[digitaltrends.com] Dweezil Zappa talks surround

Sometime in the 66-67 era I saw a Mothers of Invention concert in Santa Barbara at a gymnasium (I believe it was at Santa Barbara City College) put on by my boss Jim Salzer. The seating was normal gym seating and the stage was not elevated at all, just at floor level. There were maybe two hundred people at the show. During the long Call Any Vegetable jam the girl sitting next to me, whom I did not know, grabbed my hand and led up to the stage to dance. I was maybe ten feet from Frank and the song went on for about a half an hour. When the song was over Frank announced it was time to remove the covers from the microphones. They were a sheath like thing I have never seen before. But he pulled the cover off slowly and erotically and of course everyone laughed. At this point in his career he was about as popular as a traffic ticket so the whole thing was no big deal to me at the time. Of course now I look back at it as one of the high points of my teenage years.

I love that The Dweeze is thinking outside the box (or, "soundstage", rather). Frankie has nothing on him when it comes to surround - obviously he'd dabbled in it, but he had a lot more irons in the fire. Composition. Booking orchestras. Getting that damn Synclavier to *plink* when it kept going *plunk*. In one way DZ's poised to advance the interest in multichannel listening, just by the hope that it appeals to the cultish Zappa fan, which is a perfect Venn diagram of innovative listeners.

I do have reservations about his wasting efforts to put out an ersatz re-creation of his dad's most popular iconic pieces("Apostrophe" AND "Inca Roads"?! Way to go big, grasshopper...!).

But these are also Frank's most lucrative pieces, I would assume...and I bet so would the dollar-drooling ZFT. Considering they already have the original quad mixes sitting on the shelf, and considering the war chest they're in the middle of refreshing (if one were to take their lively 2016 release schedule as proof)...why would they allow big brother to dilute the marketplace when they could just as easily rush-release these, and yank The Dweeze's chain at the same time.

I'm sure he's already got a diplomatic campaign in the works that's none of our business, but it seems obvious to me that, having done the work and making it ready, he must nevertheless poke at least a chink in the armor surrounding Ahmet's heart if he's going to have a easy time releasing his own product without jealousies getting in the way.

On the subject of the live product itself, which I obviously have not had a chance to hear and judge for myself, I just love what he's talking about in the article, in the matter of (for lack of a better term) perspective-oriented immersive mixing. Moving the whole ensemble out of the way to make room on the soundstage for soloists? Brilliant! Who else other than a chip off the ol' block would attempt that! Solos and soli's running around the performance space to enhance the feeling of the movement of the music? Now THAT'S breaking the fifth (-point-1) wall there, boy!

I hope he's aggressive with these touches - and at the same time, leery of anybody this far into the technology who tries to re-invent too much of the wheel. Aside from one picture I recall from the '70s showing Bernstein recoding an ensemble in the round, I have little evidence most people in the classical ("serious" music - getcher frowns on!) realms attempting even a moderate immersive mix, when the purists among them blanch if anybody DARES to position the listener anywhere other than Row AA on the aisle.*

For my part, I'd just be satisfied if I got my live experience all around me, instead of paying for six channels, and only hearing ambiance from half of them. But this looks like it's really gonna push the envelope forward (and to the sides, to the rears...)!

Okay, so Frank took the time to supervise and approve Quad mixes for two albums way back when everybody else was doing it...and yes, he had done a little experimenting with separate mics on a large "buttrerfly net" (for lack of a better description) for some orchestral events. And yes, he did a few magic tricks on "Civilization Phaze III" that I could hear out of the corner of the room (while my dog Evelyn pondered the significance of short-person behavior in pedal-depressed panchromatic resonance and other highly-ambient domains, yes, you knew I was gonna say that, didn't you?). And yes, he must have been at the very least aware of how ready the material that made up his two postmortem DVD-A's was, and who in the team wanted to see it released (Spence? Joe? Lisa Loeb? Who knows...). But while Gail at least caught the wave of multichannel listening in the Two-Thousand-sies, Number One Son appears ready and willing to take another stab at it to both differentiate his talents and legacy from his family's, now that Blu-Ray stands ready to assume the single-format (finally!) multichannel option that just might stick.

But first, he's gonna have to sit politely for a spell at the family table in a suit and tie, choke back the bile, and occasionally pass the yams with a smile on his face. No way around that.


*More on this later...in another thread, because I feel it deserves discussing outside of this specific topic!

@Dillydipper:sun

Just to bring you up to speed. Frank had two commercial quads back in the 70's but also mixed( in quad) multiple other albums for subsequent release.

His war with Warner Bros. Prevented any further commercial releases, unfortunately.



But we did get further quads in this millenium with his dvda of Quadaudiophilliac and dvd of Baby Snakes.

Which means quad mixes are still in the can, personally overseen by FZ, which we may never hear due to this pointless squabbling. Depressing, huh? And given that FZ was fairly young when he died, you'd think the kids would understand that life is too short to be indulging in crap like this. Gail may have instigated it with her will, but these situations can be fixed if egos are checked at the door.

ED

Well, thanks for enlightening me to the facts...that I had already stated, why, right there above your own post. Further, are you sure Baby Snakes was quad? No, it was not. 5.1, presumably mixed postmortem. The farthest he had gotten with it in his lifetime I believe, was D2 video quality. I don't believe that standard allowed more than two channels of audio, so the 5.1 mixing would have been a later development.

As to albums other than Overnite Sensation and Apostrophe, is anybody else aware of any further completed titles that were actually mixed for quadrophonic release?

fizzywiggs41 said:

@Dillydipper:sun

Just to bring you up to speed. Frank had two commercial quads back in the 70's but also mixed( in quad) multiple other albums for subsequent release.

His war with Warner Bros. Prevented any further commercial releases, unfortunately.



But we did get further quads in this millenium with his dvda of Quadaudiophilliac and dvd of Baby Snakes.

Click to expand...

Dillydipper said:

Well, thanks for enlightening me to the facts...that I had already stated, why, right there above your own post. Further, are you sure Baby Snakes was quad? No, it was not. 5.1, presumably mixed postmortem. The farthest he had gotten with it in his lifetime I believe, was D2 video quality. I don't believe that standard allowed more than two channels of audio, so the 5.1 mixing would have been a later development.

As to albums other than Overnite Sensation and Apostrophe, is anybody else aware of any further completed titles that were actually mixed for quadrophonic release?

Click to expand...

Baby Snakes in quad, yes indeed. States as such in the dvd liner notes-dossier.

The 5.1 was likely derived from the original quad mix.

Both liner notes from his DVDA'S attest to his quad and six channel mixes throughout the 70's and 80's ,btw. Frank was a man way before his time, recording much in quad, so he could hear the other artist's from his recordings.

His third official quad disc almost occurred (Roxy and Elsewhere) but the WB fight killed that. There was even an ad with the quad disc published in an audio mag alongside the Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation quadradiscs.

FWIW,
Baby Snakes, quad notes on the enclosed dossier.

Yup, there it is, all right! :upthumb