Grateful Dead

Get a pair of the Dominator MX-10s. That will solve the problem.

Carlo,

Ha!

Man, we need a box announcement. How about tomorrow or today depending on your time zone. Let's get it out Thursday, May 20.

And stop yelling out songs we already played tonight.

I remember once at a giant's stadium show, I meet this chick who offered me some mushroom tea and being new to this way of consuming shrooms, I sat in my car staring up at the ceiling and realizing I swigged too much. I then started to hear the show beginning but I waited it out till I could contain myself. I finally got out of the car feeling enough time had passed and realized that the music was only a boom box playing a dead tape next to my car. I felt like a total doorknob and never mentioned it to anyone till now.

It sounds to me like your bass cabinets are not tall enough. A standing bass wave is 17 meters in height.. you need bigger speakers, stacks of them, preferably able to play in quadraphonic.. one 17 meter stack for each string of the bass guitar.

That is all. See my previous post on what measures to take to make this problem go away. Don't forget to destroy the credit card.

Great discussion going here. I can't resist getting drawn in with my own 2 cents.

Caveat emptor - I am not an audio engineer or expert in such areas. I do listen to a lot of music and grateful dead shows.

My two cents is the audio "distortions" that we have commented on here are in the source recordings of Sept 8 1973.

Why do I think this?

- Dick talked about releasing this show in the 90s and Dave says it's one of his favorite 73 shows, and it was just now released 20 some years later. If you've followed Dave for any length of time, you know that he doesn't release shows with lesser audio quality unless he really has to. He's also too good of a salesman to come out and say "we didn't release this until now because the tape has some issues. Jeffrey worked on it again and says it's as good as it's gonna get, so we're releasing it because it's A Tremendous Show"...Right?

- Seems to me on any given night a recording of a grateful dead concert might not be perfect because those involved in making it were distracted - for any number of reasons.
In the grand scheme of things, it's seems to me much less likely that we would end up with as many really good recordings as we have. They stopped caring about recordings for a lot of the 80s and a lot of those tapes don't have good audio - compared to a Betty board.

- My experience with this release is that the recording of 9/8 sounds significantly different than 9/7.
9/8 was indeed jarring when I first put it on.

All that said, it really is a fantastic and unique show. I've been loving it. I listened to discs 2 and 3 at proper volume with some beverages last weekend and it knocked my socks off again.

Just can't resist a good mystery.

I bow to my new sound technician overlord.
What a fantastic and forensic analysis.
Bravo.

Sixtus

Caveat emptor indeed needed

I’ll go back to lurking now ; )
GO AVs!

DaP 38
No doubt Mike, but I think some of us were concerned it was a production issue versus usual GOGD zits and all..
But!,

After furthur review, I think this is just a perfect storm of normal, smaller issues that combined can be very noticeable and thus annoying.
I think perhaps this was a case of a great show, but not the best source? Perhaps the ravages of time were more than they considered, but bye the ticket...once committed, they had to see it through?

Examples you say? Since I spent all day...
$ = quick and dirty references if you don’t want the full report lol ; )
BERTHA starts with usual opening idiosyncrasies that are not part of our focus except in how these “usual” suspects interact and combine with our target issues. Listen though to the snare, and eventually the Hi Hat (that shows up more later). Part of the problem is the snare wires resonating and bleeding through other mics. Then you throw in Bob who’s really loud. It seems his speakers must be set up in front of Billy somewhat as Bobs guitar seems to exasperate the snare problem...
You can really hear this in the quiet just after the song when Bobs banging some chords, listen to the snare wire rattle etc! It gets better but I think it’s a reoccurring ingredient of this aural stew. Bobs level and distortion (both intended and otherwise) are another stew ingredient.
Listen to both guitars and keys during the instrumental section. Think this is more normal type distortion but again, adds sometimes to the stew...

