| Megadeth |
|
| Venue: |
@Hordern Pavilion: Sydney, Australia |
| Date: |
December 18, 2010 |
| Time: |
76:39 |
| Size: |
1 CD |
|
| Sound: |
DAR Copy from
master |
| Notes: |
Taper: Starclassic.
Source/Lineage: Core Sounds Cardioids (pointed towards stage) -> Sony
PCM-M10 (line-in, 48kHz 24 bit) -> Soundforge 9.0e w/Izotope Ozone 4
Mastering Plugin (mastered and downconverted to 44.1kHz 16 bit) -> FLAC
Level 8.
Taper notes: "I've grown a little tired of Megadeth concerts for two
reasons - the setlists are more or less the same stale selections and Dave's
pipes just aren't up to it any more. I hear him sometimes and think back to
the South Park episode of the life of Terrence and Phillip when they had
their beginnings in the business before moving onto being loudmouthed fart
pranksters. If you've seen the episode, you'll know what I'm talking about
in reference to Dave's vocals. This one had to be the exception though
because the one reason was catered to with the playing of Rust in Peace,
track-for-track. I wanted my face to be melted watching Megadave and Chris
Broderick exchange solos. Mission accomplished (and I look more handsome
now). Admittedly, Megadave did start off-key with Lucretia but quickly made
up for it. Again, like Gwar, I'm not sure what the hell was going on with
the sound as I still had phasing despite the fact that there wasn't a lot of
people moving around in the nearby vicinity. Unlike Gwar, this was indoors
though which is what made it more perplexing. There were moments where
Dave's guitar would burst into solo mode for a phrase and when I turned
around to the sound guys, they'd all just look at each other and shrug their
shoulders. Seriously, is this the standard of audio engineers these days?
Furthermore, I felt that Chris was truly ripped off with Dave having the
bulk of the presence on stage whilst Chris' guitar was muddied out. Not sure
what it is there but I suspect it's more likely that Dave doesn't want to
give too much of the limelight to Chris being the control freak that Dave
is. At any rate, I've done my best to crush the mid-range somewhat to give
the guitars a near-equal standing but the trade-off is a loss in quality if
overcompressed. So what I have done is performed some parallel compression
to give the guitars that balance along with the original sparkle of the
mid-range so as not to totally sacrifice the feel of the dynamic range. The
snare drum was in need of being turned down by around 5dB in my opinion. Way
too loud. There was not a single overhead mic to be seen to pick up his
crash cymbals which was pathetic as usual and made my task more difficult.
I've done the best I can with Ozone's multi-band dynamics to crush the high
frequencies a little to try and work out a balance between the crashes which
weren't mic'ed and the hi-hats and ride which were mic'ed. Expect a little
crackling at the beginning of "Trust" due to a bad mic on Shawn's floor tom.
The one thing that I have to say did sound great was Dave Ellefson's bass.
Overall, the lower frequencies were handled very well across the board,
controlled and tight but Dave's bass just had the right balance of bottom
end and lower-midrange too. Overall, I give the sound a rating of B-. Again,
there's far too much phasing going on which I've tried hard to control but
as I've said before, a turd shaped into a cupcake still tastes like a turd.
Why the hell this has been present at this entire festival is beyond me and
I can only lust after an iron fist being shoved up the butts of the sound
guys. A big "F$#K YOU!!" goes to the twit next to me who had not only the
loudest but the longest clap as well. Even moving forward a few feet and
shielding my mic between songs was pointless as he would take a little step
forward himself sometimes (perhaps to piss me off?). Ah, the joys of stealth
recording...".
Really great recording! Highly advisable. |
|
| Disc 1: |
01. Intro
02. Holy Wars ... The Punishment Due
03. Hangar 18
04. Dave appreciates everyone not going to the Bon Jovi concert next door
05. Take No Prisoners
06. Five Magics
07. Poison was the Cure
08. Lucretia
09. Tornado of Souls
10. Dawn Patrol
11. Rust in Peace ... Polaris
12. Trust
13. Headcrusher
14. How the Story Ends
15. Sweating Bullets
16. Symphony of Destruction
17. Dave thanks the Australian fans for making the Big Four release go
double-platinum and surpassing U2
18. Peace Sells
19. Holy Wars ... The Punishment Due (reprise)
20. Outro
|
|
|