Grateful Dreams Remasters Series #75

Dream Theater
“Once In A Lost Livetime”
June 25, 1998
Le Bataclan - Paris, France
(GDT-R75)

GRADE : A+

ANAMOLIES :
Two slight "warbles" probably caused by the intro tapes through the PA system. One during ACOS's intro tape, the other during the Met1 intro tape.

COMMENTS :
Well here it is! GDT-R75.
Back in 2000, I had signed up on the DATheads mailing list, having gotten into taping. Of course, besides looking for tips on taping shows, I was hoping to make some trades with other tapers. Long story short, I did a trade with a fellow (who's name I've long forgotten) that included an audience recording of the entire 6/25/98 Paris show. Unfortunately, the trade went sour when the DATs he sent me turned out being cloned in a shoddy manner (most specifically, he crammed parts of multiple shows on to the same tape where they wouldn't fit on another tape, instead of using a longer length tape). On top of that, he had several trades going on at the same time and obviously didn't pay attention to what show was going on what DAT, so I only received the first half of the 6/25/98 show, which was really upsetting considering the amazing quality that this recording was.

Because of the way the whole trade was handled (the details of which I won't bore you with), I was super pissed off at this guy and I promptly cut off contact with him - I was *that* disgusted by the trade. In doing so, my only regret was that I still needed the rest of that 6/25/98 show. But I figured in time I'd find another taper that had this same show.

Fast forward to a couple years later; I'm doing a trade with someone and I happened to see that 6/25/98 gig on their list. Since I never got the complete recording the first time around, I figured I'd snag a copy of it this time, ASSuming it was the same recording. But of course, it turned out not to be. The recording I ended up with was your average C grade recording that while clear, was distant and didn't have much bottom end at all. So as far as I was concerned, I was back where I started since I knew that superior recording was out there somewhere.

Within the last few months, Weymo finally was provided the very recording I have been seeking for roughly 6 years, and now you too can understand why it was at the top of my list. If you happened to enjoy the Lost Paris Tapes bootleg, then no doubt you will enjoy this one too, as it is taken from the same source as the Lost Paris Tapes - the primary differences are that this is the complete show and it was skillfully remastered by our very own BobS. So enjoy this show like you've never done before - in it's entirity and in A+ (for an audience recording) sound!
Scott Hansen

NOTES:
This recording is most definitely a diamond in the rough. Even though it sounded very good raw it lacked dynamics and bottom end. Since I had a couple of weeks to work on this, there was a fair amount of trial and error to chip away at the rough edges and get to the true beauty of this recording. Started with overall parametric eq to pull up the bass and a bit of mid dropping and upper mid raising to flatten out the spectrum. Adding some compression to the bass most definitely helped here. Now what I noticed is that these setting didn’t work for the whole show. Since I was given so much time to work on the show I got very intimate with the harmonic balancer, going into each song and bringing up and or down appropriate frequencies to get the most out of each song. Where this was most needed was the first three songs of the set to bring out the vocals, as it seems the PA was still being worked out. I think we have a very nice sounding show here.
Enjoy!
BobS

BONUS CONTENT / FILLER :
None

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© 2006 Rai "Weymolith" Beardsley. All rights reserved. Certain works are provided for promotional purposes only. Other copyrights and trademarks appearing on the service are the property of their respective owners. No portion of the any content published herein may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written consent of Rai Beardsley. "Once In A Lost Livetime" artwork copyright 2006 Scott Hansen
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