ME & MY UNCLE: more of the same early in especially...I found it useful to use my balance control throughout and it’s often the right channel where the problems mostly live.
By SUGAREE it sounds like maybe some kind of processing added for the snare issue? Early on not too bad, occasionally usual type moments of old R& R tape and/or guitar distortion, but around 6:18 you can hear some noise on the snare roll etc, by 6:23 through 6:33 you can get a good taste of the overall phenomena. But generally the song wasn’t bad.
Status quo fir next couple, LL RAIN I seemed to notice the Hi Hat more prevalent and adding to and getting snare bleed etc. Made me think there’s something up with one of the Drum overhead mics? If so, bleed from everything! would exasperate an issue there? Perhaps another stew ingredient...Bob has some noticeable distortion, perhaps “normal” around 3:45 or so and 4:40+. It overall kind of kicks in on the end chorus’, but not too bad overall.
JACK STRAW not so bad, a little somethin round 3:40 with snare/hat/cymbals?
Also, I think this show suffers overall from the goofy custom condenser vocal mics that add to our stew. Listen to the end of Row J between the 8:30 and 9:00 mark...
Let It Grow is overall not too bad. Get usual Phil spikes occasionally on peaks, and my notes suggest that I’m convinced much of the “problem” here and throughout is Bobs too loud? Not sure if too loud is correct, perhaps he’s playing really loud (it was a big hall with loud NY crowd for that period?) and the recordings fine, your just hearing his rig distort? But though I really dig his sound and prevalence in the mix, cause he’s killing it, perhaps he’s occasionally a tad loud relative to other sources? (Good example in upcoming tape splice)
Oh, and what the hell was that weird “organ” sound starting around 12:55 or so lol, certainly not a B3! Pretty wild whatever it was.
ROLLL OUT the Barrel sounded pretty good lol.
EYES you can get a good taste during the instrumental section around 2:30..and a good example of normal piano clipping (sensitive pickups), but then he switches to ? guessing the Rhodes, which occasionally has its own distortion characteristics, but this is more of what I call normal stuff.
Listen around 9:40+ for what I call FM like static. This is another stew ingredient that is harder to hear, not always there, but there on occasion?
More of the same minor stuff through to about 3:30 in BIG RIVER, though Bob goes way outta tune at 2:25 in GSET and seems to take a few tunes to fully get back lol.
$ LET ME SING is perhaps the best overall example of many things going on on this release. This and $ CHINA CAT are the most obvious examples of the idiosyncrasies on this release. Check out LMS at 2:00 mark and at the end etc.
check out Weirs intro licks to China Cat and some of that drum stuff at 1:30+...eventually it gets better and by RIDER it’s sorta status quo again (meaning instances but nothing huge).
From there on I mostly stopped with notes and just listened, though $ Trucking, GDTRFB etc are good examples of the “stew” especially the blending of the cymbally snare FM static with Bobs distortion whether intentional or not, it all adds up.
EDIT: $$$ end of show especially One Mo Sat is really dirty all the way around, and
TRUCKIN’ TAPE SPLICE? $$ Check out how “it” almost disappears at 4:56, actually something starts to be tweaked a little before that? Bobs not there at all until around 6:00 but he’s back at 6:22. Sounds like a tape splice, perhaps using a cassette, or perhaps some processor kicked in and out, but what’s most interesting is listen to Bob comparatively during these 2 sections, before, during, and after, it’s amazing how much different the 2 sound, especially Bob, and seemingly our phenomena too!
By George I think we’ve figured most of this out!

Conclusion: it’s the battered old tape, complicated by a perfect storm of minor, often normal anomalies, and an unusual Weir mix for good or for ill, and when occurring simultaneously, often during song peaks, it can unfortunately be distracting.
Listening equipment, environment, and personal habits no doubt play a roll in individual experiences. I can see how many folks might not notice much of this.
But on revealing equipment with certain ears it can be so obvious as to be jarring on first occasion.
Like many uncertainties, once the knowledge is gained, the dissonance is usually manageable. Getting better with every listen, though at low volume : (
VERDICT: Caveat Emptor indeed, but with perhaps an extra pinch...

EDIT: this in no way shape or form describes the musical content, which is superb!

Oro - That is quite a great dissertation on sound production! You know your stuff!
I’ve never had the ear of a Brian Wilson/George Martin, and I know Dick’s & Dave’s come with the odd hiccup and blemish, but at the end of the day, it’s The Grateful Dead.