Larry Fast Synergy Surround Remix Possibilities

[Larry Fast]

Larry, I purchased your record in sq back in the seventies one of my favs.

Last year I had Andrew Poulain the WW director of DOLBY CINEMA PRODUCTS in my lab in Miami and was playing for him a bunch of quad and 5.1 fusion and prog rock upmixed in dts neural-x, I was pitching to him the fact that THE MOOG is the ideal instrument to take flight and do sonic pirouettes in the room via Dolby Atmos remixes. I did not have Synergy on hand but went through all the blu ray Emerson Lake and Palmer Moog solos, Andrew really got into it (manually moving the imaginary Moog pans with his hand in the air) and SUPER-AGREED, ATMOS was meant for playing the MOOG. SYNERGY and Camel Lunar Sea could be the greatest Atmos Music releases of all time. There are tools that will capture and objectivize the individual instruments even from a quad mix, they can split it into many sound objects. Dolby will help separate the virtual voicings into discrete objects that then can be moved about the room. Go for it LF! Dolby will foot the bill.

These remixes are now being made by UMC and others, IT'S THE FUTURE If you would like for Dolby to supply you with ATMOS recording kit or assistance I believe Synergy in Atmos would be a top charter again! If you need a contact at Dolby my email is [email protected]

CAMEL LUNAR SEA would be great but the entire Synergy would totally knock ATMOS off the park!

Thanks for your report about the ATMOS and electronic music experience. There is probably more to discuss and I would like to follow up with you about the ATMOS recording kit and so on. At the very least, I’d like to learn more about the feasibility of going beyond the 5.1/7.1 mixing tools that I’m currently using to remix from HD digital transfers made from the original multi-tracks.

Sorry that it took a few weeks to reply to your post. I’ve been tied up with electronic music history research at EMEAPP.org and participating/hosting elements of the Moogseum (Moog Museum) opening ceremonies last week in North Carolina. Electronic music is a natural for the creative use of a surround environment.

What do you suggest as a next step with Dolby?

 

[CINERAMAX]

OMG, What an Honor. My contact at Dolby is Andrew Poulain, the engineer that deployed atmos to the cinemas initially and now is the Worldwide Director of Dolby Cinema Products but he is involved in other aspects. During his visit here he agreed 100% that the moog is the perfect instrument for atmos music as you cannot pan an acoustic guitar around the listeners head. Please email me at [email protected] and I will introduce you to him right away and introduce him to Synergy, and he will quickly put you in touch with the Atmos Music Director the great thing is that he is totally presold and will love Synergy. In the meantime, I will email him and facebook him giving him the heads up on the introduction.

And the thing is with Atmos, the recording is scalable from very high end 32 channel systems to millions of soundbars. Look forward to your email Mr. Fast.

 

[timbre4]

I've been checking in with Larry every few months and got a nice reply yesterday. I see that he got in here and posted the reply above! Very glad to see this. Here is our catching up chat:

LARRY: "Tim—Apologies for the delayed reply. I was tied up with Moog things where I was involved in the opening of the Moogseum for the Bob Moog Foundation a week ago in North Carolina; conducting live interviews in front of audiences for the opening events, writing and then presenting the museum keynote speech, etc. Almost as involved as preparing for a tour.

Thanks for the Dolby posting. That sounds like something well worth following up and I intend to.

Separately, none of the Synergy catalog recordings are yet completed for 5.1 Blu-Ray release. I keep getting sidetracked with other projects in music, film, and technology history. And I have done a few upgrades to my digital 5.1 mixing system which makes me want to go back and revisit some 5.1 mixes I have already in progress. 5.1 mixes are a personal favorite project of mine, but keep getting eclipsed by higher profile and more financially stable alternatives.

Thanks for keeping me in the loop."

TIM: "Hi ‘Larry, thanks for the comprehensive update! I was hoping that you were busy, as you obviously were, and not having some other issues. if you’ve made upgrades I certainly understand the urge to revisit those mixes. If it’s all right with you, I’ll post a brief note that I heard from you and that surround fans still have something to look forward to in the near future.
Regards, Tim

P.S - We are expecting the Beatles - Abbey Road 50th Anniversary Edition with 5.1 / Dolby ATMOS in 4 weeks!"

LARRY: "I'd be happy to have you share my update. Surround is still an active project for me in a sea of other ventures competing for limited time. Looking forward to Abbey Road myself. Thanks."

