Bread and Grover Washington Multichannel SACDs - Official Audio Fidelity Announcement
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I'm partly with Otto. I like Bread and will be buying it so I don't have to fart around with my demogitator as much, but I only buy titles that interest me. The good thing about new releases of old records in surround is that there are a number of titles I'd have never bought before because my dollars were too precious and few to buy more that the most important in the hit parade back then. Surround makes titles that didn't wow m the first time to come back and bite me on the a$$. I am thinking of the Yes re-releases here!
hofmeyer
Member
I was introduced to Bread in the late 80s. My friends were all listening to Guns & Roses (which I also dig) while I was buying up all the affordable-priced, used vinyl from the 70s. My first quad records were from Bread and the Moody Blues. I have 2 copies of this on vinyl, looking forward to a scratch/rumble-free version; especially curious how the guitar-through-leslie sound on "If" will sound...
there are somewhere on internet floating very nice conversion Q4 to DVDA by Bob.
There's more to BREAD than their love songs / romantic ballads. They can rock out too.:banana:
The album "Manna", for example...
Yep...I'm sure that's a mistake...they can't seem to get details right on amazon for pre-orders...I think the price on the Bread disc is wrong too...both should be the same price..
blue.monk
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Although there's just a passing sentence or two on the quad mix, Steve Hoffman provides some nice details here on compiling and mastering the stereo layer.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...nd-and-stereo-adventures-in-mastering.406573/
Audio Fidelity said I could go ahead and give a little mastering background on our new version..
BREAD. I like these guys, I mean, the stuff sounds great, the songs are great, what's not to like? When AF told me that this was in the legal stage my first thought was "nice!"
My second thought was "Hmmm, another "Best Of" which will require all original masters from the original albums and singles and not just a dub tape of THE BEST OF BREAD. This means cooperation from Warner/Elektra/Asylum and a lot of luck. We had both. Found all the original stereo mixes and found the original four-channel surround version, all analogue first generation.
That was the big hurdle, weeks of back & forth, a lot of poor Ernie Campagna (GM of Audio Fidelity, late of A&M) doing phone duty trying to pull it all together. He did, bless him. We had a meeting a few weeks ago to discuss, and we were off!
Stephen Marsh Mastering is all set up in the new deluxe space in the Hollywood Hills and thanks to his dedication and experience, I got to hear a set of 1:1 flats of the songs to be worked on. I played the flats at home, in the car, on all my systems, made my usual notes and couldn't believe how neat it was going to be to get this stuff into focus.
First thing we did was send off the analog surround version to Gus Skinas at SuperAudioCenter.com. for his authoring of the songs. Gus is an old hand at this (worked with him on all the Nat King Cole stuff I did for AP, etc.) and he knows what to do.
With that side of it handled, it was time to master the 12 original stereo mixes in DSD with a split feed for our CD section. We were only allowed to use the original track listing. Please don't suggest extra tracks, ain't gonna happen, it's a wonder we got this much from a major label to begin with! Regarding the sound: Just a little polishing here and there was all it took to make me happy. As always (and I wish this was better understood in our industry) Stephen Marsh spent a LONG time getting each tape dialed in on the tape machine, carefully adjusting, tweaking, massaging, so the playback was perfect. There was one Dolby A reel (you know what kind of hell that can be) and it was a long process to get it to play back with the same dynamics and tonality that the original machine brought to it over 40 years ago.
I resisted turning the brightness to stun as most other versions have done in the past. Hurt my widdle ears that way. I mean, adding 10db at 8k to everything is no way to run an airline, fellows. That's just murder for the delicate tone and musical overtones that are on the original tapes. To bulldoze them away for the sake of an etched sound is not my thing (never was) and I'm sure a lot of you (not all, sad to say) will agree.
So, you'll hear the songs in a very "true to the mix" fashion, just like they heard them back in the studio, before the shrill stuff was added in vinyl and CD mastering. Pretty sure you'll love the sound.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...nd-and-stereo-adventures-in-mastering.406573/
Audio Fidelity said I could go ahead and give a little mastering background on our new version..
BREAD. I like these guys, I mean, the stuff sounds great, the songs are great, what's not to like? When AF told me that this was in the legal stage my first thought was "nice!"
My second thought was "Hmmm, another "Best Of" which will require all original masters from the original albums and singles and not just a dub tape of THE BEST OF BREAD. This means cooperation from Warner/Elektra/Asylum and a lot of luck. We had both. Found all the original stereo mixes and found the original four-channel surround version, all analogue first generation.
That was the big hurdle, weeks of back & forth, a lot of poor Ernie Campagna (GM of Audio Fidelity, late of A&M) doing phone duty trying to pull it all together. He did, bless him. We had a meeting a few weeks ago to discuss, and we were off!
Stephen Marsh Mastering is all set up in the new deluxe space in the Hollywood Hills and thanks to his dedication and experience, I got to hear a set of 1:1 flats of the songs to be worked on. I played the flats at home, in the car, on all my systems, made my usual notes and couldn't believe how neat it was going to be to get this stuff into focus.
