Pink Floyd - 1977-02-25 - Paris, FR (AUD/FLAC) "Animals aux Abattoirs" (HRV CDR 038)

(Audience FLAC)

Animals aux Abattoirs (HRV CDR 038)
(16bit/44.1kHz)

Paris, Porte de Pantin, Pavillon de Paris, 25Feb77

Lineage:
AKG mics & Uher reel-to-reel recorder > Europe Type I tapes > Technics RS-B965-M > Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 > Audacity 1.3 > FLAC (24bit/96kHz) > MOB Remastering > FLAC (16bit/44.1kHz)

Recorded by GD
1st gen cassette provided by Finkployd49
Transfer by Neonknight
Remastering by MOB
Quality Control by RonToon
Artwork by Ediskrad Studios
Produced by Harvested Records

Disc One
01. Sheep
02. Pigs On The Wing Pt.1
03. Dogs
04. Pigs On the Wing Pt.2
05. Pigs (Three Different Ones)

Disc Two
01. Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pt.1-5
02. Welcome To The Machine
03. Have A Cigar
04. Wish You Were Here
05. Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pt.6-9
06. Money

This is a fabulous audience recording of the last of 4 consecutive nights in Paris during the In The Flesh 1977 tour. These Parisian concerts were performed at the Pavillon de Paris, which was a concert hall built at the place of an ancient slaughterhouse ("abattoirs de la Villette" in French). The idea to bring the Animals Tour at a slaughterhouse is kind of ironic, hence the title of this release.

An excellent 1st gen tape provided by Finkployd49 was transferred by Neonknight in 2011, and the present Harvested release is a remastered version of this 1st gen tape transfer.

The remastering addressed mainly 3 aspects. First, on the rough transfer the speed was not consistent, the pitch increasing slightly as the show progressed. The speed of the first part of the Animals set is correct but it begins to accelerate during Dogs resulting in a 1.7% increase at the end of Pigs. A similar accelerating effect occurs for the second set, with 1.2% correction needed at the beginning of SOYCD 1-5 and 2% correction at the end of SOYCD 6-9. During Money, the acceleration is even more obvious where the first verse is 2% too fast and the last verse is 3% too fast. These speed fluctuations can be explained by batteries slowly losing power during the taping of the show. The present remaster corrects all of these speed issues.

Another aspect was the raw sound of the original transfer with some annoying saturation of particular frequencies during the loud parts and a kind of "narrow" spectrum due to prominent medium. Careful EQ was applied in order to reduce the annoying frequencies, and to let the music breathe more with a "fuller" sound. For instance, the depth of Roger's bass can be heard in its full glory on this remaster. Another example is the barking interlude in the middle of Dogs where the bass drum kicks now sound as they were likely to sound in the Pavillon that night.

Last but not least, the original recording was plagued with hundreds of mic bumps, probably caused by GD (the taper) moving during the show and touching his microphones. Every bump was carefully eliminated or attenuated manually in order to appreciate the music without these disturbances. This was the biggest challenge for this remaster, since it took dozens of hours to get rid of these mic bumps.

Other restoration work during this remastering process was to correct some tape drop-outs here and there, adjusting the levels of each channel and creating continuity (avoiding the cut due to tape flip) between Pigs On the Wing Pt.2 and Pigs, and between Welcome To the Machine and Have A Cigar. There was no NR applied for this remaster.

In regards to the performance this show is a real killer, with the band very inspired and tighter than during the last weeks of the U.S. tour (just listen to the Oakland show from May 9, or the Madison Square Garden concert from July 2, where the sound quality is fantastic but the performance is erratic at times). Also, the European audience was very polite and did not impose itself on the recording, unlike - again - the Oakland or the Madison Square Garden shows.