[nathanm]

I'm sure everyone and his brother is familar with Led Zeppelin's music but personally I have never actually owned any of their albums until now (bought the 1st two albums which are stickered with "remastered from the original tapes" etc.) so I have a few questions about the recording.  

Okay, so on Led Zeppelin II there's that drum solo in Moby Dick which starts at 1:00 into the tune.  Bonham plays lightly and everything's fine but a ways into the drum bit all of a sudden the mic gain (or something) goes way up and the drums get all distorted like either the mic pres or the tape is overloading and getting all crunchy.  Is this the way it was or is it just this "remaster" or my system?  And it's not just that song, it seems like the drums in general are rather oversaturated\distorted.  Overall the recording kicks ass and I really enjoy these two records, but I was just curious if others had noticed the hairy drum sound at all.

[Andrikos]

Wow!
I'm still trying to process the fact that you never owned a Led Zep cd before now!!!!
Well, I never noticed it on mine, it may very well be there or it may be your remastered cd's.
Or it may be the fact that you have a very girly/infant hearing (i.e. good) as opposed to us manly men that can't hear past 8kHz!!

[ctviggen]

I never owned Led Zep and likely never will -- they were so overplayed when I was younger that I can't stand listening to them.

[Andrikos]

I agree with that.
On the classic rock radio stations, it seems that 50% of their content is Led Zep.

[Marbles]

If you really want to enjoy LZ, get their "How the West Was Won" DVD.

Absolutely great concert footage of the band. Moby Dick is just incredible.

[mcgsxr]

I have to back Marbles on this one, I am no fan of the Zep, all my friends played it to death, but when I saw this DVD, I was impressed.

Mark

[woodsyi]

Nathan,

Checked both vinyl and cd both of which were perchased in the early 80's.  No distortion on the drums.  Only thing I heard were some annoying distortion on guitar.  I definitely prefer the LP over CD, but what do I know!

[meilankev]

Nathan,

I've never listened to any Led Zeppelin CDs - all of my exposure has been on vinyl.  This Moby Dick cut has no distortion on my two discs (one "regular" vinyl, and one is 180g).  But then again, I remember you and I discussed "When the Levee Breaks" a few months ago, and we had different responses to that cut as well.

Perhaps it's the "vinyl vs digital" presentation/playback.  Perhaps your ears are more sensitive to "irregularities" than mine.  Who knows?

Another tidbit of trivia on Led Zeppelin II is the song "Ramble On".  That incessant tap-tap-tap drumming (coming from just left of center) is John Bonham using a guitar case as a drum.  I never knew this until a few weeks ago when a guy (who had been a professional Rock drummer for 20 years) came over to my house to hear my system.  Ramble On is one of my favorite songs to play for folks, and after we listened to this, he told me the scoop.  I've had the album for almost 30 years, but didn't know about the guitar case.

Kevin

[SWG255]

I'm going to offer a contrary opinion here, but it's based on some rather old memories of how the vinyl sounded when I last played it, and some general observations on what happens as re-mastering quality improves with rock music from this era.

I remember the drum sound as being just a bit distorted on my original vinyl copy of Led Zeppelin I. To my ears this sounded more like tape, mic or tube preamp overload than mistracking or the kind of general distortion from electronics.

When CDs came on the scene, many such albums were remastered for the new format and the sound was often squashed, bright and fatiguing. Over the last few years, remasters have arrived which sound better. These allow one to hear "further back" into the recording process, to the point where tape saturation, mic or electronics overload becomes audible. This kind of distortion sounds very different from the "digital artifacts" common to the first or second generation of remastered CDs. Early CD remasters are often so vieled that one doesn't even hear the tape hiss which was almost an integral part of the sound of recordings from this era. On a good system this hiss should be audible, because the signal-to-noise ratios of even the very best tape gear of this era didn't exceed 60 to 70 DB, with typical values being in the range of 58 to 64 DB. This is some 20 to 30 DB less dynamic range than CDs.  

Several recordings I own on CD which are remasters from this era exhibit various kinds of analog distortion, which as my system has improved, has become more clearly audible and more importantly, more clearly identifiable as analog distortion which must've been on the master tapes, or on the "safety copies" from which the CD masters were created. Two cases in point come immediately to mind:

The Blind Faith MFSL gold CD, where a great deal of over saturated tube distortion may be heard on the guitars, bass guitar and drums.  The second is my re-mastered Moody Blues "Question of Balance" CD, where the oversaturated drums on the title cut are clearly audible.

For me, part of the fun of listening to vintage recordings like these on a good system is to hear these artifacts, which to me, are as much a part of the recording's presentation  as the music itself.

Modern digital mastering techniques using modern software and hardware can often eliminate many of these warts, and althugh when well done this can lead to anhanced enjoyment of the music, when abused it can wreck the musicality of the record. If I have the choice, I'll take the musicality with the "sonic warts" over the prestine remastered presentation that sounds sterile or fatiguing.

Rock on!

I'm sure everyone and his brother is familar with Led Zeppelin's music but personally I have never actually owned any of their albums until now (bought the 1st two albums which are stickered with "remastered from the original tapes" etc.) so I have a few questions about the recording.  

Okay, so on Led Zeppelin II there's that drum solo in Moby Dick which starts at 1:00 into the tune.  Bonham plays lightly and everything's fine but a ways into the drum bit all of a sudden the mic gain (or something) goes ...

[nathanm]

I can post an MP3 of the track so ya'll can hear what I am describing.  It's not a superfine subtle detail thing, you could probably hear it on any system.  I dunno, it just seemed a bit odd and I was curious if it was always there on older pressings or not.

I remember the drum sound as being just a bit distorted on my original vinyl copy of Led Zeppelin I. To my ears this sounded more like tape, mic or tube preamp overload than mistracking or the kind of general distortion from electronics.

Yes, definitely!  It's a grungy analog-sounding distortion, not a digital clip type of sound.  It's like the engineer punched in some additional channels and the gain went up too high or something.  Hmmm.

[nathanm]

I can post an MP3 of the track so ya'll can hear what I am describing.  It's not a superfine subtle detail thing, you could probably hear it on any system.  I dunno, it just seemed a bit odd and I was curious if it was always there on older pressings or not.

I remember the drum sound as being just a bit distorted on my original vinyl copy of Led Zeppelin I. To my ears this sounded more like tape, mic or tube preamp overload than mistracking or the kind of general distortion from electronics.

Yes, definitely!  It's a grungy analog-sounding distortion, not a digital clip type of sound.  It's like the engineer punched in some additional channels and the gain went up too high or something.  Hmmm.

[SWG255]

I have the "original" Zep 1 and 2 on CD, and the sound was disappointing. Since I like these two albums, maybe I'll just buy the remastered versions and see what I hear.

[nathanm]

Unfortunately I only have 2MB of free space on my account, so I can only offer part of the drum solo.  But here is the most obnoxious of the distortion.  In the original song it occurs right at 3:00 into it,  in my excerpt you will hear a gross increase in grunge, especially on the left channel at 1:12.

Led Zeppelin MP3 192KBps 1.9MB:
http://my.execpc.com/~saruman/temporary_pics/MobyDickRemasteredExcerpt.mp3

The more I listen to the song the more apparent how overdriven the whole thing is.  Was it always this bad?  Hmmm.  To me it seems most objectionable in the drums, as the kick\cymbals hits are all fuzzy in places.