 

[Simon A]

I for one am thankful that Mister Fast is enthusiastic about mixing his work in Multichannel. I sincerely hope that Dolby Atmos will NOT be the only format chose for his music as I know I will never invest in additional amps and speakers beyond my 5.0 system. Simply voicing my opinion without wanting to start a debate nor being thrown stones at.

 

[timbre4]

I’m not aware of any commercial audio or video releases that are exclusively Dolby ATMOS, so I think you can rest easy.

 

[JonUrban]

Thanks for sticking with this Tim (and Larry). It will be very cool if we get a new release of Synergy with new technology.

 

[CINERAMAX]

Ladies and Gents THE GAME IS AFOOT, let's all cross fingers my contact at Dolby can point LF to the promised land! This experience is so humbling, OMG!

Here is a bit more background on Atmos Music, Deadmau5 is doing it wrong, by focussing on the TV screen IN HIS YOUTUBE he is creating an allocentric soundfield, perhaps because he is designing for a concert hall, but at home, I prefer a more quad like EGOCENTRIC soundscape with the listener in the middle. My Opinion.

So excited!

 

[CINERAMAX]

I for one am thankful that Mister Fast is enthusiastic about mixing his work in Multichannel. I sincerely hope that Dolby Atmos will NOT be the only format chose for his music as I know I will never invest in additional amps and speakers beyond my 5.0 system. Simply voicing my opinion without wanting to start a debate nor being thrown stones at.

Atmos is encoded on a 5.1 Dolby True HD bed like BluRay Puremusic, it can also play lossy on headphones, itunes, boom boxes and up to 32 channel Home Cinemas. Completely scalable and system agnostic.

 

[CINERAMAX]

Hi Larry, Andrew responded to your mail with the contact person but he got a bounce back on your email. Please write to him again.

So excited!!

 

[DuncanS]

A little background: The first Synergy album was released in QS encoded quad in 1975. You can still decode the QS embedded on the latest remasters done in 2013. There was a discrete 4 track master tape made at the same mix sessions in 1975 for manufacturing the Quad8 cartridges. But, those 4 track master tapes went missing for decades. They were recently rediscovered thanks to an archiving engineer named Ed Abbott who came across the long lost reels and made 24/96 digital transfers. I’ve listened to them in my studio’s surround mix setup and they sound even better than I remembered; certainly a big improvement over the QS encoded stereo tracks.

Now it’s a question about what to do with these new discoveries. What would the QQ community want to see regarding availability?

I got this a few weeks ago, and have now had time to reconnect the Involve SM2 into my system (I unhooked it months ago to use the connectors with my Smyth A16!). So in Involve/QS 4.0 mode it sounds great! So this is the 2003 remaster and it is QS encoded. I got mine via amazon.co.uk hence why it is on Voiceprint. So it will do until we get the new mix of this and hopefully the others.

 

[kap'n krunch]

I got this a few weeks ago, and have now had time to reconnect the Involve SM2 into my system (I unhooked it months ago to use the connectors with my Smyth A16!). So in Involve/QS 4.0 mode it sounds great! So this is the 2003 remaster and it is QS encoded. I got mine via amazon.co.uk hence why it is on Voiceprint. So it will do until we get the new mix of this and hopefully the others.

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The only album from the HD downloads that was REMIXED was "Cords"

 

[CINERAMAX]

I got this a few weeks ago, and have now had time to reconnect the Involve SM2 into my system (I unhooked it months ago to use the connectors with my Smyth A16!). So in Involve/QS 4.0 mode it sounds great! So this is the 2003 remaster and it is QS encoded. I got mine via amazon.co.uk hence why it is on Voiceprint. So it will do until we get the new mix of this and hopefully the others.

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It plays great also on DTS Neural-X upmixer. Excellent channel separation.

 

[Infomas]

Just found this thread. I have a digital rip of the quad ERFRO, but would love to hear it properly brought into the digital age. And I can only imagine how great it would be to hear Cords in multi channel.

 

[curtisjnewell]

Hope we get Blue Ray 5.1 mixes soon!!

