Tuning, Take a step back | 1971-04-06 | Grateful Dead

View NotesTHE BETTYS RESTORATION PROJECT

Upon recognizing that the Betty tapes were Dolby and DBX encoded I gave out samples of the reencoded tape samples to the inner circle. When I got the original tapes to decode I decided to make safety copies with nothing decoded. It seemed to me that the technology would eventually improve and someday better copies could yet be made. I had a Japanese musician friend send me a Sony D-10 pro DAT deck at a wholesale price, there were no versions of this deck in the States at this point of time. Thus, I made copies with no decoding along with the decoded versions on PCM Beta. The versions I sent out to collectors at this point in 1987 were from the Beta sources decoded. I wore out a lot of decks making copies.

Being a long time friend of Dick Latvala I told him about Betty's tapes being auctioned off. He thought at first I was full of shit. At that time I tried to get the tapes back to the Dead... I'm glad that eventually that happened. Meanwhile my DAT copies sat in their boxes. I made a very few copies of those tapes for a couple friends. Now in 2021 Matt Smith has gone to great lengths to repair and playback these DAT's. I thank him greatly for his hard work in striving for the greatest fidelity offered in these tapes. Turn up the volume and dance to these new copies you crazy hippies, I know I am. Oh yes, there is more music to come from Matt and I.

Steven Martin

This has turned out to be a restoration project as DAT tapes from 1987 have turned out to be extremely fragile.  I’ve painstakingly repaired and spliced numerous tapes for them in order to play.  I manually rewind instead of using the deck just to insure the tape won’t snap and sometimes they’ve snapped just doing that.  What I’m hearing is IMHO the best sounding transfers of the Betty’s.  Incredibly clean with crisp highs and better low end.

Matt Smith

- Pitch corrected
- A number of small dropouts have been repaired
- A small cluster of digital errors in "Truckin" have been patched with shn id 152611
- "PITB" and "Loser" have been patched with Jerry Moore's reel - Thanks to Rob Berger

Original transfer - Steve Martin
Final transfer - Matt Smith
Pitch correction - Scott Clugston
Editing and mastering - SIRMick
December 2021

SOURCE 2 OF 7

2:33:22

SBD

SHNID:

gd1971-04-06.152611.sbd.betty.eaton.miller.clugston.flac16

SOURCE 3 OF 7

Jamie Waddell and Matt Smith

SHNID:

gd1971-04-06.sbd.ifthir.smith.gems.109026.flac24

SOURCE 4 OF 7

gd1971-04-06.sbd.cantor.gmb.96299.flac16

Source:

7" two track reel @ 7 1/2 ips > PCM501ES (beta) PCM501ES analog out > dolby A decoder > analog in PCMF1 > analog out > Fostex D5 Dat @ 48 kHz

Lineage:

Panasonic SV-3700 > Cardas cable S/PDIF > Edirol UA-5 > USB > WaveLab @ [32bit float / 48kHz] Mastering: In WaveLab with iZotope Ozone 3 Rate Conversion with r8brain to [16bit/44.1kHz] > CD Wave > TLH > Flac

Taper Notes:

View NotesSource/Mastering Notes:
The unfortunate cuts in Playing In The Band, Loser and Goin' Down The Road 
remain but were edited by cutting out tape squeeze and smoothed over with 
very minor fades and no crossfades.
Drop outs for other reel changes were removed and crossfaded before 
Dire Wolf, Loser and Not Fade Away

SOURCE 5 OF 7

gd71-04-06.sbd.stephens.18735.sbeok.shnf

Source:

Soundboard

Lineage:

7inch 2-track BBD reel w/dolby A @ 7.5 ips > PCM501ES@ 44.055 kHz > analog out > dolby A decoder > analog in PCMF1 (Beta HiFi) > PCM501ES analog out > Fostex D5 @ 48 kHz > DATx4 > Audiophile 2496 > SoundForge 6.0 (48>44.1) > CD Wave > SHN

Taper Notes:

View Notes*  first "Oh Boy"
** last "I'm A Hog For You Baby": 03/25/66 [634 shows]

This seed is a direct copy from a DAT WBOTB (11/1996) source.  No whine removal, no noise reduction, no remastering, no fades, jarring reel flips left intact.

SOURCE 6 OF 7

gd1971-04-06.sbd.lai.118.sbefail.shnf

Source:

Soundboard

SOURCE 7 OF 7