More Dead Recommendations Please?

I've got the May '77 box set and it is a wonderful little treasure. I like the 3rd and 5th night best, but its all top notch. Great production value also... the box, packaging, accompanying booklet.. all top notch.

For those so inclined Blair Jackson just issued a free ebook on the band, available for download at the iTunes Book Store... title is "The Golden Road and Beyond. A Grateful Dead Primer". I'm taking it on my iPad to Algonquin tomorrow where I will be vacationing with the family for a few days... should provide a good mellow reading environment.

Cheers gents! G

Cannot agree - the actual cd sound is good but the music is nowhere near as good as other stuff from the same tour or the Winterland box from June 1977. £136 to get it delivered - the first time I can say about any Dead purchases that I wish I had not bothered. I will sell it.

The Dead did a fantastic benefit gig in Oregon in the Summer of '72. It was also filmed, but the movie was never released.

Now, the movie and the gig are being released, in great sound quality on 3 CDs and a DVD or Blu-ray (there's also a vinyl version without the movie).

I've had this gig for years on bootleg and I can tell you it's an absolute stonker, the a 30-minute "Dark Star" and a near-definitive "China Cat" with a lovely, lolloping groove just two of the highlights.

It's released in the UK 30th September (USA, 17th) and is about £27, which is great value. I've pre-ordered.

There are also some exclusives available from Dead-Net: http://www.dead.net/sunshine-daydream

There's also an HD official clip on YouTube here

Yes I've also pre ordered the set but only £19.20 from Amazon on August 18th.

Just cancelled my Amazon order as it's just £16.99, including postage, from Sainsbury's!

Thanks for the info - just done the same - they seem to beat Amazon on lots of stuff!

They do Charles.Pity they don't do vinyl.

I can't believe that no one's suggested Live/Dead.

G

That'll be because it's in line 2 of my initial request  G.

This 4LP box set from Rhino which has been analogue remastered is due out at the end of the month.

Steve, Rhino are also reissuing a number of Dick's Picks as limited edition 3 and 4-LP sets. Wish I could afford them!

Hi Kevin,

This set is apparently very special. It's regarded as the Dead at their best live and the SQ is supposed to be superb. It's a limited box set and is going for about £56 on Amazon which isn't bad for 4LP's.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pro...00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you don't buy it you're going to have to come around and listen to it here. 

Steve

Hi Steve

I know the gig very well, I've had it on boot for years. Even as a boot the SQ is great. There is a 30-minute "Dark Star" that is IMO close to definitive, plus a fabulous "China/Rider". I've ordered it on CD (plus you get a DVD of the famous "Sunshine Daydream" movie of the same gig) - just £16 from Sainsbury's .

That said, the Amazon price for the 4-LP set is quite reasonable. You've tempted me now, you swine...

That looks too tempting......G

Mine arrived yesterday. On side 7 of the vinyl... this is a beautiful job... great show, the vinyl is dead quiet, flat, and sounds incredible... mastered from the original 16 track analogue tapes I believe. Lacquers cut by Chris Bellman... well worth the $$ if you can get a copy.

Setting aside the studio recordings, there are two live recordings that would be on a very short list of 'desert island cd's' for me:

1.  One From the Vault.  An absolutely KILLER rendition of the Blues for Allah music, plus a little more.  This was always the most collectible bootleg and thus not surprisingly the very first "vault" release from the band.  A must have.

2.  Reckoning.  Wonderfully recorded acoustic sets from 1980 shows.  I'm totally hooked on it and have been since it was released in 1981.

Totally agree on both of these - I am lucky enough to have the "Make Believe Ballroom" vinyl boot as well as "One From the Vault" on vinyl - the official release is better but the boot is really very good - an excellent Phil mix on both.

Reckoning is my number one go to record for evaluating hifi equipment - more music emerges with every upgrade and I never tire of the songs. The 2nd CD on the box set is well worth getting for the extra tracks although the vinyl is much better for sound in my system.

(No wonder the Dead are relaxed about bootlegging when they know us Deadheads will buy every version anyway!)

Nothing beats Live Dead, Fillmore West complete recordings and Europe '72 the complete recordings. Although listening to volume 1 of "From the Vaults" at the minute and am amazed by it.

There you go.

From the "how often do they think I can open my wallet department... the entire GD Studio output has just been made available on HD Tracks in either 24/96 or 24/192. They've done a phenomenal job with these hi res remasters.. all from the original analogue tapes, with the exception of Built to Last, which I assume was recorded digitally.

Listening to 'Europe '72' on the HDX as a ripped red-book it's hard to see how it could be improved upon. G

Here's a review of the HD tracks set.... just studio work... although I'd be officially released Live stuff will be next...

________________________________________

The HDTracks.com heavens opened this fall and out poured all 13 Grateful Dead studio albums. Your choice: 24/96 or 24/192 PCM in WAV, AIFF, ALAC or FLAC, fresh from the original master tapes.

The live albums are obviously not included, most notably Live/Dead, Skull & Roses and Europe '72. But what is here includes everything the Dead recorded in the studio and officially released from 1967 (The Grateful Dead) through 1989 (Built To Last).

Here's the deal: For now, you must download all of the albums as a set, choosing either 24/96 ($199.98) or 24/192 ($249.98). That's $15.38 per album for 24/96 and $19.23 per album for 24/192. In the past these sets usually get broken up and sold by album, so if you only want one or two, don't give up and check back in a few months (though I make no promises this will be the case).

The meta data is correctly set for all tracks, so although they will arrive in your folder as a single long list of songs, any decent playback software should separate them out beautifully into albums. Liner notes and album covers are missing however, though there is the ugly (by Dead standards) set graphic included as PDF.

