Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Sep. 24 2005, 19:41 |
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Tubular Bells underwent several different quad mixes, actually. The first is of course the one which can be found on the original Quad Tubular Bells release, and some of the picture discs. When Mike talked rather negatively about the quad remix the SACD, he actually had the earlier 'mix' in mind. He said something like "It wasn't even proper quad, they just moved some joysticks around a bit". It sounds like it, too. In some places it works ok, but in others, it definitely sounds like they're struggling to turn a stereo mix into quad (mostly by panning the whole mix around the speakers! ). I think its redeeming feature is the flying plane sequence at the end (which not all editions have), where the sense of the large space it was recorded in is pretty amazing...of course, the model plane whizzing round and round is quite silly, but hey, why not?
I believe the 'mix' was done at Abbey Road.
A couple sections were remixed by Alan Parsons in 1975 for the quad demo disc Quadrafile. Those were properly remixed from the multitrack, under the supervision of Tom Newman.
Then came Boxed, which I suppose is the most widely heard of the quad versions of Tubular Bells. I think it was nicely done, and might well be my favourite version of the album.
I don't personally have anything against Hergest Ridge as a quad mix, though it's fairly subtle. I think it's a nice album to be enveloped by.
Ommadawn is of course slightly unusual in having been available in both SQ and QS versions (and if we count all his quad releases together, Mike is actually one of the few artists whose work was released in both SQ, QS, CD-4 and UD4, albeit in different parts of the world. No one album of his was ever issued on all four formats, as far as I know). They're identical, and the single-album quadraphonic Ommadawn releases are completely the same as the Boxed mix (contrary to popular myth - unless of course, there was more than one QVQS2043 with different mixes on each, which I doubt).
I think the Ommadawn mix was very well done, and I see absolutely no need at all for the album to be remixed for 5.1. I find that it's very tastefully done, providing movement all around, without going for the full-on carousel approach.
Exposed is superb. I've heard quad fans talk lovingly about Santana's Lotus live album, but I think Exposed more than holds its own against that one. My absolute favourite part is as Incantations Part 4 comes to an end, with the Queen and Huntress song and the buildup to it. The sense of ambience when the crowd start clapping along is lovely, and the whole thing sounds huge to me.
I think in general, if I had to pick one out of all of the quad mixes to be released in a modern multichannel format, Exposed would be the one, simply because I think it expands the album the most. Exposed was of course mixed explicitly with quad in mind, rather than being remixed later, so I think it's rather a compromise situation when having to play it in stereo (as the vast majority of people do). I think the extra movement makes it a lot more exciting.
However, the most interesting of all would have to be Incantations, which never saw the light of day. A digital remaster waits for Virgin to give the go ahead to release it, though. Perhaps in their current mood, that time will come before they hand Mike's back catalogue over to Mercury. We can hope, at least.
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