Pearl Jam / Soundgarden 1992-07-21 Lollapalooza '92 Vancouver Analog Master Digital ReMaster (16-bit) (FLAC)
Pearl Jam
Soundgarden
Lollapalooza Festival
Tuesday, July 21, 1992
Live in Vancouver
UBC Thunderbird Stadium
Analog Master Digital ReMaster
From the "Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt..." files!
Recorded and ReMastered by Audioarchivist U - 101
Recording and Mastering data:
Taped with a Sony WM D3 professional cassette recording walkman using it's original itty-bitty stereo condenser microphone mounted in my hat onto Fuji FR-II x pro 100 high bias (CrO2) cassettes using Dolby B NR for recording on a very rainy day.
Played into computer's SoundBlaster (16-bit) card using Denon DRM500 deck with azimuth adjusted to be in (semi) alignment with the master tape, bias set for normal tapes with Dolby off through a Sentrek analog EQ for warmth in the lows and air in the highs.
Some digital manipulation of the sound was then accomplished through the tasteful and thoroughly tested use of several plugins using Wavelab 4.0 (floating 32-bit processing) for a Digital ReMaster to be produced by me after about a month and a half of tweaking and listening tests done over a 2 month period in 2004. I was not convinced that the original tape transfer version truly represented the live sound I originally heard when I recorded the master tape live in concert. Careful use of further EQ, stereo expansion, manual level and balance corrections, denoising, compression, multiband compression, and final limiting compression has produced a version I can truly say sounds like what I heard that hot wet summer day standing near the front of the stage on that outdoor football field stadium.
This CD preparation has been mastered to be close to the volume levels that are consistent with commercially produced discs, but not to the extremes taken by many mastering engineers today. I believe in the power of headroom and not clipping the loudest portions of waveforms to fit these mega loud levels on way too many CDs produced today. Having said that, there are some clipped waves here, too, but they are probably due to extreme waves from wind noises and rain falling on my head where the microphone was!
The Soundgarden set wave files have lived on my harddrive since I did this ReMaster job and the FLAC files are produced with Trader's Little Helper level 6 directly from them with no cdr transfer, but the Pearl jam set original wave files have vanished. Those tracks have been cleanly ripped using EAC secure mode from one of several audio CDR copies I previously burned for myself, the one used being the best looking one.
Personal notes:
As I said, it was raining that day. The column of steam rising off the moshpit was surreal. I had a hard time travelling from Victoria that morning, and arrived late at the venue to hear Pearl Jam from outside "...Jeremy spoke in - claaaaass TODAY!!!!" so I rushed in and whipped out all my recording gear as soon as I could, setting up at the top entrance in the grandstands. As I begin the epic journey down to the sweet spot between the soundboard and the stage, the audio mix changes drastically. Wow did it sound good that day down there! The set Ministry did that day changed my preconceptions on the limitations of what live sound can be.
I was very upset to have missed half of Pearl Jam's set, as they were my primary reason for going. I had blown a chance to see them the previous year in a small club in Victoria, BC as 'Mookie Blaylock' while opening for Alice In Chains...and really had wanted to make up for it with this recording. Damn.
The Soundgarden set suprised me, as there was a surge wave of people flooding the field where I was, cramming us in alarmingly tight. You can hear people commenting at how many of us there was in the same place! I included the unrelated 'wierd intro' to add dimension and atmosphere, and as I had just clicked on the tape again there, and it was on the PA at a much louder level than any other background music, as to announce someones imminent arrival, which it did!
The crowd was edge-y and expecting to see a PJ/SG merge set with Mother Love Bone and Temple Of The Dog songs mega-mixed together, but that was not to be. I forget who I missed before my half-captured Pearl Jam set, The Jesus & Mary Chain had a blur of a set. Soundgarden's set was sweet but short. Ice Cube disappointed ("Fuck You Ice Cube!"), Ministry blew us all away, and the set by Red Hot Chili Peppers that ended the night kinda bored us all to sleep, as they were having to train a new guitar player live on stage, and play most tunes at half speed so he could keep up! All in all though, an amazing experience for me, one that left me addicted to this kind of festival.
Track listing:
Pearl Jam set (joined in progress)
1. Deep (cut in)
2. Alive
3. Black
4. Once
5. Porch
Soundgarden set (complete but for small tape flip)
6. switch on the machine...
7. strange intro music and poetry...
8. Room A Thousand Years Wide
9. Jesus Christ Pose
"Vancouver's like our second home, you know!"
10. Outshined
11. Drawing Flies
12. Ugly Truth
13. Rusty Cage
14. Slaves And Bulldozers
15. Searching With My Good Eye Closed
Please trade these original FLAC files freely. Feel free to make audio CDR copies for your friends, but if they might trade further, make the FLAC files available to them as well. Don't EnCrap to MP3 files, even for your own personal use(!)
Don't trade any digitally fritched versions of this. If you feel the need to tamper with the work I did for a month and a half perfecting the tweaks I did to make this sound like it does, then go ahead, but don't re-distribute your version of it. I think mine is fine...This is really what I think I heard that day exactly as I remember it.
Included are some artworx scans of my ticket and a ticket stub I found, the tye-dye t-shirt I purchased that day, and a photoshop re-dyed version of my t-shirt. Have fun making some cover art, post your results, and please if you do make something cool, email me jpegs of your results!
Thanks for listening! Hope you enjoy this little part of my day!
audioarchivist(at)hotmail.com
