MR

My god after hearing Fleetwood Mac Rumors, Eagles Hotel California and Yes Fragile in 5.1 I am sold. The sound is so clear and solid and to have backround vocals etc sounding like they are coming from behind you kicks ass !! For instance..

The duel leads at the end of Hotel California when Walsh and Felder play together (the most famous part of the solo) has Felder in the left rear speaker and Walsh in the right rear.. The effect with everything else going in the other speakers just makes you feel like your right in the middle of them playing if you close your eyes. I cant imagine how bad ass Escape would sound.... Oh and for the loons.

In most of the 5.1 stuff I have heard the lead vocals end up in the center channel sometimes with very little else mixed with it. You could turn up your center speaker and turn down the others and probably hear Perry singing almost alone. I hope they do this one day. The Houston concert for instance has Perry and Smitty very loud in the center compared to the rest of the band if you in 5.1 mode.

There is a PC program called DVD Audio Extractor which you can use to strip each channel to separate audio files. I can tell you from experience that none of the past Journey DVDs have isolated vocals in the 5.1 mix, sadly.

I have managed to strip vocals out of a ton of DVDs and enjoyed listening to the vocals on their own as well as creating new CDs just containing audio.

The best one for me was Iced Earth's Gettysburg DVD. Amazing to hear the layering and main vocal without effects.

The worst one was the DVD that came with the Judas Priest album Angel of Retribution. Halford's vocals were isolated on that one and it was frankly awful to listen to. When they got round to releasing the full concert DVD of the same tour the mix had been changed.

I have the DVD Audio discs of Fleetwood Mac's Rumors and Say You Will. Both are incredible. I also have Styx's Cyclorama which is well worth a purchase. Any of the Peter Gabriel 5.1 releases on SACD are also extremely well done.

Well the concerts can be hit and miss however there is a methodology used when doing pro 5.1 mixes on studio remixes it seems (there are playing only in dvd players hooked to surround systems BTW) that most mixing engineers seem to use that puts the lead vocals in the center for whatever reason. This is always the case with movies in 5.1 where the center channel is mostly dialog. I used that extractor myself on the 5.1 of Darkside Of The Moon and it very interesting. You hear tons of things you never heard.

There is a piano in Hotel California that I had never heard before !

Liquid_Drummer wrote:Well the concerts can be hit and miss however there is a methodology used when doing pro 5.1 mixes (there are playing only in dvd players hooked to surround systems BTW) that most mixing engineers seem to use that puts the lead vocals in the center for whatever reason. This is always the case with movies in 5.1 where the center channel is mostly dialog. I used that extractor myself on the 5.1 of Darkside Of The Moon and it very interesting. You hear tons of things you never heard.

There is a piano in Hotel California that I had never heard before !

It would certainly be great if all DVD concerts were mixed with the vocal in the centre channel as the overall effect can be mesmerising but sadly this isn't the case. Think of all the great karaoke discs you could make! Perhaps singers got wise to the fact that their raw vocals might end up doing the rounds on the internet for all eternity exposing the studio trickery that may have been used to make them sound great in the first place.

Still its a nice treat every so often to find one that is mixed 'properly'. Fascinating process - I wonder if the new Journey DVD is mixed in that way?

Maybe when Sony gets around to releasing the back catalog of Shows on DVD we can get it in DTS.

I've been screaming for a 5.1 mix of the Perry era catalogue for years. I've ALSO been screaming for Journey to open and remaster the treasure trove in their video vaults. Give us Journey's version of Kissology 2!

STORY_TELLER wrote:I've been screaming for a 5.1 mix of the Perry era catalogue for years. I've ALSO been screaming for Journey to open and remaster the treasure trove in their video vaults. Give us Journey's version of Kissology 2!

DVDs for the 30th Anniversary Tour, RoR, Frontiers and Departure tours, and then maybe some pre-Perry stuff would be PHENOMENAL... and I'm sure they taped at least one JSS show too..

That was going to be my question on Rockline. I was going to ask them about the possibility of releasing any of the past concerts on DVD, mainly the 30th Anniversary tour. I figured since they talked about this tour earlier on Rockline and how Neal was excited he got to perform some of the earlier material. But they screened me and apparently didnt like my question so i never got on the air.

STORY_TELLER wrote:I've been screaming for a 5.1 mix of the Perry era catalogue for years. I've ALSO been screaming for Journey to open and remaster the treasure trove in their video vaults. Give us Journey's version of Kissology 2!

I'm with you on the video thing but dear god, no more re-issues. I swear I'm not buying a 3rd copy of Raised on Radio. (I'm probably also lying )

I'm saying, more live shit. If they can rework some of that stuff even to be even half as killer as Houston, I'd be happy. The comparison between the GH Live versions of those tracks and the 2005 release blows me away. So to that end, haul out those 10 months worth of 1980 recordings for Captured and get to work, boys. Call it Recaptured. And don't no one make fun of that. I'm serious as a heart attack. AND INCLUDE A DVD WITH IT. It doesn't get better than 1980.