I got my CiTaS DVD today

[Michael]

We got ours a few days ago! I'm very impressed with the quality... there are a few TINY VHS glitches here and there, and I'll mention something nobody but Mountain Man probably will know what I'm talking about: the black level is a little weak. But the picture is crystal clear and the audio seems excellent... anyone bother to listen closely enough to know if it truly is in stereo? I would think it probably is; stereo has been possible on VHS for decades.

I never realized before... maybe because I was dense... that it's BOB playing that little flute diddy between the synth solo and the guitar solo! Cool!

[greenchili]

Black level? What's black level? Nah just kidding.

I know what it is but everytime I set it my wife gets mad and "fixes" it. So I usually do not even bother with it.

I never realized before... maybe because I was dense... that it's BOB playing that little flute diddy between the synth solo and the guitar solo! Cool!

Nice catch I didn't even realize that before. Considering that is a synth guitar, it kinda makes sense. I wonder where the guitar sound while he is playing the flute sound is coming from? A sample? Post edited?

If you notice the whammy bar is a button on the bottom of the guitar as well. (Or is it just bending the notes like a pitch bender)?

From the sounds of it Bob's one of the few musicians that bothered with that guitar. I wondered if he was obligated by contract to play it a certain amount of time at each concert..

Of course now that other guy's comments got me watching Greg's body language.

[Mountain Man]

I'll mention something nobody but Mountain Man probably will know what I'm talking about: the black level is a little weak.

Probably a result of being mastered from consumer VHS, a format which has less video information in the signal, so you'll lose some luma and chroma. I wonder if they tried to correct the black level but found it had an undesirable effect on the rest of the image? With less information to work with, there's only so much you do in the way of enhancement.

But the picture is crystal clear...

Just out of curiosity, does it appear to have been artificially enhanced in any way? I'm just wondering if they imported the video into some editing software and ran a sharpen filter on it since VHS can get a bit muddy looking at times.

[Michael]

I'll qualify that "crystal clear" as "crystal clear, just like a brand new VHS tape." It doesn't look to me like it has been enhanced in any way... keeping in mind that my TV experience, though it lasted for a year or two, was pretty much untrained, on-the-job seat-of-the-pants type of stuff. You would likely notice stuff I wouldn't.

On watching the whole video on a big-screen at my in-laws' house, I noticed that the black level isn't the same throughout; it looks like maybe there were just certain cameras that could have used tweaking at certain points. I'll bet that the same problem is there on every VHS copy in existence.

On that flute part Bob was playing on the guitar and where the chucka-chuckas were coming from, I'd say there are a couple of options:

1. Clearly on a couple of songs they were playing some stuff back from DAT or whatever recorded medium was available to them at the time. The vocals are too big on "Beat the System" and "It Is Finished" to be only the live BGVs, and on BTS there are some keyboard textures behind the synth solo that Lawry is not playing live (obvious when you watch the video). The rest of it sounds 100% live to me. But maybe Bob's chuckas are on tape, or John Lawry's sampler.

2. Another possibility is that Bob played one "chucka" and recorded it right then in a delay unit, setting it to repeat over and over until he kicked the pedal again. It could even be that the synth guitar has this kind of capability. Or Lawry could have sampled it on the fly for him, but I'll bet if it wasn't on tape, Bob probably recorded it himself on the equipment he had right at his finger (toe?) tips.

Cathy was disappointed that the drum solo is different... it doesn't have the drum loop with the synth toms in it, and the second half appears to be a whole different performance. I figure watching Louie rat-a-tat on synth toms is probably just not that interesting to look at.

[executioner]

I'm really impressed with the sound quality. I'm sorry to say this but the sound quality is far superior then the Farewell DVD. The Farewell audio sounds very muddy at times and in other cases the bass line seems to disappear and also the snare drum seems inconsistent with the sound. You don't get any of this with the CiTaS DVD.
Don't you all think that 20 years later that the quality would have been better on Farewell?

[greenchili]

Yeah that is what I was wondering, if maybe the chucka was some type of sampling "feature" of the synth guitar. In other words I'm thinking Bob was "showing it off". Which makes it (the guitar solo) that much more impressive.

I'll have to see if there is any info on the neat available about that guitar.

[Mountain Man]

I'll qualify that "crystal clear" as "crystal clear, just like a brand new VHS tape." It doesn't look to me like it has been enhanced in any way... keeping in mind that my TV experience, though it lasted for a year or two, was pretty much untrained, on-the-job seat-of-the-pants type of stuff. You would likely notice stuff I wouldn't.

Probably. But I've learned over the years to turn off my "critical" mind when I just want to enjoy watching something. Otherwise I can get overly analytical and it can ruin my enjoyment. I remember years ago watching some episode of Star Trek with my father and critiquing the production values when my dad said, "Will you shut up and just watch the show?" It was good advice.

On watching the whole video on a big-screen at my in-laws' house, I noticed that the black level isn't the same throughout; it looks like maybe there were just certain cameras that could have used tweaking at certain points. I'll bet that the same problem is there on every VHS copy in existence.

Ah, that's possible. Sounds like the cameras weren't all "tweaked" properly. Either that, or the engineer (assuming there was one) found it necessary to boost the black level to compensate for something else in the image, though I can't imagine what.

