Grateful Dead

Of thick air...

Of thick air...

...avoided the NR on recording
and found very early the highs just got too muted for my ear,

returning to some more 1978 this week:
june 4th 1978
at Campus Stadium, UCSB in Santa Barbara, Ca

some more friends of the devils? lol...
...= the "on stage" harley davidson acceleration into--->NFA

make LOVE, not war!

PEACE!
uncle_tripel

PS: new avatar = mickey & jerry on 7/4/86 @ Rich Stadium

I used Dolby for a brief blink of an eye when I first started copying tapes. Being young and naive, I thought who wants tape noise to come through on the recording, duh.. no brainer, I flipped the Dolby switch on my Nak and hit record. I just want to hear the music, no hiss.

Very quickly reality set in. Was it Dolby A or Dolby B? Was the source tape recording using Dolby, if so, if you hit Dolby wouldn't it further compress the recording and further alter the sound, you can't play back using Dolby Squared, right? And what do you do in the car, in the boom box (yes.. we were just a few years out of 8 tracks when I started getting tapes). And who really flips or unflips the Dolby switch anyway based on how you think the recording was made. After all, were all these tapes properly notated every step of the way.

So I quickly gave up on noise reduction, I had a good enough tape deck that I shouldn't be so worried about tape noise. I quit Dolby and never looked back (and never worried about pressing the Dolby button again).

Just spit balling here, but my prejudices sometimes come to the surface when I hear a Dicks or Daves or Road Trips that sounds a bit muffled and I wonder if the particular Reel or Cassette or Betamax or whatever might have had a Dolby snafu baked in. To be clear, I have no proof this has ever occurred, I just wonder sometimes.

I should emphasize Jeffrey Norman / David Glasser, etc. have gotten better at their jobs. So if there is any compression or noise reduction used anywhere along the way, they better at making this music sound as good as it possibly can, regardless of the sordid history of the source tapes. Thank you GD, Mockingbird Studios, the good folks and Plangent Processing and all the others that get this music to my front porch. Oh, and thank you tapers too!

I can’t say for sure off hand about everyone who recorded Dead and NR, but Betty was known for not using it, and if things are done right, no need.
Nothing comes for free, so every time you do something, it will effect other things, sometimes negatively…a cost benefit trade off…perhaps just like BITD with high gen cassettes? To Dolby or not to Dolby, that is the question lol
I always have tried not to do any permanent adjustments/fixes, preferring to try and fix some other way, eq etc, but nothing permanent that you can’t fix yer fix!

Imho NR etc becomes more of a band aid for when things weren’t able to be right, or to help mask issues beyond repair, i.e., the ravages of time.
Don’t think I’ve ever used any on a master recording?

Onto rest of GDM soundtrack this afternoon…

So 15 ips or 30 ips would have been impractical for shows I imagine. Expense, changing reels too often, and as these were for listening by the band not studio use, etc. But what about them using noise reduction? I'm guessing no Dolby.
As an aside, I seldom have my Dolby on when listening to cassettes even though most were recorded with it. Even factory tapes with Dolby seem less muffled without it and I'm not listening at thunderous levels (most of the time) where hiss is an issue.
Skylabs, a top notch mid-western audio repairer, no longer works on certain categories of equipment: Consoles, quad receivers, linear tracking turntables, automatic turntables, and reel to reels. Just not worth it from a cost perspective for what those machines sell for vs. repair costs. There are still plenty of specialists who will and R-to-Rs are available restored at very reasonable prices but good luck finding pre-recorded tapes (old or new). Nobody makes them anymore. I was never tempted but my cassette guy sells tons of R-to-Rs for like $200-$300 fully restored, but they are more run of the mill Sony and not high end. And they sell fast!
Thanks again and cheers bro

Ist show. The more surface area (wider the tape), and/or the faster the recording speed, the higher the resolution. And yes R2R can most certainly sound best. (Like anything though, if done well)
The problem is a good one is very expensive, they’re as hard to keep maintained etc as a TT, and good linage quality tapes are rare and expensive, oh, and more a pain to “flip” than even a record…but they can sound amazing!

Remember, many CDs AND most vinyl are sourced from (hopefully) master R2R tapes! A purist with the gear and ears might argue that direct to (vinyl) disc recording is the ultimate…but good luck lol
One of the main reasons digital still gets such a bad rap is twofold
1- the conversion used originally, and lack of attention to disparity’s between different DACs in the chain. Conversion has come a loonnggg way baby! AND…
2- a significant number of the CDs first produced to meet the huge demand were not sourced from the master tapes, and lineage and source quality were often a joke! Caveat emptor: not all CDs are created alike!…or Blu-ray’s, or DVDs, or Vinyl etc Like drugs boys and girls, know your sources!

5th show in the box.
OK, now were getting there.
Great 1st set.
2nd set list looks good too.
Moving right along...
Cheers

Random ?s for the tapers and the knowledgeable. Were these original tapes running at 7.5 ips on reel to reels and were they done with any Dolby or whatever? And do you audience tapers use any noise reduction? Been talking to an analog guy who says with reel to reel running fast you get superior saturation and the best analog sound of all, which to his ear beats CDs and even vinyl, and Dolby is unnecessary for good reel to reel recordings.

climb on the fence, you idiot"

august 6th 1974

now that's much better, the sound is less polished or over-dubbed...or whatever...

support your local library,
my better half's employer also

Peace for All!
uncle_tripel

PS - Hey Bobby, party like it's 1984, Happy B-day!

This is a little niche for this forum since I’m streaming it on BBC iplayer so it’s probably only accessible in the UK,
John Martyn - Live at Reading University 1978
This is an episode of ‘Rock Goes to College’. We saw him several times 78 -79 and his solo concerts were always excellent. It’s available for the next 27 days and is highly recommended. For those who can’t access it I recommend his album ‘One World’ which was his current album when this concert was recorded.
Edit: To be honest I’d recommend any of his albums really