Sit Properly

One of the more popular and readily available Early ISKCON Records is the India LP by Acyutananda Swami released on the Radha Krsna Productions label. I’ve been spending much of my free time recording the vinyl to digital wav files and then cleaning them up via a program called Gnome Wave Cleaner.

A couple of mysterious things about this record’s cover and original label were discovered when I first ripped it to digital in 2007. I’ll further discuss those when I post the album in a few days.

However, the new mystery about this album was discovered just recently as I was cleaning it up.

I take very good care of my records. Prior to ripping them to digital, I bathe them, allow them to dry and then dust them. This removes fingerprints, dirt, dust and static. With the exception of larger scratches in the vinyl (if they exist), my records sound like new.

But this one didn’t. This one had crackles the whole way through it. Crackles are caused by static and dust (as opposed to scratches which are caused by damage to the record itself). This record was static and dust free, so there should be zero crackling.

This really puzzled me and right as I was about to reclean the record, it dawned on me. This pressing wasn’t recorded from its master tapes, but from the first pressing of the same record.

Basically, the first pressing of the India LP was recorded from the original master tapes. When it came time for a subsequent pressing, the master tapes were not available for some reason. In order to make another pressing, they had to find a copy of the first pressing and use that as the source – crackles, pops and all.

You can actually hear crackles and pops where no dust or scratches can be seen. Also, the right channel is pretty muddy and most of the crackles live there.

I was able to remove 99% of the crackles (which were very present on both sides of the LP). Some remain, but at a rate of roughly one minute per hour, I am being driven insane.

Additionally, I thought I had recorded this record’s volume too high. I was getting distortion at the louder parts (called “clipping”). But no, my levels were just fine. When this record was recorded from the original pressing, whoever did it didn’t bother to check the levels, so there’s a bit of clipping here and there. My next job is to somehow fix that a bit. We’ll see how I do.

Usually when you rip a record to digital you try to make it sound as close to the original as possible. In this case, my digital rip sounds better. The crackles are gone and hopefully some of the clipping will be gone. It’s almost as good as the original pressing must have sounded.

Early ISKCON Records are confusing. How and when they were recorded, cataloged, released and distributed are all nearly impossible to understand. The India LP adds a level of surrealism to that confusion.

More on all of this in a few days – including the download!

As promised a couple of days ago, I’ll be digitally rerecording all of my Classic ISKCON Vinyl. You can read all about that here. The first reselection is Temple Radha Krishna (not to be confused with the original Radha Krishna Temple that came out on Apple Records).

Temple Radha Krishna
Les Productions Parampara
RPI 101

Temple Radha Krishna was released by Les Productions Parapmara. That label released at least two other records. Temple Radha Krishna was the first (#101). Vrindavana (#102) and Goddess of Fortune (#103 – basically a bootleg of a bootleg of Apple’s Radha Krishna Temple) followed.

My thought is that Temple Radha Krishna was purposely named such to confuse people into thinking that this was the George Harrison produced record. Basically, if people think this is that, we can move more copies.

The cover image was also used for the Brahma-samita book. The cover itself is pretty cheaply made. The rear cover is in French but features a picture of George Harrison (along with Malati and Shymasundar prabhus – who both appeared on the Apple Records album). Acyutananda Swami is also pictured.

Acyutananda Swami is featured on four cuts. Bhagavan dasa has three. Yogesvara dasa has one, as does Srila Prabhupada.

Here’s a rundown and review of the songs.

Face 1 (apparently they’re called “faces” not “sides” in France)
1. Gaurangera Dutipada 6:32 – The first song is by Srila Prabhupada. The quality is clearly different than the rest of the record, so more than likely they just threw this on, taking it from another recording. I’m not sure if this specific recording is also on one of the Vintage Series CDs, but I wasn’t familiar with it before hearing it here.

2. Gaya Gora Madhur Svare 5:10 – Acyutananda Swami gives us our second cut with a sitar-driven rendition. There are also kartals very haphazardly played. However, his voice is really great in this. The production pushes the vocals, while the instruments are fairly lost in the back.

3. Gopinatha 4:05 – Things are slowed down here, with Acyutananda Swami at the helm once again. This was clearly from the same session as Gaya Gora Madhur Svare, above.

4. Radha-Madhava 5:02 – Bhagavan dasa takes over for the last cut on side one. This one is a soft, yet rocking kirtana style rendition of this daily-sung song. It’s got a harmonium, a mrdanga and a few kartals. Quite a fun track. It’s one that really makes this album great.

Face 2
5. Japa (Meditation) 1:05 – By “Les bhaktas assembles.” The second side starts us off with about a minute of japa as chanted in the temple by devotees. No one voice is featured. I wish they would have done a whole album of this. That would be fun.

6. Kesava Kali Mala 5:21 – And Acyutananda Swami is back for what is my favorite song on this album. It’s upbeat and fun. Also from the same session as the first two Acyutananda Swami tracks. Have a listen. It’s fun.

7. Radhe 5:21 – It’s time to slow things down a bit with another one of my favorite songs. Acyutananda Swami is on vocals again (his last song on this album). It features a droning sitar, kartals (played pretty well) and a mrdanga. The temp picks up towards the end.

8. Bhaja Bakata 1:50 – Sung by Bhagavan dasa, this is a quick clip of Gaura-arati played on the harmonium from the same session as track four. For some reason it slides right into the next track:

9. Hare Krsna 3:20 – A kirtana led by Yogesvara dasa. I’m not sure why they did the slide, but I have both songs (tracks 8 and 9) on one file so that the transition from one song to the next could be preserved. This is a too short, but fun kirtana with a cute female voice in the background yelling “Hare Hare!” Yogesvara dasa’s voice is great. I wish there were kirtanas of his floating around.

