Medeski Martin & Wood 04/18/2003
shn; Source: unspecified remastering of previous seed, by Ross Carlson
SHNID 17741 shn; Source: Sony ECM-S930C under balcony >...
SHNID 17742 FOB DPA 4022's (ortf) > Lunatec V3 @...
SHNID 26278 flac16; Source: SBE-fixed version of...
4/18/03
Symphony Center - Chicago, IL
Source: DPA 4022's (ortf) > Lunatec V3 @ 24-bit/48kHz > s/pdif to Sound Devices USBPre > laptop in 2nd ROW!
Dithered & re-sampled to 16/44.1 in Sound Forge 6.0 > CDR
Recorded & transferred by Ben C.
CDR > SHN & upload to chubbsub.org by Joe Perona
***mastered by rossta1***
- ONE SET -
Disc 1:
01. [18:16] - Afro Blue >
02. [16:55] - Seven Deadlies
03. [11:25] - Afrique
- DISCS ARE NOT SEAMLESS -
Disc 2:
01. [15:10] - Thaw > Open Improv [@8:17] >
02. [10:40] - Your Lady
03. [06:55] - Legalize It
04. [13:50] - Buster Rides Again >
05. [08:58] - Hey Joe
Encore:
06. [10:45] - I Wanna Ride You
Comments
shn; Source: Sony... (1)
FOB DPA 4022's (ortf) >... (2)
flac16; Source: SBE-fixed... (1)
This was a great recording for comparison since the starting material is excellent to begin with- nice location/presence, attentive crowd, decent mics. So what you hear in the mastering is an attempt to make something good sound better, instead of trying to fix a bad job. We did not attend this show; it's a recording-only experience for us.
In the mastered version, the natural hall echo is mostly gone, the overall sound is punchier and much brighter. But the new brightness is its very undoing: a vital delicacy, subtlety and nuance has been stripped away from the performance. For example, the melodica loses its breathy chord layers and becomes more like a harmonica, pitch pipe or even a synthesizer. The gravelly creak of the cuica becomes screechy. These 2 instruments in particular no longer sound like their "live" selves (whereas they do in the original seed, compared to other shows we've attended). Even the piano loses dynamics, as if Medeski is hitting too many keys too hard. It's not just at the top end: the quiet bass in Your Lady loses its gentle lullaby effect.
On the plus side, this version is probably a boon to people who may have some high-end hearing loss, or even just have noisy kids at home. It should really cut through if you don't have a quiet listening environment to begin with.
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