BAND: GRATEFUL DEAD
SHOW DATE: 03-01-1969
VENUE: FILLMORE WEST
LOCATION: SAN FRANCISCO, CA
SET(S): I / II / ENCORE
LINEAGE: SBD > DUAL 16-TRACK RTR @ 15 I.P.S. > 2-TRACK LESH VAULT MIXDOWN D > MCS D > SSSB
AUDIO RATING: AR1-a
MEDIA REQUIRED: DAT: 120 min.
CD-R / MINI DISC: 3

RELEASED ON: 08/08/02

ARTIST NAME: GRATEFUL DEAD
DATE: 03/01/1969
VENUE: FILLMORE WEST SAN FRANCISCO, CA
SET(S): I / II

LINEAGE: SBD > DUAL 16-TRACK RTR @ 15 I.P.S. > 2-TRACK LESH VAULT MIXDOWN D > MCS D > SSSB

All editing performed @ 24-bit/96 kHz sampling at Serafin Station Studio B by Jay Serafin

DISC 1
SET 1
d1t01 02:04.343 Bill Graham Intro > Cryptical Envelopment ->
d1t02 00:11.379 -> Drums ->
d1t03 10:05.238 -> That's It For The Other One ->
d1t04 08:41.239 -> Cryptical Envelopment ->
d1t05 11:42.913 -> New Potato Caboose ->
d1t06 05:57.519 -> Everybody's Doin' That Rag ->
d1t07 05:49.697 -> Cosmic Charlie
Total time: 0:44:32.328


DISC 2
SET 2
d2t01 04:33.380 "This Is Going To Be Good" > Bill G. Intro > Dupree's Diamond Blues
d2t02 05:07.308 Mountains Of The Moon
d2t03 23:01.199 Dark Star ->
d2t04 05:36.214 -> Saint Stephen ->
d2t05 08:16.402 -> The Eleven ->
d2t06 16:31.498 -> Turn On Your Love Light
Total time: 1:03:07.102


DISC 3
ENCORE
d2t01 04:14.187 "We've Got A Broken String" > Encore Banter & Tuning
d2t02 07:51.540 Hey Jude (complete!)
Total time: 0:12:05.727
---
Originally uploaded exclusively to GDLive.com by
John "Jay" Serafin, owner/audio engineer of Serafin Station Studio B
"Making Kindness Dubs For Everyone!"
No Copyright Infringements... EVER!
Web Info: http://members.home.com/kinddubs
E-Mail: surgeon_of_sound@attbi.com





OFFICIAL SHOW NOTES:
LINEAGE: SBD > DUAL RTR DECKS AT 15 I.P.S. > LESH DIGITAL MIXDOWN IN 1998 > MCS D > SSSB; other artist(s): Pentangle, Sir Douglas Quintet; *=Jerry on acoustic' **="Hey Jude" is full version; the show was mixed down in 1998 from multi-track by Phil Lesh during the early stages of a vault release project which did not happen; any/all editing, fades, NR, hiss elimination, phase shifting, time smear correction, digital jitter elimination, EQ, and quantization noise elimination (when up/down-converting audio for CD-R or DVD mastering), were all performed using 24-bit / 96 kHz digital realm processing at Serafin Station Studio B [using the "code name Harpoon" editing software V1.001.04 Build 499]


JAY'S PERSONAL COMMENTS:

You gotta love this show. Whether you approve of Pigpen or not, this show shines. Maybe it was because the show began late (gee, can you figure out from Bobby's hints which drummer didn't show up on time?), and the crowd was fired up... maybe it was just "one of those nights"... no one can say for sure, but this show was just dripping with that goo that is raw energy... and every band member was covered in it, flicking off bits onto the audience!

Before anyone says, "Jay, you missed some clicks and pops when you edited this show", let me assure you, that's NOT the case! It's especially "noticeable" during the great Love Light; the "clicks / pops" are actually the BAND MEMBERS CLAPPING! Listen closely, very closely... there's more than one of these "clicks" at any given time (i.e., more than "1 in a row"), and if you listen carefully, you will hear that it's a vocal mike picking up clapping. So, I just had to get that one out of the way. the energy level for this show was SO HIGH that the band got SO into the show, they just sucked the energy from the audience, and channeled it right back at them (and, to you, the end-listener!

