I think the problem right now with getting a lots of new product "out there" is simply the economy sucks big time, and the labels are going through upheaval as never imagined before. The industry is interested in new formats and ways to resale the same sh*t over again. But how many potential customers are broke or out of work right now. And the labels themselves are in a cash flow free fall. So timing is about as bad as it could be for something new and more expensive to explode on the scene.
We are seeing creative people like T. Visconti, J. Guthrie, and the guy(s) doing Gaucho (can't remember name off the top of my head), the new Chicago mix, and others searching for multitracks, and doing expensive remixing. This is an encouraging sign even if the new releases seem to be few in number. We are seeing good titles appear, and with the exception of Silverline, we are also getting quality remixes of some of the all-time great albums.
But I'm hoping more albums appear that are old quad mixes. It is not that I particularly like the old Q mixes, but because it could help get more MC product out. And take the edge off the cost of rolling out these formats. And in some cases there are quad mixes from the 70's that are perfectly fine for high rez release. Did everyone read that about Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells? They came across the 4 channel mix'd master tape and found that it was stunning and perfect. It was on a different brand of recording tape, and so it preserved far better than the stereo 2 track master did. Not only was the quad master preserved exceptionally well, but the mix was also flawless by today's standards. That tape is what was used for the SACD multi channel release of that title. And the Billy Cobham - Spectrum DVD-A I believe was the unused 70's mix there. So there are low cost alternatives to doing the all out remix from baked tapes.
But as long as the economy stays in the dumps, I expect the pace will continue crawling as it has been.
Jeff
