#vinylcommunity #ledzeppelin #masteringengineer
----------------------
**CORRECTION**:
In the video, I erroneously referenced Ahmet Ertegun's "daughter" when it was his NIECE:
"The story goes that Atlantic founder Ahmet Ertegun gave a copy to his brother Nesuhi to give to his daughter. Her "kiddie" phonograph couldn't track the record, which had been cut with full dynamic range and bass response (the notion that vinyl can't do wide dynamic range or deep bass is a bunch of hooey)." from Michael Fremer article: www.analogplanet.com/content/...
----------------------
CHAT GPT UPDATE STORY 20-Nov-2023
The discovery that the initial pressings of Led Zeppelin II had a manufacturing error that caused a skip in the "Whole Lotta Love" track was made by a listener named Barry Diament. Barry Diament was a high school student at the time, and he noticed the skip while listening to the album on his newly purchased copy.
Diament brought the issue to the attention of Atlantic Records, Led Zeppelin's record label, and it was confirmed that there was a problem with the pressing of the album. The skip occurred at around the 4:12 mark of "Whole Lotta Love." The error was related to the mastering and pressing process during the manufacturing of the vinyl records.
------------------------
The classic 2nd LP from Led Zeppelin, appropriately named Led Zeppelin II, was a smash hit in 1969.
The opening track, Whole Lotta Love, was a 45RPM single in the US (the UK decided not to release it as a single at the request of their manager, Peter Grant) and reached #4 on the Billboard charts. The song timed in at 5:44 on the LP and the DJ Radio single had that track on one side and a 3:12 edited version on the flip side for radio play. That edit was disliked by Grant and the band for obvious reasons. Would you cut off part of the body of the Mona Lisa painting?
That song, with the intense bass lines was mastered and cut by Robert "Bob" Ludwig who was with Sterling Sound at the time. He famously inscribed his RL initials in the deadwax to identify his work. He was one of the first to provide that unique Mastering Engineer ID and it certainly helped in this case!
Anyway, this video tells the story of what happened on that first mastering effort and why it was pulled and modified just as the LP gained traction in the market. And how future presses were sourced which really was a surprise to me! All these years, this was news to me.
Hope you find something interesting here as well. Thanks for watching.