Surroundablog

More Pink Floyd in surround??

I posted a quick inquiry on Rogerwatersonline.com this morning. I heard a rumour that Pink Floyd would be remastering "Wish You Were Here" for SACD to coincide with recordings 30th anniversary. The quick and dirty reply follows.... Both Storm Thorgerson Roger Waters' manasger have confirmed that James Guthrie, has the master tapes for both Animals and WYWH. Storm has been advised that future art work for a 30th anniv sacd WYWH/animals will be required and he has a few ideas... The last I heard there were some political problems to further releases on SACD as it is still not 100% that is the direction 5.1 is heading i.e DVD -Audio?? Pink Floyd management ltd have made it clear the band would love to re-release all albums eventually on 5.1. So that is pretty much what is known... posted by Phil W

Surroundablog's Best of 2004...

I worked long and hard on this one....

10. Buddy Guy - "DJ Play My Blues"

A hitherto unknown recording from Blue's best guitarist. It was taped live in a UK studio in 1981 and transferred to SACD this year. It stands up as one of Guy's most honest and real performances. In 5.1, Guy slices up the livingroom with neat little stinging strat slashes.

9. Everlast - "White Trash Beautiful"

It wasn't as strong as his previous outings, but this one glowers with a ferocity and rumble that is better felt than heard. Standouts include "This Kind of Lonely" interpolated with Hank Williams' "I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry". The title track invokes visions of Lucy from the "hit" TV show, "The Trailer Park Boys"..

Music star power surrounds state-of-art Boulder studio

(cut and paste from Rocky Mountain News) It's 1975 at Caribou Studios outside of Boulder; Elton John and his band are recording their masterpiece Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Davey Johnstone's acoustic guitar is right there. Nigel Olsson's drums thump all around. Elton's voice is booming at you front and center. The sound is crisp and clean, live and perfect. Then engineer Gus Skinas' cellphone rings; he checks it quickly. "I gotta get this," he says. "It's John Mayer." OK, so it's not 1975. It's 2004. And this studio is in Boulder proper, several miles away from the legendary studio that burned down years ago. And those musicians aren't here - it just feels like they are. In an odd bit of synchronicity, those multitrack Elton John masters recorded at Caribou nearly 30 years ago are being heard here now, getting mixed and mastered in 5.1 surround-sound using state-of-the-art technology barely imaginable when the original analog tapes rolled.

Meridian Issue Statement On DualDisc Compatibility

Meridian has released a DualDisc advisory of their own....the f&#&&@^&#&$&^@# things work....however; they do not warrant compatibility with all of their players. It seems that the cd layer of a DualDisc may be too thin for Meridian's optics. Read the whole press release here

God saved the Queen

Rock legends QUEEN are to reform for a tour next year - with Seventies rocker PAUL RODGERS replacing deceased legend FREDDIE MERCURY on vocals. Queen guitarist Brian May confirmed the news in a posting on his official website brianmay.com. A UK tour will definitely go ahead, with the possibility of a European leg and a world tour under discussion. The tour will feature material by both Queen and Rodgers, one-time vocalist with both Free and Bad Company. The statement on May's website reads: "It really all came about because of the Fender 50th Anniversary gig that I did with Paul Rodgers. We were both so amazed at the chemistry that was going on in 'All Right Now', that suddenly it seems blindingly obvious that there was something happening here." While Queen's drummer Roger Taylor is definitely taking part, there is no news on whether bass player John Deacon will get involved. Queen stopped touring in 1986, after frontman Mercury fell ill. He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991.

New MP3 5.1 surround sound set for Launch

The popular audio compression format MP3 goes multi-channel. Scientists and engineers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, who developed MP3 in a joint effort Thomson and Agere Systems, are getting ready to launch MP3 Surround into the consumer and commercial markets. This technology will enable 5.1 channel surround sound for a broad spectrum of applications including web-based music distribution, broadcasting systems, PC-related audiovisual or gaming applications, consumer electronics and automotive systems

Best Surround Sound albums of 2004....according to my Grammy...

Unfortunately MY Grandmothers never got to hear surround sound....but the Grammy award nominations committee sure did. For their inaugural presentation and recognition of the best surround sound in 2004; the Grammy nominees are..

Avalon - Roxy Music Super Audio CD Surround Sound (Virgin CVIR 83871 SA)

Surround Sound Producer: Rhett Davies Surround Sound Mix Engineer: Bob Clearmountain Surround Sound Mastering Engineer: Bob Ludwig

Genius Loves Company - Ray Charles with Norah Jones, James Taylor, Diana Krall, Elton John, Natalie Cole, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, B.B. King, Gladys Knight, Johnny Mathis & Van Morrison Super Audio CD Surround Sound (Concord Records/Hear Music SACD-1033-6)

Surround Sound Producers: John Burk, Phil Ramone & Herbert Waltl Surround Sound Mix Engineer: Al Schmitt Surround Sound Mastering Engineers: Robert Hadley & Doug Sax

Mahler: Symphony No. 4 Michael Tilson Thomas, Conductor & the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Super Audio CD Surround Sound (SFS Media 821936-0004-2)

Surround Sound Producer: Andreas Neubronner Surround Sound Mix Engineer: Markus Heiland Surround Sound Mastering Engineer: Markus Heiland

Nick Of Time - Bonnie Raitt DVD Audio Surround Sound (Capitol Records 99316)

Surround Sound Mix Engineer: Ed Cherney Surround Sound Mastering Engineers: James Guthrie & Doug Sax Raise Your Spirit Higher Ladysmith Black Mambazo Super Audio CD Surround Sound (Heads Up HUSA-9083) Surround Sound Producer: Martin Walters Surround Sound Mix Engineer: Martin Walters Surround Sound Mastering Engineer: Paul Blakemore

Under the radar DVD-As and a couple of SACDs..

Last spring, Classic Rock magazine published an interview with David Crosby. In it, Crosby mentioned that his excellent album, "If I could only remember my name", was being remastered for DVD-A. Crosby's website mentions it again with a probable release date in January... "This is the Central Scrutinizer"....On the heels of "Halloween" and "Quadiophiliac", Gail Zappa hints at more. A posting by Gail Zappa on the official Frank Zappa site cryptically spoke of more DVD-A remasters and she urged all of you Pumpkin Barkers to upgrade your hifi for a mind-blowing spring...

Look out honey...hear comes a piece of Humble Pie...

Over the last several months I've been busily loading all of my cds and hybrid sacds onto my computer and then synchronizing the puter's library with the wife's ipod. It sounds great but says she, "too much UFO"... Anyways; I've got a significant number of DVD-A discs that were locked out of this 'puter to ipod process....that is, locked out until now. I just found a program online that allows all you DVD-Audio'rs the ease and convenience of copying your favorite tracks from your DVD-A disc onto your computer. The program automatically converts the track into mp3 or wav with a bit rate ranging from 80Kbits to 320 Kbits. It also converts the video content to mpeg or wmv. Check it out at xilisoft.... Now I can get down with that rare Humble Pie live recording that was only released on DVD-A....says me, "ummm...honey...can I borrow yer ipod???" I'll let you all know how it works out...