Thought I'd post the article linked above before it disappears...
Billboard; 04/28/2001, Vol. 113 Issue 17, p51
SCHREINER OPENS UP MAGICAL VIBE ON 5.1 MIX OF 'MOONDANCE'
Section: Pro Audio/Artists & Music
STUDIO MONITOR
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (does anyone know what that means anymore?), multichannel music is coming on strong. The long-awaited increasing call for surround mixes, while not yet a deluge, is under way; mixing facilities--and mix engineers--that are capable of providing 5.1 music mixes are reaping the rewards of this demand.
I recently visited Westport, Conn., where engineer Elliot Scheiner was revisiting a project he initially recorded in 1969: Van Morrison's masterpiece Moondance. Long a favorite recording, Moondance will be released in a 5.1 mix by Warner Music Group on DVD Audio, pending the artist's approval. And it is astonishing.
The project, remixed at Presence Studios Westport, is a study in the evolution of recording technology-- and of popular music itself. Despite the antiquated equipment (by today's standards) at New York's A&R Studios, where the album was initially recorded and mixed, the master tapes reveal the magic of those sessions in 1969. With the possibilities afforded by today's technology, both in professional recording environments and consumer playback equipment, the full scope of the brilliance of Moondance unfolds all around the listener.
"Everything was tracked live," says Scheiner, recalling the summer and fall of 1969 in New York. "The vocals were live--I think there was only one or two songs where he decided to do a different vocal. Horns, guitars, lead guitars, everything was live."
The 31-year-old master tapes--Scotch-3M 202 1-inch--were in excellent condition, Scheiner notes with appreciation. Retrieved from storage at the Warner Bros. tape library in California, the tapes were recently transferred by Scheiner, at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, to two hard-disc multitrack recorders: Euphonix R-1 and the new Alesis ADAT-HD24, using Panasonic analog-to-digital converters. At Presence Studios, he is using Swissonic digital-to-analog converters on the ADAT-HD24.
"Here's a 1-inch, 8-track tape from '69, and we didn't have to bake it," Scheiner says. "It just played, and it sounded unbelievable, incredible. There was nothing across the heads--no dirt, no gunk, nothing. It was just great. The Euphonix sounds great, mind-boggling, and the Alesis sounds absolutely amazing, too. I was shocked at how good this thing is." (The ADAT-HD24 carries a $2,499 list price.)
Moondance was initially recorded on a Scully 8-track tape machine, through A&R's Class A Neumann console. Morrison's vocal microphone was a Neumann U 87, Scheiner recalls.
In the mix room, he adds, there was little to offer in terms of processing equipment.
"There was no in-line EQ [on the console]," he remembers, "so I know I didn't do anything to it. It was fairly flat, basically. It was just eight big rotary faders. The desk was angled; it was this funny console that was sitting on a tabletop. Up the side of the console were three additional faders, big rotaries, and the master fader was a big rotary as well. We had some outboard equalizers--we always made sure there were a bunch of Pultecs, so I'm pretty sure I used Pultecs. And we had Fairchild compressors; I know we used that on a couple of things. But generally it was fairly flat; there wasn't much going on. It wasn't real rocket science back then--it was more the vibe."
The vibe, clearly, was magical. With all the musicians in the same room--save Morrison and guitarist John Platania, situated in isolation booths, the doors open--the tracks were subject to plenty of leakage from other instruments. When Scheiner solos Morrison's rhythm guitar track on "These Dreams of You," on the Neve VR console at Presence, for example, drums are also distinct. But the simplicity of the recording and the magnificence of the young Morrison's muse create a timeless, exquisite statement.
The 5.1 mix is truly revelatory. After listening to the 10 tracks on Moondance literally hundreds of times on LP, cassette, and CD, I was nonetheless shocked to hear, on every track Scheiner played, details unearthed by the separation of left, center, right, left surround, and right surround speakers. Platania and pianist Jeff Labes playfully riffing on Morrison's jazz-inspired vocal phrasing or echoing each other's improvisational licks, the crisp snap of Garry Malabar's drumming on "Caravan," each note of Platania's acoustic guitar licks on "These Dreams of You," even Morrison drawing a breath to sing the next line of "Crazy Love"--all are revealed here in detail that cannot be conveyed in two channels or on a 16-bit, 44.1 kilohertz CD. Close your eyes, and it's easy to picture A&R Studios, 1969, a 24-year-old genius making his joyous declaration.
"You got the vibe, and you recorded it that way," Scheiner says. "[But] you hear everything now. That's the good thing about 5.1. When you open it up, you don't have things on top of each other. In some cases, you get to hear things you never heard before. In other cases, you are hiding things that come out too clear. Not in this case."
Scheiner recently remixed another classic album, the Eagles' Hotel California, at Glenn Frey's Doghouse Studios in Los Angeles for multichannel release. That session was the first surround mix done at Doghouse, Scheiner says, and he brought a set of Yamaha MSP10 monitors for the mix, which he had recently discovered. (He used KRK E8s for Moondance.)
"They were very comfortable to mix on," he says of the Yamahas. "I'm going to keep a set here and a set in L.A."
Scheiner also used the Lexicon 960 multichannel digital effects system for Hotel California. At Presence, he used the new Yamaha SREV1 digital sampling reverb.
"They have the most amazing-sounding EMT 140 echo plate [samples] in there," he says of the SREV1. "That's what I used originally [at A&R], so I'm using that for this. I'm also using the TC Electronic M3000 [reverb processor] and the Eventide Orville [digital effect processor]. That's got some very nice sounds in it."
Scheiner's surround mixes are subtle, tasteful. Like most engineers remixing catalog material, he does A/B comparisons with the 2-channel mix while creating the 5.1 mix.
"It's a great vibe, and I don't want to change that too much," he explains. "But you do have the opportunity to open it up. And people who have bought these [home theater] systems don't want to hear stereo. I don't want to disrupt the musicality of the record, but I do have to make use of all the speakers. So I try and do it as subtly and as musically as I can, so it's not disruptive to the song."
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Engineer Elliot Scheiner, who has created a 5.1 mix of Van Morrison's Moondance at Presence Studios Westport, also remixed the Eagles' Hotel California in 5.1 at Glenn Frey's Doghouse Studios in Los Angeles, here he is using Yamaha MSP10 monitors.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE)
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By Christopher Walsh llis Stark
), i found this information about elliot scheiner http://www.jdmanagement.com/elliotscheiner/, you can "download" a PDF with his discography (not everything is included) but the recently released Lynyrd Skynyrd DVD-A is mentioned there (since feb 2012). I was also shocked to see he did a surround mix of a great new band "Band of Horses" album Infinite Arms, but this release has not seen the light of day yet, does anybody know something about this album in surround?????
