The Doors Perception Box set

Is everybody in...the show is about to begin...I just received my Doors' box set over the weekend. Several months of work went into this set, so I was filled with anticipation as I unwrapped it. Upon opening the box, the glued inserts promptly popped out and the set collapsed. I didn't pay it very much mind though cause its the music I came for...

I carefully pried the debut album out....they must've used a shoe horn to squeeze all 6 digi-packs into that too tight enclosure. Nevertheless...think music....think 5.1-ified "The End".....all right....load up the dvd. select the "High Resolution Surround" option and crank it up.

No vocals....NO VOCALS....NO WAIT...maybe if I readjust my channel settings.....still nothing. Fuck me. All right....readjust the settings back to the usual Wheeler house of surround. Next: alter the DVD player output from "DVD-Audio" to "DVD-Video". Back to "top menu" and up pops "DTS" and "Dolby Digital" Surround options. Now we're cooking with gas...select DTS and crank it up again. BLAM.....VOCALS...LOVELY SOOTHING MORRISON INFLECTED POETIC GIBBERISH....but where's my rears......NO #^*$%&(#$&o)(#*z*z#z REAR CHANNELS. Ok Wheeler calm down.....Dolby Digital isn't horrible...wipe the cold sweat off your brow and try this again...NO REARITUDE ON DD EITHER....ah crap...

Try "Soft Parade" I guess....and.....holy crap...IT WORKS ON DTS! (Shaking now)....reset the DVD output to "DVD-Audio" and good golly miss molly....she works and its better than expected! Lush warm guitar tones....incredible separation throughout the entire soundspace...crisp snare cracks...and lush keyboards. I let this one play 3 times through....definitely encouraging.

Next up..."Waiting for the Sun"...initial reactions reflect "Soft Parade".....except there's no bass...no sub....no ground-pounding bass-arama. crap. Right...to thedoors.com to investigate what others are saying...

It appears that Engineer Bruce Botnick decided that a ".1" channel wasn't required for the "High Resolution Surround" layer so in essence its "5.0"....5 point nothing is more like it. Others have posted that the "DTS" option DOES  have the .1 track but I just didn't have the patience to go back and reset my DVD player....again....or to try the 3 other titles..

Some other peeps have discovered that their Denon and Pioneer universal players fail to play any of the surround layers....but those surround-hounds can apparently download some firmware fixes directly to their machines through some sort of witchcraft and voodoo to properly reproduce. Man...I thought I had problems.

In the end...heh...it would appear that I received a defective debut digi-pack and that everyone received (clears throat)...a boney-maroney skinny as a piece of macaroni sounding HiRez "Waiting for the Sun". It looks like I may have to wait until the single releases come out before I can replace the debut. I hope that Bruce sneaks a proper low frequency track back in.....NOW GET OUT.

Ron Wheeler

Comments

[Tim McDonnell]

There is every reason to believe these mixes are more or less final. You work with what you got. I don't see any mention of the simple fact that The Doors (1st LP) was recorded on 4 tracks as opposed to 8 track recorders used for all the other albums. [Don't you guys read those GREAT booklets? I read one every day] There simply isn't much to work with.

They didn't have original stems laying around to sync up later like the most recent Beatles surround projects benefited from. They had few tracks to work with and made hard decisions like printing hard echo on them (no turning back or fixing later; talk about total commitment!). No turning back.

Of course I wanted the 1st album to be true surround; my memories demanded it. After all my Elektra quad 8 track tape from 1973 included 3 songs from the first album (Soul Kitchen, Take It As It Comes and Light My Fire) in glorious 4 channel sound. How did they do it? Jim's vocal up front and the other 3 possible tracks in some weird (but endearing) configurations. Most of us loved that but appraently Bruce was having none of that this time around.[it IS preserved as a DTS encoded CDR if you know the right people]

Overall it is a dream come true to get all of this in surround, hear the bonus tracks, watch the videos. The only playback flaw on my Denon DVD changer (DVD-A) is the LA Woman bonus tracks refused to play. Others in forums say it's just my player but I can find no firmware upgrade. Next Denon arrives for living room Monday and I'll try it on there.

