Inside the Music: The Real and the Fake

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Eggplant

1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Since 2002/2003
Joined
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Location
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I've found most of these eight releases and am going through them track by track to sift the true surround mixes from the frauds.
 
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No sooner did I find out the Immergent "Inside the Music" DVD-Audio compilations were genuine 5.1 ...
I would be remiss if I did not point out that this is not completely true. It varies by title, but most tracks are typical Silverline fake surround. But there are some gems (such as The Beach Boys "Sail On Sailor").

Sorry, don't know where to buy 'em...
 
Okay, let's get a track-by-track list of what's real and not.

Glad to hear the New Age disc is real, as I just bought it for $30.
So you're vouching for every track on Classic Crooners being fake?

I also found Surf's Up and Classic Rock. Will report.

The one I'm most interested in knowing about is The New Wave, including My Sharona (!).
There's one copy for sale for $100.

Here are the tracks I can vouch for:

Women on Top -- All 10 tracks are true 5.1, with an isolated (or mostly) center channel vocal:

1) Heart of Glass - Blondie
2) Walking On Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
3) We Belong - Pat Benatar
4) Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
5) Hold On - Wilson Philips (best mix)
6) Cryin' - Vixen
7) Queen of Hearts - Juice Newton (terrible mix, but real)
8) Only the Lonely - Motels
9) Words - Missing Persons
10) Nutbush City Limits - Ike & Tina Turner

Immergent Sampler -- Non DVD-A (DTS/DD only) demo disc with tracks from later ITM releases. All 8 tracks are true 5.1, with an isolated (or mostly) center channel vocal, except *maybe* for **.

1) Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
2) Sail on Sailor - Beach Boys
3) Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
4) Ramblin' Rose - Nat King Cole **
5) Barbara - Horace Silver
6) Sing Sang Sung - Big Phat Band
7) Change - John Waite
8) Power of Love - Huey Lewis & the News

I'll have to listen to #4 again. It sounds pretty triphonic, but as I recall Immergent's CEO said the source was a 3-track master, so does that count?

Classic Rock -- 9 of 11 tracks are true 5.1:

1) Bad to the Bone - George Thorogood & the Destroyers
2) Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
4) When the Night Comes - Joe Cocker
5) Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
6) Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier
7) Centerfold - J. Geils Band Nice!
8) Change - John Waite
9) My Town - Michael Stanley Band
11) On the Road Again - Canned Heat

Two tracks are fake:

3) Green-Eyed Lady - Sugarloaf
10) Time Won't Let me - The Outsiders

The Outsiders track is worthless. GEL is not the worst fake surround I've ever heard, but still a fraud.
Who the hell needs fake quad when there's DPLII?

The credits page proves interesting:
"5.1 Mixes on songs 2, 5 & 8 by Ken Caillat, songs 4 & 6 by Rick Ruggieri, song 7 by Claus Trelby, songs 9 & 11 by Dennis Mays . . . "

That leaves . . . yep, #3 and #10. How about that!

"5.1 MIX ON SONGS 3 AND 10 BY COLOSSUS. THIS IS COLOSSUS. ALL STEREO AND MONO TRACKS ARE TO BE FED INTO ME FOR MIXING.
THIS WILL BE DONE NOW."

Okay, it doesn't really say that. But shouldn't it?

Surf's Up

Ucgggh.

Every track is fake except for #9, Sail on Sailor - Beach Boys. The one track chosen for the Immergent sampler disc. Quel suprise!
Even more suprising is the mix credits:

"5.1 Mixes on songs 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 &10 by Ken Caillat, songs 4 & 9 by Mark Linette"

Hmmm. Does that mean Ken is the one who plugged in COLOSSUS, or was he left tied up and gagged at 5.1 Studios, West Los Angeles?
Ken is a very respected engineer with over thirty years in the biz, including mixing classics like Fleetwood Mac / Rumours.
Just the same, I'd sure like to ask Ken how he sleeps nights knowing his name is on a piece of dog crap like this.
I got him to return my call once, but I wasn't in. I may just try again.

On the way are New Age and New Wave.
 
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So you're vouching for every track on Classic Crooners being fake?
You must be referring to my post in an entirely different thread. You should see there that I specifically used the qualifier "probably". I'm not vouching for anything and am working from (admittedly hazy) memory.

And of course there is still the debate over what constitutes "real" vs. "fake" surround. Just because Silverline uses a three-track instead of a two-track master as the basis for a 5.1 mix does not make it any more "real" in my mind. If three-track masters were used (and this is the first time I've heard that contention) then they should have left well enough alone and gone with a 3.0 mix. If they've simply extrapolated 5.1 channels from 3.0 then that still smacks of fakeness with me. But that would explain why some of those mixes sound borderline. I do remember having a hard time deciding if some of those "Inside The Music" mixes were better-than-average upmixes or lousy discrete mixes!

Whatever method was used to get there, one thing sticks in my mind: the whole "Inside the Music" series is a mixed bag. There are some really neat things there but overall it's nothing to get terribly excited about and I certainly wouldn't be plunking down 100 bones for any one of them!

The hallmark of a "real" surround mix for me does not lie in center channel isolation. I look for real differences between front and rear channels. Are the rears simply processed replicas of the fronts or are there real differences between them?
 
Good idea! I had no idea there were these (seemingly) random tracks mixed in 5.1 available. I just picked up the Women on Top. There is a seller on eBay with 19 more copies for $14 ea. with shipping for anyone else interested.


Okay, let's get a track-by-track list of what's real and not.

