Audience Devotional Tree
Round 25 - March, 2004
GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, June 9, 1973
RFK Stadium - Washington, DC
audience recording
AUDMR > DAT > SHN
Recorded by Adam Grow with an Electro-Voice RE-15 super
cardioid dynamic microphone > Nagra III Reel to Reel
deck at 7.5 ips, full track 1/4" tape, mono.
Master Reel: Maxell UD-35-7 Ultra Dynamic
Recorded from field level about 1/2 way back from the
stage to the end of the field with mic in hand on an
Atlas sound reducing sleeve.
A>D by Adam Grow - February, 2004
DAT>SHN by Noah Weiner - March, 2004
Pioneer RT-1050 Reel to Reel (Master Reel playback) with
1/2 track head nest > Sony PCM R300 DAT deck (record)
with Super Bit Mapping function OFF, sample rate 44.1 kHz,
16 bit samples > Fostex D5 DAT deck (playback) > Turtle
Beach Montego II Digital I/O > Sound Forge (wav editing
and track IDs) > SHNTOOL (SBE fix) > MKW Audio Compression
Toolkit (shn)
01 [07:55] Loose Lucy
02 [08:02] Row Jimmy
03 [05:05] Box Of Rain
04 [06:16] //China Cat Sunflower >
05 [04:12] I//Know You Rider
06 [04:53] Greatest Story Ever Told
07 [02:52] Me And My Uncle
08 [06:36] Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo
09 [11:13] Eyes Of The World >
10 [05:34] China Doll
tt [62:38]
Notes:
Master reel contains an analog splice at 00:30 in "I Know
You Rider" to repair a master tape flip. This splice work
was not touched digitally at all.
Clapping: Just about every "near to mic" clap heard on this
tape (200+) spiked nearly two (and sometimes three) times as
high as the music when viewed on the screen via Sound Forge.
The music never peaked over 40%. Because of this, each clap
was hand-normalized down to the max level of the music around
it. This was done a) to allow the final product to be
normalized to optimal listening levels, and b) to preserve
the aural presence of the claps as "near to mic." Sound
Forge *could* have removed each clap completely, as they
appear on the screen exactly as a digital "tick" does. The
end product here preserves the essence of the natural tape
nicely, while allowing for maximum enjoyment of the music
therein.
Adam recorded this entire show. However, a few years after,
he decided to edit out parts in which "crowd interference"
made things un-listenable on certain songs. The interfering
rowdy neighbors around the taper were so extreme (talking,
shouting, carrying on) that they made losing these songs
the lesser of two evils. The edits were done directly to
the master reel. The edited out songs were discarded. No
copy of the complete master tape was ever made. One can
hear occasional glimmers of just how intrusive the crowd
could be on these remaining songs. While it is disappointing
to the archivist nature of our craft that aims to preserve
these old recordings in their entirety, we are certainly
very lucky to have what remains from this tape. A Nagra
deck smuggled into RFK in a backpack by a fellow sporting
a very convincing, yet completely forged, Ft. Lauderdale Free
Press laminated ID card with photo (no one paid Adam any
mind as he strolled in early enough to set up in a perfect
spot) is certainly something that rings true with other
mythical-like early year recording stories. Partial as it
is, this tape sheds a truly interesting aural perspective
on the events of this great musical weekend. The Nagra
running at 7-1/2 ips certainly makes for a vivid reproduction
of what it was like to sit center field for the Dead on
this date.
SHNTOOL:
D:\Music\gd1973-06-10aud>shntool len *shn
length expanded size cdr WAVE probs filename
7:55.47 83900588 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t01.shn
8:02.65 85177724 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t02.shn
5:05.61 53945516 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t03.shn
6:16.07 66342908 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t04.shn
4:12.03 44459900 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t05.shn
4:53.04 51694652 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t06.shn
2:52.46 30449036 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t07.shn
6:36.30 69925004 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t08.shn
11:13.69 118879532 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t09.shn
5:34.54 59044652 --- -- -xx gd1973-06-09t10.shn
62:43.11 663819512 B (totals for 10 files)