What surround mix did you listen today?

[interbellum]

My favorite Steely Dan-album is Royal Scam, so I would love to hear that one in surround one day. Gaucho is a good one too, but, but I like the more rocky elements on Royal Scam.

Yesterday I received and listened to a brand new 5.1 surround mix: Human's Lib, the debut album from Howard Jones, originally released in 1984 and produced by the late Rupert Hine.
Human's Lib is a special album. Not only it was one of the most popular progressive synthipop-album of its period, these new mixes (there's also a new stereo mix on this Blu-Ray/CD-set released by Cherry Red Records) are made by the same person who engineered the original music: our PE-member Stephen W Tayler! Finally another PE-member, Anil Prasad, wrote the liner-notes, including a song-by-song commentary by both Jones and Tayler.

Well, Stephen did a wonderful job here: the "playing" with the rhythm-tracks, backing-vocals and effects placed on all speakers is done with a lot of taste and care for the original recordings. For these mixes he even altered the ending of some of the songs by replacing the fade-outs by stretching the songs a bit so they run smoothly into the next one.

The Blu-Ray visuals during the songs are also created by Stephen; some of the graphics remind me of his own visuals for the surround mix on the DVD/CD-set Da Capo.

Finally Bob Clearmountain created Dolby Atmos Remixes of the most famous tracks of this album, What Is Love?, Hide And Seek and New Song.

More information on https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/...m-into-action/

[Gizmotron]

My favorite Steely Dan-album is Royal Scam, so I would love to hear that one in surround one day. Gaucho is a good one too, but, but I like the more rocky elements on Royal Scam.

Yesterday I received and listened to a brand new 5.1 surround mix: Human's Lib, the debut album from Howard Jones, originally released in 1984 and produced by the late Rupert Hine.
Human's Lib is a special album. Not only it was one of the most popular progressive synthipop-album of its period, these new mixes (there's also a new stereo mix on this Blu-Ray/CD-set released by Cherry Red Records) are made by the same person who engineered the original music: our PE-member Stephen W Tayler! Finally another PE-member, Anil Prasad, wrote the liner-notes, including a song-by-song commentary by both Jones and Tayler.

Well, Stephen did a wonderful job here: the "playing" with the rhythm-tracks, backing-vocals and effects placed on all speakers is done with a lot of taste and care for the original recordings. For these mixes he even altered the ending of some of the songs by replacing the fade-outs by stretching the songs a bit so they run smoothly into the next one.

The Blu-Ray visuals during the songs are also created by Stephen; some of the graphics remind me of his own visuals for the surround mix on the DVD/CD-set Da Capo.

Finally Bob Clearmountain created Dolby Atmos Remixes of the most famous tracks of this album, What Is Love?, Hide And Seek and New Song.

More information on https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/...m-into-action/

You make it sound very intriguing. I don’t recall too much about the album so I will re-familiarize myself with the tunes.

As always, thank you!

[progmatist]

Santana's Greatest hits on quad 8-Track tape. Surrounded by percussion, while Carlos' guitar periodically swirls around the room. A little gimmicky yes, but thoroughly enjoyable.

I picked up the quad 8-Track player for a steal, literally. A local used record store has shelves in the back where they stack their non-working equipment. The player caught my eye. I picked it up and asked the proprietor what the issue was with it. He didn't really know why it wasn't working, and said I could just take it. When I opened it, the problem was easy to find. The capstan had retracted from the flywheel, and was no longer providing the fulcrum supporting it. Causing the flywheel to rest on the retaining bracket, preventing it from rotating. I applied some Gorilla Glue. The wet glue lubricated the capstan so it would easily slide back in the flywheel. After the glue dried, it worked like a champ...other than the heads being badly out of alignment. I spent more time on that than fixing what was wrong with it.

[interbellum]

Santana's Greatest hits on quad 8-Track tape. Surrounded by percussion, while Carlos' guitar periodically swirls around the room. A little gimmicky yes, but thoroughly enjoyable.

Santana's Greatest Hits was my first LP!! Got it on my birthday Febr. 16th 1975 and I've played it over and over again.
Although I guess I've got most of the tracks on it in surround by now because of the Japanese releases of the original albums they came of, I would love to have a 5.1 mix of that album. But I guess Borboletta will be the first Sony Japan will release.

[Gizmotron]

Santana's Greatest Hits was my first LP!! Got it on my birthday Febr. 16th 1975 and I've played it over and over again.
Although I guess I've got most of the tracks on it in surround by now because of the Japanese releases of the original albums they came of, I would love to have a 5.1 mix of that album. But I guess Borboletta will be the first Sony Japan will release.