10. Hare Krsna 2:22 – This is weird and almost trance-like. Bhagavan dasa’s voice is soft and slow, followed by a harmonium. The kartals and the mrdanga are playing a much faster beat, in double-time. There’s also there are a few conchs blowing in the back ground. A great way to end this great album.

I’m really happy to be doing this. I hope it brings a smile to the devotees’ faces. I hope that someone out there remembers these albums. And if no one does, well maybe if you’re hearing them for the first time, you’ll play them again and again.

This album is available as high quality mp3s and as “lossless” FLAC files. For most of you, the MP3 at 320kbps will be more than sufficient.

Just click on the button and it’ll take you to a page where you can download the zip file. Then open the zip file with WinZip (or whatever program you use to open zip files). Add to your MP3 library or burn it to a CD-R. Easy as pie!

Download the FLAC files here.

Technical Information:
Media Used:
Vinyl LP from my personal collection.

Artwork Scanned from Original @ 300 dpi
Edited and Restored Using GIMP Image Editor 2.6.6

As you do things you care about, you get better at doing them. This certainly the case with how I digitally “preserved” my classic ISKCON vinyl and tapes. This practice involves recording the records or tapes with your computer and “ripping” them to a digital audio file (like WAV or MP3). Then, I had limited knowledge, resources, disk space and time. Some of that has changed.

I’m a bit more knowledgeable when it comes to preserving audio. Before I was kind of almost good enough. Honestly, it was the best I could do at the time, but it’s lacking in several areas. For one, I lost the original WAV files. I had only MP3s encoded at a 192kbps, which is almost alright, but is slowly becoming the low-end of almost alright.

My equipment has also been majorly upgraded. Before, I was using a plastic novelty turntable which was great for casual listening, but for anything more I would need to forge ahead. That’s what I did. Nowadays, I’ve got an Audio-Technica PL-120 (the poor man’s Technics SL-1200 series). The Audio-Technica PL-120 comes with a built in phono preamp, but something wasn’t right with it (has to do with messed up waveforms – don’t worry about it). I got myself a pretty decent TCC TC-750LC. It’s quite an improvement. And instead of my computer’s very iffy soundcard, I now use an Roland Edirol UA-1EX USB external soundcard.

Is there room for improvement? I’ll eventually pick up a Shure M97xE cartridge (needle, etc). But what I have now is much better than just good enough and that’s what I was shooting for.

On the software end, I used to use Cool Edit Pro – it’s a very good program that’s since been bought and replaced by Adobe (I haven’t used it, so can’t really comment on Adobe’s program). For this new project, I’ve decided to exclusively use the Linux operating system. Cool Edit (or whatever it’s called now) is expensive. Most things for Linux are free. I am using Audacity, a free audio software program that allows me to record, mix, edit and slightly repair audio files. It’s definitely more limited than Cool Edit Pro, but it does everything I need.

Another area where I’ve become more aware is how to handle, store, clean and play records. If they are cleaned, dusted and destaticed there will be very few pops and crackles. This is much more desirable than fixing it digitally. The better the source file, the better the end result.

When I did this before, I saved them as very low quality MP3s. MP3 is the accepted format, so I’ll definitely offer them again. This time they’ll be in 320kbps, high quality MP3s (the highest quality). I’ll also be offering them as “lossless” FLAC files. Most folks won’t care and the MP3s will be perfect for almost everyone, but for those who like FLAC, that’s what you’ll get.

I’m also rescanning the album covers and labels. Before, I scanned at a low quality, chopping off part of the cover or took a shaky picture with a crappy camera. Now, I’ll be scanning the entire cover (which requires four different scans to get the whole thing), back and front (so, eight scans). This is also done in Linux. I’m using Xsane for scanning and GIMP (a photoshop knockoff) put the four pieces together seamlessly.

All the software, including the operating system, is free and the results are every bit as good as I could do in Windows or Mac. This offsets the cost of equipment and records, you know, sort of.

I’ve just started, but I’ll be posting albums as often as possible. As for the tapes, I need a decent tape deck, which don’t seem to exist anymore. We’ll see how that works out.

The first album will be Temple Radha Krishna on the French Hare Krishna label Production Parampara. It was their first of at least three releases. It features Srila Prabhupada, Acyutananda Swami, Bhagavan dasa and Yogesvara dasa. Temple Radha Krishna is one of my favorite records and it’s great to come back to it. The results are obvious and I’m very pleased with it.

Check out the difference for yourself. Here is Acyutananda Swami doing “Kesava Kali Mala.” First, the old version…

And now, the newly reripped version…

Keep in mind that with the new versions, I didn’t touch the EQ. The sound, for better or for worse, is exactly like it was on the original vinyl LP. Who knows what I did to the old version. I probably ran it through some noise filter and some thing to take out pops and clicks, which took out parts of the kartalas too.

So get ready, every Classic ISKCON Record I own will be reripped to digital and posted here. I might post one every Ekadasi or something, but I’ll probably just post them as I do them. Why wait?

The first record will be Temple Radha Krishna, but if you want to suggest the next record that I do, feel free to suggest one. Here’s the list to choose from. Eventually the whole Classic ISKCON Music site will be incorporated into SitProperly.com. Give me some time.