Meddler Format: CD Catalog: HRV CD 0001 Harvested Misc.: (C) 1971, 1997 BBC/The John Peel Show. Limited to 385. Produced: Mar 1997 USA Date: 710930 Matrix: Disc 1: Scratched Off Cover: Front: Meddle gatefold cover opened and mirrored to make it square again. Pink Floyd on left side, Meddler right side in yellow, similar font to US Meddle release. Back: Same image as front, tracklist top left, "Recorded live at the Paris Cinema, London September 30, 1971" at bottom, both in yellow, same font as front. Book: Folds open to reveal four Floyds like Meddle, dulled to grey from original picture. Historical notes in black over the picture. Liner: Large Harvested logo (very humorous!), black on white. LIMITED EDITION in bold black text. Smaller text "Limited Edition release totals 385 copies worldwide. No additional pressings will occur." Discs: Blue hazy looking silk screen, black text. "MEDDLER", "Harvested 30.9.71, BBC TS 2884, No 214". At bottom, "DEMONSTRATION ONLY, NOT FOR SALE OR BROADCAST (C) 1971, 1997 BBC/The John Peel Show" Sources: 30 Sep 1971, Paris Cinema, London Tracks: Disc: 1 1. Fat Old Sun 15:35 2. One Of These Days 6:57 3. Echoes 26:23 4. Embryo 10:32 5. Blues 5:24 Total Time: 64:51 Band: Roger Waters Nick Mason David Gilmour Rick Wright Comments: Original announcements seem to be intact. Sound quality is SUPERB, though mono it seems. One of These Days really wails! It is great. This disc is an instant collectors item - buy it on sight! I just got my copy of "Meddler" today and...well, dammit, I'm disappointed. First and worst, the entire thing-ALL of it-is in mono. Completely. Entirely. Start to finish. Also: 1. The edit between the applause after John Peel's introduction to "Fat Old Sun" and the start of the song is clumsy and obvious. 2. Peel's spoken bridge between "Fat Old Sun" and "One of these Days" is missing the reference to how "Fat Old Sun" sounded on the prior year's show. This is no doubt because the edited U.S. versions of this broadcast omit the reference, however the complete version -has- been issued on ROIO vinyl at least once. 3. The opening "thuds" to OOTD have been snipped. 4. The edit between Peel's intro and "Echoes" is again very clumsy and the first little false-start "pings" have been deleted. 5. Beginning at 0:49 in track 3 ("Echoes") faint applause has been inexplicably mixed in. 6. "Echoes" ends with mixed-in applause not on the recordings I've heard previously, though perhaps that's how it's now circulating to broadcasters. 7. "Embryo" has a WNEW station ID right in the middle, though this is a rare recording and possibly the best available. Having said that, it's a very -clean-mono and does sound quite good. And I'm -very-happy to have "Embryo" and "Blues" on there. But it's still mono, badly edited and very disappointing. I'm bummed because, quite frankly, I did a better job compiling a complete version of FOS, OOTD and E from a tape of a radio broadcast + an old vinyl ROIO by using a plain-Jane minidisc recorder. I was hoping this would put my cut 'n' paste job to shame, but sadly, the opposite is true. Oh, yeah, the "Harvested" label is a hoot, too. This is the complete broadcast, with the Embryo and instrumental Blues track missing from other RoIOs of this show. Sound is fantastic throughout. The Embryo and Blues are from a different source than the first three tracks, and is subsequently of different sound quality, but still great sounding none the less. The only drawback (to some) is that the disc is in mono. I really didn't notice,as I was far too busy enjoying the crisper, clearer sound than the "Echoes" Cd RoIO I already have, and the additional tracks. It's also nice to see a RoIO without all of the typical typos, wrong song titles,etc. If you didn't no better, based on the packaging alone, you would swear this was an official release. The liner notes are well done as well. Despite of all the busts in the industry, I hope this is an indication of quality products to come. A must have CD. This is the entire show of this historic performance. It was originally to have been made by Cool Daddy Productions (Azimuth Coordinator) However, after difficulty with dealing with Cool Daddy, the CD was made by someone else. This is a Limited Edition version with only 385 made! The sound quality on the first three tracks far surpasses the Swingin' Pig version. The two rarer tracks are about of the same quality as the Swingin' Pig ( had Swingin' Pig included these songs that is.) A beautiful job. The inside of the disc has a funny take on the Harvest label logo under the clear tray. The inside of the sleeve has the picture from the gatefold of Meddle with notes about the history of the recording, and how it came to appear on this roio. This is a must have, being (imho) one of Floyd's best shows. Very enjoyable listening and a nice collector's piece at only 385. The dissappointment of Meddler could easily be blamed on the unfortunate circumstances created by the Azimuth Coodinator fiasco (comments entered under that title are the prologue of this story). It could be blamed on almost 200 pre-sold copies that never existed. It could be blamed on a veteran audio engineer who really fucked up. It could be blamed on reaching for too high a goal, heralding Meddler as the "next great thing". But unfortunately the final decision to send Meddler to the RoIO ovens was mine, and in that I am to blame for it's failure. Meddler should have never been released without the few missing bits, and especially not in MONO! The Paris Cinema show from 1971 is one of my all-time favorites. It represents the band as a "band", four men who have been maturing musically and who would shortly reach a major turning point in their career. Growing up in the 70's, my friends and I always listened to the King Biscuit Flower Hour and the BBC Rock Hour, and each time this Floyd show aired, we would always tape it, upgrading our older tape copies. It's a classic show that has been re-released on RoIO's (vinyl and CD) time and time again (check out all the links to it!). Then why would I want to attempt to release it yet again? Here's why... All the other RoIO's were far from "perfect" sound quality. The vinyl RoIO's, even the best of them, had the usual "pops" and "ticks" associated with that format. All of the CD RoIO's seemed to be either copied directly off those early vinyl copies, or from tapes off radio broadcasts (similar to the ones I made years ago). Who even knew what generation these tapes came from, but regardless, the CD RoIO's sounded dull and compressed. I not only had a pristine copy of a