The Wall is Coming to 5.1 SACD Surround Sound

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There is a live version that Waters performed on SACD, if I'm not mistaken.

I've seen it in the store, but never pulled the trigger.
 
Roger Waters - The Wall, Live in Berlin. 2-disc SACD, Mercury #B0000753-26. Live from Postdamer Platz, July 21st 1990. Good show except for Cyndi Lauper singing Another Brick in the Wall Part 2. Makes my ears hurt. Surround? ehh?

Spence
 
Quite a bit on the Berlin tracks were taken from their rehearsals because the performances were so botched. I have the original broadcast taped where The Thin Ice was screwed up so bad from missed cues they had to stop the show completely and pick it up in the middle of Another Brick in the Wall pt 1. Plus Van Morrison forgetting the lyrics, Cyndi Lauper and The Band butchering their parts. The only guest performer that did well was Bryan Adams on Young Lust.
 
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lets hope the 2" analogue multitracks of the wall properly survived the cloning process of oven baking & once only chance copying to digital.

I remember reading in a studio trade mag how when the wall multis
were got out or storage to make cues & use original album orchestration for the Berlin gig that when the tapes were put on the Otari MTR90 24 track they were using, the machine ground to a halt & refused to play!
a second machine was tried but with the same result!

apparently the wall was recorded on Ampex 456 Grand Master 2" Tape (as were lots of major albums during the late 70's) which is notorious for the oxide binders oozing after years of storage causing sticky tape syndrome.

An Otari MTR90 has no capstan like a conventional tape machine instead relies on a microprocessor controlled tape transport with large tacho rollers that contact the tape & feed back tension & speed info to the processor.
its designed for gentle tape handling BUT sticky tape syndrome foxes it!
as the tape sticks ... the micro thinks the tension is to high so turns down reel motor torque, and the tape stops!!! where a more conventional multitrack like a Studer A80/A800/A820/7 with a capstan & pinch roller may have worked.

BUT the stiction of the tape repeatedly gluing itself to the heads & tape guides causes a high frequency squeal to be heard over the wanted audio ... the sound of oxide getting stripped off your master & the recording destroyed forever!

The only answer is to bake the tape in an oven at a low temperature
for a long time to try & dry out the solvents off the binder then wind the tape on a machine in library or slow wind with a cloth against the oxide to collect stray goo & polish the tape as best as can be. then you get only a short time to make a safety copy to either another 2"analogue tape or a digital format like Otari Radar or Pro tools.

If this process WAS successfully done to the wall masters then yes there is some hope of a SACD or 5.1 version ... eventually ! otherwise we are permanently stuck with the stereo mix .... which after all is one of the best recordings ever made!
 
lets hope the 2" analogue multitracks of the wall properly survived the cloning process of oven baking & once only chance copying to digital...then you get only a short time to make a safety copy

There has been some confusion as to how long tapes remain playable after treatment, and whether repeated treatments are effective. Tapes should replay satisfactorily for at least three months after treatment if they are kept in a low-humidity environment. If kept in, say an airing cupboard after treatment, they will probably remain playable for ever! The heat treatment process can be usefully repeated. If tape has degenerated after the first treatment, it can be restored again by a second, or subsequent treatment. Laboratory testing of 1980-vintage 456 tape included 14 cycles of accelerated ageing and recovery by heat treatment. Degradation to a non-playable condition and restoration to playable condition was demonstrated for each cycle.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/may96/salvagearchives.html
 
If kept in, say an airing cupboard after treatment, they will probably remain playable for ever!
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/may96/salvagearchives.html

I'm sure most professional studios keep multitrack masters in an "airing cupboard" & I don't think! ...

Tape should be stored long term in a purpose made tape store at cool temperatres wound tail out & periodicially rewound to prevent print through. the point is tape should NEVER be subjected to temperatures needed to *bake a tape* as it causes HF demgnetisation AND the process that cause binder ooze also destroys the upper most layer of the magntic coating where the highest frequencys exsist, LF is recorded deeper into the surface. BUT tapes need to be baked out or dire necessity .. or loose it forever.

I'm sure it maybe possible in ideal conditions that a sticky tape can be usable forever - but not in the real world you cant take the risk!

some of the ways I've seen 2" multis & 1/4" mix tapes being stored in studios beggars belief! and I've even seen several reels of 2" in name artists home being used to as toliet door stops! ... in the realm of professional audio ... anything is possible!

also of note is the fact that Ampex, latterly Quantergy, went bust & stopped all production of all tape, especially 2". as have all other manufacturers mostly basf/emtec agfa . 2" can be obtained but can be very expensive stuff nowadays where in the 70's & 80's was commonplace media.

I was in one very well known UK studio a few weeks ago. In the corridor was 2 studer 2" 24 trk machines that rarley are used due to the scarsity of tape.

Digital formats arnt immune to tape problems either. I've heard of 3324/3348 & 1610/30 tapes being unplayable due to error rates!
most recordings are now done on harddisk on protools or other mac
based systems that can be even less robust .... ever had a HDD crash & loose your data forever?? YES I have several times!!
 
If this process WAS successfully done to the wall masters then yes there is some hope of a SACD or 5.1 version ... eventually ! otherwise we are permanently stuck with the stereo mix .... which after all is one of the best recordings ever made!
In the phenomenal book, "Comfortably Numb - A History Of 'The Wall' Pink Floyd 1978-1981," on page 70, there is a picture of the Side 1 2-track master box (dated 11/30/79).

Toward the bottom of the box, after the tracklisting, the following is written in pencil (or another type of ink): "BAKED 7 HRS @ 125 F" and way at the bottom, what appears to read: "BAKED 5/27/94"

EDIT: since the info above refers to the 2-track master, the question still stands for the multis (were they baked at the same time in the mid-1990s?) - I will try to reach the author of the book and see if he knows...
 
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"Comfortably Numb" from the live album/sacd was a major/minor part in the last two Soprano's eps.
 
So based on our results on getting EMI to include a Blu-Ray disc with the Aqualung reissue, I am asking you guys on this forum (and others) to contact EMI through this website and ask them to get James Guthrie to remix Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in 5.1 surround for inclusion in the upcoming Immersion Box Set, to be released in February 2012.

Maybe if all of us who care about this email EMI we might see a 5.1 mix included in the set just like the other two Immersion sets. There's still time for this to be done. Thank you!
 
Worth a shot, but it's an expensive thing for them to do. We'll need a lot of support shown
 
Here's my message to EMI (feel free to use this message to send to them) -

"Hello.
I'm writing on behalf of Pink Floyd and surround sound fans around the world to petition for a 5.1 surround mix of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" to be mixed and included in the upcoming Immersion Box Set to be released in February 2012. Like most other Pink Floyd fans, I was very excited when I heard the news that Pink Floyd were reissuing expanded versions of their most famous albums, but I was very disappointed to discover that unlike the other two Immersion boxsets, there was to be no 5.1 mix included in the box set for The Wall. Without a 5.1 mix, most fans feel this box set is currently incomplete, especially considering the fact that 4 out of the 7 discs are already available commercially. Look to the model established by the other two Immersion box sets, and please include a 5.1 mix of the Wall on DVD & Blu-Ray disc in the upcoming Immersion box set. We wouldn't even mind if the release date had to be postponed in order for a 5.1 mix to be included. Thanks for you time, and I hope you will see more fans like me writing in to express their discontent on this issue."
 
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