Rush
City Hall
Newcastle, UK
February 14, 1978

Speed corrected remaster and source mix

Primary Source: Drive 'Til You Die (I-Vent: 410.20-98) - SHN
Original Bookmark: http://www.digitalrushexperience.com/database/review.php?RecordingID=886

Patching Source: The Age Of Kings - SHN

Additional lineage: SHN > TLH > FLAC > TAudioconverter (combine tracks) > Audacity > FLAC > TLH > FLAC (level 8)

Setlist
01. Bastille Day
02. Lakeside Park
03. By-Tor And The Snow Dog
04. Xanadu
05. A Farewell To Kings
06. Something For Nothing
07. Cygnus X-1 Book I
08. Anthem
09. Closer To The Heart
10. 2112
11. Working Man / Fly By Night / In The Mood
12. Drum Solo
13. Cinderella Man

Running Time: 99:42

Band:
Geddy Lee - bass guitar, vocals
Alex Lifeson - guitar
Neil Peart - drums


Source Comparison:
I am aware of three main audio sources for this show. They are all from the same recording and it is mono.

1) Rush 'n' Tyne has no frequency content > 8 kHz, and has a very odd looking frequency spectrum. There is a significant
trough in the power around 1200 Hz, possibly from some odd-EQing in the lineage but it's hard to say for certain. The loss
of the power at frequencies around 1200 Hz make this source sound weird. It runs roughly at the correct speed from the parts
I checked.

2) The Age Of Kings looks like it might have been EQed to emphasize 2.5 kHz because there's a strange peak there. There is a
tracking signal at around 15.6 kHz, and the frequencies look to be somewhat cut off at around 18 kHz. It sounds ok, but the
boosted 2.5 kHz range comes at the expensive of the bass frequencies. It typically runs a bit fast, but it varies.

3) Drive 'Til You Die has full frequency content and has the most natural looking frequency spectrum of all the sources. The
bass is more clear in this version, but not overwhelming. The frequency range around 2.5 kHz is also elevated in this source,
but not to the same extent as in The Age Of Kings. I like the sound of this source the best, and it is primary source here.

The audio runs slow and it seems to have been subjected to some type of noise reduction. At quiet points in the audio, there
is a tendency for the signal to get extra weak - I assume the algorithm is recognizing those quiet parts as noise and is
working to eliminate them. I've seen these features characterized as dropouts, but technically they're not. It can be annoying
because there are many occasions when the algorithm attenuates the signal in a herky-jerky manner. I'm calling this noise
reduction but it is different than the typical hiss reduction algorithms that people might employ. The vast majority of the
audio in this source is fine and apparently the higher frequency content is intact.

I am using two approaches to deal with the moments of signal attenuation. If the attenuation is brief, then I might manually
amplify the parts that sound like they were attenuated to level out the volume fluctuations and restore the signal. This is
somewhat tricky for the herky-jerky moments and of course, too much amplification causes the hiss to stand out. I often used
gradual level adjustments to avoid introducing new discontinuities. The signal attenuation is definitely still evident but it
is better now. My second method is patching in sections from the Age Of Kings source because it does not have noise reduction
issues. I primarily used the second approach for the extended quieter sections between songs and a couple moments when Alex
Lifeson is playing acoustic guitar. The full list of patches is given below.


Notes:
-The original audio ran slow. A universal +3.3% speed adjustment was appropriate.

-Phase corrected because typically the left channel led by about 5 samples, although it varied - I used automatic phase
correction over many sections

-Amplified everything by 4 dB, which still left a lot of headroom for most of the audio. The limiting factor is the
"explosion" to the electric part of A Farewell To Kings. I could have deamplified that to free up more headroom, but decided
against that. As an interesting additional note, Geddy Lee comments after 2112 that Alex Lifeson's amp blew up. I think that
might have occurred about 10 minutes into 2112, but I'm not certain.

-No frequency balance adjustments (no EQ)

-Repaired many digital errors during By-Tor And The Snow Dog, Anthem, and after 2112
-cut out ~0.01 s of extensive, unrepairable digital errors on two occasions during Anthem (not noticeable)
-cut out ~0.01 s of a skip/glitch during the transition between By-Tor And The Snow Dog and Xanadu (not noticeable)
-cut out ~0.01 s of a skip/glitch just before Neil Peart drum solo (not noticeable)

There are two tape cuts, located after:
-Something For Nothing
-Closer To The Heart

Monoized many sections due to either channel dropouts or noise/error issues. The loss of information should be insignificant
because it is a mono recording.
-copied left channel to the right for first two tracks (10.5 min)
-copied left channel to the right for two 8 s segments, and one 0.03 s segment near the end of Xanadu
-ideally I would have patched the section of crowd cheering in between Xanadu and A Farewell To Kings from the The Age Of
Kings but it was cut out on that source so I instead copied the right channel to the left for about 27 s
-copied the right channel to the left for 0.02 s near the start of Cygnus X-1, but otherwise copied the left channel to the
right for about the first 30 s of Cygnus X-1
-copied right channel to the left for 10 s during crowd cheering after Cygnus X-1
-copied left channel to the right for 0.1 s during the second half of 2112
-copied left channel to the right for 1 s during start of Fly By Night

Patching notes:
-Adjusted the speed and levels of the patching sections to match the main source
-merged sources for about 5 s during the crowd cheering before By-Tor And The Snow Dog, but everything else was patched
-typically cross-faded the patches for ~ 1 s, but sometimes shorter
-about 11 s for Geddy Lee speaking introduction to By-Tor And The Snow Dog
-about 10 s at ~3.5 minutes into Xanadu
-about 25 s during Alex Lifeson's acoustic guitar intro to A Farewell To Kings
-about 2 s just before the explosion intro to the electric section of A Farewell To Kings
-about 8 s before the start of Cygnus X-1 due to a tape cut on both sources, but the other source had just a bit more audio
-about 18 s approximately 1 minute into Cygnus X-1, and for 19 s at approximately 5 minutes into Cygnus X-1
-no overlapping material over the discs fades during the crowd cheering between Anthem and Closer To The Heart so I had
covered for the 0.5 s of missing audio
-about 7 s during Alex Lifeson's acoustic guitar intro to Closer To The Heart
-about 54 s approximately 6.5 minutes into 2112
-about 22 s during Geddy Lee's speaking introduction to Working Man
-about 75 s during the encore cheering and Geddy Lee's speaking introduction to Cinderella Man due to both noise reduction
issues and missing content

Short duration amplifications:
-during Bastille Day, and during talking after Bastille Day
-crowd cheering in between Xanadu and A Farewell To Kings (ideally I would have patched this but it was cut almost entirely on
The Age Of Kings)
-before Something For Nothing
-near the end of Cygnus X-1
-around the middle of 2112

I exported the results as retracked FLAC files. I used TLH to fix SBE and create a checksum.
-ledwhofloyd (Ross), Feb. 2022

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