12/11/2006 by Dave from Sonic Reality - shortened by 3k characters to fit!
http://www.genesis.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=4157
I wanted to post something while it is fresh in my mind. I just came back from my second visit to The Farm Studio.
In both my visits I have been lucky enough to sit in the primo spot in front of the mixing console (Nick's seat!) to have an advance listen to the upcoming 5.1 mixes which I hope everyone is excited about (and if you're not you SHOULD be!). So, I asked Nick and some of the other guys at The Farm if they minded if I shared my experiences a bit with others who would be interested and they said "no problem".
In my first visit I had less time to hang out and listen because half the day Nick Davis (and his very cool assistant Tom) was doing the 5.1 mix for MAMA. I sat there while he got the delay just right for "ha ha hehe". It was really cool to watch him in action. In fact I am amazed at the mountain of work he has done for these to be finally done... which he said he was. In fact, he told me he just mixed my good friend Nick D'Virgilio's tracks on CAS which was one of the last things to do (I called NDV and he was thrilled).
After he was done with MAMA on that first visit he said "Alright Dave! Have a seat here. Now what do you want to listen to?"
I sat in the center of the 5.1 system that Nick used for the Genesis SACDs coming out. I forget which one I chose first but that day I listened to:
Lady Lies
Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
Behind The Lines/Duchess
It's Yourself (TOTT outtake... like you don't know! lol)
... and some others. I can't recall at the moment but I took notes (I just don't have it in front of me...)
So, I chose The Lady Lies because the whole thing about 5.1 is that all of the music has more room to breathe. You can hear each part more clearly (not just a little bit, a LOT!). So ATTWT has a lot of stuff going on in it. It's kind of dense, especially this track. There are tons of keyboards, percussion and vocals all over the place. Well, hearing it in 5.1 as I suspected was THE way to hear it! It's almost like that album becomes an AMAZING experience for having so many parts because when you are sitting in the middle of it there's so much to entertain you (besides just the song itself which I think is brill, especially that outro -one of the best!).
Dancing W/ The Moonlit Knight I chose because I think Selling England is a really great sounding record with some of the warmest drum sounds (love that snare!) but also the end with the squeaky noises and acoustic guitars I thought would be a beautiful moment in surround and sure enough it was! Gabriel's voice was so clear in that center channel it felt like he was in the room with you. In fact, the whole experience listening to Genesis in 5.1 is like you are standing in the middle of them playing all around you.
Behind The Lines/Duchess was Nick's suggestion. I love Duke (also so does Tony. Duke and Wind & Wuthering are two of his favorite Genesis albums) so I said to Nick "How about something off Duke?" and he suggested this... which of course was IMMENSE! But, this one is on the promo CD that people reviewed so I won't go on about it that much... let's just say it was as phenominal as you think it would be. The big smashing chords at the beginning are just made for 5 speakers and a sub. wink.gif
It's Yourself... okay, I go right for the outtakes and this trip today I went even more for them because I was anxious to hear them. It's Yourself in 5.1 is nothing short of an amazing experience. In fact, ALL of the outtakes I heard were so brilliant that they'd make a REALLY fantastic lost Genesis album (well, that's the archives but in 5.1 they are even better). It's Yourself has all of these cool noises especially in the outro. You have to figure that any Genesis sound that has a lot of parts and especially these quirky collage outros is going to be a good candidate for a nice surround experience. You hear something different each time kind of thing. In a way, I am glad that they chose not to graft It's Yourself before Los Endos like it may have been (It has part of Los Endos in it) because that would have meant you wouldn't hear the outro part which is really nice in surround.
Alright, now to the songs I got to listen to today! Nick came in for a little bit and we listened to 11th Earl of Mar which I wanted to hear because my CD of Wind & Wuthering tends to sound a bit thin compared to my other Genesis albums and I wonder if it is because it was from an old batch of CDs that weren't mastered or who knows but I just wanted to see if the 5.1 mix had GUTS! Sure enough it DID BIG TIME! Woah. That intro with the Hackett guitar octave gliss and the Mellotron... majesic! Then the drum fills and the bass... plus the snare had some CRACK in it. I just turned to Nick and said "Niiiiiiiiice!" I can't wait to hear all of Wind & Wuthering. It's a must (all of the ones in the first SACDs are a must-have IMHO, and no I don't get a royalty per unit sold. I just truly mean it!).
