[regal]

Any Grateful Dead audiophile want to discus the new April 71 SBD releases from Charlie Miller?

 

[TimJo]

First I've heard about this. Care to elaborate?

 

[Skylab]

I haven't pulled down CM's new 71 stuff yet. How big an upgrade are they? I have downloaded a ton of his remasters, and they are almost all great. I just snagged his new 10-24-72 remaster - nice.

 

[Olias of Sunhillow]

These are pretty exciting in the Dead trading world.

For those who don't know, Charlie Miller has provided the Dead's fabled 4/26-4/29/71 run as new files directly from the 2-track master reels. A couple things to note:

1. Charlie's notes indicate that the reels were baked and transferred by David Gans. This is important not only because Gans knows what he's doing, but also because he is in a position to know that these really are the masters. It's not uncommon for a new fileset to be trumpeted as a master reel set but to sport an obvious generation or two. Not so here.

2. All three are available in either 16/44.1 or 24/96 filesets. This is huge, as they are some of the first real landmark shows to truly warrant the 24/96 treatment. I always download the bigger files when they're available, but it's not often that the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 is that obvious when we're talking about first row balcony master audience reels from 1980 or something. With these filesets, and especially with 4/29, there's ample reason to choose the 24/96.

3. The patches are great. They are apparently taken from Rob Eaton's 16/44.1 DATs straight from the 16-track masters. These shows have always been plagued by questionable patches or obvious tape flips in cringe-worthy places. All better now.

4. The pitch correction seems to be spot on. IMO, Charlie struggled somewhat at pitch correction when he first made it part of his SOP, but these sound perfect.

Anyway, that's what I've gleaned based on a couple quick listens. To be perfectly frank, 1971 isn't my favorite year for the Dead, as the shows lack both the exploratory qualities that make 1969 my year of choice and the jazzier elements that make 73/74 so damned much fun. But these are most definitely worthy of your valued can time.

 

[regal]

These are true audiophile quality recordings, very rare for classic 60's/70's rock to hear quality like this. One of the best captures of classic rock electric guitar work I've ever heard.

I like these better than the 69 or 72-74 era because there are less performers/intruments so the audio quality is as good as an acoustic recording (only its better because its electric!.)

They are more raw than the Dick's picks series which means there are some fades/dropouts but they are also clearer and less processed sounding.

Even if you aren't a Deadhead but have appreciation for classic rock electric guitar I highly recommend picking these up. They are free at bt.etree.org.

 

[Olias of Sunhillow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif T They are more raw than the Dick's picks series which means there are some fades/dropouts but they are also clearer and less processed sounding.

This is definitely true. The DP series often suffered from over-aggressive EQing, almost as if the engineer was trying to leave his own mark on the recording. In his best work, Charlie Miller's hallmark is transparency.

 

[Hanafuda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif Any Grateful Dead audiophile want to discus the new April 71 SBD releases from Charlie Miller?

Thx for the heads-up. I hit my saturation point with the Dead show collecting some years ago, but sounds like I should make an exception for these.

 

[regal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olias of Sunhillow /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is definitely true. The DP series often suffered from over-aggressive EQing, almost as if the engineer was trying to leave his own mark on the recording. In his best work, Charlie Miller's hallmark is transparency.

Norman (Rhino) uses too much no-noise which reduces tape hiss but kills the transperancy.

 

[Skylab]

Yeah, that was the issue for me - I gave up on the whole GD Show upgrade cycle a couple years back. I have about 800 live GD shows that I downloaded in lossless (SHN or FLAC) and even put on CD's (as many were downloaded well before HD space became so cheap). This is about 10 times more than I really need to begin with, and some shows just seemed to get "upgraded" constantly, which got tiring.

That said, those are some pretty great shows, and Charlie definitely has been working tirelessly on doing these upgrades, which is highly admirable to be sure.

I like 71 GD a lot, but I do prefer 72-74 for sure. I personally like the band's sound from that era better - but of course YMMV.

 

[regal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab /img/forum/go_quote.gif I like 71 GD a lot, but I do prefer 72-74 for sure. I personally like the band's sound from that era better - but of course YMMV.

My favorite is also 72-74 as for as material, but these new straight transfer April 71 Millers have the sonics and audiophile recording quality like no other Dead. Remind me of some of the 75 JGB stage miced recordings.


Its interesting to me how a raw SBD can better multi-track recordings in some instances. Some old time purists still believe that jazz SBD's from the late 50-s early 60's are better later multitracks. There is something to this.

 

[Bill St. Clair]

Sounds nice. But I haven't followed GD download sites, so don't know where to look for this. Anybody care to illuminate a newbie?

 

[Skylab]

As long as you know how to use bittorrent: bt.etree.org | Community Tracker - Details for torrent "gd71-04-28.sbd.miller.106100.flac24"

 

[Bill St. Clair]

Thanks, Skylab. I had almost figured that out with Google, but hadn't figured out where the torrent download link was on the bt.etree.org pages. Duh. I'm sticking with the 16-bit versions, since I only have a 16-bit DAC, and Apple Lossless is only 16 bits. Also, 1.5 gigs takes long enough over my 160K DSL line. 4.5 gigs is half a day.

I was getting it to download for a little while, but after getting my DSL connection DDoS'd twice (at least I think that's what was happening; it went comotose), I had to stop. Maybe I'll be able to manage it sometime in the very early morning.

 

[Skylab]

iTunes can do 24 bit. I think ALAC can too. FWIW.

 

[Bill St. Clair]

Right you are. AppleLossless.com says: "Apple lossless supports 16 bit and 24 bit audio, as well as multi channel audio, such as 5.1."

Good to know. Most of my source music is from 16/44.1 CDs, but as I collect, I'll keep that in mind, for a hopefully-near-future where I get a better DAC. Unfortunately, I doubt a faster internet connection is in my near future. Not available where I live.