 

[curtisjnewell]

Hi Larry,

Since you have four-channel music archived at 96/24 and work in PCM as opposed to DSD, I would suggest doing an audio-only Blu-ray release. Since Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, for example, is about 47 minutes, you would have ample space to include both the untouched 96/24 LPCM 4.0 (9216 kbps) and 96/24 LPCM 2.0 (4608 kbps) tracks on a single-layered BD-25 disc. Then, this would allow for more or less maximum compatibility with consumer hardware, so there really shouldn't be any need to go to the expense of any audio compression codecs like TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, unless you're looking to provide additional content like a ton of alternate mixes or many additional tracks.

I know Universal Music were doing a lot of these types of discs, and they still are, though recently they've only been in box sets or classical music releases. I believe the most recent ones have been produced by MSM Studios in Munich, Germany, going by the included booklets.

EDIT: To be clear, I have no problem with SACD, either, it's simply that you mentioned your master files are already in PCM and not DSD, so the issue of DSD being "superior" to PCM is a moot point. If it's cheaper and/or simpler to have Quadraphonic Hybrid SACDs manufactured like Dutton Vocalion in the UK does, then I would certainly go that route. I simply picked Blu-ray Audio for Blu-ray's storage capacity, and because I think it might well be easier and cheaper, especially in the long run if you end up doing multiple releases.

On a personal note, I do have to differ with some here and say that I have no desire to purchase digital media or downloads, but I would happily pay for a physical copies of all your albums in high-resolution multichannel and/or stereo-only if applicable.

Thanks for taking the time to post here!

 

[curtisjnewell]

I'll never loose interest in 5.1 physical mixes on blue ray, of Larry Fast titles. Good luck in getting some done!!!

 

[Quadmon]

Thanks for the responses. I appreciate the comments suggesting labels, but you should know that I already own my own label with both physical and digital distribution agreements in place for the Synergy catalog worldwide. The digital side contractually is a little less flexible for distributing outside of the major channels. That is, the agreements that place my music on iTunes, Amazon Play and many others don’t permit me the freedom to separately make and sell my own FLAC files. On the other hand, I do have a lot of flexibility to pick various disc formats for releases that the wholesale distributors supply everywhere from the local hifi/stereo emporium to Amazon.com.

Organizations like Dutton-Vocalion would be free to buy export copies or license for UK manufacturing if they were interested in selling through their own channels.

I might consider a Pledge Music pre-order program for disc manufacturing simply to gauge the interest so that an appropriate press run is ordered. My studio is set up for surround production as I’ve been doing 5.1 for radio, TV and film for a number of years. Surround mix production and mastering is not a problem. I often do mixing and mastering for other artists and post-production AV work.

As to disc formats, because I work in PCM, not DSD, it’s a choice between Blu-Ray and DVD-A. Both can accept DTS-HD Master Audio which is a lossless multichannel codec capable of 24/96 PCM audio. It’s essentially the same as MLP. DTS-HD MA also embeds a lossy lower bitrate codec for back-compatibility with older players, and a fold down for stereo. Blu-Ray as a container has more space for including other stereo and archival mix content, but it has a more expensive production cycle.

Any thoughts?

Hello Larry Fast. I'm new to QQ and just saw these posts. Haven't listened to this tape in many years. Will give it a play. Always cool to make the acquaintance of someone whose music I have experienced.

 

[gvl_guy]

Anything more ever happen with this? Was Larry's/Synergy's material ever released in any disc format? I have the QS album which I bought new years ago when I worked briefly for Passport Records in their warehouse, but there is a damage from a bad press on one track. I'd love to get another copy, but was hoping for a different physical medium than the record.

I've always loved this album. I remember playing it, along with Cords on my college radio station, WBJB in Lincroft NJ.

 

[DuncanS]

Anything more ever happen with this? Was Larry's/Synergy's material ever released in any disc format? I have the QS album which I bought new years ago when I worked briefly for Passport Records in their warehouse, but there is a damage from a bad press on one track. I'd love to get another copy, but was hoping for a different physical medium than the record.

I've always loved this album. I remember playing it, along with Cords on my college radio station, WBJB in Lincroft NJ.

Yes there is its in encoded QS on this CD (1) Synergy Surround Remix Possibilities | Page 3 | QuadraphonicQuad

 

[gvl_guy]

Yes there is its in encoded QS on this CD (1) Synergy Surround Remix Possibilities | Page 3 | QuadraphonicQuad

I was kinda thinking more SACD or Blu-Ray. If not, I might just buy the album again.