Sit Properly

So soon after the India LP I deliver unto you Srila Prabhupada’s Govinda! This is a fun project, thanks for the kind words. Haribol! Enjoy the download!

Govinda Prayers Sung by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Golden Avatar Productions
GOPI-108

You will know this album by the first few notes of the first song, “Prayers to the Six Gosvamis.” The drone of the tampoura and the strikes of the sarod have been heard on countless ISKCON productions. The rest of the album, however, isn’t as well known.

In 1973, before Europe’s Hare Krishna record industry kicked off in high gear, Gold Avatar Productions released a simple, 40 minute recording by Srila Prabhupada entitled Govinda. Three songs and one spoken track are all that make up this album, but it seems to have been the first official recording of Srila Prabhupada’s singing since 1968’s Happenings LP (I’m speculating here, correct me if I’m wrong).

Govinda was re-released in 1975 with a different cover painted by Pariksit dasa. The first release lacked liner notes of any kind aside from the record label itself, which listed the instruments played, but not (with the exception of Srila Prabhupada) who played them. Two years later, all credits appeared on the back cover.

The songs are very minimalistic in contrast to the George Harrison-produced Radha-Krsna Temple. There is no percussion aside from kartals, played by Srila Prabhupada, who also played the harmonium in one song.

Recording took place at Annex Studios on Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood, California. They were Columbia Record’s main west coast studio until the late 60s and recorded the likes of Johnny Mathis and Elvis Presley. Those recordings used professional sound engineers and producers. In 1973, for the Govinda recording sessions, there seems to be only Krsnakanti dasa. A year before, he founded Gold Avatar to release Srila Prabhupada’s lectures. This may have been his first attempt at producing. The quality shows. He seems to have done much better later on (even professionally producing some disco records under the “Golden Age” Studios name (rather than “Golden Avatar”).

George and Ann Ruckert, who appear on the first track and are possibly brother and sister were both students of Ali Akbar Khan. George is now an MIT professor of music while Ann, who attended Julliard at age 15, co-founded the Jazz Foundation and teaches music privately. How they became associated with this recording, however, is still a mystery to me.

The first song, “Prayers to the Six Gosvamis,” features Ann and George Ruckert on tampoura and sarod, respectively. They accompany Srila Prabhupada’s singing and kartals. The tampoura’s drone in the left channel sounds almost like a deep blues harmonica at times, adding a very strange feel to the whole piece (this is a good thing). The sarod meanders around the notes set by Srila Prabhupada’s vocals and the beat kept by the kartals. It is not a complex piece, but an odd one if you really listen for it. This has been most widely available on the CD Hare Krishna Classics & Originals.

“Gour and Nitai” (entitled “Lalasamayi” on the 1975 re-release) finishes out side two. It is loud recording, with Srila Prabhupada belting out the slow tune and grinding slowly away on the harmonium. Nobody else is present on this track. I’m not sure whether it was planned this way, but the entire piece sounds hollow and very low-fi, evidence that producer Krsnakanti was just starting out. This song has been commercially unavailable since this release.

Side two’s only song is “Chintamani” (”Cintamani” on the 1975 re-release). It again feature Srila Prabhupada on vocals on kartals, but also Visnujana Swami on tampoura. The drones of the tampoura add quite a lot to the song, as it doesn’t sound quite as “empty” as “Gour and Nitai.” It’s also interesting to hear a more traditional take on the Brahma-samita prayers. The same prayers were used on “Govinda,” the Radha-Krsna Temple’s single that is still played at every ISKCON center every morning. Aside from this recording, this sweet song has never been released by ISKCON.

The closing track is a twelve minute speech by Srila Prabhupada, simply called “Chintamani – text.” Here, Srila Prabhupada gives a little background as to the meaning of the song “Chintamani” as well as a bit of translation for the verses. This recording, oddly enough, saw the light of day on Volume 16 of the Vintage Series CDs as an explanation for a different recording of “Chintamani.”

The 1975 re-release included not only production credits, but an insert with lyrics and some text.

Side 1
1) Prayers to the Six Goswamis 13:05
2) Gour and Nitai (Lalasamayi) 7:01

Side 2
1) Chintamani 9:11
2) Chintamani – text 12:10

On the back of the 1975 re-release, a short note about Srila Prabhupada reads…

For thousands of years holy men in India have reached the Transcendental Realm of super-consciousness by vibrating sacred hymns. Now His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada brings this consciousness to the West in an ecstatic performance with classical Indian instruments.

