BELA FLECK & THE FLECKTONES venue: Iron Horse Music Hall location: Northampton MA USA date: 1993-03-06 [March 6, 1993] episode: 2nd show personnel: Bela Fleck Victor Lamonte Wooten - bass Roy "Future Man" Wooten - synth-axe drumitar [Howard Levy is not present] source: audience MASTER recording location: balcony R hand side of room, sitting at table up against railing recording gear: Nakamichi 300 microphones (cardioid capsules) > videocamera (exact make & model # not remembered) lineage: 8mm MASTER (pb on same camera as recorded) > Pioneer SG 9500 [EQ] > dbx 117 [dynamic range restoration] > Sound Forge 4.5 [digital conversion] > CDR [unknown make & model outboard burner] > Exact Audio Copy [wav files extracted uncompressed] > DeGlitch [glitches detected & corrected] > Traders' Little Helper [flac files level 8 created, SBEs checked, checksums created] > torrent creation > www total running time: 103' 17" file size: 656 MB sample rate: 16 bit / 44.1 kHz [CD compliant] imaging: stereo sound quality: 9 (out of 10) recorded and mastered: Isotope Feeney title: BF Deal label: Mighty Big IF artwork: yes (audio was extracted from 'listening' CDs, so there are fades out & in between disk breaks) 01 introduction - - Bumbershoot 02 Lochs Of Dread 03 Shocktime 04 bandmember introduction: Future Man - - Future Man Solo 05 bandmember introductions: Victor Lamonte Wooten, Bela Fleck - - Road House Blues 06 At Last We Meet Again 07 Monkey See 08 Improv/Chopsticks/Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy/Flight Of The Bumblebee 09 A Celtic Medley (Meridian/Traveling Light/Salamander's Reel) 10 Ground Speed/Flint Hill Special [Flatt & Scruggs] 11 The Drift - - band introductions 12 BF and VW swap instruments; BF recruits audiencemember Mike Lewandowsky to play guiro** The Sinister Minister 13 Sunset Road ** for those uninitiated (I had to look it up), the guiro = a percussion instrument: a notched, hollowed-out gourd (sort of an organic washboard) PERSONNEL NOTE Keyboardist Howard Levy M.I.A. for this tour. BF explains he is spending more time with family. PERFORMANCE NOTES Although this is announced by BF as "set two" it is in fact the second show (separate admission) of a two-performance engagement. If you wanted to see both, you had to pay twice (unless you were real good at hiding in the bathroom for half an hour). So this = a COMPLETE recording [of the late show]. A lot of times in such an instance, performers would repeat material from their earlier show because it was a different audience. During VW's Improv segment, he plays a duet with himself. Using a foot pedal, he switches back and forth between pre-recorded bass notes and bass lines (played on an instrument tuned to standard lower frequency bass guitar pitch). At the same time, he improvises over the top with his stage bass (tuned to a higher frequency treble pitch). This allows him to create a layered arrangement with two distinct bass lines - - - giving new meaning to the term "double bass." RECORDING NOTES I haven't been to this venue in years. It's a fairly long haul from Boston (but Northampton is one of those cool college towns where there's lots to do, justifying making sort of a day trip). I guess it was closed for a while due to covid restrictions, but now it's up & running again. So I have no idea how it works now, but back when I was an habitue, entry to a show was done thus: people lined up on the sidewalk outside, waiting for the doors to open; at a certain point, a grizzled vintage dude [who was probably younger then than I am now !!] who was the club's sort of combination usher/guru/yoda came out and led people inside one or two at a time; he then showed them where they were going to be allowed to sit. Seats closest to the stage were awarded on a first-come-first-served basis. This was meant (I assumed) to avoid any feeding frenzy or jostling for close seats, and replace it with Northampton-style dignity. I would usually contrive to be close to the front of the line. But when my companion and I were offered seats two or three tables back from the stage, I would (because of the taping thing, and later in the game the videotaping thing) ask Can I go up to the balcony and sit there instead? (There'd be no one up there yet.) This was usually met with Are you sure that's what you wanna do? - - - I can put you right here in the front. But my gambit was No, up there is better for me - - - my leg bothers me and I have to stretch it out, and up against the railing there's no table in front of me, plus that IS a great seat, looking right down at the stage. So up I went. And it WAS a great seat (camera or no camera) - - - sort of like the log cabin version of front row mezz at the Orpheum or dress box at the Music Hall. Since I was using 2 separate microphones (as opposed to a one-point stereo mike) I could employ my own mike orientation philosophy: basically one mike pointed directly at nearest PA horn, the other pointed at the "sweet spot" in the middle of the room. This resulted in very wide stereo separation, which I think works well for this type of music: numerous space-y jams which benefit from a lot of 'air' in the mix. MIXDOWN NOTES I didn't keep notes back then about my filecopying methodology, but my typical setup would have been pb videocassette on same camera used for shooting - - - run through Pioneer SG 9500 10-band stereo equalizer, and through dbx 117 dynamic range processor (adjustments made 'on the fly' to compensate for auto-compression inflicted by videocamera's ALC) into Sound Forge 4.5 on desktop Mac. WARTS Distracting mike rustling L ch. briefly present at beginning of Shocktime. If during recording I noticed something I didn't like (such as a mike not pointed in the desired direction, or perhaps sticking out too far for stealth purposes), I would wait for between songs to make any adjustment, so as not to wreck any valuable music - - - but they started the next song too darn soon! Rustling is also evident (to a much lesser degree) at the beginning of At Last We Meet Again. Because the mikes were on the floor, peeking out over the lip of the balcony, any percussive noise in that section (foot stomping or tapping out time on the banister) traveled to them capillary fashion down the floor or railing. Therefore, despite efforts to insulate mikes by wrapping them in sweater or jacket or some other thick cloth, bump noises or a very low frequency rumble can be faintly heard in quieter spots. Nevertheless, this was still the best overall recording location IMO. There are a few jump cuts, noticeable especially at the beginning of encore song Sunset Road, which cuts in. I can't remember now, but something (egregious mike rustling or bumps?) must have happened there that I felt obliged in the mixdown phase to expunge in the interest of listening enjoyment. During some quiet passages (particularly the EBow workout at the beginning of Celtic Medley), there is audible evidence of people walking up and down the creaky wooden staircase (located in the middle of the room) that connects ground level to balcony. There is no bathroom on balcony level, so if you gotta go you have to walk down to street level, then down another stairway to basement. WHAT THE FLECK? DEPT. Puh-leeeze do not post this elsewhere. I'll make such decisions myself, when and 'IF' . . . - IF -