Mexico * | 1996-01-20 | moe.

2:32:45

SBD

Rating:

5.00 / 2 ratings

Taper:

Scott Bernstein + Brendan O'Neill

Transferrer:

Scott Bernstein

SHNID:

moe1996-01-20

Source:

SBD + Aud Matrix

Lineage:

Original recording: SBD + 2xSennheiser 441s -> Mackie 1202 mixer -> Teac DAP20 (16 bit, 44.1khz, Pre-Emphasis ON) -> Denon DTR-80p (digital patch). Front of House Mix + recording matrix mix by Brendan O'Neill. May 2009 transfer: Sony R500 -> Sound Devices 722 (digital transfer @ 24 bit, 44.1khz) Processing: Sox 14.2 to remove pre-emphasis curve @ 24 bits (as recommended by the Sox manuals). De-emphasized wav file processed in SoundForge Audio Studio 9.0c (volume level normalization, 24->16 bit dithering with highpass triangular dither with high pass contour noise shaping). Tracked in CDWav.

Taper Notes:

View Notes@ ~3:00 into St. Augustine, the mix changes dramatically, with the aud mics being turned way down in favor of the SBD so that sounds a little strange
# = w/"Bathtub Gin" tease @~6:50 for Fishman's mom
* = w/original "Badges, we don't need no stinkin' badges" tag
+ = 1st time played
^ = 2nd time played
- = w/Frank Dersin Eggo Waffle memorial
% = w/Chuck on sax, Al on acoustic
$ = slight digi-glitch at ~15 seconds

Recorded, transferred, and mastered by Scott Bernstein

Taper Notes:
This is the Bernstein Archive Restoration Project Number 6 (BARN6), the 6th in my ongoing series of classic uncirculated shows from my personal archived collection of DAT recordings.

This long-overdue project was unique in that it required the most significant amount of work I've put into any of my BARN recordings thus far.  First off, when I put the DAT into my R500 to play it back, the EMPH light lit up.  This indicated that an ancient emphasis curve was recorded into the audio waveform.  This emphasis curve hasn't been used in A>D converters since early 90s when they weren't as sophisticated as they are now.  So my first challenge was to figure out how to remove this curve from the waveform digitally on the computer.  There were lots of postings with approximate EQ curves to remove the emphasis (which every CD player or DAT player knows how to remove through their analog outputs),  but it was tough to track down something which could precisely do it for me.  I finally tracked down the Sox software which came with an option for removing emphasis from a wav file, which really needed to be done before I did any other processing on the file.

OK, so after de-emphasizing, I finally got to crack open the file, and got to see what it looked like.  Well, due to the nature of the mix being heavily SBD-weighted in a tiny club, the vocals were incredibly loud compared to everything else -- I mean sometimes like 10db louder than the rest of the music.  So to fix this, I painstakingly found all of the peaks and raised the volume of the music between the peaks so that the vocals wouldn't be nearly as loud compared to the instrumental parts.  Hopefully I did my job well enough for you not to notice.

At any rate 13 1/2 years after the fact, I present to you this historic show from a tiny venue in Hoboken (just minutes outside of Manhattan) -- Maxwells, which is less than 1/3 the size that Wetlands was (and was far from sold out), and contains the first performances of the rare Ghost Of A Child (including Chuck on Saxophone and Al on acoustic), the now-epic Four(!), and She Sends Me.  It also contains the 2nd performances of Guitar, Bring You Down (here called "I Wanna Bring You Down"), Californ-i-a (with Chuck on pennywhistle for the midsong breakdown!), and the long-lost personal favorite of mine, Ugly American.  This also has Al memorializing Frank Dersin, creater of Eggo waffles, in middle of Moth.  I recall meeting both Becca Childs and Jon Fishman's mom, Mimi at this show (she was "on tour" with moe. at this point, if you can believe that).

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