New "Rick Wakeman" album with Surround Option

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Well, here we go again.
At least the photo shows DVD Audio.
Give thanks.

A Gallery of The Imagination CD/DVD Album

Shipping Feb 2023
$23.00

'A Gallery Of The Imagination' features 8 songs - 4 instrumentals, 2 piano solos and four songs with vocals.
The line-up, as with Rick's previous album 'The Red Planet', features The English Rock Ensemble:
bassist Lee Pomeroy and guitarist Dave Colquhoun, with drummer Ash Soan and on vocals Hayley Sanderson.
The album was recorded in five different studios.

DVD
Surround Sound by Simon Heyworth

Hi Res Stereo

Video elements - to be confirmed
 
Most probably DD 5.1 like his last album...The Red Planet!

Would be nice if they explored the 'royalty~free' lossless LPCM 5.1 option!
The Red Planet never even came with a 5.1 mix even though both the original sold on Rick's Emporium and the later Madfish release advertised that it did. Just like the pathetic so-called Quad mix that was given to The Six Wifes Of Henry VIII the surround mix sounded really bad and it was only a simulated 5.1 Upmix or Psudio mix. I fear the same thing will happen with this new release though I shall buy it all the same as the new album does sound well interesting...
 
The Red Planet never even came with a 5.1 mix even though both the original sold on Rick's Emporium and the later Madfish release advertised that it did. Just like the pathetic so-called Quad mix that was given to The Six Wifes Of Henry VIII the surround mix sounded really bad and it was only a simulated 5.1 Upmix or Psudio mix. I fear the same thing will happen with this new release though I shall buy it all the same as the new album does sound well interesting...
The Red Planet did come with a 5.1 mix. I have it, as many others in the forum. I think it was sent later to the people that purchased it via Rick's store. In my case, I easily got it from Amazon at the time.
 
The Red Planet did come with a 5.1 mix. I have it, as many others in the forum. I think it was sent later to the people that purchased it via Rick's store. In my case, I easily got it from Amazon at the time.
My mate pre-ordered his copy from Rick's Emporium and also had to wait for the DVD to arrive and when it did there was no 5.1 mix on it or if there was it was he was very disappointed with it. When that album was first put up for pre-order on the Emporium the CD/DVD release stated that it had a 5.1 mix of the album I was tempted to get it for that reason however the extortionate price put me off. A week later I went back to the Emporium and noticed that the 5.1 had been removed from the CD/DVD release. I then checked on Rick's old website and he even stated on there that no 5.1 mix was done for the album.

Since changing to his new website I have noticed that he has changed the wording and it reads as follows:

Is there a surround sound version?
Not for retail sale, however, a 5.1 mix was included on the CD Deluxe edition DVD as a thank-you for everyone's patience with the delay. There are no plans to make this available elsewhere, so please don't email to request that.

He then re-released the album in the following year on the Madfish label and this is exactly how the new record company advertised it as follows:

“May 2021, sees Madfish releasing a new 2-disc version of the album as a CD + DVD format which will feature the original album on CD and the DVD will showcase the album in glorious 5.1 surround Sound and Hi-res stereo audio (PCM Stereo @ 24-bit 96kHz / Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround @ 24-bit 48kHz / DTS 5.1 Digital Surround @ 24-bit 96kHz) plus 3 mini promo films and a 70 minute documentary of “The Making Of The Red Planet”, presented in a digipak with a 16-page colour booklet”.

I got this release from Amazon for £11 and I can tell you now that the advertisement was a complete farce. The DVD even looks like it has the surround mix on as you can see from this screenshot I took of it. The first thing I noticed when I played it was that it was not hitting me like a proper immersive mix it even had pondering how to give it a rating. I then looked in the booklet to see who did the surround mix and it was not credited at all. It was then I turned my attention to the back of the package and that is where I noticed that no multitrack tapes were used and it only had a simulated 5.1 up-mix as you can see in my second snapshot of the back of the Digipack.
 

