Bob Ludwig's Led Zeppelin II Test Pressing Goes to Heritage Auction!
bidding starts November 4th
By now everyone reading this knows the story of Bob Ludwig's first cut of Led Zeppelin II. Bob put everything on the tape in the grooves and Atlantic released it. The story goes a copy went to Ahmet Ertegun's niece and it wouldn't play on her kiddie phonograph. Fearing it wouldn't play on the average teenagers's turntable either, Atlantic issued a recall and it was re-cut by someone at Atlantic Studios with bass attenuated and dynamics somewhat compressed. For decades that became known as Led Zeppelin II but a certain number, to this day unknown, copies of the now famous "RL" version did get out there into the real world. Was the original recalled and destroyed? Or did Atlantic leave the original out in the field and re-cut?
The label certainly didn't make any of this public because no one knew about it until the vinyl resurgence when demand for original pressings began to rise and used record stores began play grading the copies that came into the stores as customers traded in their antiquated vinyl for the CD edition. Even on the typical mediocre record store turntables store owners were startled to find that some of these older pressings sounded way better than the rest.
Somewhere along the way someone discovered the tiny hand written "RL" in the inner groove area and by then Robert Ludwig had become a mastering engineer superstar associated first with Sterling Sound and later with Masterdisk.
These RL lacquers and/or plated parts made their way to not only the American pressing plants Atlantic used—Monarch (MO) In California, Presswell (PR) and Columbia's Pitman (P) plant, the later two in New Jersey— but to the U.K. and Germany as well.
To confuse things a bit, the PR can also mean Paul Richmond, a mastering engineer but let's ignore that for this. And of course there are connoisseurs who insist MO is best, or P is best or PR is best or whatever. And of course everyone reading this knows that below the credits on the label, Atlantic, and Atlantic alone put a series of numbers ending with the suffix designation where the record was pressed. Very handy for kind of sewers of these things.
You can like your "Plum label" UK original cut and pressed by Polydor or you can like your very well done Bernie Grundman cut for Classic Records, but most Led Zeppelin fans agree that the RL original is still the greatest and if you have one and play it for Led Zeppelin fans who've never heard it, they just about let loose in their pants when they hear its awesomeness—especially played back on a great turntable/cartridge/phono preamp combo through full range speakers.
Now, Bob's original test pressing is going to Heritage Auction. The bidding begins approximately November 4th according to the site, but whoever chose to call it the "hot mix" version doesn't understand what this is because it's the same mix as was used on the subsequent issue, which we will then call the "lukewarm mix".
It's a "hot cut", yes, but it is not a "hot stamper" or a "hot toddy" or a "hot mix". Or a "hot chick", for that matter though some guys treat it as such, itching to get their hands on one. And if that's offensive in today's world, well I'm living in yesterday's.
This is probably the only website where you will see these images so tell your Led Zeppelin loving friends to take a look here.
How much will the record fetch? Your guess is as good as mine!
