MIXing it Up ...

It's always interesting to compare different versions of the same performance. Quite often an audience recording and a soundboard, for example, will reveal different nuance that might otherwise have been missed.

Even more interesting are the examples where the same performance has been mixed in different ways. We all have our preferences ... some folks prefer "pure boards" where the only audience noise comes from bleed-thru into the audience mics. Others prefer what I like to call the "live concert mix" where the recording engineer mixes together the pure soundboard and audience mics to create a mix of differing proportions. And then of course there is the audience recording, which can vary wildly from a perfect rendition of what the crowd heard to something less entertaining than a Yoko Ono performance!

So ClaptoManiacs, for your auditory pleasure we present not one, not two, but THREE different versions of the same recording, all taken from EC's January 24, 1990 performance at the Royal Albert Hall:

1) The Radio Mix, this from the boot "Touring Forever", and sourced from the syndicated radio show. This one is mostly pure soundboard, with just enough audience mixed in to open things up a bit:

http://www.geetarz.org/tunez/touring-forever-pretending-radio.m4a

2) A more open mix, this from the boot release "Quartet", and taken from a working edit video recorded for the '24 Nights' project. This one is perhaps 60% board / 40% audience mix. It's not as up front and "in your face" but at the same time has the benefit of catching some of the resonance of hall and providing a nice thump - far more effective on a nice big set of speakers cranked to concert volumes!

http://www.geetarz.org/tunez/quartet-pretending.m4a

3) An even more open mix, this from the MTV-Oz broadcast entitled "Four Faces of Eric Clapton" ... to me this one sounds like 60% aud/40% board:

http://www.geetarz.org/tunez/four-faces-oz-pretending.m4a

These should all load up fine not only in most media players but in iTunes as well ... complete with artwork and ID tags - please let me know if this works well for those with iTunes - and enjoy!

Cheers,
AG