HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM DREAM THEATER (6:00 On A Christmas Morning!)

[jakepriest]

Is it just me or do they play the ending of TCOT slower than on the original? Wouldn't that be really hard for Mangini if he has the click track running?

[Orbert]

Downloading it right now.  Can't say thank you enough to everyone involved. 

I think I even figured out this torrent stuff. 

Same here.  I never made the jump to torrents, preferring usenet (very old-school, but basically impossible to slip malware into), but this prompted me to seek out a reliable client and install it.  I actually missed that Wey had given us a link to one.  But whatever.  I figure BitTorrent is the daddy, so I went with it.  Download is 87% done as of now!

[Podaar]

Thanks to Wey, the band, Rich and everyone else involved! What a terrific gift. I've downloaded the flac files and am busily trying to find a conversion program that doesn't voice stamp the results.

Thanks again.

[jingle.boy]

Thanks to Wey, the band, Rich and everyone else involved! What a terrific gift. I've downloaded the flac files and am busily trying to find a conversion program that doesn't voice stamp the results.

Thanks again.

YTD Youtube downloader/converter did it for me.

[Podaar]

Thanks jingle.boy. I'll look into it later when I have time.

[The Stray Seed]

A true rebirth for TCOT. This version is simply amazing, and MM and JM are totally on fire!!! The chorus sounds so good!!!

[wasteland]

A true rebirth for TCOT. This version is simply amazing, and MM and JM are totally on fire!!! The chorus sounds so good!!!

It is, even though I would recommend the Athens version, which is further improved in the middle section.

[ErHaO]

This is awesome! Thank you, everyone involved. 

[mitchgo]

Special thanks to Wey for providing me a DB link. You rool dood. 

[Lowdz]

And to think I skipped past the Facebook post initially without reading it. 
That'll teach me.

As others have said, thanks to all who made this happen. Much appreciated.

[CharlieDominietzsche]

Thanks to Wey and DT for this holiday treat. Got the FLAC files working with a program called VLC, and wow, the audio quality is impeccable!

[Ad134]

I got legitimate chills when To Live Forever's first guitar melody came in (before the vocals).

[wasteland]

Am I seeing a potential consensus about To Live Forever being a good choice for future tours?

[Onno]

Am I seeing a potential consensus about To Live Forever being a good choice for future tours?

Oh yeah.

[Bertielee]

Wow! Thanks to all involved to give us this treat as a Christmas Gift! DT, Wey and all others : a big hug from me! Color me happy!

B.Lee

[mitchgo]

Thanks jingle.boy. I'll look into it later when I have time.

Used Free Studio this morning. Works great.

https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/free-dvd-video-software.htm#.UrtN5X-9KSN

[wolfking]

Wow, this is an amazing gift, thank you.  Downloading now, but then I have to figure out what the hell a flac file is and what to do with it. 

[wasteland]

Lossless compression encoding protocol. Just a way to store a sound stream without axing out some frequencies the ear might still hear.

Just use VLC to play them, VLC never fails. But I would recommend Foobar2000, the best music player there is!

[Bear Report]

This sounds absolutely amazing.  I never liked The County of Tuscany all that much but this version is really fun and sounds incredible.

[wolfking]

Lossless compression encoding protocol. Just a way to store a sound stream without axing out some frequencies the ear might still hear.

Just use VLC to play them, VLC never fails. But I would recommend Foobar2000, the best music player there is!

Thanks man.

[TheAtliator]

Wow this thing sounds awesome. Really happy with it and I'm so happy to have such great live versions of these songs, the band is really rocking. The keyboard is at the perfect volume. Everything is except maybe the bass drum, which should be a bit louder, but I can still hear it just fine. You know it's good when that's the only problem I could possibly think of. Really great CD.

I love how NOTHING is fixed up, it sounds amazing this way.


except for Another Day ; ) you can't fool me.

[Sycsa]

Wow this thing sounds awesome. Really happy with it and I'm so happy to have such great live versions of these songs, the band is really rocking. The keyboard is at the perfect volume. Everything is except maybe the bass drum, which should be a bit louder, but I can still hear it just fine. You know it's good when that's the only problem I could possibly think of. Really great CD.

I love how NOTHING is fixed up, it sounds amazing this way.


except for Another Day ; ) you can't fool me.

Fully agreed. The bass drum bothers me as well and apparently they intentionally mixed it so low, since it was noticeably louder on the High Voltage video of Peruvian Skies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdBeeph0aFM), which is the same version we have on this this release. MP's kick was always very loud, maybe JP had enough of it. Other than that, the snare and cymbal sound/mix is so far MM's best with DT and the toms sound almost as beefy as they did with MP. The keys and James sound heavenly, and I probably prefer this version of ES even to the studio version.

[Elite]

Since I'll be away from home for another while.. How long will it stay up?

[RodrigoAltaf]

What happens during the F# of LTL? It seems like there's an echo going on...

[BlobVanDam]

Is it just me or do they play the ending of TCOT slower than on the original? Wouldn't that be really hard for Mangini if he has the click track running?

I thought a few of the songs sounded a little slow (same with LALP), but my theory was just that studio tempo doesn't work for a lot of songs live. Peruvian Skies sounded really plodding to me too once it hit the heavier sections.

[jcmistat]

Since I'll be away from home for another while.. How long will it stay up?

Hope it stays up! Right now its been stuck on connecting to peers for a while.

[Sycsa]

It'll stay up as long as people will seed it. I'll be seeding for years, so no worries.

[Prog Snob]

It'll stay up as long as people will seed it. I'll be seeding for years, so no worries.

Same here.  There are still a lot of people DLing this.

[krands85]

Great stuff, really appreciate this from the band - thanks to everyone involved! Only listened to a few songs so far, but Endless Sacrifice immediately stands out. I've always loved that song and James sounds amazing on this version - that scream near the end on Endless SAC-RI-FICE 

Merry Christmas everyone 

[mabowe]

Thanks so much for this, its awesome

[Daso]

I only heard The Count of Tuscany and it sounded amazing. Everyone's performance was great, and Mike's drums sound better than ever. The only small bother I had was the echo produced on JLB's vocals, but I can live with it.

Thanks to everyone who was involved in this, Wey and the DT guys especially. Merry Christmas!

[cramx3]

First impressions are impressive.  This is so awesome.

[Mindflux]

I don't know if it's my speakers or what, but so far UAGM and Forsaken sound like they were recorded with a tin can.  They sound like a lot of the phish bootlegs I listen to.

I'll try out some other squeakers shortly.


Endless Sacrifice sounds better. Maybe it's a per venue thing... hrm

[Madman Shepherd]

So what is the best program to convert flac to mp3?  I've looked around and on google there are a ton of results but I'm paranoid as hell about getting a virus or something.  I would really prefer a personal recommendation from a program someone has experience with. 

[TheGreatPretender]

The safest way, albeit a little slow, would probably be to use audio editing software like Audacity, as long as you install the MP3 plugin for it, you can open the flac files and convert them to MP3.

For something faster, I use this program. It's a part of ad-supported freeware suite of all sorts of converters:
https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-YouTube-to-MP3-Converter.htm
You can just drag and drop all the flac files, choose your output quality and it'll convert everything in one go, whereas with Audacity, you'd have to import each sound file separately, export each one separately. Audacity is mainly for editing, so it's not the most efficient as a simple converter.

If you go with the dvdvideosoft converter, just make sure that when you install it, to unclick all the other stuff it's going to prompt you to install. It usually asks you if you'd like to install some toolbars on your browser, change your default search engine, etc. You probably don't want any of that crap. Otherwise, the program itself is solid and I haven't had any issues with it.