Why do the guitars sound so crappy and muffled on the Ladies and Gentlemen soundtrack compared to Get Yer Yas Yas Out. On Ya Yas the guitars and bass jump out of the speakers and sound so clean whereas , particularly Keith and Bill sound muddled and weak. Could L&G be remasterd to sound like Ya Yas

'72 was my favorite Stones tour. SOOOOOO disappointed in the sound quality of L&G.

Ya-Ya has been heaviky produced and post-produced by no less than Glyn Johns.
Ladies And Gentlemen was meant to be a concert movie to be shown at low-fi theatres and that was all: nobody cared to clear the sound or do overdubbings, under Johns’ or someone else’s direction. IMO, bye Luca

My theory is there is no dedicated stereo mix. In other words, they took a quad mix and “folded it down” to stereo. Same reason some amateur stereo mixes sound bad in mono. A good engineer always checks a stereo mix in mono. In the case of the Stones, they just bumped four speakers into two without getting a new mix on it.

I think Brussels should be compared to both, perhaps in a 'best of' comparison.

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Taylor1
Why do the guitars sound so crappy and muffled on the Ladies and Gentlemen soundtrack compared to Get Yer Yas Yas Out. On Ya Yas the guitars and bass jump out of the speakers and sound so clean whereas , particularly Keith and Bill sound muddled and weak. Could L&G be remasterd to sound like Ya Yas

I would think that with today's technology, they could have remastered and remixed L&G to sound STELLAR! it's a hot performance but I rarely listen to it because I hate the way it sounds. I've heard better sounding bootlegs.

"Gonna find my way to heaven ..."

The Blu Ray is slightly better. Yeah, something's weird. It seems it would be a breeze to expand the Quadrophonic to 5.1 stereo.

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TravelinMan
My theory is there is no dedicated stereo mix. In other words, they took a quad mix and “folded it down” to stereo. Same reason some amateur stereo mixes sound bad in mono. A good engineer always checks a stereo mix in mono. In the case of the Stones, they just bumped four speakers into two without getting a new mix on it.

I agree. But there are no excuses for how crappy every instrument sounds when we can hear them, imo.

The professional recordings I’ve heard from the ‘72 and ‘73 tours are atrocious! I don’t listen to Ladies and Gentlemen much either because of the sound. The drums sound terrible, the kick sounds like a cardboard box for the most part. The bass sounds like what Jaba the Hut looks like, fat and shapeless. Everything sounds lifeless. The ‘69 and ‘71 tour recordings are miles better. I don’t know who did ‘72 especially, but I hope they didn’t stay long in the business.

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britstones
The professional recordings I’ve heard from the ‘72 and ‘73 tours are atrocious! I don’t listen to Ladies and Gentlemen much either because of the sound. The drums sound terrible, the kick sounds like a cardboard box for the most part. The bass sounds like what Jaba the Hut looks like, fat and shapeless. Everything sounds lifeless. The ‘69 and ‘71 tour recordings are miles better. I don’t know who did ‘72 especially, but I hope they didn’t stay long in the business.

I think Andy Johns was part of the crew.

I really hope the band has and releases tapes that sound better.

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1963luca0

Ladies And Gentlemen was meant to be a concert movie to be shown at low-fi theatres a

Actually, I think it was the opposite.

The initial exclusive engagements in NY and LA had extra stacks of speakers pumping concert-volume quadraphonic sound.

It wasn't a huge hit at the box office.

The low-fi screenings came later when it was given a wider run at midnight screenings to make some money back.

They don't want to spend money on production that could go straight into their pockets since there's not much money to recoup in album sales anymore. That's the only reason I can think of...they don't want to lose money.

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sanQ
They don't want to spend money on production that could go straight into their pockets since there's not much money to recoup in album sales anymore. That's the only reason I can think of...they don't want to lose money.

That’s probably true, it’s really sad how the Stones treat their legacy really.
If there was anything good about Zep ending so early it gave Page years to go through all the audio and video and reclaim it.
A lot of the live footage had degenerated and they had to painstakingly piece it together.
I’ve posted here about a million times how the Stones need to hire a curator to gather all their audio and video and restore it but it’s as if they don’t give a shit.
It’s sad and frustrating.

Yeah, it is a shame - even a crime - how it sounds like. The band is smoking - even not being the hottest performance in the tour, far from that, but still the band at its absolute peak - and it hearts my heart 'hearing' it but still not hearing it... That said, in some songs it sounds rather fine, such as "Happy" and "Love In Vain".

- Doxa

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1963luca0
Ya-Ya has been heaviky produced and post-produced by no less than Glyn Johns.
Ladies And Gentlemen was meant to be a concert movie to be shown at low-fi theatres and that was all: nobody cared to clear the sound or do overdubbings, under Johns’ or someone else’s direction. IMO, bye Luca

Incorrect, it was one of the first dolby surround recordings actually, and the recording does future overdubs here and there. It was simply recorded terribly.

Funny thing is that the Ahmet Ertugun tape of the first Fort Worth show (the one with Don't Lie to Me) is an excellent sounding recording, and the 'Keep Your Motor Running' Philly recordings do not sound bad either. The rest is quite crap though.

