Bertha | 1971-04-27 | Grateful Dead

View NotesNotes:
- Thanks to Harvey Lubar (R.I.P.)for the Master Soundboard Reel source
- Thanks to Tim Dalton for the source PCM
- Thanks to Charlie Miller for the transfer
- Thanks to Matt Smith for the shnid114094 soundboard source which supplies the first 0:35 of "Hard To Handle", a 0:03 patch in "Casey Jones", a 0:46 patch in "Sugar Magnolia", the final 4:56 of "Birdsong", the final 3:14 of "Help Me Rhonda", as well as the final 3:11 of "Turn On Your Lovelight"
- "Searchin'", "Riot In Cell Block #9", "Help Me Rhonda", "Okie From Muskogee" and "Johnny B. Goode" with the Beach Boys
- "Good Vibrations" and "I Get Around" - Beach Boys by themselves

Mastered by Scott Clugston
February 20, 2018

SOURCE 2 OF 10

3:16:34

SBD

gd1971-04-27.sbd.miller.114461.flac16

Source:

SBD -> Master Reel -> CD

Lineage:

CD -> Samplitude Professional v11.2 -> Adobe Audition v3.0 -> FLAC

Taper Notes:

View NotesNotes:
-- Set 2 is seamless
-- This is a completely different mix than any other circulating copies
-- The Beach Boys play on Searchin' through Johnny B. Goode
-- Good Vibrations and I Get Around without The Grateful Dead
-- Thanks to digitalrbb for transferring the Master Reels
-- Thanks to Joe B. Jones for his help with the pitch correction

SOURCE 3 OF 10

Charlie Miller and David Gans

SHNID:

gd1971-04-27.sbd.miller.106562.flac24

Source:

Source One:SBD -> Shure Line Mixers -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Master Reel (Sony Deck - BASF Tapes - 1/4 Track - 7 1/2 ips); Source Two:SBD -> Shure Line Mixers -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Master Reel (Sony Deck - BASF Tapes - 1/4 Track - 7 1/2 ips) -> Reel (Maxell Tape - 1/4 Track - 7 1/2 ips)

Lineage:

Source One: Master Reel (Teac A-6100) -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Fostex FR-2LE -> WAV (24bit/96k); Source Two:Reel (Teac A-6100) -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Fostex FR-2LE -> WAV (24bit/96k); Mastering Info: WAV -> Adobe Audition v3.0 -> Samplitude Professional v11.03 -> FLAC/24; Reels Baked and Transferred By David Gans All Mastering By Charlie Miller

Taper Notes:

View NotesNotes:
-- Set 2 is seamless
-- Truckin' through Loser from source one (Master Reel)
-- Hard To Handle through end of show from source two (1st Gen Reel)
-- Patch source also provides some Set 1 tunings due to tape bleed through
-- Some patches are not very smooth due to extrenme mix differences
-- Beach Boys play on Searchin' through Johnny B. Goode
-- Good Vibrations and I Get Around without The Grateful Dead
-- Thanks to Bill Gadsden for supplying the reels
-- Thanks to digitalrbb for supplying the patch source
-- Thanks to Neil Sturtevant for rebuilding the dolby unit
-- Thanks to Joe B. Jones for his help with the pitch correction

SOURCE 4 OF 10

Charlie Miller and David Gans

SHNID:

gd1971-04-27.sbd.miller.106550.flac16

Source:

Source One:SBD -> Shure Line Mixers -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Master Reel (Sony Deck - BASF Tapes - 1/4 Track - 7 1/2 ips); Source Two:SBD -> Shure Line Mixers -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Master Reel (Sony Deck - BASF Tapes - 1/4 Track - 7 1/2 ips) -> Reel (Maxell Tape - 1/4 Track - 7 1/2 ips);

Lineage:

Source One: Master Reel (Teac A-6100) -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Fostex FR-2LE -> WAV (24bit/96k); Source Two:Reel (Teac A-6100) -> Advent Advocate Dolby B Unit -> Fostex FR-2LE -> WAV (24bit/96k); Mastering Info:WAV -> Adobe Audition v3.0 -> Samplitude Professional v11.03 -> FLAC/16; Reels Baked and Transferred By David Gans; All Mastering By Charlie Miller

Taper Notes:

View NotesNotes:
-- Set 2 is seamless
-- Truckin' through Loser from source one (Master Reel)
-- Hard To Handle through end of show from source two (1st Gen Reel)
-- Patch source also provides some Set 1 tunings due to tape bleed through
-- Some patches are not very smooth due to extrenme mix differences
-- Beach Boys play on Searchin' through Johnny B. Goode
-- Good Vibrations and I Get Around without The Grateful Dead
-- Thanks to Bill Gadsden for supplying the reels
-- Thanks to digitalrbb for supplying the patch source
-- Thanks to Neil Sturtevant for rebuilding the dolby unit
-- Thanks to Joe B. Jones for his help with the pitch correction

SOURCE 5 OF 10

gd1971-04-27.sbd.boswell.smith.114094.flac16

Source:

Lineage:MR@ 7.5 ips>R @ 7.5 ips.(Wilson Boswell). Transfer info:Akai GX636>Apogee Mini Me @24/96 > Mini DAC(monitoring/mastering) > Lynx One soundcard > Wavelab 5.0(dithered to 16/44 via 'UV22HR' Apogee algorithim > Flac; Transfered and mastered by Matt Smith

Taper Notes:

View NotesMatt's notes:
hard to handle, sugar magnolia, bird song, help me rhonda, sing me back home
These are all patched with the Ramrod source

lovelight
Patched with the 16 track source

Thanks to Bob Menke for the patch sources

I decided to put this out for a number of reasons but mainly it's a improvement as to what circulates.  The main reason being Will's reels are in prime condition and have never had to be baked over a number of times.  The exact lineage of all the 4/71 FE reels are still a mystery so perhaps we will really never know the whole story BUT some low gen reels @ 7.5 ips. have survived in one piece and these are some of them..  According to the story from Wilson and Pat Lee, Peter Kafer and Bill Gadsden "purchased" the supposed masters from a guy named Buddy Miller(now a country musician) and brought them up to the Northwest for them to copy back in 1973.  Will's are 7.5 ips. and Pat's are 3.3/4 ips.  Nobody for sure knows exactly which were masters since Buddy decided to keep a few for himself which is truly the crux of the mystery or if even Buddy had masters himself.  I realize in some circles this is considered heresy but it's true and until Buddy comes forward and flat out states he had masters this should be considered as a possibility.  We can only now just listen carefully and try to figure it out that way.. Anyhow please enjoy!

My notes:
Big Thanks to Matt. Wonderful!!
Thanks to jpc3 for tagging the files
text file created & seeded 06/19/2011 gballen

SOURCE 6 OF 10

4:21:00

SBD

SHNID:

gd1971-04-27.sbd.gadsden-oleynick.5165.shnf

Taper Notes:

View NotesGlitches:
d1t09 0:36-1:08 - reel splice patched from same source as GD sets (Sailin')


-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- The Story of the Tapes *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-


"Who's the Dead freak?" With that innocuous question the story of these tapes 
begins. It was the summer of 1973, between attending 6/10/73 at R.F.K. 
Stadium and the Watkins Glen soundcheck. A friend of mine was listening to 
Live/Dead at his parent's house. A local cabinetmaker was working at the 
house and asked the question. He mentioned that he had a bunch of Dead tapes 
from the Fillmore East back at his house. For about a year, three 90 minute 
composites of the 4/71 shows had made their way around taping circles in the 
Princeton, N.J. area, but not the complete shows.
Within hours, Peter Kafer and I were at the cabinet shop with our reel to 
reel decks. What we found when we got there were 11 master reels of the 4/71 
shows, along with a host of other 1st and 2nd generation tapes from the 
Fillmore East of other bands, but also including 9/20/70. Also there were the 
1st generation reels from 11/23/70 at the Anderson Theater.

The 4/26-29/71 master reels were recorded by an individual named Buddy 
Miller, a local N. J. area musician. Buddy has become a very well respected, 
and recorded, Nashville guitarist. He is currently touring with Emmy Lou 
Harris, and can be heard on her current CD, Red Dirt Girl. Buddy was a friend 
of the cabinetmaker and, since he travelled a great deal, the tapes resided 
at the cabinet shop. Buddy was set up to record these shows by a friend who 
was a member of the Fillmore East soundcrew.

