And perhaps as a side article in Music In The Round as Mr. Veira is stationed at present in Bagram, Afghanistan and has taken it upon himself to respond to a video from Steve Guttenberg thousands of miles away.
Passion doesn't get any better than this, Kal. How about it?
In the final analysis, we're all on the same side: LOVE of SURROUND!
For Kal, I hope this works for you:
Welcome back to Life in Surround.
Today's video is a response to Steve Guttenberg, the Audiophiliac. Steve Guttenburg recently made a video questioning whether music really requires more than two channels. And Steve, if you're the Audiophiliac, in a way, you could call me the Quaudiophiliac. Which is the name of a very cool Frank Zappa surround DVD, by the way. But I'm not really a quaudiophiliac in the sense that I like all quadraphonic music, because I don't. There are some qualifications. And in that way I think we have a lot to agree on and I'll get to that. I would also like to point out that this is not an adversarial video. I just want to join in the conversation. You asked at the end of your video if anybody thinks differently or feels differently about surround music and so I thought it would be cool to shoot a response video. So all that said let's get started.
So the first point you bring up in kind of a facetious, playful way is whether music really needs more than two channels. I think that question can be answered in a variety of ways, the first being to ask whether music even needs two channels? The full range of human hearing can fit nicely in one channel and the music industry survived for quite a long time, quite well with only mono releases. But, along came stereo and after a period of some rather funky mixes with all guitars and voices on one side and drums on the other, as with some Beatles recordings, engineers finally figured out how to do balanced stereo mixes. And I think the worldwide consensus is that stereo is a bit of an upgrade over mono; reason being that humans can differentiate sounds originating from the left and from the right. So, stereo takes further advantage of our sense of hearing than mono does. But that's really only true if you're sitting in the sweet spot of your room. If you get up to go make a sandwich or you're vacuuming, that effect is really lost. When you're walking around the shopping mall or at a baseball game all that music is essentially mono.
Now, if you're in your car or listening on headphones, you'll also get the full stereo effect. So, stereo is very important not trying to dispute that in any way whatsoever. But in the same way that it is an upgrade over mono because it takes further advantage of our sense of hearing, surround is a bit of an upgrade over stereo because it takes further advantage still. Humans have ears mounted on the sides of their heads not in front, so we actually hear in more or less a sphere. Yes, our eyes are mounted on the front of our faces. And so we see best straight ahead. One picture screen makes a lot of sense because of the way our vision works. But being that we hear in a sphere you can take fuller advantage of our sense of hearing with a good surround system. So, does music need more than two channels? Absolutely not. But, does music need more than one channel? Nope. It just doesn't. I think this comes down to a matter of taste. I have been very pleasantly entertained by mono recordings. I have gotten a fuller, more engaging experience from some stereo recordings and I get a fuller, more gauging experience still from some surround recordings.
Another point to make regarding how many channels are good for music is that, with a good balanced surround mix, even if sounds aren't ping-ponging all around your head, but musical parts are more or less statically placed, in say a half circle around you or a horseshoe around you or even a circle all the way around you - the more channels that are engaged in playing back discrete musical parts the less work each of those channels is doing.
So, you go on to express that you heard plenty of quad in the 70s, but it just never captured your interest. And if I can guess correctly where you're coming from, I think we're in agreement here. A lot of seventies quad mixes were very weird. In my own experience with many of the recent 70s quad reissues, primarily on SACD and blu-ray, some of the mixes tend to have drums in one corner, vocals in another corner, pianos in another corner, and guitars in another corner. I find this kind of mix to be, as you said, unnatural and weird. Now, in some cases that actually works for a particular album. Sometimes the drums are panned diagonally from each other. There are certain effects that engineers achieved, which really do kind of offset the weirdness, but I think I know what you're talking about. If I'm picking up what you're laying down there are definitely some weird 70s quad mixes. But the cool thing about most of the SACDs that are being reissued these days is that they do not only have the multi-channel layer. They also have the high res stereo [or mono] layer [and sometimes an RBCD layer]. So if you listen to the quad mix and it just isn't to your liking your money has not been wasted. You still have that high res stereo or mono album.
