Giants Stadium Noiseless Matrix

Giants Stadium

East Rutherford (New Jersey), USA.

13 - August - 1992.

Attendance: 54.500 (sellout) - Support: Primus, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy

Disc 1 (55:28)

01. George Bush Rap (PA)

02. Zoo Station

03. The Fly

04. Even Better than the Real Thing

05. Mysterious Ways

06. One / She's a Mystery to Me

07. Until the End of the World

08. New Year's Day

09. Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World

10. Angel of Harlem

11. When Love Comes to Town

Disc 2 (51:48)

01. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

02. All I Want is You

03. Sunday Bloody Sunday

04. Bullet the Blue Sky

05. Running to Stand Still

06. Where the Streets Have No Name

07. Pride (In the Name of Love)

08. Desire

09. With or Without You

10. Love is Blindness

Recording Equipment - History

Matrix of two sources, as follows:

Source I: SBD, CDR "Bright Lights, Big City Remastered". Original notes below.
Source II: AUD, Steve Hendrix DAT Master. Original notes below.

Lineage: pre-treating both sources > matrix > Steinberg ME > Sonic BBE > Har-Bal EQ > Waves Diamond > TLH > FLAC (level-6)

Editing: noiseless

Additional comments (by noiseless): I can't believe no-one tried this before: not the best sources in the world but together they shine like a diamond. Some details: the SBD source was nice, but with ups and downs. Not bad at all, but a serious lack of highs and pretty harsh - hence the matrix. When Love Comes to Town came from an inferior source. Some tracks suffered from hiss, but most tracks were clean. I applied noise reduction only on a few tracks that needed it and between tracks. The only thing I failed to remove is a singing teakettle during the first half of All I Want is You.

Some big and some small gaps: the beginning of Angel of Harlem is missing, a 11.3 second gap during Where the Streets Have No Name, a big gap during the guitar solo of Pride, five skips in Desire.

The AUD source was very good. Between Angel of Harlem and Bullet the Blue Sky the mics occasionally must have hit clothes, or there was an issue with wind or a loose cable. Luckily most bad spots were between tracks or during quiet parts and did only affect the very low (around 55Hz), so most of the bad parts could easily be removed with a notch filter. The encore was of considerably less quality but could be recovered.

As for the matrix: I played around with the levels until it sounded right. I wouldn't know the ratio, my guess would be around 25% AUD - 75% SBD but take that with a grain of salt and for the higher part of the spectrum this ratio might be opposite. The beginning of Angel of Harlem is AUD only. All other gaps and skips were repaired as good as possible. Most fixes you won't notice, but one in particular is very annoying. So it isn't perfectly flawless but hey, I can't make music out of nothing. Overall sound came out pretty nice. Hope you'll enjoy this - I do.

Source I: SBD, CDR "Bright Lights, Big City Remastered".

The original "Under the New Jersey Lights" bootleg was my first ever cassette to CDR conversion. At the time, I thought it was a thing of beauty. Part of what made me so excited about it was the rarity of the material with which I had to work. It's not every day that one runs across a rare soundboard recording and has the oportunity to distribute it to collectors worldwide. Unfortunately, my optimism regarding the recording has been tempered considerably as I have watched it spread throughout the U2 collecting world. I have seen the bootleg rated as low as "B-" on webpages, so I decided that it was time to re-master the original recording.

Since the original transfer, I have converted almost fifty shows to CDR and, therefore, have considerably more experience. As a result, I have been able to remove many of the flaws that people found in the original bootleg. For example, the high pitched "whining" sound that bothered so many collectors is now gone. A slight hollow sound can still be heard in the background if you crank the volume, but it is VERY minimal and is part of the original cassette recording. Another upgrade is the inclusion of "When Love Comes To Town". I managed to secure another cassette copy of this soundboard recording which contained a flawless version of the song.

The sound is still incredibly clear, with the time between songs being so silent that it almost sounds like dead air. However, every once in a while Bono breaks the silence, like when he shouts "Nice one!" to his fellow band members after "Zoo Station". The bootleg has a very raw sound, resembling the mono recording on "DC" more than the polished sound of "Zoo Europa". However, the crystal clear sound makes up for any lack of polish. It is simply unbelievable to listen to the television in the background as Bono addresses the crowd before "Even Better Than the Real Thing". I am confident that this new version of "Under the New Jersey Lights" is deserving of the "A+" rating which I have given it.

Source II: AUD, Steve Hendrix DAT Master.

Steve Hendrix DAT Master
1992-08-13 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey
Taper: Steve Hendrix
Mastering: Jason Engel
Location: Third row dead center in the rain in front of a monitor
Source/Lineage: Audio Technica Lavalier Mics > Sony TCD-3 DAT > DAT Master tape > Sony 600 > Pioneer stand-alone CDR burner > CDR Master > EAC secure (WAV) > Soundforge 8 (edits) > CD Wave (tracking) > Trader's Little Helper (FLAC)

Recording Info:
- Mics set to fla response instead of bass roll-off.
- DAT set to minus 20dbs in SP mode

Mastering Info:
- Three tracks total across two discs, used EAC in secure mode to pull WAV files off the CDs.
- Joined the three WAV files into one (first splice is clean, but the start of the encore is an obvious break).
- Fade-in start, fade-out at end of Pride, fade-in at start of Desire, fade-out end.

Steve's Comments:
The only problem with the transfer is the encore DAT was destroyed or lost or something because I can't find it. Luckily I cloned it onto the part one master DAT. The only difference is the transfer of the main set was optical and the encore transfer was analog.

Jason's Comments:
Arguably the best overall sound quality of the five DAT masters I've posted for Steve, but not the best concert. Instruments sound about as perfect as you could ever want, but the vocals are weak, almost drowned out by everything else in some cases (Love Is Blindess with the quieter instruments worked the best for me, but others were generally enjoyable at louder volumes). Of the five DATs, this one was the loudest, sounding good at low volumes and simply amazing at higher ones with no hiss or artifacts often evident when cranking up the volume. There's a break between the end of the first set and the encore (there was only one), so I faded out Pride and faded in Desire, mostly to eliminate irritating chatter. I do have one gripe with this recording: It does such an amazing job of capturing the sound of this concert, but that means it also does an amazing job of capturing the people around Steve. While it's generally just chatter limited to spots in between songs, there are several instances of one guy being a truly obnoxious screamer (just before end of Running be certain to turn your volume down) and at least one woman who is swearing a lot. Overall, a tremendous recording, easily an A-.

Comments

Brilliant mix of two sources (soundboard + audience), work done by 'noiseless' (see all descriptions above). Sound is very full and deep, a little bassy on occasion, but excellent overall.