Flying Colors - Live in Europe Bluray pre-order

[SMS]

I just pre-ordered this concert Bluray that I am quite excited about and I thought I would start a thread here in case anyone else is interested. The release date is Oct 14 (Europe) and 15 (US).

For those unaware, Flying Colors is a supergroup consisting of Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater), Neal Morse (ex-Spocks Beard), Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple), Dave Larue, and Casey McPherson (Alpha Rev). Their self titled debut album was released last year. It is very good.

I expect this performance to be fantastic, given the quality of the musicians involved. Hopefully the audio and video quality will be good as well. When I pre-ordered, I was given access to a stereo mp3 (320kbps, 48khz) of a single track, and it sounds pretty good.

The bluray will definitely include an uncompressed 96k/24bit 5.1 mix, but it doesn't say who mixed it. I have no idea if it will be a "stage" or "audience" style mix.

You can pre-order the bluray here:

http://flyingcolorsmusic.com/

The price is a very reasonable $15 including shipping to anywhere in North America. There is also a Europe pre-order link.

Enjoy!

 

[peterzach]

Thanks for posting, this is a must buy for me as well.
I really enjoyed Flying Colors debut was a very enjoyable album. I have since bought all Alpha Rev albums which I like as well. Neal Morse releases are a given for me, like all his music,solo and band releases(Spocks Beard,Transatlantic).

peter

 

[timbre4]

Huge Steve Morse fan, I need to listen to this again. Nice news on concert Blu Ray.

 

[SMS]

I watched this bluray this weekend. The video quality is decent. The performance from each member of the band is very good. There is an incredible amount of talent in this band. They played the entire Flying Colors album, plus selections from the band members' "former lives" (Dream Theater, Spock's Beard, Dixie Dregs and Endochine).

The 5.1 mix is pretty poor unfortunately. I don't hear anything discreet mixed into the rears except for the audience. Honestly the stereo PCM sounds much better. The 5.1 mix doesn't have enough bottom end, the audience is too loud in the rears, and the cymbals are also too loud. I only listened for a couple minutes in 5.1, then switched to stereo. You are better off using the stereo PCM track and using DPLII if you want some surround effect. I personally just listened to it in stereo using the good analog outputs in my BDP83se. It sounded very good that way.

So, if you like Flying Colors this is still a good purchase as long as you don't have your heart set on an excellent 5.1 mix.

I haven't wanted the 45 minute documentary yet, but I hope to find time soon. It has the potential to be interesting, which would be icing on the cake.

 

[jberq]

The 5.1 mix is pretty poor unfortunately. I don't hear anything discreet mixed into the rears except for the audience. Honestly the stereo PCM sounds much better. The 5.1 mix doesn't have enough bottom end, the audience is too loud in the rears, and the cymbals are also too loud. I only listened for a couple minutes in 5.1, then switched to stereo. You are better off using the stereo PCM track and using DPLII if you want some surround effect. I personally just listened to it in stereo using the good analog outputs in my BDP83se. It sounded very good that way.

So, if you like Flying Colors this is still a good purchase as long as you don't have your heart set on an excellent 5.1 mix.

Thank You.... I thought I was losing it. I couldn't seem to get any traction on the band's FB page with this. On both BD and DVD discs the 5.1 mix is unlistenable. Almost nothing in surrounds and center channel. All elements mixed either hard front left or right, no stereo soundstage at all. Especially annoying is the lead vox panned hard right on all songs. Nice to know it's not just me.

 

[SMS]

Thank You.... I thought I was losing it. I couldn't seem to get any traction on the band's FB page with this. On both BD and DVD discs the 5.1 mix is unlistenable. Almost nothing in surrounds and center channel. All elements mixed either hard front left or right, no stereo soundstage at all. Especially annoying is the lead vox panned hard right on all songs. Nice to know it's not just me.

I did notice the lead vox was leaning to the right. It wasn't as bad as the recent The Tea Party bluray, which was clearly an authoring fault. In this case I thought it was just a poor mix rather than an authoring fault, but I could be wrong.

I honestly only listened to the 5.1 mix for a minute or two before switching to stereo and just enjoying the show. I will give it another listen and pay more attention to the 5.1 mix to try and determine if it is a bad mix or bad authoring.

There seems to be an authoring problem that is preventing the disc from working on some players. If they are re-authoring the disc to fix this problem, perhaps they can be convinced to re-analyze the 5.1 mix.

 

[jberq]

I did notice the lead vox was leaning to the right. It wasn't as bad as the recent The Tea Party bluray, which was clearly an authoring fault. In this case I thought it was just a poor mix rather than an authoring fault, but I could be wrong.

I honestly only listened to the 5.1 mix for a minute or two before switching to stereo and just enjoying the show. I will give it another listen and pay more attention to the 5.1 mix to try and determine if it is a bad mix or bad authoring.

There seems to be an authoring problem that is preventing the disc from working on some players. If they are re-authoring the disc to fix this problem, perhaps they can be convinced to re-analyze the 5.1 mix.

I actually do wonder if it's an authoring error. The 2.0 stream has a nice mix with the lead vox in the center. Why would it be so stylistically different on the 5.1?

 

[SMS]

I actually do wonder if it's an authoring error. The 2.0 stream has a nice mix with the lead vox in the center. Why would it be so stylistically different on the 5.1?

The two mixes "should" be similar in style, if they were mixed by the same person. In some cases they are not. In this case it simply says "Mixed by: Jerry Guidroz", which leads me to believe he mixed both the 2.0 and 5.1. But, perhaps the 5.1 mixer is uncredited.

 

[keenly]

I watched this bluray this weekend. The video quality is decent. The performance from each member of the band is very good. There is an incredible amount of talent in this band. They played the entire Flying Colors album, plus selections from the band members' "former lives" (Dream Theater, Spock's Beard, Dixie Dregs and Endochine).

The 5.1 mix is pretty poor unfortunately. I don't hear anything discreet mixed into the rears except for the audience. Honestly the stereo PCM sounds much better. The 5.1 mix doesn't have enough bottom end, the audience is too loud in the rears, and the cymbals are also too loud. I only listened for a couple minutes in 5.1, then switched to stereo. You are better off using the stereo PCM track and using DPLII if you want some surround effect. I personally just listened to it in stereo using the good analog outputs in my BDP83se. It sounded very good that way.

So, if you like Flying Colors this is still a good purchase as long as you don't have your heart set on an excellent 5.1 mix.

I haven't wanted the 45 minute documentary yet, but I hope to find time soon. It has the potential to be interesting, which would be icing on the cake.

Thanks for review.