Steve Kimock Band
7/3/2002
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY

Private Party

*24-bit 48kHz Recording*

Recording, archival, and 16-bit mastering by Dan Heend

Schoeps CMC64V ORTF DFC onstage knee-high with Schoeps A20 shockmounts-> 25' AudioMagic Extreme silver balanced XLR mic cable -> Grace LUnatec V2 -> AudioMagic Scepter silver Balanced XLR signal cable -> Benchmark AD2402-96 @24-bit 48kHz -> AudioMagic Presto II silver S/PDIF Cable -> DAARWIN-24 laptop (Sony Picturebook C1VN, Digigram VXPocket, Win2K CLEAR OS, Sonic Foundry Vegas Audio 2.0).

Trimmed, faded in and out of sets, and tracked into separate files with Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 5.0 using Markers, Special->Regions->Markers to Regions, and Tools->Extract Regions to files.  No additional processing was performed on the 24/48 material.  Files were losslessly compressed using Monkeys Audio Compressor v3.96 on High setting.

16-bit, 44.1kHz mastering
---------------------------
Using Sound Forge 5.0, Normalized first two songs of Set 2 from ~-7.1dB to ~-3.7dB in order to correct the balance.  Applied Waves L2 Ultramaximizer DX Plugin (limiting with threshhold=-3.0dB, Out Ceiling=-0.2dB, quantization to 24bit with IDR Type 1 Dither and Normal Noise shaping) as substitute for normalization.  SF 5.0 for sample rate conversion to 44.1 using anti-aliasing filter and highest quality setting, followed by another round of Waves L2 Ultramaximizer (Threshhold=0dB, Out Ceiling=0dB [no limiting or compression] for quantization to 16-bit with IDR TYpe 1 dither and Ultra noise-shaping).  Resultant file was then truncated to 16-bit, and tracked into separate files with Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 5.0 using Markers, Special->Regions->Markers to Regions, and Tools->Extract Regions to files.  Tracked files (by set) were run through SHNTOOL FIX for proper CD track boundaries.  Fade tracks were then created using Sound Forge 5.0 on proper sector boundaries, and SHNTOOL FIX was again run on a per CD basis to ensure that the sector boundaries check out.  SHNTOOL STRIP was then run to remove any extra RIFF info.  The files were then SHN'd, seek tables appended, and MD5's of both .wav and .shn files were created.

4 .APE CD's, 3 Audio CD's, 2 .SHN CD's required.

Comments from Dan:

This show was nothing but fun.  A fantastic "private party" hosted by Gary "Phunk1" Johnson.  All the regular peeps from all over the universe seemed to be there.  Great place, sound was excellent from the stage.  Despite what some others have said about the show, I thought everyone was very well behaved and pretty quiet.  Shouts out to fellow taper geeks: Gary, Charlie, Arielle, Alan, and Bill (the Artful Dodger).
As for the 16-bit mastering, in the past I've generally taken a totally minimalistic approach to 16-bit mastering...  No normalization, no EQ, no compression, no limiting, etc... But this time, I thought about normalizing to try to bring some of the extra resolution captured by the 24-bit recording into the 16-bit realm.  Noting that there were only a couple of transient points in the music that reached over -3dB, the overall levels were more typically around 4dB below FSD or lower.  I decided a little soft-knee limiting in the 24-bit domain wouldn't hurt, and would raise the levels a little without too much negative impact on the overall sound.  That's why I ran the extra L2 process.
Figuring that since the original 24-bit would be archived in it's pristine, unadulterated state, that the limiting process wouldn't be that bad for the 16-bit master.  In fact, lately I'm rethinking my approach to my 16-bit mastering efforts in this manner, especially since I feel the 16-bit CD is a very temporary medium at this point.  Because it is my personal opinion that the recording is flawless, the 16-bit mastering will not be first released to dankseeds for certification--unfortunately the dank review process lately has been taking a little too long for my taste, and I'd like to see this make its rounds a sooner than later.  So enjoy it already!
-Dan

Set 1:

d1t01 intro >			02:35.11      
d1t02 Thing One			15:48.24    
d1t03 You're the One		18:06.15     
d1t04 Bronx Experiment		09:47.74    
d1t05 A New Africa		12:29.12     
d1t06 fade out>			00:04.00        
d2t01 fade in<			00:04.00        
d2t02 Elmer's Revenge		22:55.23     
d2t03 Hillbillies on PCP	13:17.42
d2t04 <band introductions>	03:11.66      

Set 2:
d2t05 Song Two			11:07.03     
d2t06 High & Lonesome		15:51.16     
d2t07 fade out>			00:04.00        
d3t01 fade in<			00:04.00        
d3t02 Moonpeople		11:57.17     
d3t03 Ice Cream Factory		14:42.00     
d3t04 Sabertooth		15:39.07     
d3t05 Cole's Law		12:18.33     

	Total   		180:02.43    


18 .wav files 1,905,574,728 bytes
18 .shn files 1,060,631,902 bytes


Personnel:

Steve Kimock - guitars
Rodney Holmes - drums & cymbals
Mitch Stein - more guitar
Alphonso Johnson - bass



