Depeche Mode - 1986-05-16 - Hamburg, DE (SBD/FLAC)

(Soundboard FLAC)

Depeche Mode
Alsterdorfer Sporthalle, Hamburg, Germany
1986-05-16
1986 "Black Celebration" Tour

Lineage: unknown generation PAL VHS source -> TDK SA90 high position cassette, 1990 - 1991 stock -> Nakamichi Cassette Deck One (fresh belts, upgraded capstan motor, playback amplifier capacitors replaced, tape wound & rewound before transferring, azimuth optimized) -> Monoprice heavy-duty RCA to 3.5mm cable -> ASUS Xonar DX sound card -> in Adobe Audition CC 2014.2: sped up 2.0% (iZotope Radius method), automatic phase correction (most accurate settings), 75% 12dB noise reduction based on lengthy noise profile at end of B-side of tape, notch filters @ 11khz, 12khz, 15.4khz [40dB reduction, narrow width, ultra quiet] to reduce high-frequency timecode bleed, normalized to -0.1dB and any DC bias removed, gain envelope for first track which was much quieter than the rest of the tape -> WAV (32/96) -> tracked using Audacity 2.1.0 -> WAV (32/96) tracks -> FLAC 16-bit 44.1khz using FLAC 1.3.1 64-bit (level 8 compression) and foobar2000 v1.3.8 with its Resampler (SoX) component v0.8.3 (best quality)
Generation: unknown
Transfer: ligushka (https://www.depechemode-live.com)
Cassette tape photos and auCDtectTaskManager log included

01. [5:54] Black Celebration
02. [4:17] A Question Of Time
03. [5:50] Fly On The Windscreen
04. [5:04] Shake The Disease
05. [5:02] Leave In Silence
06. [5:24] It's Called A Heart
07. [5:48] Everything Counts
08. [2:55] It Doesn't Matter Two (*)
09. [4:11] A Question Of Lust (*)
10. [5:27] Blasphemous Rumours
11. [3:49] New Dress
12. [6:27] Stripped
13. [3:53] Something To Do
14. [5:22] Master And Servant
15. [4:09] Photographic
16. [5:48] People Are People
17. [3:22] Boys Say Go!
18. [2:50] Just Can't Get Enough

Total time: 1:25:33

Notes: A mono soundboard recording sourced from an unknown generation copy of the pro-shot "giant screen" feed from this concert. Good sound overall, although with kind of shrill treble, some distortion present, and lacking a little mid-range, but definitely listenable. Unfortunately, "Just Can't Get Enough" is incomplete and "Christmas Island" and "More Than A Party" are missing entirely.

This is a fresh retransfer of my tape copy of the soundtrack. The sound quality is better overall than the audio found on the DVD of the video. I have shared this tape's recording before, but in a mostly raw form (just speed-correction was applied). This transfer uses a high-end cassette deck and has had a moderate amount of post-processing to cleanly remove hiss as well as reduced a loud buzzing / crackling noise throughout the recording caused by high-frequency timecode bleed. The audio was then normalized and the first track amplified via gain envelope to match the overall volume levels of the rest of the recording without introducing clipping and almost seamlessly ending the envelope during audience noise between the first two tracks. Automatic phase correction corrected some phase differences between the channels which were causing an audible imbalance, but the recording is ultimately mono anyway.