So cool! That is a great first album. One of my first 45s was “Evil Woman.” I drummed to that as well as the classic pop tune “Venus.” Since I had 12” albums from a very early age I do not remember which was first. (My very first 45 was “Puff the Magic Dragon” by PPM. A neighbor eventually tossed it from the top of his stairs for some dumb reason. Perhaps that is why I have a somewhat hard time letting go of vinyl! I jest mostly…about a year ago I sold most of my vinyl records. I did hold onto my classic Art Rock albums of course (yes, I hate saying the word “Progressive”)).

[progmatist]

^^ "Progressive" is often mistaken for politics among those unfamiliar. I've seen posts on Craig's List wanting to start a band with a progressive political message. Calling it "progressive rock."

[Gizmotron]

^^ "Progressive" is often mistaken for politics among those unfamiliar. I've seen posts on Craig's List wanting to start a band with a progressive political message. Calling it "progressive rock."

I never have heard that!

Labels often cause confusion and make it difficult to get traction in the marketplace. The worst is when a talented musician cannot make it because marketing “thinks they play too many genres.” The late, great Danny Gaston is the perfect example. He could not be pigeonholed so he languished in obscurity until he was so sad he committed suicide.

[taliesin]

Played Wakeman's Red Planet last night - nice mix with the band mostly in the front speakers and the keyboards spread around.

For me it's his strongest album in a long time and I enjoy the surround version even more.

[interbellum]

From Rick Wakeman ^^ (I only have his Journey To The Centre Of The Earth on LP) to Jon Anderson is a small step
I just played Mike Oldfield's 8th album, Crisis from 1983 in surround-sound, featuring the song In High Places with Anderson guesting on vocals.
But to be honest I bought this boxset from 2013 (3CD/2DVD) especially to hear Simon Phillips' monster-drumming in 5.1 surround. And what a pleasure it is!

[taliesin]

From Rick Wakeman ^^ (I only have his Journey To The Centre Of The Earth on LP) to Jon Anderson is a small step
I just played Mike Oldfield's 8th album, Crisis from 1983 in surround-sound, featuring the song In High Places with Anderson guesting on vocals.
But to be honest I bought this boxset from 2013 (3CD/2DVD) especially to hear Simon Phillips' monster-drumming in 5.1 surround. And what a pleasure it is!

Nice seque between albums - and yes Phillips' playing on Crises is great.

If you're a fan of Wakeman at all I recommend Red Planet - maybe his best album since the 70s?

[interbellum]

On repeat: Renaissance's Azure D'Or. Such a fine surround mix especially because the band used a lot of acoustic instruments which match great with the orchestral keyboard-sounds.

[interbellum]

Friday I listened to the only album by RPWL I own: World Through My Eyes. This album was released in 2005 on SACD with a fine multi-channel surround mix. RPWL is very much inspired by Pink Floyd and you can hear that clearly on this album too. Nice surround-effects (of course a lot of echoing words ).

[taliesin]

Been doing some reno work in my listening room so the system was moved out of the way - but I got the Tull Bursting Out box last week so decided to watch the MSG video last night and set things up to try the 5.1 mix.

Most live stuff I've heard in surround have mostly used the rear speakers for crowd noise and ambience but for this one most of the band is across the front with the two keyboard players spread toward the back - Evan on the right and Palmer on the left to mirror how they're placed on stage.

I actually found it a bit disconcerting - you're seeing them in line with the rest of the band but hearing them placed much closer to you. I'm not sure how much I liked it and need to watch again with the stereo mix to see how it compares.

As always with the Tull sets it's really well done and nice to have the full set list from the tour on the main discs. Haven't listened to the 5.1 versions of the album itself yet but will probably hear them on the weekend.

[interbellum]

It's indeed tricky to play with the surround setting of live-performances. I'm not enough a Jethro Tull-fan to buy this set, so I can't comment on this one.

A very good live-surround DVD is one from Nils Petter Molvær especially because of the special effects, scratching and samples used.

The performance on DVD of The Steve Gadd Band is very good represented by the surround mix because the players can be heard on the position on the stage.

Due to European Foodball Championship and some writing-stuff I haven't listened to surround mixes lately.

[taliesin]

It's indeed tricky to play with the surround setting of live-performances. I'm not enough a Jethro Tull-fan to buy this set, so I can't comment on this one.

A very good live-surround DVD is one from Nils Petter Molvær especially because of the special effects, scratching and samples used.

The performance on DVD of The Steve Gadd Band is very good represented by the surround mix because the players can be heard on the position on the stage.

Due to European Foodball Championship and some writing-stuff I haven't listened to surround mixes lately.

We also have Canada doing well in the Copa America - they made the semi finals for the first time ever.

So between that and the Euros it’s definitely been less listening time than usual 😁

[interbellum]

Well, the Dutch made it till the semi-finals, which is quite good for a team that's not having much world-stars like England. I see Canada is playing today for the third place against Uruguay. Good luck!

