DCC Archive Multitrack tapes

My question is: are there enough multitrack tapes out there to do mulichannel releases of many of popular releases. I’ve come to the conclusion to sell these new formats to the average Joe, they are going have at least give the opinion of surround sound to sell either DVD-A or SACD. I’ve always heard the story that major labels as WB had a policy of only keeping 2 channel tapes as part of their archive at least in the 1970’s and beyond. Are we going have to listen to bad remixes as well bad “Digital Extracted” multichannel releases where there is no longer a multitrack tape or it has become damaged because of poor storage or poor tape stock or plain indifference. I have not been impressed with the majority of DVD multichannel releases originally released in stereo that I have heard in Dolby 5.1 surround or DTS surround.

 

Most every time, the multi's lie in the hands of the producer, engineer or storage house the studio might have used. Depends. Really depends. Sometimes artists weren't allowed the multi, sometimes the multi got thrown away while the label was "cleaning house", sometimes the artist insisted on having the master, a safety, AND the multi, and he or she could, and boy that's a rarity.

As for DTS, there's hits and misses, but I've heard bad commerial surround releases, and great homemade ones, that I've described before. I feel some titles would sound great in surround, some just wouldn't. For instance, I would think a 5.1 of "Born In The USA" would sound funky, but great because of it's ambiance and feel would make sense in the translation, but if you told me "The E Street Shuffle" was going to be made for surround, I'd possibly avoid it, but.....

Here's a few DTS CDs I thought sounded nice:

Don Henley - End Of Innocence
Steely Dan - Goucho
Sting - Brand New Day
Moody Blues - Days Of Future Passed
Bachman Turner Overdrive - Not Fragile
Eagles - Hell Freezes Over (DTS on DVD Video and the DTS CD)

I heavilly doubt we'll ever see any digially reprocessed surround from 2 channel. In fact, I think trying is just a sad waste of human time-on-hand.

[ October 28, 2001: Message edited by: Sckott ]

 

I heard "Gaucho" and thought it sounded good but it's REALLY annoying that they put just backing vocals in the surrounds at times. The surrounds go from being entirely silent to just backing vocals.

Sckott, what is "Not Fragile" like in DTS? I always wondered what they could have done to the mix.

 

The backing vocals in Goucho make total sense to me, and they also put other stuff in the back at times too. It's cool because you can seperately hear Donald's chorus line perfectly in the front. Nothing wrong with that. The mastering is great too.

"Not Fragile" uses the various tracks in the multi and puts them all over, but this is a commercially available DTS CD so, they put the main beef in the front, a guitar and some backing vocals in the back (handclaps too I think...) and the bass line is discreetly (as usual) to the sub. The album is really busy, so the whole surrounding soundstage sounds nice.

Like I said, some albums WILL make sense in surround. Extreme example is, you can take Dylan's HW61 and make it 5.1, but you can't take "Times Changin" and make it 5.1... Ha ha ha...

 

Sckott,
I agree that the backing vocals in the surrounds make sense, but it just seemed a bit too gimmicky and cute when I heard it.

Then again, one could argue that anything that is converted to 5.1 is gimmicky.

 

DTS is the best format for music in multichannel, hands down, for the home enthusiast. Wait till you hear and see Disney's "Fantasia" in DTS, and then you'll get the gist of how gimmiky things can get. It is, however, very neat, sounds great (although the noise reduction is annoying). I would also experiment with speaker placement so the sound around you mixes in more or less, depending on your mood. Best for long, deep rooms, you see...!

 

Alan -- Yes, the lack of multitracks will certainly be a problem. Even where multitracks exist, it's possible that they may not be available for all of the songs on an album. In addition, even where multitracks exist, they manner in which an album was recorded may not lend itself to a surround sound mix. This would especially be the case with sixties recordings, which it's often difficult enough to produce a decent stereo mix, much less a 5.1 mix. Though no doubt some will try.

A bigger problem may be the cost. Even where the multitracks exist are in unsable form, creating a 5.1 mix from scratch can be very expensive. One cost effective solution would be to convert existing quad masters to 5.1, or simply releasing SACDs or DVD-A's with 4.0 mixes. This is apparently something that Sony is going to do. They've saved all their quad masters (and also have quad masters for several artsts whose catalogs are not longer controlled by Sony/Columbia). Of course, many quad mixes are considered to be too gimicky, although the same can be said for many 5.1 mixes.

 

Who says that a multichannel rerelease has to be in surround? The simplest and most elegant solution for early stereo recordings to be redone in multichannel is to use 3-track session masters and merely transfer them to the front channels: left-center-right. Since the vast majority of early stereo recordings were done that way to begin with, it makes for an ungimmicky and clean presentation for a DVD-Audio or SACD multichannel presentation of the music. The recent Sony SACD multichannel pressing of Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue" proves that it can and should be done this way.

[ October 29, 2001: Message edited by: luke j chung ]

 

Hmm...I don't have rear surrounds, so I guess it's not a problem!

 

Chris, maybe I am getting old and befuddled, but I don't exactly remember a quad lp of BOTR. I'd hate to think that I somehow missed it!!!

FWIW, the intro is complete and correct on that US Apple BOTR quad 8-track cart.

 

To me it has nothing to do with under utilized speakers. It has to do with that dull processed sound when the intruments are folded down together & asking two channels to reconstruct a sound field. Even the amps sound relieved when the duty is delegated. The substantial difference is almost analogous to using active Xovers. Plus, the resultant Dopler distortion from asking two speakers to reproduce all the instruments in the band can get limiting.

What's more in multi-track you feel the origin of the music sitting among the musicians as they hear it. You reproduce the creative environment of the jam session that sparked inspiration.