This is an update to torrent #376198: Sandy Denny & Band - City Hall Glasgow Scotland 1977-11-14 on DIME
added pitch/speed correction plus some equalizing in upper mids
The original torrent's info file can be found here:
<http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-nfo.php?id=376198>
Other sources (e.g. a different recording of the same show but in poorer sound quality, circulating as a Pink Robert torrent) say that the venue is Fairfield Hall, Croydon, November 11, 1977.
I left the Glasgow title for easier comparison with the original torrent on DIME and until definite proof of the right venue. Just the fact that the "Croydon" tag appeared earlier doesn't just yet make it more credible. And, differing from the "Glasgow" info, the PR torrent mentions Phil Palmer as a band member...
Who knows?
As many people found that this copy ("City Hall Glasgow Scotland 1977-11-14", DIME id=376198) had superior sound quality in comparison to older circulating copies, but ran at about 5 % too slow, I decided to do a speed and pitch corrected version. Under way I got into equalizing a little bit...
So here it is together with my comments that some people in a Sandy Denny Yahoo group might already have seen:
Although I didn't really intend to, I spent my day on the "new" Sandy torrent and ended up in correcting speed and pitch plus doing some equalizing in the upper mid frequencies to make Sandy's voice come out a little more clearly.
So for those interested in "technical" details, this is what I did:
1. I compared the new (Glasgow) torrent to the "old" Pink Robert (Croydon) torrent and found that the PR torrent probably had the right pitch and speed, although the sound was better on the "Glasgow" torrent.
I call it "Glasgow" torrent just to make a difference, although we do not really know if it was Glasgow or Croydon. Even errors often circulate for a long time. And I don't assume that UncleBoko is a liar (once again: "Thank you for this find!") #---research needed---
2. I adjusted pitch and speed (103 % of the original) using the combined function built into "Sound Studio" for Mac, assuming that the original tape was a rather good recording but played on a tape recorder running a bit too slow during digital recording - the reverse could be true, i.e. the original tape recorder running too fast while recording the original analog tape, but that makes no difference in final speed and pitch.
3. I used "Vox" to play the resulting files and decided to make the voice a little clearer. So I just used "Vox"s inbuilt equalizer and, at the same time time, recorded the result using "Sound Studio" again. "Soundflower" directed "Vox"s output to "Sound Studio"s input and my stereo monitored the result. (Rather unusual, but WTH? - I even had the chance to listen while recording!)
4. Still there was a little difference between the tuning of my digital piano and the recording, so I added a slight augmentation of speed/pitch (another plus 0.1 %) to get it into tune. Curiously, the result is an exact 60 BPM for "Solo" (in D), the first track of the recording. I doubt that Sandy cared much about numbers concerning rhythm and beat, but still it's a curious coincidence...
I hope you all appreciate the new version.
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lineage: • combined speed and pitch correction by "Sound Studio" (Mac) -> "Apple Lossless"
• played through "Vox" plus its inbuilt equalizer -> Soundflower (2ch) -> SoundStudio recording
• tracks cut and tagged by "SoundStudio", saved as "Apple Lossless" files -> tagged further in "iTunes"
• Apple Lossless -> FLAC via "XLD"
• MD5 via "Terminal", copied to "TextEdit"
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tracklist:
01 Solo
02 North Star Grassman & the Ravens
03 I'm A Dreamer
04 Gold Dust
05 Nothing More
06 John the Gun
07 The Sea
08 It'll Take A Long Time
09 Tomorrow Is A Long Time
10 The Lady
11 Wretched Wilbur
12 For Shame of Doing Wrong
13 Stranger To Himself
14 One More Chance
15 Take Me Away
16 Who Knows Where The Time Goes
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band:
Sandy Denny..............vocals, piano
Phil Palmer..............guitar (only mentioned in "Croydon" info)
Pat Donaldson............bass
Rob Hendry...............guitar
Pete Wilsher.............pedal steel
Trevor Lucas.............guitar
Dave Mattacks............drums