The triple Europe ‘72 live album by experimental rock group par excellence the Grateful Dead has been prepared for lavish vinyl reissue at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood.

Charles Benson – media asset supervisor at Rhino Records – joined mastering engineer (pictured, right, with Benson) to cut lacquers from the original 1/4” analogue stereo masters.

“These original master tapes play remarkably well,” said Bellman. “The engineering is actually quite good. I discovered that I only needed to make two or three EQ changes for the whole record set. The sound is very consistent and only needed a little low-end bump, the high end needed a little bit of embellishment, and then some overall de-essing for the entire project.”

Captured during live dates in the early months of that year, Europe ’72 majors on Grateful Dead originals (‘Cumberland Blues’, ‘China Cat Sunflower’) whilst allowing room for a handful of classic covers (Elmore James’s ‘It Hurts Me Too’, Bonnie Dobson/Tim Rose’s ‘Morning Dew’). The tour was recently the subject of a mammoth 73-CD box set, Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings.

In addition to the Grateful Dead, Rhino has worked with Chris Bellmann at Bernie Grundman to produce vinyl reissues of celebrated releases from ZZ Top and Ramones, among many others.

To view a 2-minute video of the session with Charles Benson and Chris Bellman, visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9gkm_WMykE

Photo by David Goggin.

www.berniegrundmanmastering.com