These shows were NOT recorded in the same manner as the February '70,the
May 15, '70 show, and  the material from the September 18, 19, and 20,
'70 shows. For the April '71 shows, a feed was run off the soundboard,
which was upstairs in a balcony box, stageleft. There is a good picture
of the soundbooth in Amalie Rothchild's book, Live at the Fillmore
East. The feed went from the soundboard into a broomcloset nearby,
literally a broomcloset. Buddy remembers a bucket and mop! The feed was
mixed down on two little Shure line mixers and recorded on a middle of the
line Sony deck onto BASF 90 minute reels at 7 1/2 ips. There was also a
little consumer Dolby B unit used, which is why these recordings seem so
'bright'.

We taped everything that summer of 1973 onto BASF reels. The following fall, 
Peter took his reels with him to California to begin his freshman year at 
U.C., Berkeley. From here he met various West coast tapers such as Bob Menke 
and Rob Bertrando, and the tapes began their circulation on the West coast. I 
took mine to Trinity College in Connecticut and began to circulate them out 
East.

Two years later, we wanted to retape the original masters, since we now had 
somewhat better decks and Maxell reel to reel tape had come on the market. We 
recopied everything. At this time, Buddy Miller simply gave us many of the 
Fillmore and Anderson Theater reels for essentially the cost of blank tape. 
His own musical interests had moved on. Of the 4/71 masters, we were given 6 
of the 11 reels and Buddy retained the other 5. I've had these reels in my 
possession since then.

Why has it taken so long for these reels to enter the digital world? 
Basically because I dropped out of the whole tape collecting scene about 1980 
due to family, career, etc. 

However, two of my old taping buddies, Bernie Tenenbaum and Chris Zingg, 
implored me to get my reels digitized before the analog reels degraded. 
Fortunately they had been safely stored in cardboard boxes, away from heat 
and light, in the back of a closet. I knew nothing of the digital world, 
didn't have a DAT or CD machine, had no idea what a tree or a 'B and P' was, 
and was absolutely amazed at how big the community of collectors had become. 
When I effectively left it at the end of the '70s, it was really only a 
handful of people.

This past Spring I reconnected with Buddy Miller for the first time in over 
20 years. He actually was able to dig up 2 of the 5 original BASF masters 
that he had hung onto, and mailed them up to me. With 8 of the original 11 
now in hand, and my complete set of Maxell 1st gen. copies  to fill in the 
blanks for the still missing 3 masters, I digitized the shows. The missing 
reels, #'s 4, 5, and 6,  run from 4/27 Hard to Handle through the pre-break 
portion of Bird Song on 4/28. For this I used the Maxells. Along the way, I 
was directed to Jim Wise for advice and assistance in digitizing and getting 
the shows out into the community.

I transferred the shows to CD incorporating the New Riders sets, instead of 
treating them discreetly. I really believe that the performances should be 
considered in their entirety. Back in the '70s when these shows got 
circulated, the Riders sets got ignored after awhile, which was a shame. They 
are a lot of fun to listen to, and a great warmup for the Dead show to follow.

The reels were played on a Revox A77 and digitized directly onto an Alesis 
Masterlink ML9600, sampling at 16 bit, 44.1 k. The Alesis was a wonderful 
solution for someone in my position, sitting on a bunch of reels. It removed 
the intermediate step of re-recording everything onto DAT. For those who are 
curious about the Masterlink, check it out at www.alesis.com.

One final bit of information that makes this whole 27 year story all the more 
fascinating is that these 2 track masters were used for the recent 16 track 
release, Ladies and Gentlemen....The Grateful Dead. While the 16 track 
recordings had Bill Graham's introduction and his tribute/tirade speech 
before In the Midnight Hour on 4/29, it was not nearly as strong and present 
as it was on the 2 tracks for some reason.Through an introduction facilitated 
by Jim Wise, Jeffrey Norman and David Lemieux asked if I could send out the 2 
tracks to be used on the release. With 5 days to go before the production CDs 
were due at the printing plant, I FedEx'ed them out and they were used for 
those two Bill Graham pieces. A wonderful chapter after all these years.

