Mountain
Philadelphia, The Spectrum - April 2, 1971
(Support acts: Humble Pie, Black Sabbath)
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DocDondy's Repair Re-Do, Unexpectable Upgrade, Sackcloth & Ashes Series Vol. 18 (of 18, so I/we've finally made it with this volume - YabbadabbaDoo!)
**Contrast clause RE torrent #590238 (http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=) and general re-do info: Fresh 29 January 2020 transfer from analog cassette tape, now with optimised replay and under CORRECT digitising conditions (for detailed info see below)**
Aaarrrrggghh and PHUUUUQQQQQ (and every swear word you and your fave drill sarge may imagine)! Alert and bat-eared fellow Dimers luciferburns and fatoldpig thankfully made me aware that my latest upload, Wishbone Ash's 1974/10/31 Offenbach show strangely had all bass missing that my previous 2009 version did come with - my all-time fave show of theirs of all shows! However, since I had done a fresh transfer for this new torrent, had no CD-R in the lineage and tweaked the recording w/Audacity for best results it of course should rather have sounded at least a wee little better.
I instantly checked that oddity and it turned out that my FRIGGING Olympus PCM recorder that I use for digitising my analog source cassettes had its low cut filter turned on - and that dreck eliminates all frequencies below 300 Hz! SH*TE! :-P I really don't have the slightest idea if that was a default setting or if I erroneously applied it at one point in the past. As I rarely have the time to listen to shows on my home stereo and mostly only through earbuds or PC loudspeakers only, I didn't notice that CRAAAAAAP!
Dear fellow Dimers, words just fail me! I am unspeakably sorry for that inexcusable super-blunder and can only ask anyone who has trusted me and my torrents, and invested their ratio on them to at least TRY and bear with me ...somehow. :-(
I'll make up for all these subpar transfers bit by bit - big time scout's and Dimer's honour!
For that, I've gone on my - presumably looooong - personal peninential pilgrimage and are working my way back through all of my latest analog cassette-transfer torrents and re-do them up to the point where I find the last correct transfer or, in the worst case, back to the first time I used that doggone new PCM recorder - which would be April 26, 2017, for Mountain's 1971-04-02 Philly show. Phew! Also, all my new makeup torrents will come with this clarifying contrast clause and of course with an audio sample so you can quality-compare each show with your previous respective download. I'll also ask the mods to delete the faulty torrents after I've uploaded the corrected corresponding one.
In order to at least get SOMETHING positive from this monster of a mess, I took the opportunity and sent my Sony WM 6DC walkman - which I've always used for replaying my analog tapes - for a thorough overhaul to an analog audio expert who also specialises in exactly this device. Aside from a general check and cleaning of all moving pieces, he
a) applied new drive belts
b) reduced the hitherto inherent wow & flutter factor vastly to an absolute minimum of 0,08-0,1 %
c) adjusted the standard replay speed to + 0,05 % (tolerance would be +/- 0,3 %) and
d) balanced out a treble drop of 3-4 dB above 10 kHz on the left channel; hence channel deviations between 30 Hz and 16 kHz and from the reference frequency are now constantly below one dB.
OK, quite some tech talk but according to that expert, these are all now obviously excellent figures that
- can't always be generated,
- are all way within the defined tolerance requirements for a WM-D6C and
- are even superior to the data of new machines.
And all that for a 30+ year old device! Therefore, my future analog-to-digital transfers will definitely come with my respective source cassette's full frequency spectrum at the best-possible replay and digitising conditions. Yippie-Ya-Yeah! Please see the picture in comment #1 for DocDondy's Dear Dated Digitising Devices setup.
Yours,
DocDondy
...now off to the corner looking for my very own dunce cap. :-)
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Lineage: My TDK SA 90 cassette tape (in 1983 trade) > fresh 30 January 2020 transfer (replayed on just overhauled Sony WM-D6C walkman w/azimuth adjusted) to Sony PCM-M10 recorder at 44.1kH > wav > Audacity (for editing out gaps, auto-boosting levels etc.) > wav > FLAC (level 8) > Dimeadozen > youhoo!
Sound quality vg+ (4 out of 6) mp3 sample in comments.
Simple cover in torrent (PDF)
Line-up
Leslie West - guitar & vocals
Felix Pappalardi - bass & vocals
Corky Laing - drums
Steve Knight - keyboards
Set List:
01. Never In My Life
02. The Animal Trainer And The Toad
03. Theme For An Imaginary Western
04. Guitar Solo
05. Dreams Of Milk And Honey
06. Silver Paper
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Total time: 64:39 min.
I still remember vividly listing this show in my earliest trade list as one of my very first non-vinyl bootleg recordings (along with the 20/12/1971 San Bernardino show and the 30/12/1973 King Biscuit b'cast from the Passaic Capitol Theater) sometime in 1983!
Always wondered how much is missing from the show as the tape ends with "Silver Paper" which for sure was not their closing number. According to eyewitness and fellow Dimer jray 625 who generously reported in the comments of a previous (lesser) torrent, The Spectrum's (electric)"powers-that-be" obviously pulled the plug on Big Lez & Co. at the start of their last and signature number "Mississippi Queen" (which would have followed "Silver Paper") due to their then strict curfew rules. Boy, didn't BIG Lez, the band and the audience wreck the house???
For more info on Mountain (and Ten Years After's and Humble Pie's) touring histories, check Greg Vick's most excellent Tour Archive: http://tourarchive.weebly.com/
If you have any more info, addenda or corrections please don't hesitate to contribute whatever you can, OK?
Please do NOT sell this show or spread it in lossy formats - otherwise: trade, share, collect � and enjoy! Always looking forward to your comments and possibly even further info...
Uploaded to Dimeadozen on 7 February 2020 by DocDondy for all fellow-Dimers to enjoy.
Mountain ahoy!
Th:)mas