For some of you music nerds, check this out!

[Motorhead350]

I heard today from a stranger that Robert Johnson might have actually had all his recordings sped up. Just by a little bit. I was told the speed was increased by possibly 20%. So if you slowed it down and played it at 80% or 85% the vocals would actually sound normal instead of high. The reason for this was to fit more songs on a record, bottom line is they were being cheap.

Check this out!

Released version....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dloPrGI0EuY


Slowed down version.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSnCnpm3uMo

What do you guys think? Which one is real? :confused:

[Blackened300a]

I always noticed that songs on the radio were played faster then the CD as well. Probably to cram more songs on the playlist within the hour.

[a_d_a_m]

I think I agree more with this YouTube commenter: "HE DID NOT play at this tempo.You can hear in the sound of the guitar and the voice that its TOO slow.The original recording might have been a little to fast but not this slow.I been slowing down records for years to play by ear and you can hear when a record is too slow or too fast.It has to do with natural sounds.Roberts Voice dont sound Natural at all on this slowed down version"

And from the RJ Wiki: "The accuracy of the pitch and speed of the extant recordings has been questioned. In The Guardian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian)'s music blog from May 2010, Jon Wilde states that "the common consensus among musicologists is that we've been listening to [Robert] Johnson at least 20% too fast;" i.e., that "the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78 [rpm records], or else were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting."[36] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson_%28musician%29# cite_note-35) He does not give a source for this statement. Former Sony music executive Lawrence Cohn, who won a Grammy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy) for the label's 1991 reissue of Johnson's works, "acknowledges there's a possibility Johnson's 1936-37 recordings were sped up, since the OKeh/Vocalion family of labels, which originally issued the material, was 'notorious' for altering the speed of its releases. 'Sometimes it was 78 rpms, sometimes it was 81 rpms,' he says. It's impossible to check the original sources, since the metal stampers used to duplicate the original 78 discs disappeared years ago.""

[Motorhead350]

So I guess we still don't have the right tempo.

Maybe someone with modern technology can get it right. I can't believe I said that.

[a_d_a_m]

It sounds good either way, so I am not going to worry too much about it.

[Motorhead350]

hehehe I just found it interesting and wanted to share it with you guys.