Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th Anniversary Reissue (with 5.1 surround mix)

[JediJoker]

Correct, but released in the USA in 1968, not '67 (and with altered cover design based on the UK).

"Days of Future Passed was released on 10 November 1967 in the UK and 11 November in the US." - Wikipedia

 

[ChristopherLees]

I've only played the vinyl 1st lp....no matter what they say this is NOT a correct representation of the mono mix..

the giveaway is simple ....just play the ending of good morning good morning and the start of sgt pepper reprise...the mono mix has extra crowd noises and laughing and the drum intro is longer in mono (I think 6 beats instead of 4).....(as a side note "mirror spock" did his own stereo version of the mono mix and got it right except for the length of the drum intro).

that said it is interesting...with having the original pre mixed down tapes he's able to put discrete noises in both left and right and centre field..and having a generation or 2 better in tape to use gives more punch and dynamics....sort of reminds me of the dark side remix...or actually it's also a bit like the "yellow submarine songtrack"...which is done the same way...I'm just not sure yet if the top end from all the digital editing matches what I get from all my other pressings that came from straight analogue tapes...and it's fairly quiet vinyl but not perfect......time to bring out the nimbus/mfsl/1987 red vinyl australian and mfsl test pressings for an a /b comparison......(the box set lp versions of 96k transfers from the original tapes tend to be a little dull)..


So yes they have remixed parts of sgt pepper before from the original pre mixed down tapes....on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack.....and if you put the cd or lp of that through a prologic decoder ,then with a little tweaking around you can get a 5.1 presentation that's similar to the 5.1 presentation on the Yellow submarine movie soundtrack....So as I have the lp of that I can compare 2 different attempts at EMI's remixing of sgt peppermulti's to stereo on 4 songs...Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Sgt Pepper/with a little help and when I'm 64.......mmm this could take a while..

 

[EMB]

"Days of Future Passed was released on 10 November 1967 in the UK and 11 November in the US." - Wikipedia

Unfortunately, Wiki is notoriously unreliable, since anyone can type anything without citations. The fact remains the US album was reviewed in the 3/16/68 edition of Cash Box, which, giving time for the actual printing, means it was probably received at their offices very late in February or very early March; they wouldn't have sat on it since the previous November. The "Nights" 45 was reviewed in the 1/20/68 Billboard, which puts it as an either very early '68 or very late '67. Either way, typical of many UK releases gone stateside, usually a little later than the UK, and not that often concurrent. DOFP took a little time, first hitting Billboard in the May 4 issue. Wasn't a big seller at first, but sold steadily over time until mid-1972, when the single was reissued, went high on the charts and brought the album with it (eventually on the Lp chart for over two years).

ED

 

[salsdali]

I have two different Oppos that are playing the Blu-ray Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track as Dolby TrueHD EX 6.1??

It shows as Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on the front of the oppo and when I press the oppos remote "info" button for on screen info but when I view my Pioneers receiver "status" is shows the 6.1

My pioneer receiver even lights up an "XC" on the front LCD

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 plays normally as straight 5.1 but when I switch to the TrueHD track it shows as having a single center in the back (the 6) (xc = xtra channel?)??

My PC does the same thing

"I'd love to turn you onnnnnnnnnn" channel 6 lol

 

[salsdali]

Edit: sorry, double post

so I'll fill it with this

http://www.royalalberthall.com/abou...tles-lyric-newly-discovered-documents-reveal/

 

[JonUrban]

Hear Paul talk about a "discrete" mix and it's about the early stereo. Not a good indicator that a wild and crazy surround mix had a chance at all:


“The original stereo mix is a bit of a period piece,” McCartney concedes. “You’ve got the drums in one corner. You’ve got the vocals in another corner. We would be at listening parties, have some mates around and I’d go, ‘Listen to the drums on this, man!’ …and you couldn’t hear ’em. Oh! They’re over there in the other corner of the room.”

 

[Frogmort]

Hear Paul talk about a "discrete" mix and it's about the early stereo. Not a good indicator that a wild and crazy surround mix had a chance at all:


“The original stereo mix is a bit of a period piece,” McCartney concedes. “You’ve got the drums in one corner. You’ve got the vocals in another corner. We would be at listening parties, have some mates around and I’d go, ‘Listen to the drums on this, man!’ …and you couldn’t hear ’em. Oh! They’re over there in the other corner of the room.”

