currygoat11

Release date: April 12, 1984, that's 41 years today.

Amazing!

Andrew Kaleta stood there in the audience and tried his best to capture footage of Rush on stage. And he really did get some excellent shots. Closeup and some of the shots are very detailed. Excellent.

But then, decades pass, the film is practically forgotten about. All those good intentions, on the precipice of falling into total obscurity. Was it even worth the time and effort??

But later something perhaps even more amazing happens. Someone digs up the old footage, digitizes it, cleans it up, painstakingly syncs it with audio from that exact show (shout out to that bootlegger too!) and publishes it. And what we get is a compelling experience, the moment is brought back to life, we are transported back to New Years Eve, 1976. And we get to see an expressive and frenzied Alex tearing up the solo during The Necromancer. We get to see some of his evocative soloing towards the end of 2112. We get to see Geddy kicking ass in By-tor. We get to see NEIL toasting with the boys at the front of the stage, ringing in the new year!

Truly, THANK YOU!

10 minutes ago, Cmutt said:

 

It doesn't necessarily sound artificial to me, it just sounds... to high, or too bright, like it's too much treble or something.

That's why I prefer the ESL CD and video versions better, because they just sound richer and deeper to me. (more basey, if you will) 
I know some people feel like that sound is too over-produced, or whatever... but I really do prefer it better.

I noticed that too. In the earlier part of the concert, the snare sounds too dry, almost like a piece of wood being slapped. It gets a little better once you get to Natural Science and Working Man. Please note this is subtle. 

Alex apparently said:  "The guy in charge gave us some tequila before one show and so Ged and I switched instruments and played the set lying on our backs on the stage. I don’t think anyone even blinked.”   link

Am I correct that Alex is kidding here?  This is early early Rush so they were really just kids, but I'm still trying to imagine Alex playing bass.

Oh, I also wanted to mention the vocals on Vital Signs is a different take on the Atmos version.

The Rush Atmos mix is hit-and-miss. Here is a miss example. The incredible guitar solo during 2112 (Sililoquy), here is the comparison between the original mix, versus Atmos (stereo 2-channel of course).

The thing which is disappointing is how the guitar solo is pushed into the background on the Atmos mix. The rhythm guitar actually sounds more dominant than the solo itself. I think this was a big miss.

Wow, give this video a like, this is neat

Very interesting, the always bizarre sounding temporary bass drum cut-out during 2112 - V: Oracle: The Dream, is actually "fixed" now in the Atmos mix, i.e. the bass drum has now been introduced there during that section.  Weird.  This clip below is just the standard track at this specific moment.
 

in 'Before And After', it is clear the vocal track on atmos is a different take  ... 
 

Regarding different takes, 'Before And After' definitely has an alternate lead vocal on the Atmos version.

I will go research more on atmos..

Here, let me know if you cannot get to this link. The file is 4GB in size.  It is an .iso so vlc player should be able to open it.

https://mega.nz/file/5sIHEZgb#WiqX_Smv6aQu8_OXX4PMPZ8UJRE26Pl_ShmNHERochw

1 hour ago, Rush Didact said:

 

You're a saint! Is it lossless audio? That's the part I'm most interested in. The best thing about laserdiscs was the CD standard audio track...

full disclosure, the rip I have is straight from the laserdisc and was transferred to a dvd format. So the bitrate should be equivalent to the laserdisc, although I admit I haven't verified this myself.

5 hours ago, Rush Didact said:

Does anyone have a rip of the ESL laserdisc available? I've looked and I can't find it anywhere.

I have a copy. Give me some time to upload to the cloud, will let you know..

Someone at rush.com must have loaded up the audio files on the computer, tweaked the mix, and resynced to the video, right?  Then gone through and gotten some approval from leadership to upload the new mix to social media, the whole thing, broken into bite size pieces. It's almost an admission the 2006 mix was garbage. Like, "here ya go, this is the way you should be experiencing ESL .."

Best I can tell, the best quality audio I can get from Youtube for these new videos is just 128kbps.   I mean I'll take that, but ideally we need these at a much higher bitrate.

This improved audio mix from YouTube is a serious curiosity.

This is my personal opinion -> If you compare the audio from ESL the LP, to ESL the laserdisc, the ESL LP audio has been considered excellent, admittedly very drums focused, less emphasis on guitars, but super clean. The VHS (or better yet laserdisc) audio for some reason was always of lesser quality compared with the LP.  The laserdisc audio wasn't as clean, not as pure, like it has a high-pitch hiss .. somehow it lacked the sonic dynamics as compared to the record. The laserdisc audio is great don't get me wrong, but not in the same category as the record. 

Now with these recent YouTube uploads, the audio mix (admittedly this is 128kbit compressed audio) perhaps even outperforms ESL the LP!  The drums sound divine. This Youtube mix certainly destroys the 2006 Replay [3 DVD/CD Box Set] which I think it an embarrassment, the audio quality on that 2006 release is awful, drums indistinct and in the background.

So what is going on? Is someone at rush.com re-engineering the audio, only to upload it all to Youtube?  I wonder what StickHits opinion is on this.

Hi @snowdog2112
 

WHAT IS GOING ON?

This upload on the official Rush Youtube of ESL Limelight from today (Oct 4 2024) has noticeably different audio from the Laserdisc version, definitely different audio from the 2006 Replay [3 DVD/CD Box Set] version which puts guitar as priority over the drums, and it wasn't copied from the StickHits remaster from Apr 2024. 

I'm perplexed as to where this audio mix came from?

(I do not have a youtube link to the ESL Limelight from laserdisc, but I have a local copy and the audio from the laserdisc rip doesn't hold up to this Rush Youtube upload from Oct 4 2024)

The Rush upload of ESL Limelight from today (Oct 4 2024):
 

StickHits remaster:
 

2006 Replay [3 DVD/CD Box Set]
 

I used studio.gaudiolab.io, and extracted the vocal sounds from the guitar solo,

happy "solinggomph" to you (whatever that means!) LOL

 “Gone” and “I Am… You Are." ...   I first thought the reissue would include those songs, but of course I understand there could be several reasons why this didn't or couldn't happen.

What is this dutch pressing he is talking about?  Where can I find this digital rip?

7 hours ago, rugen said:

Files corrupted!

Hi @rugen please elaborate, the files are corrupted?  I'm not seeing that on my side.

Here is 'Rush.Rush_Anaheim_1981_Mike_Millard_2024_Remaster'

https://mega.nz/folder/1lA3nILA#AsL2nrWEbC9WkqxiXOtjDw

18 hours ago, thizzellewashington said:

Sounds amazing, where can I download the whole thing?

good question =)  let me see if I can find time to extract the CDs

Here is a sample from the '2024 Remaster':

https://mega.nz/file/1pJFHBQQ#yniubWPp3zARElu7ACbgDNm8CTmKiUP7dH1UKoyuv8Q