Glad to hear the New Age disc is real, as I just bought it for $30.
So you're vouching for every track on Classic Crooners being fake?

I also found Surf's Up and Classic Rock. Will report.

The one I'm most interested in knowing about is The New Wave, including My Sharona (!).
There's one copy for sale for $100.

Here are the tracks I can vouch for:

Women on Top -- All 10 tracks are true 5.1, with an isolated (or mostly) center channel vocal:

1) Heart of Glass - Blondie
2) Walking On Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
3) We Belong - Pat Benatar
4) Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
5) Hold On - Wilson Philips (best mix)
6) Cryin' - Vixen
7) Queen of Hearts - Juice Newton (terrible mix, but real)
8) Only the Lonely - Motels
9) Words - Missing Persons
10) Nutbush City Limits - Ike & Tina Turner

Immergent Sampler -- Non DVD-A (DTS/DD only) demo disc with tracks from later ITM releases. All 8 tracks are true 5.1, with an isolated (or mostly) center channel vocal, except *maybe* for **.

1) Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
2) Sail on Sailor - Beach Boys
3) Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
4) Ramblin' Rose - Nat King Cole **
5) Barbara - Horace Silver
6) Sing Sang Sung - Big Phat Band
7) Change - John Waite
8) Power of Love - Huey Lewis & the News

I'll have to listen to #4 again. It sounds pretty triphonic, but as I recall Immergent's CEO said the source was a 3-track master, so does that count?
 
The hallmark of a "real" surround mix for me does not lie in center channel isolation.

Defining a "true" 5.1 mix as one made from original multitrack sources, I mention the isolated center channel as a quick way of verifying that. It also indicates a true six-channel mix, as opposed to an upmix from, say, 4.0.

Whether the result is "good" is a whole nother topic.
 
Defining a "true" 5.1 mix as one made from original multitrack sources, I mention the isolated center channel as a quick way of verifying that. It also indicates a true six-channel mix, as opposed to an upmix from, say, 4.0.
I disagree. An isolated center vocal is no guarantee that the mix was made from the original multitrack sources. All it means is that the engineer had access to the vocal track (or that tricks were used to extract the lead vocal). You really need to listen to the remaining channels to determine if the multitracks were used. Even a bad surround from the multitracks will exhibit telltale signs of a true surround mix compared to a fake, extrapolated mix.
 
I don't pull these discs out very often, they usually don't beat my Meridian 861 for surround synthesizing. My guess is more often than not they're not "real", ie remixed from multitracks. A few tracks do sound very discrete. I would want the actual mixing engineer to tell us what's real and what's not before paying serious coin for any of these.
 
My guess is more often than not they're not "real", ie remixed from multitracks.

Actually, the opposite is true. They're mostly real.

Don't feel bad -- I thought so too, and that kept me away from them when they could still be had for $15. I'm doing a track-by-track review of all of them. Right now it's in this thread's 3rd msg, soon to be in the Spotlight Discs section.

This series is truly an oddity -- ranging from demo-worthy (She's a Beauty) to stunning fraud (Green-Eyed Lady). You might think the fake would at least be something you take seriously, like Penteo, but actually it's some kind of lame processing that makes "Electronically Rechanneled for Stereo" look like state of the art.
 
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I'm still confused by the criteria. What basis are you using to bless a mix "true 5.1". So far, all I've read is something along the lines of "it has isolated vocals in the center channel, therefore it is a true surround mix." Am I the only one who thinks this logic is flawed?

I really wish my system were not in storage and I could pull out these discs again to refresh my memory. However, when these first came out I bought them all and spent considerable time with them. Except in a few instances, I was NOT impressed.

I need more analysis than "it has an isolated vocal" if you're going to convince me that these are anything more than the typical Silverline smoke-and-mirrors.
 
when these first came out I bought them all and spent considerable time with them. Except in a few instances, I was NOT impressed.

The context of 2007 (no new releases) may be tainting our impressions. I was very happy with the Women on Top disc. I won't pay big money for these discs, but at list I'm happy to have them.
 
Got my New Wave disc yesterday. I will have to have another listen, but I think they are mostly fake. The Blondie tracks certainly seem fake, which is a real shame as I think something like 'The Best of Blondie' would have made a great hi-rez surround title if done properly. If you turn up the rears about 3db the unwrap jobs are obvious (mostly because there is no unwrap - rears the same as the fronts).
 
If you turn up the rears about 3db the unwrap jobs are obvious (mostly because there is no unwrap - rears the same as the fronts).
That was my impression (no real difference between the fronts/rears) but I haven't been able to check.
 
Posts removed by moderation due to content rules violation. Thank you to the QQ members who brought this to our attention.
 
I recently picked up a copy of the Immergent Sampler DVD-V which was released prior to the Silverline Inside The Music DVD-A/V series. I bought it for the Huey Lewis & The News track. I didn't realize that at the time, Immergent was planning 3 different Classic Rock releases. Obviously, there was only 1 release and it includes Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker that had been earmarked for "Classic Rock 3."

I'm wondering if any details ever emerged about the tentative tracklists for "Classic Rock 2" and "Classic Rock 3" and what happened in the year between this Immergent Sampler and the retail release of the Inside The Music series.

immergent1.jpg
immergent2.jpg
 
I very much remember seeing that listing for a Silverline Classic Rock Vol 2 and Vol 3.

Unfortunately they never followed through. And no, I never saw a listing of tracks. No doubt it would have been EMI SPECIAL MARKETS artists: Capitol, Chrysalis, EMI, etc.
 
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