[audio] The Young Gods live at Roadburn 2009 remastered

If you didn't know, the authoritative blog for all difficult or otherwise impossible to find live recordings and bootlegs from 80s, 90s and 2000s goth and industrial bands is Dark Circle Room (blog, FB). They're huge on Sisters of Mercy, and have an extensive catalog of all the big names from those decades. Lots of videos as well as mp3s, and all for download. Many of the recordings don't sound all that great, especially the audience bootlegs which probably will appeal only to the diehards. But they also have many board tapes, tv broadcasts and audio rips of pro-shot VHSs which are worth grabbing.

I was browsing through their Young Gods selections when I found a download of a webcast of a performance at Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands in 2009. So it sounded pretty good in the first place- no doubt they just fed the main board mix to the internet. In effect, a board tape. Young Gods are one of my all time favorites, so I was stoked to have found it. At the same time, me being an audio engineer, nothing ever meets my ears without me thinking, 'hmm, I bet you anything I can make this sound better.'

The instrument balance was done for the speakers in the venue, not for the webcast/recording, so it's understandable that some stuff will sound kinda weird. In this recording, the vocals were buried way down in the mix, and the drums were way too loud. I'm sure in the hall it sounded fine, but for my purposes, I wanted to try and even that out. And I have the tools and the skills to do that, so I did it. Also, one thing that plagues every webcast are the little hiccups and drop outs in the audio, and this one was no different. I fixed up all of those as well, and also fixed the overall level which was a bit lacking in the original.

So what I ended up with was a pretty great recording. I know I'm not the only Young Gods fan out there, so I sent my remastered version to Dark Circle Room and asked if they could post it. They were kind enough to do so, and it's now available for download from their blog. Go get it here.