Rewind about 10 years ago as the first DVD-Audio discs were hitting the streets: Playing the Grateful Dead's 24/96 American Beauty on DVD-A, I was perplexed at what was coming out of the speakers. It sounded like the right songs, but not the right parts. Guitars parts were messed with, some instruments louder, more reverb. What the . . .

Turns out that Mickey Hart had taken the original multitracks and remixed both American Beauty and Working Man's Dead for the DVD-A releases, presenting those new mixes in 5.1 to the public for the first time in October of 2001. Some thought them an improvement, some didn't.

I'll admit to liking how they sounded in some ways, but I found the new mixes, particularly the stereo tracks, overall musically and sonically goofy. The kick drum had been pushed up front, digital reverb added everywhere and the voices spread around. Others may have been more impressed, but when HDTracks first released both American Beauty and Workingman's Deadfor download last year I had my fingers crossed, but damn if these weren't the Hart mixes again.

That wrong (to my ears) has been righted with these new releases. According to David Glasser, Chief Grateful Dead Engineer at Airshow Mastering, all albums were "mastered from the original master tapes in Airshow Studio C, Boulder, CO. Transfers were done at 192kHz / 24 Bit from an Ampex ATR with Plangent replay electronics to a Prism ADA-8XR A/D converter into a soundBlade workstation. The studio, designed by Sam Berkow, has Dunlavy SC-V loudspeakers driven by Ayre Acoustic amps."

It gets even better. Again, Glasser:

For comparison I referenced the previous CD versions and original LPs. The goal was to remain faithful to the originals while at the same time extracting as much resolution and detail as possible using modern technology, and improving on the original releases, if possible. Some of the masters were transferred flat with no EQ or compression. (That is a testament to the mixing and production of the day;Terrapin Station, in particular, sounded spectacular right off the tape.) When needed, EQ was either a solid-state Prismsound MEA-2, API 5500, or newly manufactured Pultec EQM-1A3 tube equalizers. Very light compression from a Fairman TMC was used on 5 of the titles. No peak limiting was used on any of the masters with the exception of Built to Last, the only album that was originally mixed to a digital recorder (Sony 1630). All the dynamics of the master recordings have been retained. Several of the tape boxes contained the original LP EQ notes, and these were taken into consideration.

Plangent Processing, used so successfully on recent Grateful Dead live releases, was used on this project for speed correction and wow and flutter removal. (This made a huge difference, and I think should be considered for any archival release.) The ability to mitigate the mechanical shortcomings of the tape transports results in increased clarity and low-end solidity, stereo image stability, and a reduction of scrape-flutter induced distortion. You can hear this readily in the reverb of the a capella section toward the end of "Uncle John's Band" fromWorkingman's Dead, the amazing detail on the guitar and harpsichord on "Mountains of the Moon" from Aoxomoxoa, and the synthesizer section of "Unbroken Chain" from Mars Hotel. Plangent Processing uses the latent bias signal on the tape as a speed reference. Because this signal is very high frequency (90kHz up to 450kHz, depending on the make and model of the recorder), special analysis equipment and wide-bandwidth replay electronics and heads are used for transfers and the speed-correction processing is applied at Plangent's lab in Massachusetts.

I remember hearing Workingman's Dead when it was released in 1970 - my first real (and lasting) introduction to the band. Hearing these songs direct off the master tapes was a very special experience, and these 192k and 96k HD Tracks releases are really the closest thing to hearing the master tapes.

Michael Lavorgna and I have had many discussions late into the day about the need for transparency and documentation with HD releases, so buyers can learn the actual provenance of what they are considering. HDTracks rightly points out that the record labels are in control here, but credit to both parties for being so forthright about this and posting it right where you buy the tracks.

All well and good, but how do they sound?

Comparisons were made to the aforementioned Hart-remixed 24/96 albums, the CDs fromThe Golden Road and Beyond Description box sets, and briefly, various vinyl pressings. I listened only to the new 24/192 versions, though since the 24/96 albums are from the same mastering, I imagine the differences to be ones of very small degrees.

In pretty much all cases, the new HDTracks versions hew closest to the CDs from the box sets, but exhibit greater dynamic range and a more supple midrange and top end with greater and finer detail. The Hart mixes sound comical by comparison with their electronic-ish bass drum pulses pushed forward into the mix like a mad eighties new wave band.

Keep in mind that because these are entirely new masterings as noted by Glasser above, we're not comparing format sound here, just the taste of the remastering engineers and use of the latest technology. And in all cases the new masterings are an improvement.

Standouts sound-wise include most of the early albums with their raw and honest presentations. The recording conditions for the sixties and early seventies were simple by today's standards, but it could be argued that newer tech toys and the latest gadget could often harm rather than enhance what the Dead were attempting.

A later exception is Terrapin Station, where platinum-plated rock producer Keith Olsen (Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, etc etc) established the discipline he is known for to get precise, well recorded tracks. Some might say too precise for a band like the Grateful Dead, but this one stands out as a recording and mix.

And speaking of gadgets that might do the band in, the last album in this set is released at 16/44, no doubt the result of someone believing the "perfect sound" mantra about the then new digital recording technology. Not their shining moment, sonically (and probably artistically) speaking.

But in the end, this is how all HD reissues should be done sonically. Period. I can't give it higher praise and if you have any interest in the Grateful Dead, this is the set you want. Liner notes and album cover art would have been nice.

A great catalog done right. Now if we could just get those live albums treated the same way . . .

Having lived with this for a week now, I think I can add this live album to the "completely essential' Dead albums.

Could not agree more - up there with Europe '72 , Live Dead and the Winterland stuff foe me.