Soundgarden
Tuscaloosa Amphitheatre
Tuscaloosa, AL
May 6, 2017

** 16 BIT **

Source: Sonic Studios DSM-6P w/3-way lo-cut filter (@ 80hz, middle setting) > Tascam DR-2d @ 16 bit/44.1 kHz
Mastering Part 1: .WAV > Denon 790R > Kenwood A-522 amplifier > Kenwood GE-622 Equalizer (see notes for EQ adjustments) > .WAV @ 16 bit/44.1
kHz
Mastering Part 2: EQ'd .WAV > Sound Forge Pro 11.0 (Build 299) [iZotope Mastering Suite (declick); minor edits, normalize, & fades] > CDWav tracking) > Trader's Little Helper (level 5) > FLAC > TagScanner 6.0.18 (tagging)
Location: SEC 205 row Z seat 39, and I moved 8-10 seats closer to center after "My Wave"
Recorded by: Steve "ballsdeep" Hagar
Mastered by: Steve Hagar (Part 1) and Dennis Orr (Part 2)

Setlist:
01 Incessant Mace
02 Hunted Down
03 All Your Lies
04 Searching With My Good Eye Closed >
05 Spoonman
06 Outshined
07 Black Hole Sun
08 Chat
09 My Wave >
10 The Day I Tried To Live
11 Been Away Too Long
12 A Thousand Days Before
13 Burden In My Hand
14 Rusty Cage
15 Chat
16 Drawing Flies
17 Fell On Black Days
18 Jesus Christ Pose
19 Encore Break
- Encore -
20 Blow Up The Outside World >
21 Slaves & Bulldozers

Chris Cornell � lead vocals & rhythm guitar
Kim Thayil � lead guitar
Ben Shepherd � bass & backing vocals
Matt Cameron � drums & backing vocals


~~~RIP Chris Cornell: we don't mourn you because we knew you, we mourn you because you helped us know ourselves~~~


Show Notes:
Soundgarden, in beautiful Tuscaloosa AL. Outdoors. Probably 5500 tix sold out of over 8000. I deliberately bought poor seats in hopes of emptiness nearby, and for the most part was handsomely rewarded. After a nearly 2 hour long headline set in Atlanta, I was pretty disappointed in the "98 minutes and out" offering in Alabama...not based on 'performance', no, but when it's your own party, why so short? (Or maybe now I know why...)

Rarely do I detail the 'mastering process', as there's those who like to poke fun at my little ghetto Kenwood bookshelf stereo I've had for nearly 30 years now. it actually has DAT and Laserdisc inputs. And a little 13 band EQ. And I've gotten pretty good at using that EQ to milk great sound out of sometimes average tapes. I believe this to be one of those times.

Simply put, I mix 'em up with a full range, sounding as good as possible, first visually (on the EQ analyzer), then aurally (does it sound good thru the speakers?).

The show was cut up and put back together in 2 parts:
- before the drop of the deck during "My Wave"
- the actual drop and reconnect (about 15 seconds, around the 36-37 minutes mark)
- after the reconnect, when I moved about 8-10 seats to the right

EQ #1: (thru the deck dropping)
40 HZ - 0dB
63 Hz - -6dB
98 Hz - 0dB
160 Hz - +4dB
250 Hz - -2dB
400 Hz - +2dB
625 Hz - -2dB
1 kHz - 0dB
1.5 kHz - -10dB
2.5 kHz - +2dB
3.9 kHz - +6dB
6.3 kHz - +2dB
10 kHz - + 8dB
16 kHz - +2dB

EQ #2 (during and after the reconnect process)

40 Hz - 0dB
63 Hz - -2dB
98 Hz - 0dB
160 Hz - +2dB
250 Hz - -2dB
400 Hz - 0dB
625 Hz - -10dB
1 kHz - -4dB
1.5 kHz - 0dB
2.5 kHz - +4dB
3.9 kHz - 0dB
6.3 kHz - +4dB
10 kHz - 0dB
16 kHz - +4dB

I had brought in a 2nd deck with internals as backup, and while it's complete, it's *very* brickwalled, most likely due to the 2 socks pulled over the end in anticipation of wind that never came (the day was very, very windy leading up to the show, so 'over-prepared' was what happened).

Other notes:
When recording, the levels were increased at about the 50 second mark of "Incessant Mace"...first by moving the gain from "med" to "high" (sharp jump), then by moving up the levels manually. This was evened out as much as possible, then the first minute of the show was brought up to the volume of the rest.

The high end was somewhat washy up there in the next-to-worst row. That said, crowd noise, especially after moving, was virtually non-existent. And I believe the EQ job brought out a lot more 'brightness' compared to the master.

Chris' voice was *loud*...like "peel paint loud". That's why there's such a EQ reduction in the midrange (and I find 625 Hz to be the 'mud' frequency), to bring his vox closer to 'in line' with the music

The clapper who suddenly appeared between "Spoonman" and "The Day I Tried To Live" was very annoying. So a plan was made to move a bit closer to center. After the couple to my immediate right, there was a row of 25+ seats that had been empty for 30+ minutes. Click-removal mitigated the bulk of those claps during mastering.

The deck dropped to the concrete floor at the 36-37 minute mark (it slid out of my hoodie pocket, yet kept recording!!!). After that happened, I did my move, and re-set the EQ

Dennis did all the "post-production sweetening".

Speaking of Dennis, he's the Black Hole Sun in all of this. Without him, you don't get to hear this stuff. So alms, praise, and boxes of Omaha Steaks are in order for him. On *your* dime ;)

A simple upraised middle finger directed towards me will suffice on this end.

More to come. There's ALWAYS more to come.

---ballsdeep OUT!!!