Cowboy Junkies
Rescue Rooms
Nottingham
2007-03-10

Doors 7pm finish 10pm
Ticket price was ï¿½15
Billed as "A Cowboy Junkies acoustic evening"
with Margo Timmins, Michael Timmins and Jeff Bird
+ support from Paul Burch

Lineage: Sennheiser 421s > Nomad J3 @44.1k > .wav > Adobe Audition > .wav > FLAC frontend (level6) > .flac


Paul Burch:
  1. //Montreal                   2:37
  2. When I'm In Love             2:25
  3. Bad Girl She Used To Be      3:13
  4. I Will Wait For You          3:22
  5. Last Dream Of Will Keene     4:00
  6. Wander                       3:23
  7. Lovesick Blues Boy           4:04
  8. Before The Bells             4:22
  9. Sparks Fly Out               3:10
 10. Willpower                    3:13
 11. I'm A Takin' It Home         2:59
 12. John Peel                    3:40
Total Time : [40:28]

Cowboy Junkies:
  1. Tired Eyes                           5:11
  2. A Horse In The Country               5:07
  3. Cutting Board Blues                  4:04
  4. Something More Besides You           4:37
  5. Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning   4:49
  6. Still Lost                           5:25
  7. You're Missing                       5:49
  8. December Skies                       3:49
  9. Anniversary Song                     3:19
 10. Rake >                               3:46
 11. Flying >                             4:16
 12. Marie                                5:56
 13. Black Eyed Man                       4:12
 14. My Little Basquiat                   5:27
 15. Band Introductions                   3:52
 16. To Love Is To Bury                   3:22
 17. Audience                             1:15
1st encore:
 18. banter                               0:55
 19. Floorboard Blues                     3:42
 20. Witches                              2:40
 21. Audience & banter                    1:33
2nd encore:
 22. Seven Years                          5:31
Total Time : [88:37]


A number of factors conspired to make this recording not as good as I might have hoped:
> A crowded venue: I managed to get the mic stand up in a DJ booth on the balcony -
the slight isolation that this gave was actually one of the positive factors.
> An audience that mostly preferred to talk during the support act, Paul Burch
> A noisy air conditioning unit. I never noticed this during Paul Burch's performance,
probably because the talkers were so loud. By the time the CJs were on stage and audience
had quietened down, there was no question of relocating.
> A noisy door to the balcony area, just 12 or so feet behind the microphones.
> Occasional electronic interference (?) from on-stage equipment, or the PA. I am referring
to instances of what sound like talk-back from a sound engineer or mixer. Check, for instance,
the start of cj2007-03-10t03.
> My own incompetence in setting a much lower than necessary recoridng level
> A quiet performance from the CJ's. And occasional clattering of bottles, cash register etc
from around the venue.

Despite which, the end result is not so bad. The microphone location - at some distance from
most of the audience - means that the between-song applause is not overpowering, and the
distractions (air conditioning, banging door) that annoyed me so much during the performance
are less evident during playback.
However, there is one noise that I can hear on headphones that I cannot explain, and which I
didn't notice during the performance - a frequent, high-pitched electronic squeak, such as that
generated perhaps when pressing buttons on a digital camera or somesuch.

Editing:

The master was substantially under-recorded. I don't know why I didn't notice
(probably just out of practice using the recorder). During the performance,
at 9:07 I adjusted the recording level by +6db. In order to improve the
volume throughout, I corrected the audio before this point with an increase
of +18db (samples x 800%), and +12.04db (samples x 400%) for the remainder of the show.
I cut and rejoined the two sections with a little cross-fade to make this adjustment
seamless - therefore approximately 2 seconds of audience applause has been eliminated
at the end of A Horse In The Country.

Paul Burch:
From start to 1:43 : Samples x 1500% - equivalent to +23.5db.
From 1:43 to end   : Samples x 500% - equivalent to +14db.
(and a tiny click repair at the exact point of the change)

Paul Burch recording cuts in - I don't remember any problems with getting this recording
started, so perhaps he wandered onstage without much warning, already strumming.

