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Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced (50th Anniversary 1967-2017) A Prof. Stoned Lifework (v2.0)
16bit/44.1kHz CD Quality FLAC

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*********************** Part I: USA Stereo Edition ************************
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01. Purple Haze
02. Manic Depression
03. Hey Joe
04. Love or Confusion
05. May This Be Love
06. I Don't Live Today
07. The Wind Cries Mary
08. Fire
09. Third Stone from the Sun
10. Foxy Lady
11. Are You Experienced

Bonus:
12. Red House
13. Can You See Me
14. Remember

All Tracks in Stereo 

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************************ Part II: UK Mono Edition *************************
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01. Foxy Lady
02. Manic Depression
03. Red House
04. Can You See Me
05. Love or Confusion
06. I Don't Live Today
07. May This Be Love
08. Fire
09. Third Stone from the Sun
10. Remember
11. Are You Experienced

Bonus:
12. Hey Joe
13. Stone Free
14. Purple Haze
15. 51st Anniversary
16. The Wind Cries Mary
17. Highway Chile
18. Burning of the Midnight Lamp
19. The Stars that Play with Laughing Sam's Dice

All Tracks in Mono 

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Sources: 

- Are You Experienced (LP, Album, RE, RM, Gat) Experience Hendrix/Sony Legacy 88697 62395 1 USA 2010 [M-] Part I: 01-11 
- Smash Hits (LP, Comp, RE, RM) Experience Hendrix/Sony Legacy 88985 303081 EU 2016 [M-] Part I: 12-14 
- Are You Experienced (LP, Album, Mono, RE) Barclay XBLY 820 143 France 1971 [M-] Part II: 01-11
- Classic Singles Collection Vol. 2 (10x7", Mono/Stereo, Box, Comp, Ltd) Experience Hendrix/Classic Records RTH 1008B USA 2007 [M-] Part II: 12,14-16,18
- Greatest Hits (LP, Comp, Mono) Barclay 921 020 France 1969 [EX+] Part II: 13
- War Heroes (LP, Album) Reprise Records MS 2103 USA 1972 [M-] Part II: 17
- Burning Of The Midnight Lamp (7", Single, Mono) Barclay 060.858 France 1967 [M-] Part II: 19

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Vinyl Recorded & Mastered using:

- Technics 1210mk2 
- Jelco SA-750D Tonearm
- Audio Technica AT33PTG MC 
- Pro-Ject Tube Box SE-2 (using a matched pair of Genalex Gold Lion tubes)
- RME ADI-2 A/D Interface @ 24/96
- Audition 3.0 (editing, manual clean up)
- Click Repair 3.9.1 (light automatic click setting)
- Cubase 5 
- Universal Audio Precision Bundle @ 24/96
- PMC IB2s Monitors 
- Yamaha NS-10 Monitors
- Acoustically treated environment 

All mono recordings mastered from a single stereo channel (no L+R folding).

Transfers & Restoration by Prof. Stoned

Part I, 01-11:             Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, 2010
Part I, 12-14:             Originally Mastered by Bernie Grundman @ Grundman Mastering, 2016; Remastered by Prof. Stoned, 2017
Part II, 01-11,13,19:         Remastered by Prof. Stoned, 2020
Part II, 12:             Mastered by Bernie Grundman @ Bernie Grundman Mastering, 2007
Part II, 14-16,18:         Originally Mastered by Ray Janos at Sterling Sound, 2007; Remastered by Prof. Stoned, 2020
Part II, 17:             Originally Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Sterling Sound, 1972; Remastered by Prof. Stoned, 2020

v1.0: 23-08-2017
v2.0: 13-06-2020 (stereo section identical to v1, mono section newly remastered, fourth UK single added)

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"Are You Experienced" In Mono [Researched & written by Prof. Stoned] (First published: Fall 2013, Revisited: Summer 2017)
 
Chas Chandler & Jimi Hendrix first visited IBC Studios (London) in late Nov./early Dec. 1966 to have lacquers produced for their debut single. They were assigned to Brian Carroll who only had had an ample year of work experience as a cutting engineer but he managed to impress Chandler with his effort that day. After this first session, Chandler started shipping the tapes of the following singles to IBC, assured that Carroll would translate them to disc in the best possible way. 

When it came to cutting the lacquers of the first British album in April '67, Chandler did not feel a necessity to attend the session, even though he had labored hard on the end-result. It appears Chandler sent a master tape with splices that had to be duplicated for use. Only one cutting was ever used for the original UK edition and it has a dull one-dimensional sound. Most likely, the reason for this lies with Carroll when copying the original tape. He cut the high-end and heavily compressed the sound, possibly with the intention to avoid jumping needles on the cheap phonographs of the day (as was not uncommon practice at the time). 

