Stevie Ray Vaughan
& Double Trouble
December 05, 1989
The Orpheum Theatre
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada


2nd gen (maybe 1st gen) dbx noise reduction encoded cassette
24 bit 96 khz digital flat transfer (not dbx decoded) and remaster
16 bit 44.1 khz CD ready FLAC8 downsample and dither
previously uncirculated recording - I know lots of folks have been waiting for this one to hopefully show up... well, here it is.


Setlist: (1:52:54)
01 intro (1:17)
02 Wall Of Denial (5:38)
03 Tightrope (5:25)
04 Look At Little Sister (5:43)
05 Let Me Love You baby (3:18)
06 Texas Flood (8:19)
07 You'll Be Mine (5:51)
08 Tin Pan Alley (12:15)
09 Pride And Joy (5:55)
10 Superstition (4:30)
11 Cold Shot (7:09)
12 Couldn't Stand The Weather (4:37)
13 The House Is Rockin' (2:38)
14 Crossfire (4:19)
15 Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) (11:14)
16 Riviera Paradise (11:28)
17 Life Without You (13:18)

Source:
Unknown audience recorder > cassette masters > ?nothing? > ?unknown? > borrowed tapes from a friend > unknown playback deck > Akai GX-A5X dbx cassette recorder > My Sony Metal-SR 100 cassettes with dbx NR on

Transfer:
My Sony Metal-SR 100 dbx encoded cassettes > Tascam 202mkII playback deck (no NR used, normal bias PB, azimuth adjusted for each tape side) > Radio Shack gold end 3.5mm to stereo rca cord > Radio Shack 6 foot gold end 3.5mm stereo extension cord > Soundblaster Audigy @ 24 bit 96 khz > Wavelab 5.01b (recording and tracking)

ReMaster and Processing:
24 bit 96 khz master clone split files > Audacity (Chris' dynamic plugin -.50:1 expansion to combat the dbx compression) > Wavelab 5.01b toolsone (level balance) > Waves Q10 Paragraphic EQ (bass ramp and mid-high tweaks)> Waves S1 Shuffler (stereo enhancement) > Wavelab peak master (limiter @ -.01db) > 24 bit 96 khz batch rendered Remaster files > SoX resampler via Foobar2000 to 44.1 khz (very high quality setting, 95.2% passband, 25% phase response no aliasing) > iZotope RX Advanced MBit+ dither to 16 bit (Ultra noise shaping, high dither) > FLAC8 + torrent via TLH > YOU!!!

Notes:
It was my birthday for this show, and rather than go to it and record it I decided to stay home with my girlfriend. We broke up not long after, and then Stevie died. I did get to see and record Double Trouble a few months after this show, and had already seen and recorded him several months earlier, so I was not completely heartbroken that I didn't go to this one - especially when I ran into this fellow wanting to trade some of the other SRV recordings that I've made for his tapes of this show...

I never did get to record my girlfriend though... hahaha

As best as I can remember now after 20 years or so since I got this recording, I believe I did get it from the taper. I think he said it was an Aiwa walkman? Sanyo? GE? It was a pretty cheap little thing, relatively speaking compared to my Sony WM D3 - not that good quality. Not only does the recording suffer from auto gain control and a hard limiter from the master recorder, but now we also have this dbx compression / expansion layer to add to the problem. The source tapes were very noisy as well when I made my copy back then. I don't remember exactly what kind of tape decks I would have used to playback at that time but the recording deck was an Akai GX-A5X.

I've been reluctant to release this show from my tapes due to the way they were recorded. For a short while when I newly bought it, I was recording home tapes with dbx noise reduction. The dbx noise reduction system sounds relatively good when used properly on recording and playback, as far as it can give a 100db signal to noise ratio. It uses a 2:1 compression / expansion routine with an input - variable pre-emphasis curve to squash the music to tape when it records, and then expanding the music well above the tape noise floor upon playback. My tapes were recorded with dbx engaged, and I believe I would have also used my Sentrek 12 band stereo EQ to re-shape the sound when I dubbed the tapes. I am not sure if my tapes are 1st gens from the masters or maybe 2nd gen? I can't remember for sure who I traded with to get this - if they were the taper or not...? I no longer have access to the deck with the dbx encoder / decoder, without which it is hard to properly playback these tapes.