Then we listened to Battle of Epping Forrest. Wow. Again, when there's lots of crazy stuff going on you have an opportunity to spread it all around in surround and this was really cool! It could be the song where Peter Gabriel changes his voice the most and you can hear it so clear "Bob the knob across the gobbbbbbaah!" almost smacks you across the face yourself. Liquid Len... again it just made the song that much better. Selling England in 5.1 should win awards. It is one of the best sounding things I've ever heard.
For those that know me (a handful here on this forum) you know I am a huge fan of The Lamb. Unfortunately that was in a different place and I have not yet heard any 5.1 from the Lamb. I imagine The Waiting Room is pretty intense though. But, when Nick left I asked Tom to put up "Supper's Ready". I thought "Let's not beat around the bush" haha. So I sat there for 22 minutes or whatever it was and was blown away. I think I heard a mix that wasn't the final because the part before "wandering in the chaos" went on a bit longer (which I actually liked... but I actually like to hear anything different as a surprise... but this probably just wasn't the final). Anyway, again you could hear a lot of parts very clearly including the kids singing "We will rock you little snake" which kind of panned around and freaked me out! Willow Farm as you could imagine was just off the wall in 5.1! Now, I know the PG era SACDs are a little ways off so I don't want to go nuts talking about that in case anyone has anxiety issues (I do). But, the other PG era tunes I listened to were Twilight Alehouse (outtake from Foxtrot) which sounded as good as it gets for any time I've heard it (and the end jam is really cool! You can hear that percussion so clearly and the acoustic guitars panned in the back).
Anyway, I am not one of those fans that only likes the PG era or the PC era etc. I like Genesis music from all of the different eras. I've always really liked Abacab and it's rather large assortment of outtakes (would have been a cool double album actually). So, today I listened to some Abacab outtakes. Not the ones that were released on the Fourth Side of 3 sides live but two others that I've heard less of. Submarine and Naminanu. Those two songs are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD in 5.1 I can't even fully put into words. Submarine is just massive. The beginning where you hear the rumble sound in the center and the sub is ominous and then those lush keyboards, ambient drums... then it builds up, great chords. It's the closest thing you'll hear from Genesis if you like Pink Floyd (reminds me of a part of Shine On Your Crazy Diamond). Then Naminanu was the surprise of the listening session. It blew me away. It's more of a fun quirky song (Abacab had a lot of experimental almost New Wave kind of stuff going on... but I like Naminanu better than Who Dunnit personally). All of these fast crazy parts were in their element in 5.1 (come to think of it Do The Neurotic would have been a good one to hear in 5.1 as well).
Dance on a Volcano. No brainer for 5.1 It was IMMENSE! That first big chord is just worth getting a 5.1 system just for that alone! Haha. (No I don't sell stereos either... but you need to go get a 5.1 system asap if you don't have one!). Hackett's noises are really cool to hear in 5.1, but so are Phil's vocals (especially backing vocals which are sometimes in the back)... well so is everything really because you can actually hear it clearer than you ever could before!
What else did I listen to? I don't have my notes now... it's fading distant lights already. wink.gif Hmmm. Oh Keep It Dark! Fantastic. Oh yes how could I forget! Inside and Out. Apparently that was originally called "Same Old Story"! I didn't know that but I can see how. This was really cool! The whole jam section at the end was powerful and all of those crazy synth and guitar parts were in different places coming at you all at the same time... a lot of fun.
The whole experience was incredibly fun. Of course hearing it in that setting it is going to sound as intended. But even on any 5.1 system it is going to be a great experience for any Genesis fan. I truly believe these SACDs are must-haves for any Genesis fan who really loves to get the most out of the music. It's a much more perceviable difference than say the remastered stereos vs the originals. Those are great too but the average punter (2 days in England and I already sound like a g'eeeeza haha), that's the average listener/customer of CDs may not recognize the audible difference of remastering but with 5.1 I think anyone can hear a massive difference.
Cheers!
Squids
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Dave from Sonic Reality
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