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Tulum's Collection

R.E.M.   10/06/1984

Graham Chapel (Washington University), St. Louis, MO
Source FM recording (unknown), courtesy of the McKenzie Tapes project
Media FLAC   25 discs
Notes About this revision:

I started with a diamond-in-the-rough lossless recording kindly provided by Tom G. from the McKenzie Tapes Project (learn more at themckenzietapes.com). The recording had no known lineage, but my ears heard a generated FM recording that suffered from multiple deficiencies. On a quality scale, I would have rated it a C-. After a couple of attempts at digital revision over the past 2 years, I’m finally happy with the result. It’s now a decent-sounding FM recording that merits an overall grade of B in my rating system, with just a few sections that dip slightly. (I grade conservatively, as you’ll hear.) In sum, this is quite listenable, even for fans who only want to hear higher quality recordings. Performance wise, this is one to savor: the band is on, and having a big time — tight and confident this far into the tour, but loose enough to play requests (ex: a rousing rendition of the rarely-played Stones cover Paint It Black). This is one of my favorite recordings from 1984.

Warts & fixes:

1. As received, the McKenzie Tapes recording sounded like it came from a 3rd or 4th generation tape source. It was affected by minor FM signal drift and some tape wobble. EQ work helped lessen the effects of the signal drift, but you’ll still hear some amount of tape wobble if you’re listening for it.
2. There were a few dropouts in one channel and numerous start-stop cuts in the recording, suggesting an attempt to save tape. A couple of the cuts are still there because they aren’t very noticeable and don’t affect the music.
3. Due to an ill-timed tape flip, we don’t hear the first seconds of Gardening at Night. It now fades in, notwithstanding a brief section of source tape distortion that remains.
4. Somewhere along the way, the levels were overly amplified, causing some distortion. I reduced the amplification accordingly, so you might want to make a manual adjustment as you listen.
5. When first posted, track 03 Kohoutek had a jump cut. That track was fixed for this version.

Additional notes:

The first version of this that I shared on 2 torrent trackers had a track that slipped by my quality control team (when it was discovered, I fired all of them with immediate effect). This version has the track in question (03 Kohoutek) repaired, as noted in the file name and on the setlist.

A few years ago, Jeff Ferro shared a hi-res tape that’s said to be from the same tape source. I am dubious on this point, but I will let others be the judge. I have not carefully compared the two except for previewing a few of the tracks. The cursory comparison persuaded me I prefer my reworked version — admitting I’m not very objective on the subject! Meanwhile, I just discovered that Bert13 created his own revision of the Ferro recording in Aug. 2022.

Rob-in-Brevard
Jan. 2026
Tech Notes Lineage: McKenzie Tapes recording (16-bit wave file) > Adobe Audition 2025 for de-noising, phase correction, and normalization > AIFF file > Audacity 3.7 for Mac for track splits, 1 additional pass of NR, and EQ > FLAC
Trades Allowed Yes
Owned by Tulum · Last Updated Feb 13, 2026