Transcription of the press launch speech that James Guthrie gave, at the Hayden Planetarium, New York on 24th March 2003.
"Good evening. Thank you all for
taking the time to come and listen to our project. We almost had one or
two band members here, but unfortunately, their schedules would not
allow.
My thanks to Tripp and to Capitol
Records. And my thanks, particularly to David Kawakami. He's far too
modest to take credit, but David is the person who has driven this
project from the beginning. He got us through the obstacles with great
finesse.
A few excerpts from the story of a 5.1 mix:
We were approaching the 30th anniversary of the release of an archetype, and I had written a proposal to EMI.
We couldn’t just re-master the
album yet again, I suggested. The fans might, quite understandably,
beat us to death with sticks. Or at the very least, not bother to make
an appearance at their local record shops. Doug Sax and I had, after
all, already re-mastered the album three or four times for previous
re-releases. It was time to do something a bit special. I suggested the
release of a hybrid SACD.
With the SACD we could provide a
disc that would contain a standard “red-book” layer, allowing it to
play in all conventional CD players, and a high-resolution layer with
room for both the original stereo mix, and a multichannel 'surround'
version. Pricing the disc competitively with normal CDs meant that the
record company could really give something back to the fans.
Jody Klein had just done the same
thing with his Rolling Stones catalogue, and I felt that the idea was
inspired. EMI approved the plan and the process of locating the tapes
began.
As librarian for Abbey Road’s
extensive tape vaults, Ian Pickavance’s archeological skills were about
to be tested. The brief from EMI had been clear. Find all of the
original component parts of ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’, make safety
copies, and send the originals to me in northern California.
By the time Ian arrived with the
tapes at my studio in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the November skies
were already quietly discussing how many winter storms they could fit
in between now and the end of the mix.
Deadlines
Storm Thorgerson had come up with a cunning plan to release the disc on 03/03/03.
3 times 30 backwards. The 30th
anniversary, and a whole page full of numerology relating to the album,
the band, and the number 3.
This meant a work schedule for
Joel (my assistant engineer) and I that was probably reminiscent of the
actual building of those 3-sided Pyramids that Storm had photographed
30 years ago for the original album cover.
Incidentally, 3 times 3 is 9
which, Storm reliably informs me, is the number of letters in Pink
Floyd. Coincidently, 9 was also looking like the number of lifetimes it
may take to complete the mix, with what we had in mind.
Technical rambling
David Gilmour had told me that
earlier generation multitrack tapes existed for each song. That was all
I needed to hear. Whatever it took, I wanted to use those tapes.
When recording the album, the
band had used a similar technique to that used by The Beatles during
the Sgt Pepper sessions. Apparently The Beatles would fill a 4-track
tape and then combine, or pre-mix those elements to one or two tracks
of a second 4-track machine, giving themselves more free tracks to work
on.
The technique was applied to Dark
Side but with two 16-track tapes. The original, non-Dolby, recordings
were made and then the drums were pre-mixed to a stereo pair, keyboards
were combined, and vocals were bounced together to a new Dolby “A” tape.
The original stereo mix of the
album came from this “dub” reel, which contained a combination of
first, second and third-generation elements.
The drawback was that the album
was recorded before the days of time code and multiple tape machine
lock-ups. Additionally, the multitrack machines used in those days were
notorious for running a different speed from one end of the reel to the
other.
Consequently, the original tapes
were never intended to be used for the mix because they wouldn’t sync
up. The combined speed error after copying a song was pretty dramatic.
I know many people who’s answer
to this dilemma would have been to transfer the elements of both tapes
into a digital workstation, line those elements up visually, and start
mixing. I just felt that a 5.1 mix of this album had to come from the
analogue tapes, and thankfully, those tapes were still in good
condition.
The musical arrangements of these
songs have such a beautiful simplicity; Uni-vibe guitars combine with
Wurlitzer electric pianos played through Leslie speakers and droning
Hammond Organs, all very often playing in the same register, and all
held together by strong melodies and great lyrics.
