compilation of Audience and FM recordings

CDR

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DVD 2716; lineage: Compiled from a French FM radio broadcast and an audience recording. Sources combined where possible. Occasional editing was used to smooth tape pauses and to remove all Francophone radio host commentary. Known Lineage FM Broadcast : FM French radio broadcast > unknown generation cassette > CDR > Wavelab 4.01 Remastering > WAV > FLAC8. Known Lineage Audience recording : Master Cassette from the taper > CDR > Wavelab 4.01 > WAV > FLAC8

Basically I was given two rare recordings of this concert
and this is a compilation and a combined version
of both of these shows removing the French DJ commentary
that was present on the FM broadcast version.

The FM broadcast portion although from an official radio broadcast
and of much better quality, does not seem to accurately convey
the magnitude and ambience of this extraordinary venue,
which is amply evident in the audience version of this recording.
I found that by combining the two together, you get the best of both.
Unfortunately this was only possible for about 1/3 of the show
as the FM broadcast was quite short.

The audience recording was pitch matched to the FM Broadcast version,
which is very close to Nico's performance on the official June 1, 1974 CD.
The Indian harmonium she used was not a perfectly tuned instrument
and so digital analysis is not an accurate reference.

The audience portion aside from the pitch correction is untouched,
but the FM broadcast portion required some mid range compression
to reduce giant volume spikes in Nico's vocals.
There was a fair amount of hiss present as well that was removed
as this is more than compensated by the ambience of the audience
recording which had plenty of nice high end frequencies.
A widening of the stereo separation was also applied to match
the audience recording and because it sounded better in my opinion.

The first two minutes of Janitor of Lunacy is missing from the FM broadcast,
so it begins with only the audience recording.

The beginning few bars of Abschied was subbed from a show
at the Squat Theatre in 1980 to assist in the removal of the DJ dialogue.
Oddly this song was missing from the more complete audience recording,
likely due to a tape flip.

The remainder of the show is only the audience version and is
not present in the broadcast without dialogue on top.

Also of note is the rare encore of Ari's Song.
This may be the only recorded live performance of this
classic from the Marble Index record.

A number of liberties were taken to simulate transitions between tracks
as the audience taper shut his recorder off between every song.
Infinitely preferable to the jarring Francophone DJ interruptions.
If anyone has the pre-FM broadcast tapes, please contact me
and I would be thrilled to upgrade this further.

2716

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