Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Memorial Auditorium Buffalo, NY December 4, 1980 mackeck master via JEMS Recording Gear: handheld portable cassette recorder with built-in mic 2013 Transfer: Maxell UD-90 master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A (azimuth-adjusted) > Sound Devices USBPre2 (24/96 Audacity 2.0 capture) > iZotope RX 3 click removal and gap fixes > iZotope MBIT+ convert to 16/44.1 .wav > Peak Pro XT (patch / indexing) > xACT > FLAC Tracked with no breaks, suggested breaks for burning to CD belowÉ 101 Born To Run 102 Out In The Street 103 Tenth Avenue Freeze Out 104 Two Hearts 105 The Price You Pay 106 Factory 107 Independence Day 108 I Fought The Law 109 Prove It All Night 110 Racing In The Streets 111 The River 112 Badlands 201 Thunder Road 202 Cadillac Ranch 203 Sherry Darling 204 Hungry Heart 205 Fire 206 Candy's Room 207 Because The Night 208 I Wanna Marry You 209 For You 210 The Ties That Bind 210 Wreck On The Highway 212 Stolen Car 213 Ramrod 301 You Can Look 302 Drive All Night 303 Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) 304 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town 305 Jungleland 306 I'm A Rocker 307 Detroit Medley 308 Raise Your Hand Known Faults: -Prove It All Night: 5 seconds patched with Recorder 2 (kshavo source) Just a few days removed from the 33rd anniversary of Bruce's River stop in Buffalo, JEMS is pleased to present an uncirculated third source recording of the show from the master tapes. d.j.mackeck reached out earlier this year to report that his dad had recorded several Bruce shows between 1978 and 1984 in their hometown of Toronto, as well as cities within spitting distance like Detroit and Buffalo. He was kind enough to ship an initial batch of three masters, from which we made fresh transfers here at JEMS South. The shows were recorded on a small portable recorder with built in-mic (likely a Toshiba or Sony, but memories have faded) in mono. D.J. shared how this particular night went down: "My dad couldn't make it to the Buffalo show, as he was going to be in the Bahamas during that time. So he gave his ticket and the task of recording the show to my uncle. My uncle was 18 at that time, and this was his first time seeing Springsteen. So he, another uncle, my aunt and my mother drove down from Toronto to the Memorial Auditorium. When they were going in, security stopped my uncle because of the recorder. But he managed to sneak the recorder into his boot and got in through another gate. The rest is history! My dad kept the tapes along with other recordings he made. I came across the tapes, listened to them and sent them to JEMS. In my opinion, my uncle did a really good job of recording the show as far as getting all of the songs recorded and flipping the tapes over at the appropriate times. This is the first of my dad's tapes to be transferred to digital form. He may have dubbed a copy for my uncle, but other than that, none of my dad's tapes have ever been shared or traded." Uncle Mackeck did do a really solid job. There's a remarkable lack of audience chatter or noise on the tape, and though the gear wasn't state of the art, the recording is clear, relatively close and the best of the now three known Buffalo recordings. Uncle Mackeck only cut one song, on his first flip during "Prove It All Night," which has been patched with Recorder 2 (Kshavo source). The only material flaw in the new Buffalo recording was micro gaps. In 20-25 random spots across the three hours, the recorder cuts out momentarily leaving an audible gap. Having cut my teeth on a "basic handheld recorder" myself, I learned the hard way that they can be unreliable and if jostled or perhaps held in the wrong position, drop outs can occur. On the Buffalo recording, the micro gaps were all well under a second in length, though absolutely noticeable. But happily for us, it isn't 1980 but 2013 and audio technology has come a long way. Using iZotope RX and its magical "Spectral Repair" plug in, JEMS was able to repair the gaps in a manner that should make them audibly invisible to all but the most committed and headphone-wearing trainspotter. The software uses an extrapolation algorithm to pull information from both sides of the gap and fill in like spackle. It worked like a charm. To take this one the last mile and provide the patching is our comrade and the unchallenged king of multiple source recordings, MJK5510. Thanks to him for final finishing and prepping. And a big thanks to d.j. mackeck and his dad for loaning JEMS their masters, and to Uncle for recording the show so well in the first place. There are more mackeck masters to come. BK for JEMS