Thank you for the quote Jon, but as far as the surround mix, I think there is a great surround mix hiding in there. Maybe they made it more reserved so as to not offend 'The Masses'. Screw the masses though, I've continued to mess around with this in Audacity. I tried all of these combinations:

-2dB LCR: Didn't bring out the surrounds enough and after noticing that the LFE was mostly deep bass guitar, realized I had thrown the bass drum/floor tom from the front mains out of balance with the bass guitar which became too prominent/ made the low drums seem too quiet.

-3dB LCR -3dB LFE: Pretty danged good, mostly pretty balanced with much more enjoyable surround prominence but still not as engulfing as I would like.

-4dB LCR -3dB LFE: Almost amazing. Why didn't I learn my lesson the first time: Tiny bit too much deep bass guitar compared to bass drum/floor tom.

-4dB LCR -4dB LFE: Pretty much perfect for my tastes. There are a few spots where the surround seems just a tiny bit prominent and a few where it seems like it could've been a bit stronger, but for a catch-all mix adjustment for the entire album, I think it's the perfect sweet-spot for my tastes.

I also noticed it's been mentioned that Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane didn't need as much of a surround boost as the rest of the tracks, and I agree that these settings really brings out the rears on Strawberry Fields (in a good way for me), but I thought Penny Lane was more subdued in the surround comparably.

Also wanted to add that I rarely ever muck about like this with most surround mixes, but Sgt Pepper's is 'Kind of a Big Deal'

 

[HDave]

I'm in the same boat.
I can only afford the stereo two-CD deluxe.
It sounds great to me with surround processing.
I prefer NEO music, no center channel or LFE, but there's plenty in the tracks to process however you like.




I liked the Box Set release so much, my son was very envious about it. I had planned on only keeping the Blu-Ray and Mono mixes and send him the rest.
Amazon was 149.00 Bullmoose no stock for online sales @ 119.00...... Amazon lowered back to 117.00 and I said screw it and just ordered another set and had it shipped to him today.
His reply " I'm totally mesmerized by the look of it and may wait to take off the shrink wrap". Ha I felt the same way......We talked earlier about lowest prices, I think we've seen them at 117.00 get yours before you can't or the price gets ridiculous.... I'll just pay less to my CC next month to make it work.:upthumb.

 

[ar surround]

Thank you for the quote Jon, but as far as the surround mix, I think there is a great surround mix hiding in there. Maybe they made it more reserved so as to not offend 'The Masses'. Screw the masses though, I've continued to mess around with this in Audacity. I tried all of these combinations:

-2dB LCR: Didn't bring out the surrounds enough and after noticing that the LFE was mostly deep bass guitar, realized I had thrown the bass drum/floor tom from the front mains out of balance with the bass guitar which became too prominent/ made the low drums seem too quiet.

-3dB LCR -3dB LFE: Pretty danged good, mostly pretty balanced with much more enjoyable surround prominence but still not as engulfing as I would like.

-4dB LCR -3dB LFE: Almost amazing. Why didn't I learn my lesson the first time: Tiny bit too much deep bass guitar compared to bass drum/floor tom.

-4dB LCR -4dB LFE: Pretty much perfect for my tastes. There are a few spots where the surround seems just a tiny bit prominent and a few where it seems like it could've been a bit stronger, but for a catch-all mix adjustment for the entire album, I think it's the perfect sweet-spot for my tastes.

I also noticed it's been mentioned that Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane didn't need as much of a surround boost as the rest of the tracks, and I agree that these settings really brings out the rears on Strawberry Fields (in a good way for me), but I thought Penny Lane was more subdued in the surround comparably.

Also wanted to add that I rarely ever muck about like this with most surround mixes, but Sgt Pepper's is 'Kind of a Big Deal'

Frogmort, a 'double thank' and 'double like' for your post. Your last set of adjustments also nailed it for me (and I did so before ever seeing your post); and I agree with you on SFF and Penny Lane regarding the surround boost there as well. Of course, others may get slightly different results based on their set ups or have somewhat different preferences.

