I've been doing some lurking on pro audio forums the past few months & talking to knowledgable people at pro audio dealers and mixed together with what I've read here & on other forums, here is my interpretation of why surround titles are so slow in being released:
1) Most studios just plain don't have surround music production capability. And recording music in surround form ain't cheap! There really is no pro audio recording equivalent of a home-theater-in-a-box; their purchase costs often times can be measured in the tens of thousands of dollars (or more) and coupled with the uncertainty of the popularity of surround music, this causes studio people to be cautious regarding such purchases.
2) Many pros are still figuring out how to record surround music, i.e. where to place instruments; electrical/acoustic phase issues; how to use the LFE; how to configure their own monitor speakers in the control room (to some, that ITU spec system isn't optimal); what software is best at manipulating 5.1 channels, etc.
As a result........
3).......there is not yet a huge pool of people that know how to mix music in surround properly. So I have a feeling the ones that do know how have a long line of clients waiting in the wings. So surround versions of I, Robot and O.K. Computer could be on the way, but probably not any time soon. :frowning:
4) For older albums, problems with the master multitrack tape can cause serious problems or prevent a surround mix from being made at all: for one thing, finding the original multitrack tape--or tapes--in the first place. This occurance has been discussed here on the HTF several times and is (strangely) quite common. And if you own the Pet Sounds dvd-audio, in the highly detailed 27 page booklet included with it, it describes just such a situation--listen to the included original mono mixes and then the later stereo & surround mixes to actually hear the differences. And if the tape used an unstable oxide coating and is shedding too much & baking it doesn't help, this could prevent proper playback and obviously, no remixing is possible.
And a big one:
5) Just because you finally found the master tape, doesn't mean you can just flip a few switches and start building up a 5.1 mix. Because that original multitrack master tape simply contains the "raw" recording of a drum, keyboard, singer, guitar, etc. Then from this raw-sound tape, specific sound effects, certain types of vocal arrangements and other post-production things (sorry, don't know all the pro terms!) are created, then go directly to the stereo master tape; so in other words, most of the time these customized creations aren't saved on a convenient separate tape.
This doesn't appear to be a big deal......unless you're the Beastie Boys, Alan Parsons, Enigma, Radiohead, Yes or any other band that uses a densely-layered and heavily processed sound. For example, if the vocal on the stereo tape was processed though a vocoder, then guess what? You have to go find that same vocoder machine used originally, or at least the same model, to recreate that same sound effect for the new 5.1 mix (and keep your fingers crossed that a note was left behind somewhere listing the settings used to create that specific sound). And if that isn't possible, well, hopefully a digital audio workstation (DAW) has a plug-in available that can simulate that effect. Or else you're up the brown creek!
I'm not sure about this one but you know how the Beasties have all those complicated vocal parts where they seem to be finishing each other's sentences? If these vocals were assembled from separately recorded tapes, then for the 5.1 mix they would have to be reassembled all over again. Yikes! And what about all those little sound effects and samples they use that pop up all over the place? Holy cow.
And on some parts on many recordings you can plainly tell vocals (or percussion, etc) were layered one on top of each other (overdubs?) after the initial recording session to form the stereo master tape........which of course means they would have to dig up that raw multitrack tape and do it all over again, but in whatever surround form they thought sounded good.
And sometimes artists/engineers get ideas after everything is done and on impulse just add an effect at the very last minute. A perfect example of this is the song "Telephone Line" by E.L.O. At the beginning of that song, the lead vocalist's voice sounds like it is literally emanating from a telephone handset--it has a very tinny and nasal sound but after a few seconds it gradually reverts to normal. Well, according to an engineer on Steve Hoffman's forum, that nasal effect was accomplished as the master pressing disc for the vinyl record version was being cut!. And multiple master discs were cut so each one is probably very slightly different. Wow! Cool! Read about how it was done (& more) in this thread: "Kevin Gray's 'My Fun Adventures With Jeff Lynne and E.L.O.'"
So in other words, it looks like for most artists they literally have to recreate their album all over again, almost from scratch. Not a casual undertaking for sure. And this is assuming the artist is not on a concert tour, recording another album, is on vacation......or wants to do a surround version in the first place.
Because of all this, I've calmed down quite bit concerning the amount of surround releases occurring. As usual if you want something good it's going to take awhile.
P.S.: It also makes me glad I bought a separate CD-only player last year, in this case a Technics SL-PG4 single disc machine. I don't know about other's experiences but most dvd players really stink when it comes to playing CDs. Not actually playing them but operating features like: scanning speed; individual track access & programming; random/repeat/delete abilities; and full playback information via a front-panel display. And the fact that CD players usually have separate physical buttons for these things is a very big deal to me.