A production copy for Reprise with the 11-track UK sequence was prepared at Olympic Studios on May 12, 1967 (the same day that saw the British release). This tape had rough sounding tape patches inserted to replace a bit of audio at the end of both 'Fire' & 'Red House'. The latter track was never used by Reprise but the great majority of the tape ended up being the source for the American mono version of "Are You Experienced". The audio on this tape had received a similar lo-fi mastering treatment, although there are a few notable EQ differences to the UK pressing.

The rights to Hendrix recorded works belonged with Yameta Co. Ltd.; which was basically a partnership of Michael Jeffery & Chandler. Yameta had licensing deals with Polydor, Reprise & Barclay. The latter was a big independent company in France who pressed their own records and had a distribution network. They were probably among the first to receive a tape of the album. The Barclay tape is assumed to have been a flat copy from the banded master tape with EQ/compression instructions.  

Barclay did not receive a stereo master in the years that followed, thus they kept using the mono version all the way through the 70's. When a second pair of lacquers had to be cut around 1970, the original mastering instructions were ignored. So, while the original French pressing from 1967 sounds quite similar to the UK Track, the second cutting sounds much less compressed and has plenty of high-end information (which would be impossible to retrieve from a tape that sounds like the first pressing). The EQ balance is a bit off and the tape was played back on a stereo machine that was not calibrated properly but the full-frequency response on this cutting remains unheard elsewhere. Barclay did one more cutting around 1973, following the original mastering instructions, which again resulted in a muffled sounding pressing.

At least one other tape copy straight from the banded master is known to have been sent to the German-based company Polydor. Other than handling distribution for Track Records in the UK, they released the album globally (apart from North-America & France). Polydor had already stopped doing mono albums by 1967 but the stereo mixes were not available to them yet, so an electronically re-channeled “stereo” version was created, which arguably still has better fidelity than the UK Track. This master was used well into the 70's for the majority of international Polydor releases. Only in Japan, an exclusive mono reissue on vinyl was released by Polydor in 1977 but once again with unimpressive sound quality.
 
As the 70's progressed, Polydor replaced their fake stereo version with a poorly copied dub from the USA stereo masters (the same tape they hadn't bothered to make a copy of in 1967 before it was sent to Reprise). This was the source for the first CD reissue of the album in 1984, which contains a mix of stereo and two mono mixes: 'Red House' and 'Remember', both recorded directly from vinyl. 
The UK mono version remained suspiciously absent on the CD format in the following decades. Only 'Red House' was included on the 1997 remastered edition of "Are You Experienced" (again taken from vinyl with surface noise in stereo) and 'Can You See me' from the 2010 "West Coast Seattle Boy" with poor sound. 

In January 2013, a vinyl-only mono edition of "Are you experienced" was announced and advertised as being sourced from the original mastertapes. This turned out to be a bit of stretch: it was mastered from a mixture of 1st generation single masters & the production master that was sent to Reprise in 1967 (a picture of its box was taken during the 2013 mastering session). The dull sound presentation came as a disappointment to many listeners but it received positive reviews as well.        

Exactly what happened to the banded mono mastertape remains a mystery. My best guess is that it was thrown out in the 70's, along with the UK mono master of "Smash Hits" which may well have had the original tape master of 'Stone Free' pasted in. No tape copies seem to have survived, other than the aforementioned inferior USA tape. 

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Mastering Note (2017): 

I do not mean to imply that my mastering skills are equal or even close to those of seasoned professionals like Ludwig, Grundman or the late great George Marino. The only reason why I altered some of their works for this compilation is because I wanted all 31 recordings to be as sonically consistent as possible. The mastering used on the 2010 vinyl version on Sony Legacy is the standard that I tried to live up to. In my mind, Marino brought the best out of these recordings the second time that he worked on them (the first time was with Eddie Kramer on the 1997 remaster). 

I have re-used the raw 24/96 recordings from 2013 for Part II. The mastering process was done completely from scratch. Most of my thoughts and attention went into the 11 tracks from the Barclay album. The songs were recorded in different studios, mixed on different speakers with different engineers and then put together on a master reel, making it a real challenge to master this correctly. 
The 2016 RSD issue of "Smash Hits" appears to be a (nearly) flat transfer from the mixdown tapes as well. While some may consider that to be an asset, the record actually sounds pretty lifeless compared to the 2010 Legacy, so the three tracks included here needed some work. 

Those with a keen ear might notice that some of the mono album tracks run in a slightly different speed than the stereo versions. The pitch of the Barclay '70 cutting I have used matches exactly with the UK Track A1/B1 (as compared on the same turntable). The banded mastertape may have run slightly slower, like the stereo master but since I have no way of knowing this for certain, I have decided not to change the speed of the recordings. 

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Mastering Note (2020): 

The 2017 mono section turned out okay but the longer I listened to it, the more I felt there was room for improvement. As I have pointed out before, the source material has its problems and there's only so much you can do to bring out its strong suits. But I believe I have reached a better middle ground between clean sound and a full soundstage overall this time.