 

[salsdali]

Thank you for the quote Jon, but as far as the surround mix, I think there is a great surround mix hiding in there.

This post is for the 5.1 Blu-ray

I agree. After messing around with the adjustments, center volume, bass volume, (fixing a hole if you will ) I have been able to get this album to sound completely different than the default settings (the way it was mixed).

Also, very importantly, the Dolby TrueHD track sounds so much fuller to me than the DTS-HD MA. I'm usually a big fan of DTS-HD MA but on this mix it sounds a little thin and too clean (which is unusual).

The Dolby TrueHD just seems to bring out so much more separation and the fidelity just sounds more authentic to analog tape.

The odd thing is virtually every song requires a different adjustment. This makes sense since on the default mix every song sounded like it was mixed differently. This is in contrast to say an Elliot mix where the whole album mix sounds uniform (ie each song has the same levels).

Anyway, after the volume adjustments combined with the clarity of this new mix this is definitely about is as good as it's gonna get IMO.

Because of this release, I've really developed a great appreciation for this album and this new mix. I find I want to just keep listening to it over and over.

The inclusion of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" in surround just cements this entire release.

 

[lennon fan]

Hear Paul talk about a "discrete" mix and it's about the early stereo. Not a good indicator that a wild and crazy surround mix had a chance at all:


“The original stereo mix is a bit of a period piece,” McCartney concedes. “You’ve got the drums in one corner. You’ve got the vocals in another corner. We would be at listening parties, have some mates around and I’d go, ‘Listen to the drums on this, man!’ …and you couldn’t hear ’em. Oh! They’re over there in the other corner of the room.”

well Jon my answer to that is:
Band On The Run and Venus And Mars on Q8 or DTS

 

[lennon fan]

initially kinda underwhelmed, sad to say.. but tinkering about a bit, so far it seems to improve the surround somewhat (for me, on my setup) by;

1.) Lowering Front Left/Centre/Front Right -2.5dB (and a couple of tracks I almost wanted to lower the Centre a bit more but still tinkering)

2.) Lowering LFE -5.0dB (for some tracks only.. dunno.. something seems a bit weird here.. sometimes it seemed there was just a lot of boom boom in the LFE. other times a lot less activity unless you crank the master volume and then everything else in the other 5 channels was way too loud.. not sure what they were going for with the LFE in these mixes, or how much real low bass they had to work with in the original recordings but still.. I wasn't expecting the LFE to be what it seems like to me at this point, kinda like a filtered afterthought rather than any real careful tuning of sound down there.. hmm)

3.) Raising Rear Left +2.5dB (for some tracks only - if you isolate the rears you can make out on those songs where there is reverb of lead vocals in the rear it seems out of whack with a skew of that reverb to the Rear Right.. by making the Rear Left louder, for me, balances that out more.. but for other tracks seems its not necessary.. still not sure about that yet but I'll keep playing with it over the weekend and see how I get on)

hmm.. also, not talking about the surround presentation but for certain tracks there's not the same kind of warmth to the sound that there was to the 5.1 on the Love DVD-A.. everything's pristine here and certain things (especially lead vocals isolated in the Centre) are really crystal clear with some nice detail.. but some of its a bit clinical, I guess?

one of the things Greg Penny said he did when he mixed the Elton 5.1's was to run everything through vintage tube gear and used all sorts of analogue outboard gadgetry to give the mixes a kind of sound he was looking for.. I imagine so the mixes didn't end up entirely as pristine as what he was hearing just from the raw multitracks..?

maybe the people doing Sgt.Peppers in 5.1 did something similar.. but it doesn't sound like it to me, some things are a bit brittle and for want of a better description lack atmosphere.. maybe some things have been overzealously noise reduced or digitally scrubbed up? i dunno..

not gonna vote on this in the QQ Poll for a while, I need to digest everything for a bit yet.

so far, as a package it seems nice. as a set of surround mixes in its own right its a little above average but nothing to rival the best work of say Elliot Scheiner or Steven Wilson, imho, even after fiddling about with channel levels & balances etc. but I will keep on fiddling about with the channels and so on, it may grow on me.. but out of the box I'm not hugely impressed unfortunately.