Mathijs

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britstones
The professional recordings I’ve heard from the ‘72 and ‘73 tours are atrocious! I don’t listen to Ladies and Gentlemen much either because of the sound. The drums sound terrible, the kick sounds like a cardboard box for the most part. The bass sounds like what Jaba the Hut looks like, fat and shapeless. Everything sounds lifeless. The ‘69 and ‘71 tour recordings are miles better. I don’t know who did ‘72 especially, but I hope they didn’t stay long in the business.

Come on, the sound quality of the recordings from 1973 (London and Brussels) on the NASTY MUSIC bootleg is just spectacular! It blew me off my socks when I heard it for the first time back in 1977!

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treaclefingers
I think Brussels should be compared to both, perhaps in a 'best of' comparison.

Brussels is very crisp and really pristine audio . (this is the one where Mick Jagger says "this is a guitar assault ")



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-03-17 12:38 by TheGreek.

I do not like L&G soundwise.GYYYO Sounds so much better. And so do the recordings from 1971 (Leeds, London Roundhouse & Marquee).

I think you're wrong about this. L&G was originally released to theaters w/ quadrophonic capabilities. It was supposed to simulate being at a live Rolling Stones Show. I saw it at the Biograph theater in January '74 with the quad sound - it sounded much better than the DVD/CD release. I agree that the sound / mix on the DVD/CD is horrible - I rarely listen to it because it is so bad. It's really disappointing that the DVD/CD becomes the audio representation of that tour. The Stones need a 'Giles Martin' to oversee a project such as this. Surely, if someone,[who cared about the significance of this recording,]had spent some time with the masters they could have done a better job. The STP tour was amazing; the set list, the band, and Mick Taylor really shined on this tour.

It's "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!" - Stones knowledge 101.

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RWFish
Surely, if someone,[who cared about the significance of this recording,]had spent some time with the masters they could have done a better job.

That was the problem: they didn't have the masters.

Mathijs

I've always thought that maybe the master tapes for L&G are missing. It seems that all of the other recordings from the vaults have been meticulously mixed and mastered (for better or worse!), the official release of this doesn't sound one bit better than the best bootlegs.

That said, I still love it! It sounds a lot better than the early bootlegs.

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Ross
I've always thought that maybe the master tapes for L&G are missing. It seems that all of the other recordings from the vaults have been meticulously mixed and mastered (for better or worse!), the official release of this doesn't sound one bit better than the best bootlegs.

That said, I still love it! It sounds a lot better than the early bootlegs.

Leeds 1971 still sounds like the bootleg, imo.

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DandelionPowderman

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Ross
I've always thought that maybe the master tapes for L&G are missing. It seems that all of the other recordings from the vaults have been meticulously mixed and mastered (for better or worse!), the official release of this doesn't sound one bit better than the best bootlegs.

That said, I still love it! It sounds a lot better than the early bootlegs.

Leeds 1971 still sounds like the bootleg, imo.

Leeds isn't the greatest, but at least we now have the whole thing...and in Stereo for the first time. I would really like to have the whole Roundhouse show!

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Ross

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DandelionPowderman

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Ross
I've always thought that maybe the master tapes for L&G are missing. It seems that all of the other recordings from the vaults have been meticulously mixed and mastered (for better or worse!), the official release of this doesn't sound one bit better than the best bootlegs.

That said, I still love it! It sounds a lot better than the early bootlegs.

Leeds 1971 still sounds like the bootleg, imo.

Leeds isn't the greatest, but at least we now have the whole thing...and in Stereo for the first time. I would really like to have the whole Roundhouse show!

Yes, indeed!

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RWFish
I think you're wrong about this. L&G was originally released to theaters w/ quadrophonic capabilities. It was supposed to simulate being at a live Rolling Stones Show. I saw it at the Biograph theater in January '74

Are you sure?? I remember that it was released in L.A.(more specifically in Century City) --in the summer of '74. I know it opened in NY, but I didn't think it played there that much earlier.

Ya-Ya's, my favorite and arguably the greatest live album!

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Mathijs

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RWFish
Surely, if someone,[who cared about the significance of this recording,]had spent some time with the masters they could have done a better job.

That was the problem: they didn't have the masters.

Mathijs

Why not?

My understanding is that the Stones do not have many of their earlier master tapes, especially not the raw x-track masters and that they are lost to time.

This is due to the fact that their recording locations and situations were always scattered and did not use the same studios more than a couple times, and hence never somehow collected up their masters and those then either got recorded over (happens more than you would think) or otherwise went into the netherworld. No one was keeping track of their master tapes, only (presumably) the stereo mixdown masters, they would leave with what they needed to put together an album and just kind of leave the rest at the studio and rarely try to retrieve them.

As opposed to the Beatles who consistently used the EMI studios and had all their tapes archived there and accessible to vault archivists.

Not only that but often the Stones recordings were of somewhat less than state of the art in recording technology because they used less than the best studios, and hence some sketchy sounding master tapes were used for final mixdowns etc.

This would explain the dearth of available outtakes from certain sessions released as bonus tracks or as "vault" releases, and would also explain how so many studio outtakes and seemingly pro recorded live sessions got out into the bootleg world, when the abandoned masters were "discovered" by people with access to studio archives and then purloined and released via underground sources.

I have also read that the Rolling Stones Mobile Recording truck's recordings were especially vulnerable to sticky fingers as it were and few of them survived in their original form (eg: not mixed down to stereo or mono).

jb