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Daniel's Collection

Return to Forever   04/09/1975

Bluemoon Room, Elgin, IL
Source WXFT-FM "unconcert" broadcasts
2026 Speed corrected source mix (Ross/ledwhofloyd Jan 2026)

Broadcasts of first part
Source 1 (tmat44): FM > Cassette > HHB CDR830/CD-R/W > EAC > Nero Wave Editor (track splits and fade in/fade out) > FLAC frontend (w/SBE correction)
Source 2 (glasnostrd19): WXRT "unconcert" FM broadcast > unknown receiver > Tandberg reel deck, unknown model > TDK audua 7" reel @ 3.3/4 ips > played on Teac X-700R reel deck into soundforge (wav) > flac (sb's aligned)

Broadcasts of second part
Source 3: FM>C>MD(?)>CDR (spectral analysis shows that this source is PCM lossless with tape hiss completely intact from 15-22 kHz, i.e. it does NOT exhibit ATRAC compression. Either minidisc is actually not in the lineage, or it was Hi-MD)
Source 4 (glasnostrd19): FM broadcast > ? > TDK-AD 90 min. cassette (probably 1st gen. copy) > played on Tascam 112 into soundforge (wav) > flac (sb's aligned)
Source 5 (glasnostrd19): FM broadcast reel > Maxell XLII cassette copy > played on Tascam 112 into soundforge (wav) > flac (sb's aligned)

Editing lineage:
Source 1 (tmat44): FLAC > MATLAB (speed correct, balance levels) > Audacity (a few manual repairs to track 5) > FLAC
Source 2 (glasnostrd19): FLAC > MATLAB (speed adjustment) > FLAC
Source mix: FLAC > Audacity > TLH > FLAC (L8)

Source 3: FLAC > Audacity (undoing fades between tracks) > MATLAB (speed correct, balance levels) > FLAC
Source 4+5: FLAC > MATLAB (speed correct) > FLAC
Source mix: FLAC > Audacity (also repair channel timing offset at start of track 2) > TLH > FLAC
Checksums 01 Dayride.flac:f90171607e7a98fcb43b37e5efa25513
02 Beyond the Seventh Galaxy.flac:f1d01edaed79c1e6973926378174f02b
03 Sophistifunk.flac:e034db3c5ad8047205231952dfd479cd
04 The Shadow of Lo.flac:255313b1ff640a0dd7e7974b04d206ee
05 Song to the Pharaoh Kings.flac:111e39a3a09a446494ada8118d8f52d7
06 The Game Maker.flac:e81d5e9324c5f505527997608d6abd1f
07 Space Circus.flac:26d2f1c972c1010feb7b08e5fd125fb5
08 Vulcan Worlds.flac:c503b00bca19a48f31d0c95727e80ad6
09 Celebration Suite.flac:42e8866e372b25dae840838e4e69dc31
10.flac:f36e5eebfa637ecf036512c0e6677803
Media
Notes Show dating notes (2026):
Source 3 was originally dated as April 18; however, I have found no evidence of an April 18
show in Elgin. I looked up the Chicago Tribute archives and it mentions an April 9 show.
Also, there is a promotional poster for the April 9 show. It seems highly unlikely Return to
Forever would play both on April 9 and 18. Sources 3-5 are almost certainly from a different
broadcast just playing a different part of the same April 9 show in Elgin. Both broadcast
parts have a radio announcer saying that it's WXRT.

tmat44 notes (2015):
This may or may not be a companion piece to another torrent posted on Dime-a-Dozen, with the
same venue (but dated as April 18, 1975). Since I taped this direct from WXRT in June of
1975, I checked the dates at that time for accuracy. This is a good recording, which I'd rate
a solid A-. It has some FM hiss which has not been corrected here, but it improves greatly
with just a little noise reduction. It has a rawer sound than the other piece, with a
sibilant sound to the cymbals, but otherwise all of the instruments are balanced in the mix;
everything is driven a little high, however. There is no doubt that this venue is the Blue
Moon Ballroom, since one of the band members [Lenny White] mentions it during the set.


Editing notes (2026):
Source 1 (tmat44) was running slow, so speed corrected
-tracks 1-3 were 2.25% slow, track 4 was 2.9% slow, track 5 started 2.3% slow then 7 minutes
in it started getting gradually slower and reached 3.6% slow by the end of track 6
-automatically balanced levels (the left channel was originally much louder)
-Audacity: manually repaired one click and lowered a 100 ms burst on the right channel during
track 5

Source 2 (glasnostrd19):
glasnostrd19 circulated this as part of the "fresh" archives in 2016.
-This was just used for the last 17 sec of track 6 (the final note)
-Speed adjusted by +0.4% because it was slightly slow

Source 3:
If my reading of dime's history is correct, this was shared on dime by radhika in 2007;
however, they say they got it from a different tracker. Maybe STG? It is a very good quality
source - the best of all the sources here - with frequency detail up to 15 kHz, and fully
intact tape hiss from 15-22 kHz (no ATRAC compression). The unfortunate thing about source 3
is that between the songs, somebody cut out the speaking portions (radio broadcast and Lenny
White), lowered the levels and also crossfaded over some parts between the cuts to disguise
them. The worst consequence of this is that the first couple of seconds of Celebration Suite
on source 3 has a slight amount of chatter crossfaded onto it. Fortunately, the 3 songs on
this broadcast are all here and the music is uncut.

-I worked very diligently on the 3.5 sec before the first note in Vulcan Worlds and the
25 sec after the last note in Vulcan Worlds to undo the fading so that I could keep these
parts from this source. It sounds like there is a cut about 20 sec after the last
note in Vulcan Worlds, but that "cut" is also on source 4 so it might be broadcast related.

-track 7 was 0.9% fast, track 8 was close enough to the right speed, track 9 was 4.1% for
the first 19 seconds, then became 3.85% fast for the remainder
-high-pass filtered with a cutoff of 2 Hz to eliminate gradual DC drift
-automatically balanced levels

-Somehow the left channel was leading the right by about 62 ms for first ~17 sec of Vulcan
Worlds on the original source 3. I fixed the channel alignment here during the source
mixing stage of my edits. I had to monoize a few ms to cover the part that was missing
from the left channel.

Source 4+5:
glasnostrd19 circulated source 4+5 as a single file set in 2015. Source 4 is the majority of
that file set and 5 is the last 8 minutes. They sound almost the same. I only used these
sources here for the non-music parts in-between songs and like 3 sec at the start of
Celebration Suite.

-the part between Space Circus and Vulcan Worlds was 1.4% fast
-the non-music part between Vulcan Worlds and Celebration Suite was 1.29% fast
-the part from the first few sec of Celebration Suite was 1.4% fast
-the part after Celebration Suite required no speed adjustment

Source mixing:
I used ~1 sec crossfades to join these sources together, except for the last 17 sec of track
6 from source 2, which I just spliced directly in.
Trades Allowed Yes   Traded from: ledwhofloyd
Owned by Daniel · Last Updated Feb 7, 2026