This album was fairly easy to clean up, though I still wish my copy of it was in better shape. I used the 1975 release since my copy of the original release is in even worse shape. Again, it’s not perfect, but it’s the best I could do.

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. For those who like FLAC files, leave a comment and I’ll get them to you.

A couple samples of the songs are available in the comments.

Click here to download the entire album in one big zip file! (95 MB)

Technical Information:
Media Used:
Vinyl LP from my personal collection (I used the 1975 release since it was in better shape).

Artwork Scanned from Original @ 300 dpi with XSane .996
Edited and Restored Using GIMP Image Editor 2.6.6

Acyutananda Swami – India
Radha Krsna Productions
RKP 1001

Acyutananda Swami’s India LP isn’t really all that rare. It’s pretty available on Ebay, Gemm.com, etc. It’s comprised of seven studio tracks, all sung by Acyutananda Swami and all recorded in Mayapura. It’s a great album to listen to and you’ll be very happy with it.

But just because it’s a solid record doesn’t mean there isn’t mystery behind it. With this recording, there are three main mysteries (aside from when it was actually recorded).

The first is about the record label that released it. My copy was released under the Radha Krsna Productions label. It is the first of five records to be released under that moniker. However, opon closer inspection of the record itself, while the label clearly states that it’s Radha Krsna Productions release, the etching in the center of the vinyl (called the “matrix”) reads: “HKR – 1005 – A” (or “- B” depending on which side).

HKR stands for Hare Krsna Records, Hamsadutta’s label. There were, as far as I can tell, only four LPs released by Hare Krsna Records. They were catalog numbers 1001 – 1004. If this were to be their #1005, it would have been the only LP where Hamsadutta played no role in the production.

To me, that seems reason enough for Hamsadutta to kick it to another label even after Hare Krsna Records pressed it. But what is the real story? Beats me.

Keep in mind, Hare Krsna Records and Radha Krsna Productions shared at least one release: Hare Krsna Festival – HKR #1003/RKP #1004. So why this is the India LP RKP #1001 as well as HKR #1005? I’ve got no idea.

Also, there are other copies of this LP with yellow labels. Their matrix “correctly” reads RKP1001 as one would think it should. At this time, I don’t know more about these copies.

The second mystery is this…

It’s a “cut out” … sort of…

In the recording industry, a cut-out refers to a deeply-discounted or remaindered copy of an LP…. When LPs were the primary medium for distribution or recording, manufacturers would physically cut the corner, punch a hole, or add a notch to the spine of the jacket of unsold records returned from retailers; these “cut-outs” might then be re-sold to record retailers or other sales outlets for sale at a discounted price. A special section of a record store devoted to such items was known as the cut-out bin or bargain bin. – Wikipedia (lazy me)

But the actual mystery is this: The cover that I have is not a cut out. It’s a photograph of a cut out. The photograph used on the cover of this LP was made from a cut out version of the same LP. Why?

What this seems to indicate is that someone wanted to print more covers, but the only covers they had were ones with cut outs. So they photographed a cut out cover and used it. I’ve only personally seen one copy of this LP (though there are tons out there), so I don’t know if this is common to all of them, but it’s weird.

Again, I’m wildly speculating, but a guess would be that maybe Hamsadutta actually released this one, made a bunch of copies and then “destroyed” them via the cut out process. But really, who knows (and probably who cares).

The last mystery is more of a “why” than a “what” or “how.” While digitally cleaning this recording up, removing the pops, hisses and clicks (as described here), I made the discovery that the recording heard on this record is actually a recording of an earlier pressing of this record. This pressing wasn’t recorded from its master tapes as it should have been, but from an earlier 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 resort to a copy of the first pressing and use that as the source – crackles, pops and all.

You can actually hear the crackles and pops where no dust or scratches can be seen on the record itself. 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, of course, but the cleaning up process (at a rate of taking an hour of work for one minute of music) has done wonders.

Additionally, at first 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. I was able to remove much of this.

This is the best job that I could do. There are those who could do better, of course, but this is definitely as good as this LP has sounded since the mid 70s.