LJ
1) Most studios just plain don't have surround music production capability. And recording music in surround form ain't cheap! There really is no pro audio recording equivalent of a home-theater-in-a-box; their purchase costs often times can be measured in the tens of thousands of dollars (or more) and coupled with the uncertainty of the popularity of surround music, this causes studio people to be cautious regarding such purchases.
2) Many pros are still figuring out how to record surround music, i.e. where to place instruments; electrical/acoustic phase issues; how to use the LFE; how to configure their own monitor speakers in the control room (to some, that ITU spec system isn't optimal); what software is best at manipulating 5.1 channels, etc.
As a result........
3).......there is not yet a huge pool of people that know how to mix music in surround properly. So I have a feeling the ones that do know how have a long line of clients waiting in the wings. So surround versions of I, Robot and O.K. Computer could be on the way, but probably not any time soon. :frowning:
4) For older albums, problems with the master multitrack tape can cause serious problems or prevent a surround mix from being made at all: for one thing, finding the original multitrack tape--or tapes--in the first place. This occurance has been discussed here on the HTF several times and is (strangely) quite common. And if you own the Pet Sounds dvd-audio, in the highly detailed 27 page booklet included with it, it describes just such a situation--listen to the included original mono mixes and then the later stereo & surround mixes to actually hear the differences. And if the tape used an unstable oxide coating and is shedding too much & baking it doesn't help, this could prevent proper playback and obviously, no remixing is possible.
And a big one:
5) Just because you finally found the master tape, doesn't mean you can just flip a few switches and start building up a 5.1 mix. Because that original multitrack master tape simply contains the "raw" recording of a drum, keyboard, singer, guitar, etc. Then from this raw-sound tape, specific sound effects, certain types of vocal arrangements and other post-production things (sorry, don't know all the pro terms!) are created, then go directly to the stereo master tape; so in other words, most of the time these customized creations aren't saved on a convenient separate tape.
This doesn't appear to be a big deal......unless you're the Beastie Boys, Alan Parsons, Enigma, Radiohead, Yes or any other band that uses a densely-layered and heavily processed sound. For example, if the vocal on the stereo tape was processed though a vocoder, then guess what? You have to go find that same vocoder machine used originally, or at least the same model, to recreate that same sound effect for the new 5.1 mix (and keep your fingers crossed that a note was left behind somewhere listing the settings used to create that specific sound). And if that isn't possible, well, hopefully a digital audio workstation (DAW) has a plug-in available that can simulate that effect. Or else you're up the brown creek!
I'm not sure about this one but you know how the Beasties have all those complicated vocal parts where they seem to be finishing each other's sentences? If these vocals were assembled from separately recorded tapes, then for the 5.1 mix they would have to be reassembled all over again. Yikes! And what about all those little sound effects and samples they use that pop up all over the place? Holy cow.
And on some parts on many recordings you can plainly tell vocals (or percussion, etc) were layered one on top of each other (overdubs?) after the initial recording session to form the stereo master tape........which of course means they would have to dig up that raw multitrack tape and do it all over again, but in whatever surround form they thought sounded good. And sometimes artists/engineers get ideas after everything is done and on impulse just add an effect at the very last minute. A perfect example of this is the song "Telephone Line" by E.L.O. At the beginning of that song, the lead vocalist's voice sounds like it is literally emanating from a telephone handset--it has a very tinny and nasal sound but after a few seconds it gradually reverts to normal. Well, according to an engineer on Steve Hoffman's forum, that nasal effect was accomplished as the master pressing disc for the vinyl record version was being cut!. And multiple master discs were cut so each one is probably very slightly different. Wow! Cool! Read about how it was done (& more) in this thread: "Kevin Gray's 'My Fun Adventures With Jeff Lynne and E.L.O.'"
So in other words, it looks like for most artists they literally have to recreate their album all over again, almost from scratch. Not a casual undertaking for sure. And this is assuming the artist is not on a concert tour, recording another album, is on vacation......or wants to do a surround version in the first place.
Because of all this, I've calmed down quite bit concerning the amount of surround releases occurring. As usual if you want something good it's going to take awhile.
P.S.: It also makes me glad I bought a separate CD-only player last year, in this case a Technics SL-PG4 single disc machine. I don't know about other's experiences but most dvd players really stink when it comes to playing CDs. Not actually playing them but operating features like: scanning speed; individual track access & programming; random/repeat/delete abilities; and full playback information via a front-panel display. And the fact that CD players usually have separate physical buttons for these things is a very big deal to me.
LJ