Yesterday I listened to Circles, the second CD from Gavin Harrison & Ø5Ric, originally released in 2009 and rereleased a year later with a DVD including a surround mix.

You could describe this music as "Allan Holdsworth playing in King Crimson" or something like that. Ø5Ric plays extended range bass which allows him to play Chapman Stick-like patterns, "normal bass" and sustain-full solo-guitar. He also has a unique voice. And yes, Harrison does his thing in a technically virtuozo way. The mix is done by Jakko M Jakszyk, which sounds more natural than his Bruford surround mixes.

I also have the DVD/CD-set of their third album, The Man Who Sold Himself, and Harrison's jazz-album Cheating The Polygraph.

[interbellum]

I've played Red, the last King Crimson-studioalbum featuring John Wetton and Bill Bruford. This surround version comes from the CD/DVD-set from 2009. Starless, the epic closer, sounds wonderful with the Mellotron-string in the climax hard in the mix. This version also shows me that the track has so many guitar-layers which I hadn't noticed before. The original side 1-tracks are mixed well too, I'm just not a real fan of Providence, not my favorite KC-impro, although the multi-speaker-mix does give the track more grip.

[interbellum]

Recently I bought Heat Ray, the first psysical album by Will Gregory Moog Ensemble. I know Gregory from his band Goldfrapp, so I wanted to re-listen to the surround-mix on de SACD/DVD-set of Supernature. It was the third album of the duo Alison Goldfrapp/Will Gregory. Their debut Felt Mountain is of cinematic beauty. On Supernature though they incorporated a lot of disco- and dance-elements into their music, although it's still exiting how Gregory managed to use his many analogue synthesizers in this kind of music.

[MudShark22]

Just got Fish - Internal Exile 2024 remix/master and the blue ray has 5.1 and ATMOS mixes.

Onto the pile! lol [emoji38]

Sent from my NE2217 using Tapatalk

[interbellum]

The last few weeks I played some of the surround mixes I mentioned earlier (Gentle Giant, Peter Gabriel), but this time I listened to them with almost all the lights in my music-room of. I believe this way you hear the surround sound even better (and I believe it's different with your eyes closed). Nice experiment.

[Gizmotron]

The last few weeks I played some of the surround mixes I mentioned earlier (Gentle Giant, Peter Gabriel), but this time I listened to them with almost all the lights in my music-room of. I believe this way you hear the surround sound even better (and I believe it's different with your eyes closed). Nice experiment.

I fully agree; whether stereo or surround, my eyes always take away some of the focus my ears have. Eyes closed is my usual way of listening to most music.

[interbellum]

This week I played not an album in surround, but the documentary Moonage Daydream. This film by Brett Morgen on David Bowie has an amazing surround mix, both musical and special effects. To be honest, it's so hallucinating (listening to all those sounds, looking at the bombastic images and reading the sub-titles) I got a but dizzy. But it's great. I'm planning to listen to Bowie's SACD Ziggy Stardust. This one is rather expensive today, but there's a new Blu-Ray with a Dolby Atmos-mix: https://www.discogs.com/release/3167...ders-From-Mars

[Eddie Y]

Played Nektar "Remember the Future" from the 50th anniversary RtF box earlier

I'm told that the next two Nektar remaster boxes will also feature 5.1 versions of the albums, (Journey to the Centre of the Eye, followed by A Tab In The Ocean) as well.

[interbellum]

Nektar is one of those bands I never really got into. I remember (...) my brother (who's name is Eddy Y by the way! )had the LP Journey To The Centre Of The Eye in his room, but I hardly played it. I noticed that album had two surround-mixes in the past, one of them co-mixed by Mark Powell: https://www.discogs.com/master/26002...t=Multichannel

[interbellum]

This week I played not an album in surround, but the documentary Moonage Daydream. This film by Brett Morgen on David Bowie has an amazing surround mix, both musical and special effects. To be honest, it's so hallucinating (listening to all those sounds, looking at the bombastic images and reading the sub-titles) I got a but dizzy. But it's great. I'm planning to listen to Bowie's SACD Ziggy Stardust. This one is rather expensive today, but there's a new Blu-Ray with a Dolby Atmos-mix: https://www.discogs.com/release/3167...ders-From-Mars

Yesterday I got to listening to Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. Original producer Ken Scott created a quite adventurous surround mix on which electric and acoustic instruments get a lot of space on all speakers. Scott also co-mixed the mix on the new Blu-Ray.

Funny note: I'm wearing my old Beat-t-shirt and I don't know if it's because of that I decided to listen to the 2016-surround mix of this King Crimson-album yesterday too. Although I've played Discipline a lot more than the next two LP's by this line-up I enjoyed listening to this one a lot.