Last night a friend and I were discussing this album, so I popped it back in for a listen. Maybe I'm starting to get a little soft, but of the tracks that come from multitrack, they're actually really good. Only "Summer Sand" and "Candida" don't come from a multi, I'm fairly positive everything else does. So, I guess that's got the Tommy James Q8 beat!
Why they didn't use a stereo version to fake seems odd. The stereo track has nice separation.
All the other songs are pretty discrete with bass/drums in the front. Tony & the girls also occupy the front channels occasionally Tony's vocal is in back center but it's buried low and always very dry.
Other instruments are panned hard BL or BR. Other tracks also feature other instruments in hard FL or FR positions. Many tracks also feature some drum kit bleed in the rears to flesh out the mix.
All in all, not as horrible as I originally thought. I've certainly heard worse. I suppose my biggest gripe would be the usage of the phantom left or right channels, but often times the horns or strings were not recorded in stereo, so I guess they had to do something. Many of the songs sound like they came from eight tracks and not sixteen.
Why they didn't use a stereo version to fake seems odd. The stereo track has nice separation.
All the other songs are pretty discrete with bass/drums in the front. Tony & the girls also occupy the front channels occasionally Tony's vocal is in back center but it's buried low and always very dry.
Other instruments are panned hard BL or BR. Other tracks also feature other instruments in hard FL or FR positions. Many tracks also feature some drum kit bleed in the rears to flesh out the mix.
All in all, not as horrible as I originally thought. I've certainly heard worse. I suppose my biggest gripe would be the usage of the phantom left or right channels, but often times the horns or strings were not recorded in stereo, so I guess they had to do something. Many of the songs sound like they came from eight tracks and not sixteen.
