Nitty Gritty Surround
DVD Audio
AIX Records
by David Tolsky
“AIX Records believes that in order to hear the
improvements offered by increasing the sample rate
and word size, you have to start by making NEW
recordings!”(Taken from sub-menu, “The Disc,”
on Nitty Gritty Surround)
New recording sessions are at the heart of what
makes AIX DVD-Audio discs so special. Think about it:
what could be better to a music lover and audiophile
than a brand new recording session using the best
digital equipment and special miking techniques?
It would be a no-frills session with no flashy
stage show. There is no equalization going on, just
music in the raw. The recording, mixing and mastering
are all executed with a 96khz sample rate and 24 bit
word length, created digitally from the ground up.
Nitty Gritty Surround is an album that has
its roots established way back in the 60’s with the
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It’s bluegrass at its
finest, with some traditional folk and swing thrown
in for good measure. When these guys and gals get
together, they can jam with the best of them.
AIX cleverly uses both sides of the disc to divide
DVD-A material (high-rez MLP tracks and 2-channel
tracks -- both in 96/24), from the DVD-Video features.
Let’s start with the video.
The inside blue ring on the disc indicates the
DVD-Video features, playable on any DVD video player.
Here we actually get to sit in on the live session
as it was being recorded, thanks to some skillful video work.
Imagine yourself sitting in the middle of the stage.
John McEuen grabs his banjo and takes a seat in front
of you. Jimmy Ibbotson, folk guitar in hand, sits
behind you facing McEuen. Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum
stand next to Ibbotson, ready to sing. Phil Salazar
(fiddle) sits opposite Randy Tico (acoustic bass).
Tom Corbett (mandolin), Rick Cunha (guitar,
ukulele, vocals) Matt Carsonas (harmony vocals, mandola,
dulcimer), Jim Christie (percussion), Jonathan
McEuen (John’s son on guitar and vocals) and special
guest, vocalist Jennifer Warnes, fill in the empty
spaces. Putting you in the middle of the music is
what AIX calls their “stage mix” and it is what
surround sound was born for. In this case, the DTS
5.1 mix is the on-stage perspective. If you are
fond of being surrounded by instruments and vocals,
this is the mix for you.
Let’s say you’re more of a purist and would prefer
to keep your distance from the band. No problem
since AIX also provides a 5.1 channel Dolby Digital
mix of the session, called the “audience” mix.
Clicking the Audio button on your remote
accesses this mix on the fly, anytime you want.
This is a great feature as you can very quickly
compare the sound quality between the two popular
encoding choices. You’ll notice that the instruments
behind you will all but disappear, leaving you in
the ambiance of the “audience”, with a much more
frontal soundstage.
Clicking the Angle button will allow an
alternate video shot, usually an isolated vocalist
or musician. These shots are nicely dissolved into
wider group shots of all performers.
What’s nice about Nitty Gritty Surround is
that it is an education in acoustic strings. Banjo,
guitar, mandolin, bass mandolin, fiddle, acoustic
bass, ukulele -- they’re all blended into the
unmistakable bluegrass sound that the Dirt Band is
famous for. The Appalachian dulcimer even makes
an appearance, and in a humorous video clip from “The
Making Of,” musician Matt Cartsonis is applying ‘peg
dope’ to the instrument’s old string pegs. “Why do
you think they call it dope?” he muses, “Because
you have to be one to play this instrument.”
Flipping the disc over to the red side, you get your
choice of 5.1 channel surround MLP and two channel
PCM, both using 96 khz/24 bit technology. Both of
these compression schemes are “lossless,” where none
of the data is left out of the transfer process. The
2-channel mix sounds every bit as clean as the multi-
channel and is a great alternative mix for the die-hard
stereo lover. Like the video side of the disc, the
MLP version becomes the stage mix, a higher resolution
version of its DTS counterpart. The 2-channel PCM is
the audience mix and stereo never sounded so good. I
much preferred the stage mix of the 2-channel PCM to
the Dolby Digital stage mix from the video side.
Voices and instruments were cleaner and more dynamic.
That’s the difference that lossless compression can make.
There is enough bonus material on this disc to rival
a collector’s edition DVD movie, making it a great
value. Included are musician bios, rehearsals,
behind-the-scenes and backstage footage and a
slide-show trip down memory lane with the Nitty Gritty
band members. You’ll even learn the history of the
venue chosen for the recording, the Fox Theater in
Hanford, California. Let’s not forget topics such as
how to use the disc, surround speaker setup, AIX’s
mission statement and philosophies and a band
photo gallery.
If you are curious about how good the DVD-A format can
be, I urge you to go out and purchase AIX’s Nitty
Gritty Surround. Mark Waldrep, Ph.D. (AIX’s Founder
and Chief Engineer) and friends have gone all out
in providing one heck of a value-packed sight and
sound experience.
