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Come on people!
The site of the concert, as much info as I have. Or in some cases the title of the recording.
Ummm, that's it
There are four source types that I recognize in this category:
(1) Audience: An audience recording is one made by a taper with a microphone in the audience. These are the most common types of tapes. They can be good quality if done well, or they can be horrible (see: Ken's recordings). Also included will be whether the tape recorder was digital or analog.
(2) Soundboard: A soundboard recording is directly recorded from the soundboard, no mic involved. This can be either by a fan, by the soundboard operator, by a radio station for broadcast, or by the artist for later use. These are the best types as they are clean, and straight from the sound system. They have no audience noise, and don't lose anything between the speaker and mic as audience tapes do.
(3) FM: This is any music recorded from a radio onto tape. Usually some sort of live concert broadcast. They can be good quality since the radio station would normally have good equipment and access to the soundboard.
(4) CD Boot: This category actually can include any of the above original sources. Basically I guess I use this category because a CD is a very distinct type of concert recording, with drawbacks and benefits. A CD source indicates a recording put out on CD by a bootleg company. These bootlegs generally have little or no information with them, so the source, date and venue can be hard to come by. In fact the bootlegs are often compilations from various concerts, adding to the confusion. The benefit is the clear CD sound. Nothing compared to a commercial CD of course, but still better than a high generation analog tape. And the fact that the CDs are put out in mass quantities basically mean that there are thousands of master recordings out there. And so it's easier to find low generation recordings. I'm all for taping these CD bootlegs, I just wouldn't buy them and put money in their hands.
The simple explanation is that generation is a measure of how many steps away from the original recording my tape is. It's nice to know, and is a good predictor of the sound quality, but a lot of people don't keep track of this information. And people debate over how exactly to measure generation. Let me give you my system:
In terms of analog tapes, the original recording made at the concert is denoted as the Master. Any copy of that tape would be 1st generation. Any copies of that first generation tape would be 2nd, and so on. If the source is a radio broadcast, I consider the radio station the Master, and any tapes made of the broadcast to be first generation. In cases of CD sources, because of their digital nature I consider the CD to be a Master. Any copies made of the CD are 1st generation. If the source is a digital tape, I consider the first analog copy to be a Master. I know others don't do this though, so I attempt to diagram the situation: D>A>A, this shows that the master was a digital recording (D) which was then copied onto analog (A) and that Analog was then copied onto my tape. I would consider that tape to be a first generation.
This denotes the sound quality of the tape. I use a scale from Poor to Fair to Good to Great to Excellent. They are all completely subjective ratings, but I base them solely on audio quality, not the quality of performance. I have only included them on shows I have opinions on. I don't listen to all my shows often enough to remember what the quality was on each one. I'll try to get to them all eventually. If you have a question about a particular show let me know and I'll take a listen.
This is an estimate of the length of the recording. I'm not going to attempt to give times down to the minute (I used to), so I give lengths based on the number of sides of tape needed to record it. Thus 90 means it will fit on one 90 minute tape (both sides). If it said then this would mean that it will fit on only one side of a 90 minute tape. 50 means it will fit on one side of a 100 minute tape. 50 would fit 3 sides of some 100 minute tapes, i.e. one entire 100 minute tape, and one side of a second tape. And so on and so forth. Even if it only extends a few minutes onto the next side I use this system. I just don't have the time anymore to frig around with the tapes, seeing what I can fit on.
This is just space for some extra information. I might mention guest artists, or what sets are included, or in Neil Young's case, what band he's playing with. For more detailed information, make sure you check the setlist page.