Columbus set on VU&N Deluxe

[Mark]

I was surprised to see it mentioned in passing on the WL/WH thread that the Columbus live set on last year's expanded banana set is nothing more than a rip of the Move Back set, complete with diginoise artefacts (and presumably missing portions in the instrumentals, as flagged up by feelingfresh on here a while back). Can anyone confirm that this is the case? I'm yet to hear the VU&N set and it seems very disappointing if so.

At some point there was a thread on how to assemble the best sounding / most complete version of this show from various boots - Move Back's rep as being the definitive edition being apparently somewhat underserved. Can't remember whether that ever reached completion though. Anyone?

[nick257]

Its not a rip of the move back set - it has better sound than that boot. It is without a doubt the best version out there soundwise. I haven't checked in detail for glitches or edited sections, so cant really speak to that, but would be interested to hear from others.

[Mark]

From memory I think there are artefacts during Heroin on Move Back.

Here's the thread where the cuts to Melody Laughter are discussed:

http://www.velvetforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4278

I'd forgotten but apparently there is another boot, 'Velvet Underground 1966', which has a better / more complete rendering than Move Back, albeit running slow. It'd be nice to know that the official release beats them all though!

[PhantomRaspberryBlower]

Here are samples from Move Back and the VU&N 45th Anniversary versions. I've boosted the volume of the Move Back clip but made no other alterations.

Heroin 45th: http://www.sendspace.com/file/cqmsqx

Heroin Move: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nk5cph

Judge for yourselves.

I haven't trawled through Melody Laughter to check if the cuts are the same, but the track is 28m 26s on both versions and they are at the same pitch/speed so, again, judge for yourselves.

The show on the 45th version has had a little work done on it (compression, limiting?) but it's essentially the same as the Move Back boot (barring track indexes) and virtually identical sound quality. Not sure what you're listening to, Nick!

[leamanc]

I'm pretty familiar with this material. I have two copies of the 1966 vinyl and a CD version; Move Back; the entire show on the CD set Caught Between the Twisted Stars; and the VU&N 45th set.

In my opinion:

1966 has pretty strong quality, as if it's an early-gen copy. But it only has the two long songs that open and close the show.

CBtTS has a tad more hiss than 1966, and Move Back is slightly better in this regard. VU&N 45th is only slightly better than all the rest -- we're talking minor improvements across the board. As mentioned above, it's ikely some compression plus some more modern noise/hiss reduction that gives it the advantage.

But, really, in all of its available forms, it's a B or B- grade bootleg for its era.

If you''ve got a complete show you are happy with, it's probably not worth spending money on something else. The improvements in fidelity are minor.

Listening to the Gymnasium show on the WL/WH set recently', I thought what a shame it is that the 1966 Columbus set is not available in similar fidelity. I love the Gymansium show a lot, but the song selection and performances at Columbus are truly freakin' epic! Even as much as I've listened to this material, it never ceases to amaze that a rock band was doing this stuff in 1966.

[Mark]

1966 has pretty strong quality, as if it's an early-gen copy. But it only has the two long songs that open and close the show.

1966 has the full thing - unless you mean the original vinyl release?