The way the band voiced the
instruments, coupled with Chris Thomas’ propensity to douse everything
in lots of echo, creates a gluey, homogenous, three-dimensional sound
that really gets under your skin. This is very much an analogue record.
Trial and error
We just had to go through a painstaking process of synchronizing the tapes.
This process involved learning
the combined speed error, and compensating for it whilst striping new
time code. You only have to get the correction right once, but that
procedure can take a day or more for each song. Another incompatibility
with our proposed release date.
Offsets were then required to
make sure the tapes were absolutely synchronized. No margin for error
is tolerable, as the musical feel would change.
Alignment
To further keep us on our toes,
the master tapes contained no alignment tones. In the early 70s, Abbey
Road felt that tapes would never leave their studio. Why print tones?
Future concerns of hitting the Dolbys at the right level, or correct
azimuth adjustment were just not considered.
I managed to make contact with
Brian Gibson who had been the chief technician at Abbey Road in 1973.
Brian was able to shed a good deal of light on the alignment issues.
Further conversations with Doug Sax and Jay McKnight at MRL revealed
that there was a discrepancy between European and American test tapes.
We compensated, and eventually got to the bottom of the alignment
procedure.
Mix
With most of the technical issues out of the way, we could concentrate on the creative aspects of mixing for 5.1.
For me, the approach to a 5.1 mix
should be the same as a stereo mix. That is, to try and create a
dynamic, musical mix that best serves the song.
The biggest issue is; have you
retained the emotional impact of the music? If that objective is
achieved, then dynamic differences making use of a larger soundstage
are perfectly acceptable.
The original stereo mix contains
the detail and the emotion of the songs, so I used that as my
reference. As with any project, the multitrack tapes contain elements
that were not used on the final mix. I felt that the musical content of
the 5.1 mix should be consistent with the original, so we took a lot of
care to use the same elements. The exception is a very small guitar bit
in On The Run, which I liked and put in. The band agreed.
Power struggle
We were underway but the deadline
was already looming. The mixing was going smoothly, but the preparation
time for each song seemed to be growing. The storm outside had also
grown and was rapidly becoming a blizzard.
The house shuddered under violent
gusts of wind. Horizontal snow flashed past the windows and the
previous day’s snowfall was busy forming into large drifts.
Finally, late afternoon and mid
mix, the power flashed once and went off. Joel and I speculated that a
half-hour or so should see us back up and running. No worries, really.
The power company had always been very efficient at dealing with
situations like this. Just an enforced, early dinner break.
Saved by the woodstove
That night was cold and dark. The
cats and I were camped out in the living room, as any remaining heat in
other parts of the house had long since been sucked out. I slept
lightly on the couch, getting up every couple of hours to put logs in
the woodstove. The house continued to shake throughout the night.
Day two: and the winds were even
more serious. One tree was already down in the driveway. I was heating
water on the woodstove to make a cup of tea and noticed a slight break
in the storm. Digging my way to the shed to retrieve a small generator
took a couple of hours but afforded me 3 lights, a small space heater,
and my laptop computer.
A little distraction from my
growing concern that forward progress on the project had stopped. I was
now on line and searching for a big turbo-diesel generator that could
power the entire studio. Available, but delivery and installation would
be a problem as no one could get into the area. Most of the roads for
about a 30-mile radius were now closed due to the storm. Joel was also
without power and unable to travel the six miles to the studio. Not
much point either, as we couldn’t work.
Day three: I awoke to a loud bang
that rocked the house. Staggering from the couch I set off to
investigate. The top 25 feet of a beautiful Pine tree had snapped off
in a recorded wind gust of 140mph and, probably traveling in a perfect
arc, had plunged straight through the roof of my entrance walkway.
My sense of humour was being
tested. The internet informed me that now over a million customers in
California and Oregon were without power.
There was little comfort in this statistic. All I could think about was the deadline.
Day four: As a can of tomato soup
slowly warmed on the woodstove, I considered my options for breaking
the news to EMI that perhaps things were not progressing at quite the
intended rate for an 03/03/03 release. I decided to wait another day.
Day five: The power was back!
