I have neve downloaded one of these before. How good is the flac sound quality. What kind of artwork do they provide? Has anyone done a Dead download?

I haven't downloaded from them but I have heard from some very picky Deadheads that the flac quality is very good. The original download series had a very basic cover and back-plate. I don't know if they are going to do something different for this series. But for the main issue - sound - you probably can feel safe in proceeding.

By the way for those that are interested, here are the links -

The Spectrum, Philadelphia 11/5/79
http://www.deadnetstore.com/Commerce/Pr ... fromlink=6

The Spectrum,Philadelphia 11/6/79
http://www.deadnetstore.com/Commerce/Pr ... fromlink=7

Is this Collector's Corner material?

The price is right, but I'm not jumping on the download only bandwagon. Hard enough to listen to all the physical Dead I have.

The sound quality is indeed very very good (and you can't beat the price). The artwork only includes just the cover for some reason. There is no tray liner with track listings which is a bit disappointing I guess. I did e-mail them to ask if one would be made available. However, I suppose I could make my own "label" with track listings if necessary. WELL WORTH THE PURCHASE.

Dave

Be aware that 11.5 is slow by about 2.7%. geeeze!

"Be aware that 11.5 is slow by about 2.7%. geeeze!"

I don't understand what this means?

In simple terms, it means that the source tapes ran very slow, when they've transferred them to CD - to your ears, the music will be slower tempos than usual, voices will sound deeper (occasionally unnaturally so) and the musicians amongst us won't be able to jam along with their GD CD's, as their instruments will be out of pitch.

It's easy enough to speed-correct music in this day and age but, apparently, Rhino don't appear to notice, even despite the off-pitch samples posted on Dead Net.

I would say this is shocking, but it isn't the first time though...

To give you an example of how slow 2.7% is, the pitch corrected show is 5 minutes faster than the d/l.

Sounds fine to my ears. Perhaps the circulating tape ran too fast.

I can't imagine Rhino putting out a tape that runs too slow.

The Cow Palace is slow by about 5%, the Shakedown on So Many Roads is fast and there are a couple of others that escape me now that have gotten out under Rhino that are off speed. The Cow Palace doesn't bother me at all but the Shakedown and the hidden Scarlet>Fire on one of the DPs drive me nuts. I can't listen to them.

One of the moderators over on the Dead.net boards claims to have passed on the gripes about the pitch correction issue to Rhino and expects an answer Monday or soon thereafter.I suspect anyone who downloaded the show will get an email with a new link to the speed corrected shows.I remember when the remastered Shakedown Street CD's hit the street ,there was a digital glitch on the first pressings.Anyone who bought the Box Set through Dead.net was automatically sent a new disc.The Dead have always been very good about getting the best quality sound out to it's fans.

AS POSTED ON DEAD.NET:

On September 19th, 2008 Jeffrey Norman said:
I'd like to add my two cents on the recent observations of our downloads from 11/5/79 and 11/6/79.

Beginning with Dick's Picks, Volume One, almost 15 years ago (yikes, that long!), Grateful Dead Records started a wonderful tradition of releasing live concert recordings. These releases generally were accompanied by a caveat emptor to remind listeners that although there were occasional acknowledged flaws and sonic anomalies, the shows were so good and deserving of a wider audience, the flaws were worth living with. Fans were getting the real-deal, warts and all. These releases were never to be confused with fully produced studio recordings. Our Road Trips compilations and Grateful Dead Download series are recent extensions of this tradition. These releases are once again spirited snapshots as opposed to more formal portraits from the band's tape vault.

As many of you know, I truly strive to make the Grateful Dead releases that I'm responsible for the best they can be. Accordingly, I spent a great deal of time to transform very dull and lifeless cassette source tapes from the band's 11/5/79 and 11/6/79 performances into recordings I was very pleased with. Rob B. has alertly noticed the new downloads of these shows are slightly off speed. As many of you know, cassette recorders notoriously record either too fast or too slow; if the playback machine doesn't play at the original record speed, the result will be off speed. Unfortunately this happened on this download. I'm sorry if this has lessened anyone's enjoyment of these great concerts.

Thanks,
Jeffrey Norman

It sure sounds like they have no intention of speed correcting the shows.Absolutely disgraceful.Dick Latvala is spinning in his grave.They will never get another nickel from me again.

The Dead are truely Dead. Thank God Jerry isn't around to see and hear this horse crap.

The weird thing about all of this is that there is now a machine that people in studios use that can actually fix any kind of speed imperfections. Maybe it's too costly to use? I'd find that hard to believe though. The machine would be for old archival things anyway.

Mr. Norman:

Any reasonable person would interpret the caveat "These releases generally were accompanied by a caveat emptor to remind listeners that although there were occasional acknowledged flaws and sonic anomalies" to refer to bad notes, missing tunes, and other flaws in performance or in source media that one would not expect to be addressed in a release of this nature. By the same token, it is not at all unreasonable to expect that the source tape would be played back at the correct speed at the time of transfer. This is not a flaw in the source, but rather, a flaw in the transfer!

Furthermore, in this day and age, this could have been very easily addressed if it was not overlooked at the time the FLACs were prepared. It still would not be difficult to correct, but you seem to think it is acceptable to release shoddy workmanship, rather than go to the trouble of not only correcting it, but of making it available to those that have already purchased the original issue.

This is unacceptable, and will surely be the last straw for those who did not jump ship after the LLAMA debacle, or the sale to Rhino.

Pretty lame, pretty weak, and pretty pathetic.

aikox2

aikox2 1
Jeffrey Norman 0

Stevie - I'm wondering if you're thinking of Plangent Processes, who correct tape wobble/flutter anomalies in old recordings? This was what was used on Cow Palace and the Winterland '73 set, to enable the source tape to run exactly to a constant speed - what it doesn't do (or is intended for) though, is to actually adjust that speed.

So far as actual pitch correction is concerned, well I'm no expert in digital audio, but I can grab a program for free off the internet, that enables me to make accurate pitch adjustments to a set of FLAC files in less than 5 minutes (which is prety much exactly what I did with the Downloads! )

If any person even half-literate in computers like me can do that, then so can Mr Norman...

hoggydoggy,
Yep! That's what I was thinking about. I didn't remember that about it not actually being able to keep things running at the same speed. You know? It being a Grateful Dead thing is very appropriate. I had been wondering where I recalled that I knew about it somewhat.

Dick Latvala is spinning in his grave, but at least he is spinning at the correct speed ; )