Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] Toronto 84 weed

mwoods@customfleet.com.au mwoods@customfleet.com.au
Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:57:53 +1000


Hi All

I received a copy of Toronto 1984 from Cheryl for re-weeding...thanks
Cheryl!   This show has been circulating in another format which I've seen
on lists around the place, easily recognisable as it fades out just as
Armistice Day starts to crank up.  I did a quick A-B last night, and here
are my thoughts....

What both versions have in common is the lamentable absence of Jims
guitar...it is mixed right out of the picture.  Where he plays keys there
is a lovely fullness about the sound as the image is filled up, such as Tin
Legs and Scream in Blue.  So for Rotsey fans, he's all over this.

The old version (Armistice day faded out) is quite hissy but has a warm
bottom end.  The image leans to the left, Rotseys side, so through
headphones it's a bit annoying.  It's a little more punchy than the new
version and the key thing is that it is correctly pitched.  One thing that
annoys me as a trader is not so much the quality or the number of
reproductions...we can't control that; what we can correct is pitch errors.
A lot of boots are spoiled because of the vagaries of tape speed which are
then burned to CD and captured for good.  Modern technology can fix this
and I would encourage anyone with the facility to do so, to do so.

The new version has a nicely balanced stereo image.  The drums fill in the
image on the right to cover the absence of Jims guitar, there are some nice
top end details in cymbals and electric drums.  Not as gutsy as the old
version, so we're trading detail for oomph, to put it plainly.  The
unfortunate thing with the new version is it is pitched fast.  During
Knifes Edge, it picks up 5 seconds on the old version, about half a
semitone I'd reckon.  Without a comparison, it just sounds like an
energetic gig where everything is played fast, but in actuality, it's a
tape speed error somewhere along the line.

In an ideal world, we would be doing what a lot of lists are doing and
cleaning these boots up and weeding/treeing the optimum version of each
rather than continuing the sins of the past and circulating faulty boots
(for prog fans, check out the Hogweeds, FADE and King Crimson Collectors
Club for wonderful efforts in this regard).  This does require a lot of
time, equipment and commitment to a task.  Glenn Finnan, Jeff Scott and
myself have done this in the past with Capitol and Hollywood Palladium
(assembling full shows from dribs and drabs, cleaning them up etc), and I
now see these traded, up as MP3s etc.

As a fan, I'm happy to offer this show up for re-weeding to the first 3 (2
x Aust/NZ, 1 x Rest of world...must be able to re-weed) respondents.  As a
trader, I'd rather it went to someone who could correct the pitch,
reinforce the mids and then re-weed it.  I do not possess the facilities.
If you have the old version, the take of Scream in Blue is worth it alone,
an absolute killer and also the history behind the naming of Koala Sprint
is provided!

For re-weeding, contact me off-list with a land address.

Regards

Michael
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