Set 1 is just one song long song, broken up into segues into more music into more into more! Begins with a wonderful Cryptical and winds up with Cosmic Charlie. Jerry speaks! And he tells the audience what's going on "Short set!" he informs everyone, and gives the audience notice that Set 2 will be longer. Thanks for the update!

When Phil pre-mixed this down, in 1988, he knew that this show was special. And like the 2/27/69 show, it was supposed to be used on a future live commercial release. And pre-mix he did, giving the tracks their own unique "spread", just like the Wall Of Sound was meant to do... surround the people, and make them feel like they were up at the front of the stage rail, dancing around like madmen, and just drawing you into this massive "wide" sound.

Every song is great, and I'm not going to single out any one in particular. Each was done in it's own style, so you can't say that any one song was better than another.

When Set 2 ends, and they come back on stage, Bobby talks about where Phil is (hint: Lesh is the one with the "broken string"); then Jerry explains to the audience that there's a curfew, and they can only play one more song and it has to be short. He even tries to get the audience to "give them an idea", as I was told that the entire band was drawing a blank for a "short song" to play! It was actually Billy who came up with the idea for the complete Hey Jude encore, which was only the second time this song had been played in it's entirety by the Dead. Listen very closely to Disc 2 Track 7, and you'll hear them talking amongst themselves.

Just sit back with a bunch of friends, and enjoy this show. If you're able to, spread your home audio speakers farther apart than you normally would have them (if possible), so you can get the "feel of the mix", as it is very expansive. Headphones are going to ruin the "expansiveness" of this show, so try not to wear them, unless you really have to.

When working on this show (and like all shows I work on), I used the "studio standard 6 foot triangle" setup for listening (6' spacing between the speakers and I set 6 feet back from the center; but when all the tracks were done, I moved the speakers to a 12 foot spacing, and the show sounded even better!

TECHNICAL NOTES:

There was no noise reduction done to this show. You do hear a slight amount of the original RTR hiss during the "no audio" parts, in Set 2, but due to the fact that there's no other analog gens in here, my belief was just to leave the small bit of hiss in, and let the complete frequency spectrum come through, than to reduce the hiss and you would lose just the very highest frequencies. It would be noticeable on "Dark Star" and such.

Disc 2, T07 IS shorter than some versions people may have in their show collections. But remember, this is the "Phil Mix", not the original Vault copy! It's about 2.5 minutes less in length, and it's where the "worst problems were" from the original reels.

On Disc 2, beginning on Track 07, which is the "prelude to the encore", the SBD people noticed that the RTR decks which was recording at the time, was running out of tape. They literally grabbed a random blank "spare tape box", and got the other RTR deck going. What they didn't realize, at the time, was that the tape was a different formulation. So, the recording bias and EQ were incorrect, which resulted in more hiss, and a slightly "tinny" sound quality. I tried to match up the remainder of Track 7 and all of Track 8 to the audio of everything prior to the deck change. It's slightly noticeable, and the hiss is just slightly higher, but the vocal and instrument audio is as close to identical as possible. This info was given to me, on one of the hand-written pages which accompanied this show, from my MCS. So, the info is verifiable. There are some other versions where there's about 3 minutes of VERY DULL audio, which was, at some point in time, patched in by someone who worked on this show. Phil left this really badly "muffled" audio out. The "muffling" was due to the "new" deck's Dolby A switch being accidentally turned on. The only thing you "missed" was the audience stomping their feet, and 3 words of Jerry speaking missing. Believe me, this section is NOT something you'd want to hear, as the problems really throws off the "flow of the show". Phil knew this, and that's why he edited it out. Hey, I'm just the "messenger" here. I could have filled the missing section in, as I have a copy of the original multi-track mix, but I personally felt that this show didn't need to be messed with.



PERSONAL RATINGS: (on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being excellent)
Audio Mix: 10
Audio Quality: 9.8 (slight vocal overloading on the original RTR masters, which cannot be fixed)
Energy Level: 11
Show "Completeness": 9.9 (refer to Disc 2 T07 described above)
Surprises: "Hey Jude" chosen as the encore (due to the time curfew for the Fillmore West)