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iirc it turned out it was an upmix (apparently due to issues mixing during Lockdown) but imho a Simon Heyworth upmix can sometimes be better than some other engineer's mixes from multitracks! 🥳

as far as the Six Wives DE is concerned, that's a totally separate thing, with a whole set of issues (!) which has been discussed at QQ several times already. tbh i can't be bothered pouring over it again, its painful dredging it all up! 😫
 
iirc it turned out it was an upmix (apparently due to issues mixing during Lockdown) but imho a Simon Heyworth upmix can sometimes be better than some other engineer's mixes from multitracks! 🥳

as far as the Six Wives DE is concerned, that's a totally separate thing, with a whole set of issues (!) which has been discussed at QQ several times already. tbh i can't be bothered pouring over it again, its painful dredging it all up! 😫
According to my sources, The Red Planet was not up-mixed by Simon Heyworth and was done by Erik Jordan and assisted by Toby Wood. Regarding any up-mix personally for me it will never be the full shilling and when you are working with a stereo source you have no way of placing individual instruments in the rear channels for good effect. An up-mix is only really pot-luck where the instrumentation gets spread around the surround field and you could just as easily get the same result with a CD via using any of the Upmix facilities such as Dolby Prologic XX, Neo 6, 7-Channel Stereo and so on with your AV Reciever.

The 5.1 up-mix of the Red Planet is very poor in my opinion, especially in relation to the hi-res stereo mix where you can hear much more detail. The up-mix would only get 5 out of 10 whereas the hi-res stereo mix easily gets 10 out of 10. The whole thing about the way the album was advertised is a complete farce and blatant false advertising was used to entice surround FREAKS! in the first place which sort of makes it a bit of a RIP-OFF! 😁😁😁
 
According to my sources, The Red Planet was not up-mixed by Simon Heyworth and was done by Erik Jordan and assisted by Toby Wood. Regarding any up-mix personally for me it will never be the full shilling and when you are working with a stereo source you have no way of placing individual instruments in the rear channels for good effect. An up-mix is only really pot-luck where the instrumentation gets spread around the surround field and you could just as easily get the same result with a CD via using any of the Upmix facilities such as Dolby Prologic XX, Neo 6, 7-Channel Stereo and so on with your AV Reciever.

The 5.1 up-mix of the Red Planet is very poor in my opinion, especially in relation to the hi-res stereo mix where you can hear much more detail. The up-mix would only get 5 out of 10 whereas the hi-res stereo mix easily gets 10 out of 10. The whole thing about the way the album was advertised is a complete farce and blatant false advertising was used to entice surround FREAKS! in the first place which sort of makes it a bit of a RIP-OFF! 😁😁😁
oh right, some sources differ 🙂

B838BECD-BA6A-4BC4-8570-54967026785F.jpeg


there are good and bad upmixes, some do more than a PLII type synthesis routine, others are worthless.

would i rather an MCh mix from the multi's? of course and that was supposedly the original intention with The Red Planet 5.1 but Covid mucked it all up, as with so many things 🤷🏻‍♀️
 
oh right, some sources differ 🙂

View attachment 86620

there are good and bad upmixes, some do more than a PLII type synthesis routine, others are worthless.

would i rather an MCh mix from the multi's? of course and that was supposedly the original intention with The Red Planet 5.1 but Covid mucked it all up, as with so many things 🤷🏻‍♀️
At least that source was a bit more honest about it unlike the record company itself as you can see here :

rick-wakeman-web-banner - march 2021

Madfish have released keyboard Legend Rick Wakeman & The English Rock Ensemble’s new album “The Red Planet”




SMACDX1210-CD-DVD-mockupjpg

ORDER CD & DVD VERSION

NEW 2 DISC – CD + DVD VERSION OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED UK TOP 40 SOLO STUDIO ALBUM FROM KEYBOARD LEGEND RICK WAKEMAN
May 2021 saw Madfish release a new 2 disc version of the album as a CD + DVD format which will feature the original album on CD and the DVD will showcase the album in glorious 5.1 surround Sound and Hi-res stereo audio (PCM Stereo @ 24-bit 96kHz / Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround @ 24-bit 48kHz / DTS 5.1 Digital Surround @ 24-bit 96kHz) plus 3 mini promo films and a 70 minute documentary of “The Making Of The Red Planet”, presented in a digipak with a 16 page colour booklet.

The Red Planet COVER X800


ORDER / SAVE NOW


Regarding who did the upmix I am not one hundred per cent sure if it was Heyworth and I did not come across his name when I did the research for my review of this release either. My review is here if you are interested in reading 😁😁😁

https://leespeaksoutaboutmusic.wordpress.com/2021/08/28/lee-speaks-about-music-188/

 
The upmix is good for an upmix. The sound quality is not very good. I believe the version sent out to pledgers only had DD. The retail version (which I have) has DTS, but I don't think it sounds any better. But I thought the hi res stereo was no better either when I did a brief comparison. If I could only improve one thing, I would leave the mix the same but improve the sound, which I think says something about both.

I thought the mix was by Simon Heyworth - it may even be covered in the accompanying video 'making of', though I'm not sure.

For the cheap price it's worth getting.
 
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