Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe - An Evening Of Yes Magic - August 19th 1989 - Pine Knob Music Center, Clarkston, MI (PRRP048)

Artist: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe
Title: An Evening Of Yes Magic
Date: August 19th 1989
Venue: Pine Knob Music Center, Clarkston, Michigan, USA

Tracklisting
Disc One
01. Time And A Word 02:47
02. Owner Of A Lonely Heart 02:05
03. Teakbois 01:08
04. Time And A Word (concludes) 01:11
05. Clap 04:25
06. Mood For A Day 04:12
07. Rick Wakeman Solo 05:30
08. Long Distance Runaround 03:12
09. Bill Bruford Solo 03:11
10. Birthright 07:04
11. And You And I 10:00
12. I've Seen All Good People (fades in) 08:56
13. Close To The Edge (fades in) 19:58

Disc Two
01. Themes 06:55
02. Levin/Bruford Duet 05:26
03. Brother Of Mine 11:37
04. The Meeting 04:48
05. Heart Of The Sunrise 11:04
06. Order Of The Universe 09:00
07. Roundabout 08:24
08. Starship Trooper 12:46

Personnel
Jon Anderson Lead Vocals & Guitar
Bill Bruford Drums & Percussion
Rick Wakeman Keyboards
Steve Howe Lead Guitars & Backing Vocals
with Special Guests
Tony Levin Bass Guitars, Stick & Backing Vocals
Milton McDonald Guitars
Julian Colbeck Keyboards

Liner Notes: An Evening in Michigan
The reunion of Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe was a welcome site for many Yes fans in 1989. The four of them had not played together since 1973. Without the Yes icon, Chris Squire, the group needed a bass player and had the good fortune to secure Tony Levin to fill the vacancy. For those who had never seen this early Yes line-up, this was an opportunity that could not be missed and that was the case for our taper…..

“I was really looking forward to this show as I missed seeing Yes (the classic lineup) in the 70's as a teenager…so this seemed to be as close as I would get (until the 2004 Tour in Las Vegas). We lucked out a bit on tickets as we lived up in Bay City, and I was working in Midland on a construction project. My recorder buddy made sure his friend who ran the local record and CD outlet chain that sold the concert tickets was at the Midland store before the tickets went on sale. So we finally were able to get some close seating at "The Knob", not an easy chore from previous experience.”

“We were able to get some seats near the stage left speaker stacks, within 25 feet of the stage. The crowd was ok, about average for a Saturday night in around the Detroit environs. I never moved the mics as they were sticking out of an old single flap olive green Army bag that was up upon the hand rest between our shoulders, stealth for the day…but the mics were about 40 inches off the floor, so people walking across could reduce the sound quality a bit. The muffled sound at parts may have been due to people going back and forth quite often in the row during the concert, sometimes just standing there for 3-5 seconds till they moved on. Though it may sound like we moved to a new location, we did not move seats. “

This last point was important to know. During the remastering process it was clear that segments of this recording were muffled and sounded more distant than others, as though the taper had moved further back in the venue. Apparently, this was not the case and fellow audience members obscured a direct line to the stage off and on. Such are the perils of audience recording attempts. The other oddity of this recording was that abrupt splices existed during most applause segments. It seems that our taper was pausing the recording between songs. Again, our taper…..

“The pauses were with regrets as that was the only time to "adjust" the mics a bit, for various reasons, and I chose not to record during adjustments…a field decision that the purists will no less debate.” Sadly, these pauses caused the taper to miss the beginning of both 'I've Seen All Good People' and 'Close To The Edge'.

The final point of interest about this recording was the taper's decision to use Dolby C noise reduction encoding during the recording process. When he made the tape-to-CD transfer he used Dolby C decoding during the playback. This fact precipitated a lengthy discussion on the original torrent forum of this show. One entry included the Wikipedia explanation of the Dolby C technique….

….Dolby noise reduction is a form of dynamic pre-emphasis employed during recording, plus a form of dynamic de-emphasis used during playback, that work in tandem to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The Dolby pre-emphasis boosts the recorded level of the audio signal at frequencies above 1 kHz during recording, effectively compressing the dynamic range of that portion of the signal, so that quieter sounds above 1 kHz receive a proportionally greater boost. As the tape is recorded, the relative amplitude of the signal above 1 kHz is used to determine how much pre-emphasis to apply; a low-level signal is boosted by 10 dB (Dolby B) or 20 dB (Dolby C). As the signal rises in amplitude, less and less pre-emphasis is applied until at the "Dolby level" (+3 VU), no signal modification is performed. The sound is thus recorded at a higher overall level on the tape relative to the tape's overall noise level, requiring the tape formulation to preserve this specially recorded signal without distortion. On playback, the opposite process is applied (de-emphasis), based on the relative signal component above 1 kHz. Thus as this portion of the signal decreases in amplitude, the higher frequencies are progressively more sharply attenuated, which also filters out the constant background noise on the tape when and where it would be most noticeable.

For this particular recording, the Dolby noise reduction technique worked well. Purists will argue that the compression-decompression above 1 kHz does degrade the overall potential quality of the recording, but we will let the listener decide for themselves. Thanks to the taper for bringing this great master tape to Yes fans everywhere. Through the PRRP process of artwork creation and remastering, we hope we have made the experience of this recording just a little bit better.

PRRP Staff

Notes from the Re-Master
The master tape was digitized by the taper and then torrented on Dimeadozen as lossless FLAC files. These files were the source material for this project. The entire show is here except the first few moments of 'Close To The Edge' and 'I've Seen All Good People'. The taper acknowledges that he stopped the recording between songs to check on the progress of the tape and sadly the beginning of these two songs was missed.

The most obvious problem with the original recording was that the speed was wrong. A clear and consistent speed error was detected and corrected. Then, the tonality was adjusted to balance the sound. Many sections had a change in overall volume so the dynamics were adjusted to even out the overall volume of the recording. Segmental correction of tonality and volume imbalance was also needed. The show was then re-tracked using standard references as a guide, including tracking of the different segments of Jon Anderson's solo medley at the beginning of the show. Numerous clicks and pops were repaired but no general noise reduction was needed. In the notes above we discuss the taper's use of Dolby C noise reduction during recording and playback of the tape. The Dolby technique worked very well for this recording so no additional noise reduction was needed.

PRRP Staff


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