I'm just reading this now and we're so on the same page on most of this...

 

[seilerbird]

Sgt Pepper sounds great on my system without any adjustments.

 

[JonUrban]

well Jon my answer to that is:
Band On The Run and Venus And Mars on Q8 or DTS

I would bet Paul had nothing to do with what Capitol did for those Q8's, and as we can clearly tell by looking at our Deluxe Band on the Run McCartney Collection edition, there is no quad Band on the Run included, even though it was asked for before the release of the product. To add insult to injury, in the included book there is a picture of the quad 8 track noted - but in the picture is the stereo 8 track.

We don't really know what Sir Paul thought about those 2 quad mixes, other than the fact that in both Archive Collection releases of those albums, there was no quad mix included.

 

[4-earredwonder]

well Jon my answer to that is:
Band On The Run and Venus And Mars on Q8 or DTS

IMO, both DTS Entertainment discs of BOTH and Venus and Mars sound pretty great but in 2017 would surely benefit from a LOSSLESS hi res release on BD~A.

They're also more discrete than the newly released Sgt. Pepper, that's for sure!

Whatever happened to Sir Paul's sense of adventure[someness]? Re~release them in 5.1 on BD~A, Sir Paul and be done with it!:banana:

 

[lennon fan]

IMO, both DTS Entertainment discs of BOTH and Venus and Mars sound pretty great but in 2017 would surely benefit from a LOSSLESS hi res release on BD~A.

They're also more discrete than the newly released Sgt. Pepper, that's for sure!

Whatever happened to Sir Paul's sense of adventure[someness]? Re~release them in 5.1 on BD~A, Sir Paul and be done with it!:banana:

for sure...

 

[JonUrban]

IMO, both DTS Entertainment discs of BOTH and Venus and Mars sound pretty great but in 2017 would surely benefit from a LOSSLESS hi res release on BD~A.

....and the perfect place for them to have released them as DVD-A, SACD, or BluRay (or even 24/48 DVD) was the McCartney Archive Collection Box Sets of both albums.....

 

[milt]

Ok then.
Finally listened to the Sgt. Pepper BD, True-HD 5.1.
Never sounded better.
A qualifier:
My systems are in a state of flux with my living room reno.
Will be moving my Oppo-105 to the theater\music room tomorrow and listen again to 2-channel & MCH.
With the BD I was relegated to using the Oppo-80 transport via HDMI with the heavy lifting done by the Anthem D-2.
The 105 in the chain will be much, much better.

It this louder than the previous CD versions? Yeah a bit.
Is it fatiguing? Hell no!
Is it revisionist? God no.
Is the bass bloated. Please.
A "Modern version for the earbud crowd?" Sorry but you're out of your mind on that point.

There's so much good to say about this and I didn't take notes.
First time I really liked She's Leaving Home. The strings and harp are simply beautiful and real.
Non-song specific, Ringo's cymbal work is just stunning.
Paul's bass on Mr. Kite has always been a fav and now it's wow.

Penny Lane is just perfect.

I understand that first listenings usually have "virgin blush" on them but I'm seriously looking forward to the next go round.

 

[salsdali]

Within You Without You is just insane with the levels adjusted (turn that center down, way down)

surround bliss

George's voice and sitar swirl from center to front to surround and back over and over in a psychedelic/hypnotic type of trance but it's like the voice and sitar are slightly out of phase which separates the voice from sitar just enough to create a psychedelic delay

Ravers have a thing about BPM (beats per minutes) that induce a type of trance

This surround mix is the same type of thing, but it's not the BPM, it's the "swirl" that is hypnotic

I suppose engineers could call it a "non-linear circular out of phase delayed surround pan"

 

[4-earredwonder]

....and the perfect place for them to have released them as DVD-A, SACD, or BluRay (or even 24/48 DVD) was the McCartney Archive Collection Box Sets of both albums.....

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Just what we need Jon.......MORE RBCDs. A MAJOR reason I ignored both of these pricey reissues.