In 1980 the Grateful Dead did a series of shows at The Warfield in San Francisco and Radio City Music Hall in NYC. They performed an acoustic first set and then two electric sets at each show. The recordings culled from these shows were released on two double albums: Reckoning and Dead Set, acoustic and electric respectively. The stage mics, placed close to the voices and instruments were recorded to two synced 16-trk tape machines and the room mics, capturing hall ambience were recorded to two 4-trk machines. During mix down the signals from the close and distant mics were blended and phase aligned yielding a recording that captures the robust, immediate quality of the stage mics and the ambient, crowd noise of the room mics without any time smear. This unique approach to live recording creates a good approximation of being in the audience. On vinyl, these records also have tremendous dynamic range, capturing the Dead's proclivity to play somewhat quietly and then very loudly. Fun!
authentic space recordings
hi. recently i downloaded the first couple of albums from norah jones. love them! with that type of music in mind, i'm wondering what recommendations there are for music like that recorded in a "space" like a club or hall or church. one of the things i love about music is being able to transported to some other space - not necessarily a recording booth. heh, maybe i just want reverb :) thanks