[Pause] The power was gone! Then, finally, after a few more attempts,
the power was on for good. At last, we were back to work.
We were still missing one or two
components. Continued searches at Abbey Road and individual band
storage facilities had turned up nothing.
The holiday period also meant
that most sane individuals were off relaxing in remote parts of the
globe. Not thinking about record company deadlines.
Eventually, with all the elements
in place, the mix was in suitable condition for input from the band. I
traveled to New York to meet with Roger and then on to London to see
David, Rick and Nick.
We did, amazingly, finish in time
to make an 03/03/03 release date, but things were ultimately moved
closer to the original release of March 24th. Auspicious date for the
press launch!
I hope we can look forward to
more Floyd releases in this format. Their music is perfect for surround
sound. They are, after all, pioneers in the 3-dimensional audio
experience, and have been performing live with quad sound for years. In
fact, one of the first quad pan pots, called the "Azimuth Coordinator",
was developed especially for the band.
It's a natural progression to make 5.1 mixes of their work.
In speaking to numerous people
about this project, one recurring question has been, why SACD rather
than DVD-A? So I should probably say one or two words about that.
First of all, I support anyone
who is trying to bring a high-resolution medium to the public. This has
long been a point of contention for me. With the technology that we
have available today, the record buying public should be able to
experience the same audio quality in their homes that we work with in
the studio.
My worry about DVD-A is in the
confusion that surrounds it. I've had conversations with many consumers
and record company executives about this, and clearly they don't fully
understand what it is. The letters DVD should probably not have been
used in the title of the audio format.
Many people see a DVD-Audio disc
and think: "DVD-A, I have a DVD player, this disc will play in my
machine". Of course it will, but they will not be hearing DVD-Audio.
They will be listening to the compressed streams of either AC-3 or DTS.
As a supposed high-resolution medium, this is self-defeating.
SACD and DVD-A are high-res formats that are about audio quality. Or at least they should be.
If the major labels decide to go
with DVD-A based solely on the argument that there are millions of DVD
video players already out there that will play the disc, then they are
saying that they are quite happy for people to listen to AC-3 or DTS.
They are effectively saying that they don't care about quality.
The second issue I had with DVD-A
relates to the MLP encoding that apparently has not yet been optimized.
Quick-fix high-frequency filters on the final product, also defeats the
concept of a high-resolution format.
In favour of the SACD, is the
smooth analogue-like sound that DSD produces, and the fact that the
disc can't be ripped. That last issue alone seems like something that
record companies would jump on.
My thanks go to Joel Plante, who
so ably assisted me through this entire process. To Billy Woodman and
all at ATC for designing and building such great speakers, which you
will hear this evening. To Tim de Paravicini for all of his outstanding
studio equipment. To Ed Meitner, who’s A to D converter was used in the
transfer to DSD. And to Charlie Bolois, who not only wired and
maintains my studio, but who also re-built the two EMT 140 echo plates,
so that we would have great analogue echo for this mix.
If this format is going to
succeed, it will do so by the labels and outlets pricing these hybrid
discs competitively with normal CDs.
Major labels are viewed as being
greedy giants by a large portion of the record buying public. This is a
great opportunity for the record companies to change their perceived
image, and give something back to the fans.
Additionally, if this format can help re-kindle our interest in listening to music, then it is indeed a very powerful medium.
I remember being so impressed
when I first heard this album, and I'm still very impressed after 30
years of living with it. The delivery devise for a song is crucial. By
that I mean the musical arrangements and the atmospheric production.
These elements are a big part of this record and a big part of why a
song touches you.
The usual sequence of events for
a band making a record are; write the songs, rehearse and arrange the
songs, record them, and then go on tour and perform the songs. Very
often, the touring experience will cause a band to experiment and
change the musical arrangements. In many cases, for the better.
Pink Floyd performed this work
(as "Eclipse") many times before entering the studio. Consequently,
many of the arrangement issues were worked out well in advance.
I think Dark Side will continue
to appeal to people regardless of their generation or background. It
endures because it is about something. We identify with the condition.
Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy the mix, and I hope you feel that we have done justice to the work.
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