The music is still very quiet, and the between-song applause are the loudest parts of
the audio (a common problem with acoustic performances). I have not made any attempt to
reduce or compress the audience noise - this could be probably be done with good results.

Paul Burch:
Mobile phone interference pb2007-03-10t03 @ 3:07 (not mine, I switched it off because I know this can happen).
Door slamming pb2007-03-10t03 @ 0:25, 0:55, (etc etc etc)
Cash register and bottles also audible from time to time.

Cowboy Junkies
Door slamming cj2007-03-10t01 @1:35 (etc etc etc)
Intercom voice in first few seconds of Cutting Board Blues, and other occasions. (This could be heard
in the venue, not at all sure what it is).

Placing both performances on 2 CDs presents a choice in sequencing:

(A). In performance sequence:
Disc #1 = Paul Burch + Cowboy Junkies (Part 1)
Disc #2 = Cowboy Junkies (Part 2)

(B). "Convenience" sequence:
Disc #1 = Cowboy Junkies (prior to encore)
Disc #2 = Cowboy Junkies (encore) + Paul Burch

Method (A) allows for a disc flip after track #3, or track #8, or any track in between.
There is a quiet section after track #3 that suits this fine.
Method (B) allows for a disc flip during the 75 seconds of applause following To Love Is To Bury.

As well as the Sennheiser > JB3 recording, I also set up a minidisc recorder with CSB mics.
I hadn't used the MD recorder for some time and failed to get it started until the end of
Paul Burch's set, and there was a technical problem that prevented me from capturing the
Cowboy Junkies set. Therefore, we have an alternate source for the final 10 minutes only
of Paul Burch's set, AND it turns out to be a rather useful source. As well as tracking the
2 1/2 songs that comprised the 10 minute MD recording, I also prepared mixed versions of the
final 3 tracks of his set, which combine both Sennheiser and CSB sources (in an 80%+80% mix).
The resulting mixed-source tracks may be preferable to the Sennheiser source (and can be
dropped in as replacements for pb2007-03-10t10-12).
See the separate info file for details of the MD source.


shntool output:
    length     expanded size   cdr  WAVE problems filename
     5:11.11       54886316    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t01.flac
     5:06.63       54126620    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t02.flac
     4:04.06       43055756    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t03.flac
     0:10.00        1764044    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t03EndFadeIn.flac
     4:37.07       48879308    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t04.flac
     0:10.00        1764044    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t04StartFadeOut.flac
     4:48.56       50934956    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t05.flac
     5:24.52       57275948    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t06.flac
     5:49.11       61589516    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t07.flac
     3:49.31       40468556    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t08.flac
     3:19.00       35103644    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t09.flac
     3:45.71       39857036    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t10.flac
     4:15.73       45153740    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t11.flac
     5:55.57       62756108    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t12.flac
     4:11.48       44389340    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t13.flac
     5:27.23       57736940    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t14.flac
     3:51.70       40913084    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t15.flac
     3:21.63       35604620    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t16.flac
     1:15.08       13248860    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t17.flac
     0:10.00        1764044    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t17EndFadeIn.flac
     0:54.43        9626780    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t18.flac
     0:10.00        1764044    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t18StartFadeOut.flac
     3:42.23       39214940    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t19.flac
     2:40.15       28259324    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t20.flac
     1:32.58       16365260    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t21.flac
     5:31.36       58473116    ---   --    --xx   cj2007-03-10t22.flac
     2:36.59       27657212    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t01.flac
     2:24.62       25547468    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t02.flac
     3:12.39       33960572    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t03.flac
     3:21.50       35574044    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t04.flac
     4:00.31       42408956    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t05.flac
     3:23.01       35811596    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t06.flac
     4:04.24       43098092    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t07.flac
     4:22.21       46266236    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t08.flac
     3:09.39       33431372    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t09.flac
     3:13.12       34073468    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t10.flac
     2:59.29       31643852    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t11.flac
     3:40.08       38826860    ---   --    --xx   pb2007-03-10t12.flac
   129:45.00     1373275672 B                     (totals for 38 files, 0.3905 overall compression ratio)