CD Universe charged me $108 for the pkg but I did see $90 specials elsewhere just before the holidays. Buy it, enjoy it and don't look back.

Oh and 5.1 is fine for music; it's an effects channel and can be used in interesting ways. Steve Wilson used it to great effect on Tinto Brass (2006 Stupid Dream DVD-A/CD release that every one of you should own). On the other hand David Crosby's 5.0 DVD-A of If I Could Remember My Name is so totally great maybe you're not even thinking about a .1 or not. It's ALL good.

[Warren Poitras]

I first heard the Doors in 1966 when they opened for another band in Los Angeles. No one I knew had ever heard of them before. Their performance that night was nothing short of amazing. Shortly thereafter, “Light my Fire” hit the radio and they quickly became one of the biggest acts in the Country.

"The End" remains one of my favorite pieces of music of all time. Its selection by Francis Ford Coppola for the opening sequence of "Apocalypse Now" allowed a new generation of fans too young to have heard the band in its heyday to understand why the Doors had such an impact in the late 60’s. One cannot think of either without the other immediately coming to mind. But I digress …

I ordered the Doors Perception immediately after reading about it on this website. When it arrived, I opened the unique, but decidedly impractical, box with a great deal of anticipation. I too had difficulty removing the individual albums; tight fit to say the least. I placed “The Doors” DVD my Marantz universal player and jumped straight to track 11. Robby Kreiger's guitar began to well up in the right front speaker, and then Jim Morrison's voice sprang from center. Soon the band was bursting from all three front speakers. The sound quality was outstanding. This must have been what it sounded like hearing the original tracks in the studio. Then I realized the rear channels were all but silent. Only the slightest echo could be heard from the rear speakers.

It seems Bruce Botnick, the band's original engineer and the person responsible for the new mix, opted against using the rear channels for anything but a faint echo. To say that I was disappointed is quite an understatement. It’s taken 40 years for one of the most important rock albums of my generation to be released in high-resolution surround and the engineer (a great one at that) opts against using the rear channels to full effect.

Things got better with each succeeding album. The sound stage widened considerably and by "Morrison Hotel" (not my favorite by a long shot), the music truly surrounded you. If only Botnick had chosen to mix “The Doors” in the same way.

All-in-all a worthwhile endeavor; well worth the $100+ investment, but a disappointment none-the-less. “The Doors” was the reason I bought the package, and the word “surround” just doesn’t apply. If only “The End” had been mixed like “When the Music’s Over” or “Riders on the Storm”. Now that would have been something!

[Ron Wheeler]

Thanks for the comment double-m. I can say simply that "Waiting for the Sun" suffers some because of the absence of a dedicated .1 track. Comparing it with the other 4 releases (not including wheeler's fucked debut dvd)it sounds skinnier period.

"Waiting for the Sun" does thicken some with the addition of 2 extra cups of volume...but in a straightline taste test...I (and my neighbors) prefer the other 4.

Ron

[mm]

Exactly. No need .1 for music. Bass must be redirected to subwoofer by receiver.

[Ron Wheeler]

Thanks for the comment...I would hazard a guess that if indeed Bruce Botnick felt that 5.0 is the way to go then why not do the entire project in 5.0? Why would only 1 of the dvds be 5.0 and the rest are 5.1? I can say rather bluntly..."Waiting for the Sun" sounds thin when compared to the rest of the offerings.

I would agree that full range speakers are the way to go; however, often times it is difficult for smaller soundspaces to accomodate a decent pair of towers or box-type speaks in the front....let alone to properly match with the rears. The Wheeler household decided that floorspace was needed for space as opposed to big-box tv and big-ass towers. My pseudonym of "Wheeler" comes from my days in radio as well as the fact that I'm in a wheelchair...a man's gotta turn around once in awhile. We went with wall mounted flat panel speaks from B&W and a gorgeous sounding tight 'n fast sub. The set-up sounds spectacular without having to readjust the crossover for one dvd-a disc that "didn't need the .1 layer".

Ron Wheeler

[Ge_Someone]

Ron wrote: so in essence its "5.0"
Botnick is correct in this, for music 5.0 is the way to go.
For music you need either Full Range speakers (at least front L+R) or properly working Bass Management (routes the low end to your sub).