits uploaded with those times. And these don’t fit the CD that came out decades later. It also doesn’t fit the version where someone with album in hand typed out a 13 track list due to how they read the cover. That reminds me - must get the cover onto a scanner…
So we have four versions of the same album. With some tweaking and slapping I massaged it so that most of the recordings are merged - but some cases the differences are too large.
Edited applause can usually be ignored and treated as an “early fade” to keep the recordings together. But intros moved lean more towards separate recordings.
It is tricky. I am an Album person. I would listen to a concert like this as a whole. So it is the same set of recordings on vinyl or CD or rip.
But if you are a person who listens to just individual tracks, then the need to differentiate recordings is more important. Now the tracks on the rip can’t be swapped with the tracks on the CD. So that means separate recordings when the intros are moving around.
If all you are basing the splits on is what you are reading on the cover, then I would ignore those numbers totally and just merge the lot.
You are the person who knows the album. MB “guidelines” allow for common sense.
Just had a random dip through those edits. I can’t see a single (legit) AcoustID fingerprint of a different length. So I’d merge all of these and just add a note to say the times written on the LP are different to how the CD later indexed them.
Errr… how many of those with the hand written lengths are actually CDs with cloned data?
The “LP” you quote in your initial post is a pair of CDs which didn’t have the “set track lengths” pushed. It has now made a mess of those nice neat columns of times on the “LP Versions”…
Merge the lot. The more I look at this stuff, the clearer it is that all you are doing is looking at a hand written list of “this is the length of the song” lists on the LPs, when CDs are “this is the length of the whole piece”.
A bit of a look at DiscIDs seems to show quite a variation there anyway. Hard to know what is legit as not enough really verified and lot of pre-NGS junk\confusion in there.
If anything, there may be different CD edits that are already merged. Some of those have 10 second chunks missing from a couple of tracks.
I ripped them from my LP without knowledge of a CD version. I’ve noticed at once that the resulting track lengths were very similar to the CD lengths except when spoken text was involved. I added these parts to the following track while the CDs start with the actual song, so the first track is shorter and the next one longer compared to CD versions.
There will be no submission with the printed vinyl length because nobody rips without any applause…
Done, and I will add proper annotation
I got lucky and found a remastered version in a friend’s collection. This remastered version was released in the late 1990s.¹ Except for the edits at side 1/2 and 3/4 (flipping the records) it has unchanged content. But index 2 was set differently on my copy. It starts at least 10s too late…
And I guess all later versions are remasters.
¹) facts: PMDC operated under this name between 1993 and 1999, the disc has SID codes, therefore not until 1994. There are documented versions with the exact same glass master, repressed by Universal M&L and Cinram. I also checked the sub-channel - in contains ISRCs but no pregaps and mid-1990s they usually cared about that. It’s more likely from the late 1990s.
I think the only annotation needed will be to note that the LP lengths are just written notes on the cover which are approx music lengths. Quite noticeable when you look in that RG that CDs seem to be five mins longer… but that is just going to be the in between bits.
I did start to spot some kind of oddities on some CDs, track 1 CD2 seems to change length. And a couple of tracks are ten seconds different in length. Need more DiscIDs nailed in the annotations so the flame thrower can be used on the pre-NGS data…
Now I should add annotations to the recordings…
But there is another thing that has to mentioned: the recording date!:
Now, not unusual in 1980, it is a straight honest live album, “marginally” dubbed and remixed, taken from various shows and declared to be recorded at “Paris Pavillon, November 29th, 1979” - that’s noted on all releases, from vinyl to remastered CD.
Wikipedia says: “It was recorded on Supertramp’s Breakfast in America tour in Paris, France, with most of the tracks taken from a 29 November 1979 show at the Pavillon de Paris”
Where does the date 1979-12-01 come from? It was referenced by this article: Supertramp - Live in Paris 2CD/DVD reissue | Steve Hoffman Music Forums …is this a reliable source? Rodger Hodgson said in an interview that they picked the tracks for the album by voting on available versions and most of the votes were for versions recorded at the Nov 29th show…
“Live” dates can be tricky. Pretty common that a “live” album is made up of best bits. Albums like Pink Floyd’s Pulse and Delicate Sound of Thunder can have a single track made up from three gigs and some studio overdubs!
So pick the date(s) that feels best from what you read. If you feel like getting into overkill, annotate the recordings. I like to turn annotations into boiled down versions of history I learn elsewhere online.
As a fan, you are one of the best people to edit it. You know what you want to see in the data.
And yeah, I’d treat that Hoffman site as pretty reliable. They are some extreme nutters on there. They like their details. But this is why we quote our sources. So when someone reads this in five years time they know why you chose the dates you did.
…between Dreamer and Rudy are approx. 25 seconds applause. Even if there are no spoken words this album has a lot of applause between the tracks. That’s why the vinyls are that much shorter.
… and that’s a good thing. The live album should be made of the best parts of the whole tour and other improvements are welcome too. No problem, if it’s even better than live.
Are the LPS shorter? Or just the times are of the music? If you have it, put the vinyl on and use a stopwatch to time each side. I bet it gets close to the CD length…
I also believe Recording annotations can be as long and wordy as needed. The fan wants to know this knowledge. And if I spent an evening looking this stuff up, then I am going to store it somewhere I can find it again.
Yeah, I agree with this. But is is also fascinating when you realise someone has sat down and worked out where each chunk came from! Some of the details you find in Pink Floyd forums can be insane!
I guessed that was the case. So the LP is longer than the sum of the written track times. This is why you are merging the recordings - the written track times are just the music and not the crowd.
I actually planned to set them all to Nov 29th… Then they would be clearly distinguishable from the 2012 remix versions which were recorded “officially” on Dec 1st.
Thanks …but if the Hoffman site is reliable, the date should be in the database, not only annotation, although that makes it more complicated. 2012 recordings will also have Dec 1st and there’s a 2010 deluxe edition mentioned. It’s not on MB but recordings may appear in compilations too. I try to do my best but I must admit I’m not a huge Supertramp fan either.
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