Grateful Dead

Alvar

If your car plays mp3 from a USB then I'm guessing it will play ALAC (Apple lossless) also. It is relatively easy to convert flac to alac. I rip all my Dead CD's in flac format but have to convert to alac to add them to my iPhone, since iPhone won't natively play flac files. I don't convert them all, only when I want to change things up a bit on my phone. Foobar2000 (freeware) can do the conversion. Just throwing this out there in case you are interested.

I know it is kind of a pain that auto manufacturers are somewhat behind in providing these types of functionality. I have a 2022 that will play flac but the codec it uses is pretty old, so it puts a 1 sec gap between songs. I know it is the car because every other device that plays the same files is gapless. Sucks when a great jam transitions to another song but I live with it for now. The car does not have a CD player or an aux input so this is the only way to play Dead CDs that are not mainstream releases. The mainstream ones can be streamed on whatever service you choose.

Anyone else yet to receive theirs? I guess cause I got a flawless HCS box, I was due for a hiccup.

I absolutely love me some Texas Pete.

Not too popular in Central NY :/

....and look up Billy & The Kids free stream.
Catcha later Darla!
She was dangerous and awesome. Just ask Spanky.

I remember Ziggy's very well. Has a helluva lot of fun there. Saw Dave Matthews there in 1993 (?) I think. As you know, just a uniquely designed place. First Phish was there at Lawrence Joel that as 1995. Well, and that DMB was first for him as well.

I lived off Bathabara Park. Short drive to smell Texas Pete. Right on the corner (University Dr), a small strip mall on it, had a great deli. Maybe Elizabeth's Pizza or Italian in strip mall closer to campus.

As far as sports I went to all home games of football and basketball, some of the baseball games; so easy to make a nice afternoon. So yeah, saw all those Tim Duncan games. Watched them slide from #1 to, if memory, to out of top 20. Rumor has it 2 Stags for 1 hind.

Think baseball program was ripped off at college world series. Espn kind of bowed to the SEC, and my main sports followings are for SEC school and schools.

Lots of great posts, thanks.

Edit: Forgot, at one of the basketball games at LJ, I sat two seats down from Darth Vader.

Jazz

&

Clavinet

I love Modulus sounds, I don't think it sounds quite right for Phil. Which, who am I to say that, right? I'm a nut for the sound of the Guild Starfires up to the Alembics of late 70s (at least one of which was a modified Guild Starfire). That wooden, full, rich tone he had is just heaven. The Irwin and the Ken Smiths and the Moduluses have a far different sound to my ears. And, I didn't get to experience Phil live until 2001, by which time his rig was that which could power a club PA. His lack of pedals and rack effects means precisely what you're saying about his dry sound. Of course, his dry sound, isn't as dry as that Guild when it was off the rack, with so many filters and eqs available. But he doesn't seem to use reverb, never delay, never envelope filter, never phaser (sometimes the frequencies from Bob's prominent use of phaser gives the effect that Phil's bass is also modulated on the HCS box), and if he had used a High Pass Filter back in 1973, maybe we wouldn't have those weird mice sounds coming from his low notes! But one thing you can about Phil's tone, that use of dry makes him sound virtually the same, and replicates well on audience recordings whether 1969 or 2019. And I cqn't critique Phil at all, I had gotten my old Ibanez SRA505 sounding like that sweet wooden tone, getting the flats was the final bit, and then I fell for an Ibanez SR505, which is almost the same number, but not quite, and I just fell for its tone(s) and endlessly resonant body. I've had that bass for the last 9 years now, and never regretted moving on from the quest for that Phil tone. Partly because I use a ton of effects (my "clean tone" has EQ, Compressor, and, typically, a touch of Room Reverb), and I liked the clean tone it had, and it seems to drive the effects better. And I'm also in the camp that's curious at Mike Gordon's (Phish) recent bass switch to Serek from Modulus, after rocking the Modulus for 26 years. I find it strange that Gordon's tone live differs greatly from the live recordings. His dry signal live is often quite different sounding than what you hear on the Live Phish. I was particularly struck by that in 2014, as Mike sounded like Phil circa '74 in the venue, but on the recording more like Mike.

Gonna check and see if my car will play flacs, have the 24 bit 6/22/73 on a USB drive for the test. If that works, would be a game changer.

But, when you take him out of the reference mix, as they did in the late 70s and onward, I think the overall mix suffers. Though, the sound is also greatly enhanced by the sudden ability to record keyboards consistently. Sure, sometimes the sounds are dated, but a Hammond Organ is always welcome, and it's nice to hear, consistently, the keyboard parts for the songs. I love when I can hear Keith, but it's so inconsistent. The HCS box was lots, and lots of gorgeous Keith. Too bad he seemed to feel the Fender Rhodes was foisted upon him by the band, but it adds such beautiful touches, and too bad they didn't foist an organ on him... or think about adding Merl Saunders or Melvin Seals at some point...

If you have Sirius Radio, the Tales from the Golden Road interview with Dead Head TV co-creator/producer Kathy Watkins and myself will repeat tonight (tuesday). Show starts at 7pm Pacific and our interview starts at around 7:30.

Helloooooo uncle Leo!

AJ, back at ya…

Alvar, sounds like yer figuring it out, glad to hear!
I actually liked the Modulus sound better than those 70s Alembics, seemed much more linear, especially when recorded SB direct. Bass SB direct has always been a challenge to get right. If you were standing right in front of Phil, even with that Irwin etc, it would sound so big and full you’d shit yer self, and as you know, hearing it through the PA it sounds awesome too, but often the dry direct feed directly from preamp to SB is not anywhere accurate of what it really sounds like. But that’s part of the caveat emptor deal, and hey, their better than nothing and still can sound pretty dern good! Obviously multitrack is the shit as every channel can be tweaked and the Bass especially can be isolated and made nice.
I have an Alembic and used to record our bands live 2 track and it took some adjustments to not have it be overpowering similar to 70s Dead.

PS, I really dig Phil’s current Alembic he’s had since FTW I believe. Of course that High tech Meyers rig he uses on bigger gigs is to die for!

Check your PM.

I just sent you a list of all edgy Little Rascals episodes.

Not really, but check anyway.