Very psyched to see the positive comments on this. I actually worked on the recording of this way back when.
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HiRez Poll Blue Man Group - AUDIO [DVD-A]
- Thread starter JonUrban
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Mr. Afternoon
Mixing Engineer & Artist
Whoa! Can you share with us some notes on the process and working with BMG? Do you know how BMG even decided to do a 5.1 disc?
Just bought a copy of this on fleabay for $4.00 plus postage. Thank you for the recommendations.
jaap74
Senior Member
Please can you explain the KLF reference ?
Sure! A bonus track (only selectable through the track list page) is the KLF’s Last Train To Trancentral. The KLF were a short lived novelty/trance/dance group from the U.K. that put out number one hit after number one hit, intentionally being subversive and weird along the way. Kind of like if Banksy did music, but also, somehow, his tracks all hit the top 10. The group quit the music industry at the Brit Awards by performing a grind core metal version of one of their hits, while firing machine gun blanks into the audience, leaving a dead sheep outside an after party, burning one million pounds sterling, and deleting their masters.
While big in the UK, they didn’t have as big of an international following, however by complete sheer coincidence they had a fairly dedicated following in Chicago, and the Blue Man Group’s permanent location in Chicago pioneered an ending sequence for their shows that was based on a remix of Last Train to Trancentral, which lasted until recently. (The only reason I know this is when I was looking to order this I was confused by this track’s inclusion which lead me down a rabbit hole).
Since the members of the KLF are not “actively exploiting” (their words) their back catalogue (there was a brief moment in 2021 where they started putting their stuff on streaming, which mysteriously stopped short of releasing all they promised…), this is likely the only official 5.1 version of a KLF track
I need to check my recollections, but I think the KLF piece being in the blue man show goes all the way back to the original new york show and the 3 show creators - Chris, Matt and Phil. I'm pretty sure it was in the Boston show before the Chicago show even existed. The original recording was used in the show "royalty free" for years with KLF's blessing. Then at some point something changed and it needed to be re-recorded for the Vegas show (probably because they needed a multichannel mix for the show) and then the re-recorded version replaced the original in all the previously existing shows.
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You may be right, my post was based on googling after I saw the listing on Discogs had Last Train To Trancentral, and went “Wait What?!” and did some poking around
O
Mr. Afternoon,
I've been procrastinating on responding as I've been wanting to be as concise as possible, while still being thorough. That's not really possible. So strap in, here goes...
At the end of the 90's , BMG had 3 shows going. A sound department was formed to support the 3 shows, which up until then had been left to the individual sound designers for each city. It had shown itself to be a messy way of trying to get the shows sounding consistent. I was called in as a freelance "consultant", more or less, to help with guidance on tuning and re-heading drums, as well as some engineering support to the new sound boss, who was an excellent live sound engineer named Ross Humphrey (RIP).
At this point, all the shows had a 3 piece band - drums, chapman stick , and electric zither. All the stuff that we learned going through the original shows was put to use towards the next big project - a bigger show with expanded instrumentation. This would eventually turn out to be the Vegas show. The recording of the 5.1 stuff was directly connected as well. It was a big learning experience where all the experiences (both good and bad) could be fed into the development of the new show.
With the recording, the show creators had previously had some unsuccessful attempts, and had to find their own way to get the job done. So, they ended up acquiring a warehouse space on East Third St. in the east village, and turned it into a multi purpose hub, where all the creative work could be done. Everything from recording, rehearsing, creative development, storage, you name it , could be done there. So this way, all they had to do was pay for the gear and pay for the staff, but not have to worry about hourly rates or studio lockouts, etc. Very smart idea when you are making it up as you go...
The recording setup started in a very bare bones way, and grew quickly as recording progressed. It started with one twenty four track 2 inch machine, and a makeshift control room at one end of the warehouse. Later there were two 24 track machines, and then ultimately the protools developed and they moved into that realm.
In addition to tuning and miking up the drums, pvc instruments and all that, there were many subway/cab rides to various music and audio stores to pick up more and more mikes, cables, stands, and drum heads as we got going. The engineer for the record was an upstart whippersnapper from Boston named Andrew Shneider. Super cool guy, who is very patient and accommodating (and talented, of course).
Speaking of Boston, I am a Boston area native, and the BMG show in Boston was (and still is) a great talent pool for the company. Many many talented musicians, performers and crew folks have come out of that show. During all of this time, the head of the new music/sound department for the whole company was a guy named Todd Permutter, who was a drummer in some Boston bands, as well as a drummer in the Boston show. When he became the boss, he pulled in a fair amount of Boston area folks to help out as he knew he could trust them to do what they were asked to. I was part of that group.
The 2 main drummers on the "band" tracks on the audio DVD-A are Todd Perlmutter and Jeff Quay. Jeff was the original drummer in the Boston show, and moved on to the Chicago show when it was started ( He is still there) . The shows' original chapman stick player, Larry Heineman, played the greater majority of stick and bass parts. From there, there were many different musicians from the show that contributed, so I can't go into any more specifics. The mixes were done by a guy named Mike Fraser. He is primarily known for being a member of the Vancouver/Little Mountain recording crew. Many many mixing and engineering credits (Aerosmith, ACDC, Metallica, for starters). Also, it must be said, that he is a super patient and chill guy. One of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. The mixes were done (at least mostly) at a studio called Quad recording ( I think), that was in Times square not far from Manny's, Sam Ash and all the cool music stores that were around at that time. In addition to his discography credits, Mike had done multichannel mixing and wasn't intimidated by it. The hardest work for him was sorting through the mountains of tracks that had been recorded and getting the show creators to make decisions on what the "keepers" were.
Finally, the question about what drew BMG to surround sound centers mainly around Chris Wink, one of the shows creators. He is a drummer, and he loved the idea of multichannel sound from what I recall. It dovetailed perfectly with the idea of adding augmented instrumentation. I'm sure if the market responded better to surround music as a whole there would have been more than what BMG released.
Oddly enough, I wasn't much aware of multichannel recording during this time, and only became so when I got a consumer electronics job a few years later and learned about surround sound during its "retail heyday" that happened for a short time. My retail time is also when I eventually re-discovered quad through random searching on the web and stumbling on the Mojave blog, Demonoid, QQ and all the rest.
That original version of "transcentral" is really incredible. Sounds so great coming through a beefy sound system!
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