You also state that having instruments mixed into the rears is just ridiculous and here, I think we are merely talking about a difference of taste. I have absolutely sat down and listened to some surround mixes that have had discrete, important musical information in front and rear channels and it has just worked fabulously. It's been a fantastic experience. I've also sat down and listened to some surround mixes where the mixing choices feel a bit gimmicky. A formerly powerful, cohesive sounding stereo mix now sounds just way too spread out and it's lost some of its meat, its lost some of its beefiness. I get that. It's definitely possible to make mistakes mixing in surround. But when a surround mix is done very tastefully I find it to be simply more engaging more enveloping and just more enjoyable than the stereo mix counterpart.
For example Rhino Records recently issued a box set called Quadio, from the band Chicago. It covers their first 10 albums, sans the live album from that period [9 albums total]. I think that was Chicago IV. So from Chicago Transit Authority through Chicago X you get reissued on blu-ray the multi-channel mix from the original quad masters and the stereo mix as well. Now the way that those engineers mixed those albums was primarily the main band in front, so vocals, drums, guitars, bass. And all of the brass section behind you. What that does is, like I said before, it eases the work that the channels are doing. But it also provides the separation between the rock band element of Chicago's sound and the brass element. It allows you to hear more of what the vocalists and guitarists and drummer are doing and it allows you to also hear more clearly than ever the horn parts. And this is not distracting to me. It's just more engaging. It's more enveloping and it's just fascinating. It's like lifting a layer of obscurity off of these recordings. And to be honest with you the Quadio box actually got me into Chicago. Up until that point, I had only heard Chicago's Greatest Hits, Chicago IX, and then the radio stuff from the 80s. I moderately liked the older Greatest Hits stuff couldn't stand the eighties radio stuff. This Quadio box has rocketed Chicago up into my top tier of bands. I cannot get enough of that box set.
You also make a point about many of the 70s quad releases being matrix encoded and that this didn't allow for a very good degree of separation of parts. Now, there were discrete LPS back at that time. CD-4, for instance. Along with reel-to-reel tape and also Q8, which played in 8-track decks, from what I understand. So, there there were several discrete formats to choose from back then but sure, matrix was easier for people because it used a normal stylus. I believe you still needed double the amps (and speakers, of course). But anyway the cool thing about the reissues that are happening at this time: Super Audio CD, blu-ray, from groups like Audio Fidelity, Rhino, Sony Japan and Dutton Vocalion is that they're going back to the quad master tapes and they're mastering these mixes to SACD and blu-ray discreetly. Now, there are a few cases where Dutton Vocalion has made the decision to simply do a matrix decode onto the SACD but, in my opinion, he does a great job and if the matrix mix down was the only source he had available, then I totally get that. I'd rather him do the reissue so that you don't have to go find a beat up LP and try to get it to play properly through really ancient gear. So much easier to pay 15 bucks for a Super Audio CD. Pop it in your Oppo and let a modern AVR do the rest of the work for you. Besides that, Dutton Vocalion is issuing a lot of these reissues as two-fers. So you get two classic albums on one SACD. Usually for around 15 bucks. Really notable groups, like Poco. Some of his SACD releases are single albums like, Art Garfunkel. But that's understandable. In either case it's super-well appreciated.
So you go on to state that optical surround formats have all come and gone rather quickly. Dolby CD, DTS CD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, Bluray-Video, and Bluray-Audio are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head. And it's true many of those formats are completely dead. SACD is really hanging in there pretty well, Bluray-Audio too. DVD-Audio gets a random release once in a blue moon, so it's pretty dormant. But there really are a lot of albums out there, available at least on the second-hand market. Enough that I can't afford to purchase every one of them that I wish to. I have to budget for this hobby. And that's a good problem to have. But also there are actually quite a bit of SACD albums being released today. It's mostly jazz and classical but one of the mainstays right now is Bluray-Audio. It gets pretty consistent releases, as you [might] well know.
You were just invited to listen to the forthcoming Imagine ultimate set, by John Lennon. And I saw your video yesterday and you were rather impressed with what you heard. Especially John Lennon's vocal isolated to the center with no reverb. So I hope that favorable experience for you can cause you to wonder if there are more blu-ray surround albums out there that you would enjoy as well? And like I said, we've already discussed Chicago Quadio. Oh, there's The Doors best-of. There are just quite a few surround blu-ray albums and if you already have access to a friend's surround system with a blu-ray player, it's just a matter of doing some googling, some eBay, some Amazon. Pop over on quadrophonicquad.com. Look at the surround polls. Acquire some of your favorite albums. Van Morrison's Moondance. These are just albums that are coming to me off the top of my head. You could have a similar experience to the one you just had with John Lennon's Imagine.
