FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS
CIVIC CENTER
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
AUGUST 21, 1970
A First Generation Tape Restoration and Transfer
Some distortion in the loudest sections
Classic TMoQ mono audience recording
RECORDED FROM ORCHESTRA SECTION D, ROW 2, SEAT 17
(the tickets were in the box, sorry there were no scanners back then)
SOURCE:
Sennheiser 805 shotgun microphone > Uher 4000 1/2 Track 1/4" x 5" R2R @ 7 1/2 ips > REVOX B77 w/ Dolby > SONY DTC 690 @ 16/32
TRANSFER AND RESTORATION BY MIKE MARTIN:
SONY DTC-690 > AUDIGY 4 (via Toslink) > AUDACITY (conversion to 16/44.1 and extensive editing) >
CD Wav > Flac (Level 8)
DISC 1-
1. Introduction
2. Agon >
3. Call Any Vegetable
4. A Pound For A Brown On The Bus >
5. Sharlena (tape flip)
6. The Air >
7. Dog Breath (in the Year of the Plague) >
8. Mother People >
9. You Didn't Try to Call Me >
10.King Kong > (tape flip)
[42:35]
DISC 2-
1. Frank discusses the concept of 200 Motels
2. Road Ladies
3. Introduction >
4. What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening >
5. Go to the Club or the Bar (exact title unknown)
6. What Kind Of Girl Do You Think We Are? >
7. Bwana Dik Deluxe >
8. Latex Solar Beef >
9. Daddy Daddy Daddy > (repaired volume dip in middle of song)
10.Do You Like My New Car? > (tape flip)
11.Happy Together >
12.What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning?
13.Would You Go All The Way
14.Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink (featuring Mark Volman on guitar)
encore:
15.tune up and chat
16.Wino Man >
17.Concentration Moon >
18.Mom and Dad (tape flip)
[48:55]
Frank Zappa-guitar & vocals
Hoawrd Kaylan-vocals
Mark Volman-vocals & guitar
Ian Underwood-sax, keyboards & clarinet
Don Preston-Mini-Moog
Jim Pons-bass
Aynsley Dunbar-drums
This is another Trade Mark of Quality (TMOQ) classic early 70's recording.
I originally copied the master reels from a Tandberg to my Revox B77 in 1986.
From the Revox copy I transferred to a DAT in the 1990's and the first generation reels were tossed out.
A bad move but the tape had so many dropouts it seemed worthless and I never though that I would have the only first generation copy around.
Didn't even think it was worthy of recording at the SP speed and recorded it at LP so the sample rate is only 32 KHz and the high-end rolls off after 16KHz.
The first task was to review and fix the original splices of the tape flips, which occur about every 22 minutes (5'' tape at 7 1/2 ips).
The bigger technical challenge was cleaning up the dropouts from the master tapes, my reel copy and the DAT copy.
A lot of time was spent removing and smoothing out the hundreds (more likely over a thousand) of the micro-gaps and volume fluctuations found on this tape.
The worst sections were during the first few minutes of each disc (beginning of each master tape reel) and again from Concentration Moon to the end (the third reel).
I originally made this without any sound filters and the bass was so heavy it was hard to listen to.
An equalization of -7dB below 400 Hz was applied to remove the muddy booming (and it is still a bit bass heavy).
Next the louder passages are distorted so to reduce the harshness the max volume was reduced using a light compression.
The overall amplitude was then raised by 4dB.
These changes improved the spectral balance but increased the background hiss levels.
So finally a light (15%) inverting noise filter was applied to reduce this hiss a little.
Care was taken not to apply this to the low frequencies thus avoiding that metallic sound.
Tracks cut with CD Wave
Flac conversion (Level 8) with fingerprints and checksums performed with Traders Little Helper
As a note.
This copy comes from the actual masters (3 - 5" reel to reel tapes) and is the complete concert (minus tape flip loss).
Relegated to the dark corners of my collection due to the dropout issue this recording is now worthy to be shared.
Still not perfect but it is much easier to listen to than my DAT tape.
Hope you all enjoy this restoration of a precious historical document.
Mike Martin
5/2010
Flying M Productions
RECORDED BY FANS AND SHARED WITH FANS
TRADE FREE AND NEVER SELL
SUPPORT THE ARTIST'S FAMILY AND BUY THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS
(IF YOU DON'T HAVE THEM ALREADY)
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