Okay, so let’s get to the record…

Side I

1) Gaya Gour (5:09)
2) Radha Govinda (4:55)
3) Jasomati Nandana (5:10)
4) Kesava Kali Mala (5:21)

Side II

1) Manasha Deha Geha (6:12)
2) Nama Sankirtana (7:09)
3) Gopinatha (7:55)

On the back cover of the LP there’s a bit of a write up. Here it is…

Acyuthananda Swami is an American sannyasi, who left his homeland at the age of 16 years and has been living in India since the last 10 years studying the spiritual culture and music of India. He is world renowned for his masterful singing of Bengali Vaisnava folk songs and playing on mrdanga (clay drum, unique to Bengal).

The recordings on this LP were taken in Mayapura, India, and we beg the listeners to excuse the obvious shortcomings due to circumstances beyond our control. This record has been produced especially with the idea of helping the needy people of Bengal by sending the profits above the cost of actual production to our international center in Mayapura, India (Bengal), where thousands of people are fed each day from contributions coming through the sale of this record. Give generously.

Whether the needy people of Bengal ever got anything from this is unclear.

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. For those who like FLAC files, leave a comment and I’ll get them to you.

Several samples of the songs are available in the comments.

Click here to download the entire album in one big zip file! (93 MB)

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

First, I’m sorry if this is a bit mundane. It’ll be boring to most, but maybe interesting to some.

As most who read this know, I’m in the process of re-recording all of my Early ISKCON records to digital. Part of this process includes removing all the pops, clicks and crackles that are associated with poorly cared for vinyl.

My second entry is Acyutananda Swami’s India LP. I talk quite a lot about it here. To sum up, because of the weirdness in the pressing of this particular edition of the India LP, there are tons of pops and clicks.

Most of these come not from my copy of the record, but because this edition was recorded from a very crappy quality of the first pressing of the record (rather than the original master tapes).

Because of this, the record sounds muddy (which I can’t really fix) and the pops and clicks aren’t exactly your normal pops and clicks.

After capturing the record to wav file, I “clean” up the songs using a Linux program called Gnome Wave Cleaner (GWC). The software is free and works pretty well. The process is very slow (it takes over an hour to cover about a minute of music – a 40 minute album will take around 50 hours).

But it’s worth it. I’ll show you what I do.

Here is the 7th track, Gopinatha. I’m around a minute and a half into this track. I isolate about 15 seconds of music and have the program automatically mark where the pops and clicks might be. That’s what’s marked in red.

Zooming into the 15 seconds, you’ll see that there are 238 markings. Most of these are false positives marked because of the crappy quality of the original recording. Some, however are real.

Listen to this 15 second sample before cleaning… (it’s very noticeable when you’re listening via headphones)

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From here, I’ll isolate about a three second segment and focus on that. There are many markings, but only three or four pops that can be heard.

This program offers to automatically correct these clicks and sometimes that works. However, due to the low quality of the recording, especially when Acyutananda Swami is singing, it not only removes the pop, but also a bit too much of the music, causing a weird drop out in sound.

To prevent this, I do things semi-automatically.

Below (on the left) is a small pop. A pop is very quick. Most pops last about .0005 of a second. They’re so foreign that they stick out, but really, they’re short. The amount of time in the screen caps below is .01 of a second. Often, I’ll zoom in farther to .025 of a second. On the right is the same segment without the pop.

(Click on the pictures to see what I’m talking about.)

On GWC, there’s a tool called LSAR Signal Estimation. Basically, this estimates where the waveform should be and moves it there automatically. You have to find the pop/click yourself though. Sometimes they’re easy to spot, other times, not really.

The next example shows a much louder and longer pop. It’s about double the length of the pop above. The LSAR tool takes care of it as well.

While the tool “automatically” corrects this, you have to find it yourself. Sometimes they are marked as pops, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re really noticeable, other times, they’re buried.

Sometimes one pop is actually two. These pops are only .01 of a second apart. Taking care of each, one at a time, gets rid of the pop.

And sometimes you just can’t get rid of the pops. This 15 second segment is a great example because while I could get rid of most of the pops, there’s still one or two in there that were so buried it was impossible (for me) to get rid of them without damaging the music. Strangely enough, it sounded better with the pop than without. This is a rarity, but it happens.

So take a listen to the cleaned up version, see if you can spot the rogue pop or two.

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I’ll do my best to get this finished up as soon as I can. There’s about six or seven more hours of work that will have to go into it, so perhaps by this weekend or early next week we’ll see something.

I just wanted to share this fun experience. Haribol!