Without a proper way to playback and decode these tapes they sound rather bad. Any dbx recording sounds harsh and brittle and bright and swishy and washed out when played back without the benefit of dbx decoding. An audience bootleg recording that already has several audio flaws will sound exponentially worse through a dbx undecoded recording. For many years I've kept my eyes open for some sort of dbx decoding deck or perhaps some computer equivalent to digitally undo what dbx does...

There are no real dbx noise reduction software plug-ins to decompress an encoded recording. After considerable Google research and frustration I have attempted to expand the dbx 2:1 compression and equalize as best as I could to try to compensate for the impossible to decypher tape. I have opted not to digitally de-noise the recording, although during my pre-production stages I was heavily leaning to at least partially lower the noise level, but it seemed to ruin the ambience on the tape. After a few minutes you get used to the hiss, so, get used to the hiss!

I have fixed some small volume fluctuations between tape sides, re-edited and crossfaded an overlapping segment on both sides of my tapes, and of course I've done my best at the dbx expansion and final sound re-shaping. It is far from perfect, but it is much more listenable than the flat un-decoded dbx tapes! There's a few loud clappers between songs, so watch out for the clap clips! You've been warned!!! It could most definitely be improved upon one day, especially if it was re-transferred direct from the master tapes. I did not do a good job of adjusting the azimuth (tape head alignment) 20 years ago when I played the original source tapes to make my dbx copy. I had a very hard time adjusting the azimuth for the digital transfer because of the phasing caused by the original mis-alignment. It isn't that bad, considering it's basically a never before heard full show from over 20 years ago, I guess!!! Enjoy it for what it is (unless you're the taper, in which case, call me!).....

If, however, you are a dbx noise reduction guru, and have some insight or equipment to properly make a second version of this show that might sound a little more smooth, please drop me a line! As well as possibly re-doing this show, I have a handfull or dozen or so other dbx encoded things I'd like to properly rescue and decode and digitize. If you can help, I could sure use your assistance...

If you're a budding graphic designer, please make some cool photoshop-ey coverart for this show. Please share it attached to comments in the thread at as large and high resolution as you can, and please if you could email me copies I would really appreciate it.

Do not share lossy copies of this show. Pervert the files to eMPty3 or other loser codecs for your own personal use only, and destroy them when finished. Don't EnCrap them to 128kbps to post them on you blog. Feel free to freely share pure lossless copies of the show! Friends don't let friends listen lossy. Burn audio CDR's for your buddies and spread them around, sure! If you might share with someone that will want to trade this show in the future, please provide them with the full FLAC fileset as it was originally shared. Don't re-rip an audio CDR of this show to re-torrent it - use the original fileset! Don't buy, don't sell. If you re-post this show elsewhere, please share all files as you got them. If you need to make your corrections or additions to my notes, add a new (different) text file to the fileset - don't delete, edit, or remove any of the original files (hey - two of those mean the same thing!) but go ahead and make additional files such as artwork for future sharing.

Do not bother trying to Re-Re-Re-ReMaster this show from this fileset. If you wish to tackle the dbx decoding problem that this tape has, contact me, and I will provide you with my master 24 bit 96 khz un-touched raw transfer files to work from. In theory, they could be played out and through a proper hardware dbx decoder and then re-recorded as properly analog dbx decoded files. This fileset has already been processed digitally twice to attempt to undermine the dbx system, and they are lowered resolution files, so this would be a bad place to start re-re-RE-working from. Let me know and I'll find a way to get the pure hi-res 24/96 version out there someday somehow somewhere for you...

I hope you enjoy this bit of history. A big thank you and shout out to the original taper of this show : if you read this, please get in touch with me. I'd love to work out some way to be able to get a proper digital extraction from your master tapes instead of what's on this version of the show! Another big thanks to Kevin : another fellow taper that I'm hoping to help with releasing some new masters to all of you. Of course that's on top of all the tapes of my own that I'm picking at. There's a lot of shows out there that really need to be heard to be believed!!!

audioarchivist@hotmail.com