First thing we did was send off the analog surround version to Gus Skinas at SuperAudioCenter.com. for his authoring of the songs. Gus is an old hand at this (worked with him on all the Nat King Cole stuff I did for AP, etc.) and he knows what to do.
With that side of it handled, it was time to master the 12 original stereo mixes in DSD with a split feed for our CD section. We were only allowed to use the original track listing. Please don't suggest extra tracks, ain't gonna happen, it's a wonder we got this much from a major label to begin with! Regarding the sound: Just a little polishing here and there was all it took to make me happy. As always (and I wish this was better understood in our industry) Stephen Marsh spent a LONG time getting each tape dialed in on the tape machine, carefully adjusting, tweaking, massaging, so the playback was perfect. There was one Dolby A reel (you know what kind of hell that can be) and it was a long process to get it to play back with the same dynamics and tonality that the original machine brought to it over 40 years ago.
I resisted turning the brightness to stun as most other versions have done in the past. Hurt my widdle ears that way. I mean, adding 10db at 8k to everything is no way to run an airline, fellows. That's just murder for the delicate tone and musical overtones that are on the original tapes. To bulldoze them away for the sake of an etched sound is not my thing (never was) and I'm sure a lot of you (not all, sad to say) will agree.
So, you'll hear the songs in a very "true to the mix" fashion, just like they heard them back in the studio, before the shrill stuff was added in vinyl and CD mastering. Pretty sure you'll love the sound.
A clarification is needed here. Gus Skinas not only did the SACD authoring of the 4.0 Quad Tracks on Best of Bread (and Best of the Guess Who) but he also did the Quad 4.0 Analog Master Tape to DSD Transfer of the Multichannel Tracks including any needed mastering, fine tuning and tweaks of the tapes on their way to becoming the Multichannel SACD Tracks for release.
Shouldn't they both be $27.99 each?
I have the quad version of 'The Best of Bread' and the DVDA of 'Winelight'. Both, IMHO, are wonderful! This is great news
I don't ubderstand your logic here. If you already have both these titles on a high-rez mch medium, and they sound wonderful then why is another release of the same titles on yet another high-rez medium great news to you?
Ever since AF announced their decision to issue mch sacds, I have been looking forward to the release of a title I would be happy to buy but so far not one fell into this category
Well, the Guess Who has never been available in hi-rez, except perhaps by someone's DVD-A conversion of a commercial 1970's quad source. The Winelight DVD-A is fairly rare and expensive if you find it, I will grant you that if I owned it already I would not buy another SACD copy...but the ranks of people falling in that category is probably pretty small. I think we would all agree that 'never before released in multi channel' would be best, but there are those nagging issues of source availability and licensing, and potential sales for AF to consider.
I don't ubderstand your logic here. If you already have both these titles on a high-rez mch medium, and they sound wonderful then why is another release of the same titles on yet another high-rez medium great news to you?
Ever since AF announced their decision to issue mch sacds, I have been looking forward to the release of a title I would be happy to buy but so far not one fell into this category
The logic should be obvious and familiar to you.."the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few(or the one)...
I have Winelight and it's a superb disc...I'm glad they are giving others the chance to experience this disc...it's very expensive now and hard to get even if you are willing to pay the price...I also own Avalon and I hope that one is re-issued as well...letting more people own this disc...it helps grow our hobby..IMO...attracting more surround lovers is a good thing
britmarc
Well-known Member
Best of Bread 2 was mixed for quad but never issued ( Info is available on this site ) I wonder if 'they' re-did this one at the same time as the 1st one....
It would be nice to have..... Especially 'Guitar Man'....
And doesn't Warner own EMI now? If that includes the Capitol catalogue......
It would be nice to have..... Especially 'Guitar Man'....
And doesn't Warner own EMI now? If that includes the Capitol catalogue......
I have Winelight and it's a superb disc...I'm glad they are giving others the chance to experience this disc...it's very expensive now and hard to get even if you are willing to pay the price...I also own Avalon and I hope that one is re-issued as well...letting more people own this disc...it helps grow our hobby..IMO...attracting more surround lovers is a good thing
Understand....I bought Avalon back when it was an $15-20 disc, and many other discs now eagerly sought, ancient history. Grover just escaped me back in the day...there were a few of those like Chicago V, I passed on it at Tower Records and other places several times, never did buy it and now wish I had. Ennui.... John
Universal took over Capitol. Warner took over some of the Parlophone and some of the EMI.
Or, this release has the potential to sound better than previous releases.
I don't think the "potential" sound quality has anything to do with the price...if that were the case they would probably owe people money on some of their releases...without being negative about Hoffman's remarks...let's just say I've heard that story before on some of his projects that weren't very good...it's good theater for those over at his forum and provides some interest in the product...he makes some of these projects sound like he re-invented the wheel...it's entertaining...I'll say that...
IMO I think amazon gives a "ball park" figure on some of these pre-orders as they can always lower the price closer to the release date...
For the record, I wasn't commenting on your comment regarding pricing. I was trying another way of answering warp2600 reasoning for this album, on yet, another format.
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