EX TO VG+ LED ZEPPELIN II 1969 1st press RL SS LP VINYL CTH Loud Hot Mix

$

585

EX TO VG+ LED ZEPPELIN II 1969 1st press RL SS LP VINYL CTH Loud Hot Mix

Media: VG+

Play tested. Plays through with nothing serious. Slight background noise in between songs and in low volume areas. My favorite song, “”Thank You,” has a little more BG noise than all of the others but it’s not Mint, NM or NM-. As far as background noise Thank You is more than any others. All of the other songs are consistently the same. On a scale of 1-10 the other songs are an 8.5 to 9. No spindle marks on the labels indicating played very little or taken good care of.

Inlay/Inner Sleeve Condition: G

Bright vivid colors. 4” seem split on the bottom. 2” on one side.

Cover: Fair

The cover tells a story. No seem splits indicating very little play. Water damage but the colors look as if they have never seen the light of day. The red and pink on the front cover really pop and jump off the page. And Jimmy Page’s hair is PINK! I don’t think I have Ever seen that before. The binding seems as if it had never been opened all the way. When you bend a book open all the way you break the binding. I truly believe the binding has not been broken or fully opened ever. I obviously didn’t want to take this away from the new owner and did my best to photo the inside gatefold.

I have more photos to send if you’d like. Because of the water damage this cover was hard to grade but consider it Poor to Fair.

Matrix:

ST-A-691672-1A RL SS

B:

ST-A-691672-D SS LH

The CTH PRESSING RL SS/SS LH Is a great version. The dead wax area of side B is very small/thin showing more information.

The sound quality of this Mix has a louder volume and generally more bass and high tones you don’t hear or feel on the other versions. Some pressings like this one you can feel the bass in your chest if you have great speakers.

Many near mint copies have recently sold for up to $4500 US. I’ve priced mine at what I think is a low or very fair price, but feel free to send me an offer.

Recent letter from Robert Ludwig about the rare original Hot Mix of Led Zeppelin.

I wrote Robert Ludwig in the last week and he wrote me back. All the versions from sterling are the same hot mix. The subtle variances between them are all simply from the slight differences in making a hand-made analog lacquer disc, at least one of which was sent to all the pressing plants at the time. The CTH plant got a lacquer that was half RL and half LH (Lee Hulko, his partner) but was of the SAME MIX AND MASTER, based on RL's notes. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME, aside from subtle variances and should be valued the SAME no matter who's initials are in the dead wax. They are all the same master from STERLING SOUND! Here is my reply from Robert Ludwig. Let this be the final word in this debate. Thanks!

Hi Jim,

I'm surprised about Lee Hulko's initials being on some of the parts. In all these years I had never come across any copies with his initials before.

When there were big orders of certain titles and there wasn't physically enough time for one person to crank out the lacquers as fast as the record company wanted, sometimes we would help each other out.

For instance, my initials might appear on a Beatles record that Lee mastered.

In every case, compared to now, those titles were relatively easy to master. Once one of us mastered an album and it was approved, we made careful notes, either one of us could cut it and it should come out the same. Back then, Lee and I shared the one room and worked different hours so it is possible one of the plants blew a part and needed a replacement right then with no delay.

So after I mastered the album (which Eddie Kramer & Atlantic approved) it was shipped to all the radio stations and the initial pressing was all from me and Sterling Sound.

Amhet Ertegun at Atlantic heard the album (which Eddie demanded be as hot as possible) and apparently it skipped on his daughters little turntable. Instead of calling us at Sterling and asking us to lower the level a little and telling us where it skipped, they had the disk cutters at Atlantic use my EQ'd cassette file copy and they cut it WAY lower than my original cut plus, in my opinion, it sounded dull and generally not very good sounding in comparison.

So all the disks that were played at the radio stations and all the initial pressings world wide came from me (and apparently Lee cut a part or two) and that was what "sold" the record and made it a hit. A year later, whenever I visited someone I would look at their Zeppelin II album to see if it was my cut or Atlantic's cut. It was easy to see by eye, the Atlantic cut ended much farther from the label and the grooves to the naked eye looked very conservative.

I still got to Master "Houses of the Holy" later on, no skipping problems with that as far as I know!

I hope this clears this up for you.

All my best,

Bob Ludwig

Gateway Mastering Studios Inc

Xxx _______ Ave

Portland Maine