Grateful Dead All Music

In the 1990s and 2000s, the Grateful Dead released numerous live concert recordings from their archives in three concurrent series. The "From the Vault" series are remixes of multi-track recordings made at the time of the concerts. The "View from the Vault" series are also multi-track remixes, but are released simultaneously as albums on CD and as concert performance videos on DVD. (The first three volumes were also released on VHS videotape.) Both of these series are included in the "Retrospective" live albums list below.

The third series of concert releases is "Dick's Picks", which are based on two-track concert recordings. Unlike multi-track recordings, two-track recordings cannot be remixed, only remastered. Therefore, the sound quality of the "Dick's Picks" series, while generally very good, is not quite as high as that of the other official releases of live recordings, as explained in the various "caveat emptor" notices on the CD boxes.

The "Dick's Picks" series, which started in 1993, was named after Grateful Dead tape vault archivist Dick Latvala. Latvala selected shows with the band's approval and oversaw the production of the albums. After Latvala's death in 1999, David Lemieux became the Dead's tape archivist and took over responsibility for producing subsequent "Dick's Picks" releases, as well as his own "Dave's Picks" series. Latvala and Lemieux worked with recording engineer Jeffrey Norman, who was in charge of mastering the CDs. The last "Dick's Pick's" compilation was released in 2005.

Volume 15 and later were released in HDCD format. This provides enhanced sound quality when played on CD players with HDCD capability, and is fully compatible with regular CD players.

In the summer of 2005 the Dead began offering download versions of both their existing live releases, and a new Internet-only series, The Grateful Dead "Download Series", that was available through their own online store (which offered the albums in both 256 kbit/s mp3 files and FLAC files – a preferred audio standard for those who archive Dead and other fan-made live recordings on the Internet) and the iTunes Music Store (which offered them in their 256 kbit/s AAC format). Not surprisingly, these Internet-only albums have met with the same success as their CD-based brethren. The "Download Series" is no longer available for purchase on the Grateful Dead's website. However, they are still available for purchase from the iTunes Music Store as well as from Nugs.net, which offer them in FLAC, Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) and mp3 formats. Amazon also has them available in mp3 format.

The "Road Trips" series of albums is the successor to "Dick's Picks". The series started after the Grateful Dead signed a ten-year contract with Rhino Records to release the band's archival material. The "Road Trips" releases are created using two-track concert recordings, but unlike "Dick's Picks" they each contain material from multiple concerts of a tour. The production of the CDs is supervised by vault archivist David Lemieux, with mastering by sound engineer Jeffrey Norman. Like the later "Dick's Picks", the "Road Trips albums are released in HDCD format.