But then I have to remind myself that this video was made over 20 years ago and that equipment wasn't as good back then.

I'm really impressed with the sound quality. I'm sorry to say this but the sound quality is far superior then the Farewell DVD. The Farewell audio sounds very muddy at times and in other cases the bass line seems to disappear and also the snare drum seems inconsistent with the sound. You don't get any of this with the CiTaS DVD.

That's Jonathan David Brown for you. He was an old school perfectionist when it came to producing albums. His work with Petra shows a broad dynamic range that you simply don't hear these days and is in stark to contrast to the Elefante brothers' "wall of sound" style.

That said, I don't find anything particularly objectionable about Farewell. It's just a different style and it sounds very gritty and "live" to me.

I'll have to see if there is any info on the net available about that guitar.

From what I know, it was a largely experimental guitar that was exorbitantly expensive and didn't see wide use at all. Only a few were made, and Bob Hartman has the distinction of being the only professional musician to play one on tour. The one he used for the Beat the System tour is currently hanging on a wall in the Hardrock Cafe in Nashville along with Louie Weaver's drum, Ronnie Cates' bass, and John Lawry's keyboard.

[greenchili]

I'll have to see if there is any info on the net available about that guitar.

From what I know, it was a largely experimental guitar that was exorbitantly expensive and didn't see wide use at all. Only a few were made, and Bob Hartman has the distinction of being the only professional musician to play one on tour. The one he used for the Beat the System tour is currently hanging on a wall in the Hardrock Cafe in Nashville along with Louie Weaver's drum, Ronnie Cates' bass, and John Lawry's keyboard.

Yeah... That much I know. I'm just curious about more details on it's operation, capabilities, etc...

BTW could you define the expression "wall of sound"?

[Mountain Man]

"Wall of sound" basically means not letting there be any quiet parts in songs. For instance, listen to the track "Beyond Belief". If it had been produced by JDB, I imagine the first verse with the guitar lead would have been softer than the rest of the song with the full band, rather like "Rose Colored Stained Glass Windows" which has a wonderful dynamic range. The Elefante Bros., on the other hand, seemed to run everything through a compressor so that the entire album was basically a constant volume. It's like a "wall of sound" because your ears never really have a chance to rest.

[executioner]

The problem I have with the Elefante Recordings is you don't always hear every instrument throughout each song. Eample might be needed here. I can sit there with my MP3 in my ears and be listening to a song like This Means War! and even though the guitar work is done throughout the song, You can't always hear it; As is the same with the keys and drums.
I like the music from the Elefante Era better, but I think the production is somewhat second rate compared to the JDB Era.

[Mountain Man]

I agree. The Elefante style of production is a bit heavy handed and tends to drown out the nuances of the music.

[TerryB]

I believe it very likely that there was a lot of post production done on the CITAS audio by JDB. It has that very clean sound that tends to require a lot of additional work.

It's kind of like listening to Yanni - Live at the Acropolis. It sounds great (one of my favorite live recording as a matter of fact), but there was a ton of post production work to get it to that level. A TON.

I have been doing live sound for over 10 years and it is really hard to record in a live environment and get it all sounding right due to a number of variables. As a matter of fact, I did some live recording work with Gaither studios on a project with my church. The end result of the recording was quite different than what was on the live tapes. There was a lot of "fixing" and additions to make it sound bigger and better. I would say at least a 1/3 of the buget went towards post production...maybe even half.

Of course, post production costs lots of money. The budget (and producer) will determine how much extra work gets done.

TerryB

[Fobers71]

I got mine today .. I have been a fan of Petra primarly during the Schlitt era but I really enjoyed this DVD. I came in right at the end of the Beat the System days.

[Mountain Man]

Well, what a pleasant surprise. My wife bought the CITAS DVD for me for my birthday! Isn't she a sweetie?

I've watched about half of it, and it's pretty good for a VHS transfer. There's quite a lot of drop-out in the video which is to be expected, especially for 20 year old 1/2" tape, but it's still much, much better than my VHS bootleg copy (and to be fair, the majority of people watching this DVD probably won't even notice 90% of the drop-out because most of it is minor to moderate).

The quality of the video is about on par for mid-80's production values. This concert was shot with tube cameras which tended to capture black as more of a dark grey, especially when there was a lot of it, as in this video, which would account for the "weak" black levels Michael mentioned. As for the cameras from shot to shot, they're actually matched pretty well. There's smoke on the stage, so the close-up shots look brighter and the blacks look greyer, but it's the smoke muddying up the picture and not improperly "tweaked" cameras.

The audio is excellent. And is it my imagination, or does it have a surround mix? My receiver was showing three speakers across the front and one in the back, so either this is a surround mix or I had something set wrong on my system.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this DVD. Nice to finally have this concert in a more permanent format.

[Michael]

I believe it very likely that there was a lot of post production done on the CITAS audio by JDB. It has that very clean sound that tends to require a lot of additional work.

The liner notes in the cassette version have a note from JDB that basically says that he's proud of the album because there was NOT an awful lot of post-production work. He doesn't say there was none at all... just not a preponderance. I should pull it out and look at exactly what it says again.