Another format that really is hanging in there pretty well is DVD-Video and to me that's a little bit sad though. I'm happy about every surround release that comes out whether I like it or not. It's you know, another album that people have to choose from. The compromise of DVD-Video is that it can't hold uncompressed music like MLP lossless, which you get with DVD-Audio. With DVD-Video the best stream that you can hope for is core DTS or expanded 96/24 DTS.
But it's just gonna have that DTS compression. In my experience, I have heard some DTS albums that just sound stellar. I think it totally depends on the situation. It depends on the engineers involved. I've heard some DTS that, compared to the lossless MLP, does seem to have a layer of harshness or just this degrading effect where I prefer the lossless version. But without that comparison I'm not sure that I would really be upset and like I said, I've heard some DTS CDs and DVD-Videos that were just very impressive. If you want to check out some really good ones I would recommend the Jethro Tull reissues that had been happening over the last couple of years. Steven Wilson remixes those albums on DVD-Video 96/24 typically. To me, they sound good. So I would rather have them than not have them.
So the final point I want to touch on is when you said that surround music without an image to anchor it just doesn't make any sense. Again, I really think this comes down to taste. I have honestly sat down and listened to blu-ray albums, DVD albums Super Audio CDs and it honestly is more engaging and enjoyable to me than sitting down and listening to the stereo counterpart. If the surround mix was done well. And I really didn't need a picture to enjoy the music. In the same way that you could put on a high fidelity mono recording, or stereo, you can put on a surround recording and just enjoy it with no image needed. Now sometimes surround albums actually come with some interesting accompanying graphics. Such as the recent Guns n' Roses Appetite for Destruction blu-ray. But a lot of people end up choosing the option to shut off their video screen after they've seen the graphics a few times. Because really it is all about the music for a lot of people. I get where you're coming from that surround absolutely makes sense for movies because you want to get engrossed in what the movie is trying to show you and the sounds all around you help to situate things for the viewer spatially. I get that. I just disagree that it doesn't make sense for music. For instance, one method of surround mixing can place you in the middle of the band. For example, I personally have released a surround album called Disturbing the Universe and the mixing philosophy employed [for a lot of tracks] is that you are the drummer. So the drums wrap around you and then you have guitars out to your left and right, singer up ahead of you and keyboards and background vocals typically in the wings, like tucked away kind of right beside you. And I don't know. A lot of people like that mix. I really like it.
I could also point you at the series of Superdiscs from Monster Music. One very cool thing about some of those discs is they offer you a variety of mixing options. For instance, for their live releases you can choose between a more conventional out in the audience mix or a more experimental onstage mix and decide which one you like best. And even with the studio release of Miles Davis Sketches of Spain what they chose to do is look at photographs from the recording session and then place respective musical parts in the mix according to where the musician was on the day of recording. So that makes it sound as if you're a special guest in the recording studio on the day it was recorded hearing it as it sounded only on that day. We don't know how close they got but it is a magical experience. I think they really pulled it off. It's not gimmicky to me. It's not distracting. It's not ridiculous at all. It really engrosses me and it really has opened up that album for me in a way that no stereo version ever did. I really never connected with that album before sitting down and listening to that Superdisc.
Similarly, Sony Japan has just released Miles Davis Bitches Brew on two Super Audio CDs. I have to wait until I'm home in November to experience that but if all of the comments and the voting over at quadrophonicquad.com are any indication it is just killer. I've never been able to get into Bitches Brew in stereo, and I'm hoping that the quad experience opens the album up enough. That the parts interacting just helps to really draw me into everything going on.
Well, Mr. Guttenberg, I hope you have enjoyed this response. Again, I only meant it to extend the conversation. I think that all of us music lovers can really learn something from each other. I certainly enjoy your videos and I'm glad to see that you've mentioned surround lately and especially that you had such a positive experience with John Lennon's Imagine blu-ray. And I really just want to reiterate that there are other blu-ray [not to mention SACD, DVD-A, etc.] surround albums out there that I think you would really enjoy so I encourage you to look into that. One way or another I just hope that your musical journey from here forward continues to be a happy one and I thank you for watching. For everyone else watching, thanks for joining me again for Life in Surround and until next time remember, life is best lived in surround.
My love of multi-channel music is what I need for my “pursuit of happiness.” What I also need is for Steve G. to consider that us that love surround music and have the ability and product to enjoy it, not be included in his narrow opinions of what music lovers overall need.
