Nope, nothing to do with the planets. Since discovering the wonderful world of MK boots, I have been using a program called Har-bal for "remastering" these great concerts. Basically, Har-bal allows the user to correct for many of the variables that affect the sound on these live recordings, the dips and peaks in the balance caused by the venue's acoustic, the sound guy's mix, the position of the recorder in the hall, etc. The results can be quite amazing and greatly increase one's listening pleasure. And the best part is you don't have to be a recording engineer or have a lot of technical expertise to use this program. When you open a wav file in Har-bal you see a spectrum graph of the track with often large peaks and valleys in the waveform. By reducing these peaks and valleys, a pretty good balance can be achieved. Now, there is a learning curve as with everything, but the basic procedure is pretty easy to understand and apply. I first used this program with Gayle's recording of Boothbay, but as MK says I need to take another "swing" at it as I've become more skilled using Har-bal. Frankly, it's pretty addicting. There have been so many great recordings from the latest tour that I could spend all day and into the night working on them!
Here's the bad news. Har-bal costs about $100 US, but I have to say, it's the best 100 bucks I've ever spent. So if you are so inclined, check it out at
www.har-bal.com. And if you have a favorite boot that I have also, I'll send you the remastered version so you can hear for yourself! Another disclaimer: I balance for my 60 year old ears and the audio equipment I have. But since Har-bal is a visual program, some of the subjective element is eliminated. Essentially, a good sounding track will be pretty flat from around 60Hz up to 1-2kHz and rolling off to around 10-20dB at 10kHz.
So, here's to MK and good listening!
Gerry
