Dark Star > | 1969-11-08 | Grateful Dead

1:57:21
SBD
Rating:
10.00 / 8 ratings
Transferrer:
Jim Wise
SHNID:
gd1969-11-08.sbd.wise.17433.shnf
Source:
MR (Dick Latvala) > DAT > SoundForge (Jim Wise) > CD
Taper Notes:
View NotesThis is the same seed as http://db.etree.org/shninfo_detail.php?shnid=82, with md5s d1c & d2c, with the tracks renamed to etree yy-mm-dd convention in the correct order.  Saint Stephen and AWBYGN were incorrectly labelled as d2t07 & d2t01, respectively.  These have had their names swapped to obtain the correct tracking.
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Jim Wise's essay About 11/8/69

It wasn't too long after I met Dick in person when he let me in on what
he really was into for a 2-track pick from 1969. When he started coming
east for Dicks Picks parties several years ago he found comfortable
accommodations at my home. I had already an internet & telephone
correspondence with this fascinating man for 2 years prior but had never
met him in person, & luckily for me, Dick & I had several long time
mutual taper friends who vouched for me, so the ice was broken in
advance. I credit my wife Dani for rounding him up. He could have fun
with her (and vice versa) & we could bullshit about tapes all night
long.

I had 11/8 in my collection in several different forms for years, but
never really sat down with it the way Dick showed me how to. Dick was
like Santa Claus & whenever he would show up (once he called with little
advance warning & said he was only one hour away, so get ready for him)
he literally had a bag full of tapes, both cassette & dats. He good
naturedley would love to see me squirm in anticipation & enjoyed teasing
me, 'cause he knew that I was a tape addict, much like himself.

On a visit 2 years ago he sat me down in my living room, we smoked a
fatty, & he pulled out his dat of 11/8 & said  "sit down, shut up, &
listen". As the opening notes of "Dark Star" rang out I watched him curl
up, close his eyes,  & immerse himself in the sound. The last words he
uttered for the next hour & one half were" Its quiet now, but it gets
LOUD" This is when 11/8 really made it's impression on me,  & so did the
infamous clicks!

This was Dick's dilemma; he loved this set so much, but knew that there
were tech flaws on the master. He also had enough experience with his
teammates John Cutler & Jeffrey Norman, to realize that this would be
extremely difficult to persuade them to do the work in order for its
official release as a DP. He was also afraid that it would be rejected
as a pick, like so many other shows he wanted in the past were.

It was only a few months prior that I had started experimenting with a
PC based hard disk recording & editing system, so we grabbed his dat &
downloaded a sample to look at the wav file as it appears on screen. We
farted around for a bit & I found some clicks visually & zoomed in &
simply re drew the glitch with something called the "pencil tool". This
smoothed out the wav & that single click disappeared both visually & on
more importantly, on playback, auditory.

When Dick's business was concluded on the East Coast, he left his dat
with me the play with. His aim was to give John Cutler a reasonable tape
to listen too, in order to introduce him (JC) to the performance. What
Dick had left with me specifically was a dat clone from his personal
cassette copy of Bears 7inch-?-track 7/5-ips master reel.

The redrawing of the glitches was unbelievably tedious, but relatively
easy during the quiet passages, so I spent several days working & sent
him back a dat of the first few minutes of "Dark Star". He called me
back in a whirlwind of enthusiasm & a week later the Dat clones direct
from the masters arrived at my PO box. Now I really went to work &
believe me when I tell you this was truly a labor of love.

Upon inspection this is what I found; the clicking was present on the
right channel of the entire show to 11/7, & the entire show of 11/8,
that is up until the reel flip in the "Other One", when it mysteriously
vanishes! I uploaded the 94-minute Dark Star & ensuing jam onto hard
disk. There is a brief segment before Dark Star begins where you can
really capture what's known as a "noise print". This was basically just
pure clicks without any music, or other noise in the background, & would
be needed if it I could determine that a noise reduction run would be
effective.

The 3 facts that saved this recording are; #