There has always been a question about 4/25/71. The BASF master labelled #1 
begins with Big Boss Man from 4/26. Back in 1973 we saw nothing of any taping 
of 4/25's show. I have asked Buddy about it and, after 29 years, he doesn't 
believe he recorded it, which would be consistent with 4/26 being #1. Just a 
guess: since the record company was there to record the run, our 
surrepticious broomcloset tapers just lay low the first night to make sure it 
was clear to try to tape. I know there has been a high-gen fragment of 4/25 
that has circulated for years that supposedly came from cassette masters that 
were also made of these shows. While anything is possible, if this were true 
one would have to wonder why no material from cassette has ever surfaced of 
any of the other 4 nights. The mystery remains, but one day I am gonna have 
to put this mystery to rest.

I hope everyone enjoys these new and improved versions of the 4/71 Fillmore 
East shows.  They have always been the heart of my Dead collection and many 
others as well, I suspect.

Bill Gadsden, 11/23/00


About three months ago I discovered that the New Riders' sets, just the 
Riders, from all five nights had been taped on a reel to reel, separately and 
distinctly from Buddy Miller's taping effort.  With this alternative source I 
can now supply the missing first half of the NRPS set from 4/27, and the 
complete sets from 4/25 and 4/26.

Bill Gadsden, 2/20/01

SOURCE 7 OF 10

Start of show through Loser: MR>CDR Hard to Handle to end of show: MR>R>CDR

Taper Notes:

View Notes(1) With the Beach Boys
(2) Only the Beach Boys

Glitches:
d3t05 3:26 - reel runs out

SOURCE 8 OF 10

gd1971-04-27.sbd.bode-hoffman-merryprankster-stundel.2998.shnf

Source:

SBD>MR>R>D>CD

Taper Notes:

View NotesThese disks came from the Fillmore Tree run on BUDD 
by Keith Bode. Bode's source disks came from Justin 
Hoffman who got *his* copies from the Merry Prankster's 
Tree. Lineage comes from Merry Prankster info. (CAP)

EAC > SHN & upload to Stonebear.etree.org by Abe Stundel [email protected]

SOURCE 9 OF 10

gd71-04-27.sbd.murphy.2221.sbeok.shnf

Source:

Soundboard

Lineage:

SBD > MR 7 inch (7.5 ips) Revox A 77 > Alesis Masterlink 9600 > CD-R

Taper Notes:

View NotesMSR  7 inch (7.5 ips) Revox A 77 > Alesis Masterlink> CD-R; via Bob Murphy; d1,3 are tracked for 80 min; see details in info file; see Bill Gadsden's <a href="http://db.etree.org/shninfo_detail.php?shnid=1858" rel="nofollow">detailed commentary</a> in pub comments for 4/29/71; note <a href="http://mars.dead.net/site/images/music/4075/4075s.html" rel="nofollow">4 CD best-of-run</a> is available from <a href="http://www.gratefuldead.com" rel="nofollow">the Dead</a>

The new Vault release, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Grateful Dead" is a compilation of all five shows from the April, '71 Fillmore run. LAGTGD is from the multitrack masters and is commercially available on Arista, or from GDM at http://mars.dead.net

		     For the obsessive completist collectors, here are the complete 4-27-71 NRPS & Dead Sets directly from two-track masters.

Errata: Lodi fades in already in progress. Hard To Handle starts late and has some sound fluctuations in the first minute or two. Sugar Magnolia fades in already in progress. There is a splice in the segue between Uncle John's Band and Lovelight. The faults listed above are consistent with previous versions.

shn conversion and ftp uploading by Bob Murphy

SOURCE 10 OF 10

gd1971-04-27.152206.BerthaRoughMixes.studio.bershaw.flac16

Source:

Alan Bershaw's low generation cassette (Maxell UDXL2 w/Dolby B)

Lineage:

Transfer: Maxell UDXL2 w/Dolby B (Nakamichi Dragon playback w/Dolby B)-> Lexicon Lambda-> Logic 16/44.1 (tracking only)-> wav-> xAct (sbe correction)-> FLAC

Taper Notes:

View NotesNotes:
Rough reference mixes for the Skull & Roses live album track "Bertha", which was recorded at the April 27, 1971 Fillmore East show.  These studio mixes contain overdubbed vocals. Merl Saunders' organ (which was also later overdubbed in the studio) is significantly more pronounced than the released version. There's also some tuning prior to the song beginning that was edited out from the final album mix (which originally faded in with the song already in progress). The 1st rough mix is incomplete, as the reel is stopped at 1:10 in, but the 2nd mix is complete.  -Alan