Hey guys! I wanted to leave some quick feedback about this Cyndi Lauper title. I gave it a spin and I'm not so impressed.
"12 Deadly Cyns" originally came out as a VHS tape. For the DVD, a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix was created, done by a lad named Mike Fisher, assisted by Roberto Polanco, as the back cover states. The DVD contains 14 songs with short cute clips of her talking, messing around with friends and having fun in-between.
First off, the good: they clearly sat down and mixed this into 5.1, instead of just keeping stereo in the fronts, adding echo in the rears and and calling it 5.1. However, it sounds to me like they didn't go back to the multitracks for this mix. Instead, they upmixed it from stereo. Most of the time, all the music is in the fronts anyway with isolated elements (percussion or so) playing in the rears. They're at low volume so it still "feels" like a stereo recording.
Then, there are points where the rears suddenly jump to life. It mostly happens in the faster numbers, like "Girls just wanna have fun" or "She Bop". For example, you get a sudden sound effect, but I couldn't find an place where it was clearly isolated from the music in the fronts. Any rear action sounds like amplified copies from the front.
What I really liked is the opening jingle of "Girls just wanna have fun", which flies across the room from the front to the back. That was nice. But again, you can easily do this from a stereo source.
Regarding sound quality, it wildly varies. Some songs (especially the newer ones, like the 1994 "Hey Now (Girls just wanna have fun)") sound great, others ("What's going on?") are thin and tinny.
So overall: stereo with occasional stuff jumping at you from the rears. Sound ranges from full/rich to thin/tinny. It's kinda nice, but I won't keep it. I'm fine with the European version of the "12 Deadly Cyns" CD, which also has two more tracks than the DVD: "All Through the Night" and "Come on Home".
"12 Deadly Cyns" originally came out as a VHS tape. For the DVD, a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix was created, done by a lad named Mike Fisher, assisted by Roberto Polanco, as the back cover states. The DVD contains 14 songs with short cute clips of her talking, messing around with friends and having fun in-between.
First off, the good: they clearly sat down and mixed this into 5.1, instead of just keeping stereo in the fronts, adding echo in the rears and and calling it 5.1. However, it sounds to me like they didn't go back to the multitracks for this mix. Instead, they upmixed it from stereo. Most of the time, all the music is in the fronts anyway with isolated elements (percussion or so) playing in the rears. They're at low volume so it still "feels" like a stereo recording.
Then, there are points where the rears suddenly jump to life. It mostly happens in the faster numbers, like "Girls just wanna have fun" or "She Bop". For example, you get a sudden sound effect, but I couldn't find an place where it was clearly isolated from the music in the fronts. Any rear action sounds like amplified copies from the front.
What I really liked is the opening jingle of "Girls just wanna have fun", which flies across the room from the front to the back. That was nice. But again, you can easily do this from a stereo source.
Regarding sound quality, it wildly varies. Some songs (especially the newer ones, like the 1994 "Hey Now (Girls just wanna have fun)") sound great, others ("What's going on?") are thin and tinny.
So overall: stereo with occasional stuff jumping at you from the rears. Sound ranges from full/rich to thin/tinny. It's kinda nice, but I won't keep it. I'm fine with the European version of the "12 Deadly Cyns" CD, which also has two more tracks than the DVD: "All Through the Night" and "Come on Home".