BBC transcription LP from 1981 (show #214, broadcast the week of April 5th), but I also had the Westwood One CD's of the combined 1970 & 1971 shows (#93-39 broadcast the week of September 20, 1993) and a 2nd generation tape copy of "Embryo" and "Blues" from the WNEW broadcast. I figured that with all these sources, I could go into a studio, record all of them straight into a digital enviornment, and re-edit the entire show into it's original structure without any noise or generation loss. Because some of the source material came from the BBC vinyl LP, as clean as any LP is, there were still a few pops and ticks that had to be removed. A second studio was used to digitally "de-click" my master DAT that was created by the first studio. It was this 2nd DAT that was used to master Meddler to CD. Meddler was supposed to be released by Cool Daddy (or it's Floydian "Comfortably Cool"), and was going to be packaged in a tin box (that looked like it was once used to hold Sucrets) and was accompanied by an equally unimpressive booklet. In good faith, many pre-orders were taken for this title, even though literally thousands of dollars of orders were still unfullfilled with the AzCo box. "Just send MORE MONEY and I can get everything done," was David's answer to all the unfilled orders. I felt responsible for hooking up legitimate and very trusting sources to this Friscan bastard, and was glad that I held back on sending him the DAT for Meddler's mastering to CD. And when I told him to go fuck himself and that I didn't want anything to do with him, he promised to own up to all obligations within a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, not only were people screaming for their pre-paid orders for the AzCo, now they were also screaming for their pre-paid copies of Meddler as well, a title that would probably not be produced. This threatened to bankrupt one trusting individual as well as destroy a beloved Floydian institution, and I couldn't let that happen. The profits from Meddler would certainly take alot of the monetary burden off the idividual who had to return all the money from the unfilled AzCo orders. So, I dumped some more money into the project and went to a 3rd studio to remaster the DAT to CD. The engineer who mastered it to CD noticed that the stereo separation on my DAT was either very subtle or non-existant. I didn't know what to say...I THOUGHT my masters were in stereo. Anyway, I was past the point of no return (I was paying for this studio time regardless) and when I returned home, I realized I had a serious problem when I found my masters were in fact stereo! What the fuck happened? What to do? So much pressure to get this one out. It was due months ago! The sound quality is incredible, but the mono issue really dug into me. But alas, after debating with the person who was really in trouble, we decided to go ahead with the pressing. There were other factors involved as well. It was very tricky having Meddler produced stateside, and we approached the factory as a legitimate client. We even had them sign phoney BBC disclosures agreeing to press a limited amount of copies, and returning their "glass master" to us (which they would normally hold onto for a year). Figuring out how Meddler ended up being mono (I couldn't play the DATs I was creating...I didn't have a deck), and then fixing it would have taken too long and would have disturbed the schedule with the factory. Meddler was ultimately released in perfect mono, with surprisingly few critics. But one particular posting to "Echoes" (that is also posted with these comments) brought up some major flaws (as well as some petty bullshit) that caught me by surprise. I knew that my Westwood One CD's of the combined shows did not include "Fat Old Sun", the first 50 seconds of "Echoes" or the original DJ banter. That would be cut in from the vinyl source. But in my ignorance, I didn't realize that WW1 also edited the opening bass lines from "One Of These Days" (the band was known for beginning the song without it on occasion). Also, because we were mixing in the first minute of "Echoes" (which came from BBC vinyl) with the rest of the song (from the WW1 CD), a bit of the crowd can be heard as the two formats are cross-dissolved. I couldn't live with all this shit. It had to be fixed! To prevent a long story from drawing out any further, here's what happened in the end. The engineer who de-clicked the original DAT, somehow fucked up and turned it into a mono signal. He said he would fix it for me, all I had to do was return the DATs to him. The next day I called to confirm that the tapes had arrived. There was good news, the DATs arrived; and there was bad news, the engineer suddenly no longer worked at that studio. Thankfully, the guy running the place sympathized with my position, and said he would redo it for me when he had time. Two weeks later I got the de-clicked tape back and went back into the 3rd studio to remaster it back to CD, but this time we started from scratch! All the pieces were input back into the digital, non-linear editing system, restoring the entire OOTD and also the original ending (and crowd response) of "Echoes." Just to amuse myself, I also added John Peel's original intro just before "Embryo." This gave me the best of both world's; the original BBC Rock Hour just as I used to hear it when I was a kid, and now the extra songs were included as well. Everything is in perfect stereo and what a difference that makes. You can distinctly here what each band member is playing throughout the recording. I'd love to share this CD with everyone, and maybe one day it will happen. But for now, those days are behind me. Working with Great Dane was one thing, but all this other shit one has to deal with (not to mention the legaltiy) is just too much. I eventually did run off 10 CDR's from my stereo master which are now in the hands of a few fortunate people who I know really appreciate the quality and the amount of effort that went into creating it. I wonder if the band actually realize what an incredible official release this would make?! They really should produce it, because for now, I'm through meddling.... As the author above noted, there is indeed a stereo version about in extremely limited quatities. You will know if you have one :-) These discs came with original Meddler packaging and are unmarked CDR's. As noted the starts and endings are now in place and the disc is truly a joy. Over time I am sure that copies of this disc will filter through to people who know people who know people... until someone presses a whole bunch!