CD Cover	CD Back	CD Tray
Booklet Pages 2 & 11	Booklet Pages 3 & 10	Booklet Pages 4 & 9

Booklet Pages 5 & 8	Booklet Pages 6 & 7
CD 1 Label	CD 2 Label

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Liner Notes: Building A Wall

The idea for Pink Floyd's The Wall came after the now famous spitting incident at the Montreal Animals Tour show of 1977. Roger Waters realized that his relationship with Pink Floyd fans had been corrupted and felt a need to analyze how it had gotten to that point and what he needed to do about it. He began conceptualizing and eventually writing The Wall in September of that year. Almost one year later, in July of 1978, The Wall demos were presented to the rest of the band who agreed that it would become the next Pink Floyd album.

The recently published book, Comfortably Numb by Vernon Fitch and Richard Mahon provides a thorough and complete history of this epic rock masterpiece. Every aspect, from creation of the idea to final production details is meticulously documented and highlights the complexity of this work. Creating the storyboard, animation, props, costumes, inflatables and all the other components of the production is a story in itself, but the actual recording of The Wall was also an elaborate, complicated process and is summarized below.

The recording of The Wall began at the band's London Britannia Row studio in October of 1978. During the next three months David Gilmour worked with Roger Waters and Bob Ezrin to refine the sound of many of the songs and presented many of his own musical ideas. The first production mix was completed in January of 1979. This mix still had many songs with names and musical characteristics which were different from their final forms. Realizing that the initial work was encouraging but not complete, recording began again at Britannia Row for another 3 month session. During this time songs like "In The Flesh" were written and other aspects of the music were changed as the story sequence was being finalized. Drum tracks were recorded here because of the unique acoustic characteristics of the building and sound effects for songs such as "Run Like Hell" were also laid down. The second demo was completed on March 23^rd, 1979. Still, at this point, some songs remained under alternative titles such as "Comfortably Numb" which was called "The Doctor", and more work was needed to refine the sound.

During the next month, the whole production was moved to Super Bear Studios in France. This was done, not for artistic motivation but simply because of taxation concerns in England. While in France, individual tracks were laid down for the songs that had been finalized. The song "Nobody Home" was also written at this time to help the transition from "Is There Anybody Out There?" to "Vera". To help speed the process along, Roger Waters also used Studio Miraval nearby to record vocal tracks while the primary studio was being used to record instrumentals.

To capture other components of The Wall sound, Bob Ezrin traveled to Colombia's 30th street studios in New York. While the band was in France recording instruments and vocals, Bob was helping to create the orchestral arrangements for songs like "The Trial" and "Bring The Boys Back Home". New York's Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony and Opera Company were all used to record these additional components of the show. A group of 35 snare drum players was also recorded here for the song "Bring The Boys Back Home". Ezrin then went to Toronto's Nimbus Nine Soundstage to record Trudy Young. She played the groupie that follows Pink back to the hotel room during "One Of My Turns". A rough mix of all material to this point was then put together on August 12^th, 1979. This version still had the opening song labeled "The Show", the unfinished song called "The Doctor" and a song "Stop" which was in the story but not yet recorded. The famous child chorus for "Another Brick In The Wall, part 2" came from the Islington Green School which sits just half a block from Pink Floyd's Britannia Row studio. Twenty-three kids were recorded for 45 minutes and their contribution helped propel the song to number 1 in the British charts the following year.

After another break, recording and mixing began again in Los Angeles in September, 1979. Overdubs, additional keyboard segments and vocal tape loops segments were recorded here as well as the song "Outside The Wall". Backing vocals from local singers Toni Tennille, Jon Joyce, Stan Ferber and Jim Haas were added to many songs and even sound segments from the movie, “The Battle of Britton” were added during this final mix. A local television store provided the unit that would be smashed during “Another Brick In The Wall, part 3” and a Van Nuys helicopter was recorded for “The Happiest Days Of Our Lives”. Children playing in a park in Beverly Hills were recorded for the beginning of “Another Brick In The Wall, part 1” and telephone calls to Roger Waters' own flat in London were made to record the phone operator sequence of “Young Lust”. The process of recording The Wall was completed in October of 1979. The whole process involved 7 studios, 4 countries and 12 months of work. And now, on to the performance…..

PRRP Staff

Notes from the Re-Master

This project began with a first generation lossless copy of the master tape. Immediately it was clear that the quality of this recording was far superior to the recording known as Source 1. This second source had recorded signal up to 17,000Hz and a nicely balanced sound suggesting that that taper had positioned himself in a good location. The whole show is hear but a few patches were necessary to make the recording complete.

The first obvious problem with the recording was clipping artifact but clip restore routines were able to fix this flaw. Excessive talking by the taper or his nearby audience members was excessive and was minimized as much as possible. Dynamics were changed to compensate for auto-record level errors. Tonality adjustments were made where appropriate. Clicks, bumps and other recording noise was reduced as needed. A redundant section was found and removed. The stereo field was enhanced where possible and a consistent speed error was found and corrected. The show was then re-tracked using studio and commercial live references.

PRRP Staff

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