Deluxe Tommy comments

Want to review the latest CD reissue? Or a 30 year old LP you just picked up? Discuss it all here.
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Xenu
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Postby Xenu » Wed Nov 05, 2003 6:55 pm

I love those bins in the Walgreens near me. All blaxploitation and martial arts, weirdly enough, combined with movies MST3K's done.
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krabapple
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Postby krabapple » Fri Nov 07, 2003 2:47 pm

My de-luxe 'Tommy" SACD arrived today just as I was leaving for work...so, what track shall I use to audition it, to demonstrate its surround-sound bang-factor? I'm guessing 'Underture' is likely to sound pretty killer. For me, the highlight of the album has always been when Entwistle comes roaring in, with Rotosounds a-ringin', partway through that track.
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Postby krabapple » Sat Nov 08, 2003 7:10 pm

I meant 'Amazing Journey'. D'oh! And it sounds amazing.
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Postby Rspaight » Sun Jan 11, 2004 10:11 am

Some notes from Pete on the surround mix. Whatever the SACD's flaws, a lack of bass is certainly not among them. I dunno what this reviewer's on about. Maybe his bass management is mismanaged?

[url=http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/entertainment_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_84_2562628,00.html]Brown: Townshend rushes to 'Tommy's' defense
January 10, 2004[/url]


Whether music sounds good or not has always been a subjective thing. With new technology it may be even more so. While some audiophiles still argue that vinyl sounds best, others are embracing more and more digital technology.

A few weeks back we ran a review of the surround-sound Super Audio CD mix of The Who's Tommy, noting that while the guitars and vocals were well-mixed, the bass and drum sound were disappointing. That caused writer-guitarist Pete Townshend some consternation, as he'd worked incredibly hard to bring out the bass and drums from the master tapes he had, despite some limitations.

"I spent half a year mixing this and I feel sure if you sat in a room with me and heard it the way I've been hearing it you would not feel the drums and bass were undervalued," Townshend wrote in a long e-mail to the News explaining his work and motivation behind the Tommy release (it's due out on DVD-Audio with visual extras later this year). "Setting up a 5.1 system is pretty tricky, and quite subjective."

At Townshend's request, the discs were given another listen - this time with the bass boosted substantially and the understanding that Tommy's master multi-tracks have some limitations. The 1969 album was recorded on eight-track equipment, with Keith Moon's drums recorded in mono. Thus it would be impossible for it to sound like the 16- to 48-track albums that we compared it with, more modern works by Pink Floyd, the Flaming Lips, Bob Dylan and others.

You have to take the era of a recording into consideration when listening; the DVD-Audio of Elvis Presley's 30 #1 Hits features great surround sound on latter-day tracks such as Suspicious Minds, yet obviously is limited when it comes to Heartbreak Hotel - recorded in 1956 on a single microphone.

Keeping that in mind, Townshend did do an outstanding job with the surround mix, deftly melding voices, guitars and rhythm section. Smash the Mirror and Christmas are particularly good. Yet some of the songs seem to lose their punch to me still; Pinball Wizard, for example, just doesn't seem to have the kick it did in previous releases. But as Townshend pointed out, the SACD has the original stereo analog mix on it as well, so fans can have it both ways. Fair enough.

He took the chance to offer some insight into his work on the album.

"The best thing about getting out the original 8-track analogue masters to work with was that Keith Moon's drums (recorded in mono!) and John Entwistle's bass were such a revelation. They had been recorded so well. I featured them proudly in every mix, and my consultants Elliot Mazer and David Pelletier had to work quite hard with me to restore some equality with the guitars and keyboards," he wrote.

"I started with a clean sheet for the 5.1 version. Unlike (original mixer) Kit Lambert, I added no artificial echo to the studio tracks (sometimes I gave vocals a tiny bit of 'flutter' echo to set them up in 'space'). I wanted the incredible energy and basic rock vibe of the band's studio work to come across without too much interference. The sound is dry, forceful and old-fashioned. I also think it is full of a kind of joy that comes over properly for the first time in my mix."

Townshend has great news and bad news for fans of the band's classics Quadrophenia and Who's Next. He became interested in surround sound in the early '70s and wrote songs for both those albums with surround in mind.

"My Who's Next writing was targeted at 'quadrophonic' live presentation. Shortly after, in 1973, I composed Quadrophenia specifically for the promised quadrophonic audio revolution that didn't happen," Townshend says. "I hope to have that album remixed in the way I intended back then - with four musical themes emerging from each of four corners of the room, and combining centrally in the finale to demonstrate the hero's spiritual epiphany. Ken Russell's Tommy film - which I music-directed - was the first five-channel movie - prior to the emergence of Dolby film sound."

But unfortunately, for the time being, Who's Next won't get that treatment.

"One sad fact about Who's Next is that one of the master reels has been misplaced or stolen at some point in the record's history," he says. "Until we track this down, there will be no definitive surround remix of that wonderful record."
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Postby Rspaight » Tue Jan 13, 2004 10:28 am

Michael Fremer weighs in:

http://www.musicangle.com/album.php?id=123

(This has some interesting comments from Astley on the mastering. He actually made two different transfers -- one to 24/96 for the DVD-A and one to DSD for the SACD. In order to fit the whole album on one SACD disc, the bandwidth had to be rolled off at the top -- at 75K. I doubt anything on the master was lost. :))

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Xenu
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Postby Xenu » Tue Jan 13, 2004 12:41 pm

I always thought DSD had a fixed bandwidth for this sort of thing?
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Postby krabapple » Thu Jan 22, 2004 11:21 am

There's an interview with PT in the new Feb/Mar issue of Sound & Vision, concerning the mixing of Tommy. Btw, I too have no idea what the original reviewer is on about....I hear plenty of bass
in the surround version. Llike PT says, setting upa 5.1 system is a tricky thing...I wonder if
they ahve their rig set up and bass managed properly.

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Postby krabapple » Sat Jan 24, 2004 1:16 pm

krabapple wrote:There's an interview with PT in the new Feb/Mar issue of Sound & Vision, concerning the mixing of Tommy. .


I misremembered..it's actually in the February issue of Home Theater
magazine. www.hometheatermag.com
"I recommend that you delete the Rancid Snakepit" - Grant