An early review of upcoming Genesis 5.1 mixes!

Hi. I am new to this forum but someone told me about it and it seemed to be a great place to talk about this. I just came back from my second visit to Genesis' recording studio called "The Farm Studio" in Surrey, England. The short version of how that happened is that I produce the sound collections that are in music software that Nick Davis, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins and many other musicians use. (Longer description of all that found either on our company's myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/sonicreality or on our website: http://www.sonicreality.com or http://www.kvraudio.com where we have our own company forum there for Sonic Reality/esoundz.com).

In both my visits I have been lucky enough to sit in the primo spot in front of the mixing console to have an advance listen to the upcoming 5.1 mixes of the entire Genesis catalog that are being released soon.

Here are my impressions.

In my first visit I had less time to hang out and listen because half the day Nick Davis (along with 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 he he". 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 "Calling All Stations" which was one of the last things to do (I called NDV and he was thrilled. I used to play with Nick and he works with Sonic Reality now. He also fronts the band "Spock's Beard" if you know them). Anyway, I sense a major digression possible on this subject so I will move back to the o'l "impressions of the 5.1s" that I was talking about.

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 know, this is what you might call "the royal treatment". The ideal situation to be able to check them out. I sat in the center of the 5.1 system that Nick used for the remixing of the Genesis SACDs coming out. I forget which song I chose first but that day I listened to:

The Lady Lies
Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
Behind The Lines/Duchess
It's Yourself (Trick of the Tail outtake... I love to hear the outtakes)
... and some others.

So, I chose The Lady Lies because the whole thing about 5.1 that I like 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 "And Then There Was Three" 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 With The Moonlit Knight" I chose because I think Selling England By The Pound 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. Of course that is the whole point of a 5.1 mix. It's just that Nick did a really fine job with it and I am really glad that the band decided to do their entire catalog this way! I wish more bands would.

Behind The Lines/Duchess was Nick's suggestion to listen to. 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! The big smashing chords at the beginning are just made for 5 speakers and a sub. The word FAT comes to mind. Tony did a lot of orchestral emulation with Prophets and Arps on this record. You can hear it so much better in 5.1 where it is separated out. Also the vocal tracks are more agressive for Phil and at the same time he has those soft harmonies. It works so much better in 5.1 where you can hear each part more clearly.

"It's Yourself"... okay, I go right for the outtakes and on this trip 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. It's Yourself has all of these cool noises especially in the outro, sort of Beatlesque. 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. Although I may make my own edit of it doing that just to hear that experience (musicians you can do that you know with Wavelab... hehe... not to mention with the 5.1's you can even practically mix the parts, do karaoke mixes and pretend you're Phil or Pete... all kinds of interesting fun that you're not supposed to do but in the privacy of your own home go at it!!!! haha... unofficial suggestion of course).

Alright, now to the songs I got to listen to the second visit! 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 wondered if it was because it was from an old batch of CDs that weren't mastered well 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 violins... majesic! Then the drum fills and the bass... plus the snare had some CRACK to it. I just turned to Nick and said "Niiiiiiiiice!" (like Kevin in The Office) 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).

Then we listened to Battle of Epping Forest. 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. Liquid Len-ah with his smash bottle men!... 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.

When Nick left I asked Tom, his assistant, to put up "Supper's Ready". I thought "Let's not beat around the bush" haha. So I sat there for 22 minutes 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 like to hear anything different as a surprise... however 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) and I think there were a few others too that I can't recall at the moment.

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, I made sure I listened to some Abacab outtakes. Not the ones that were released on the Fourth Side of 3 sides live (which I also like) 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 that is similar to Pink Floyd (reminds me of a part of Shine On You 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. I'd have rather seen some of the outtakes replace some of the tracks on the album). 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 HUGE! That first big chord is just awesome and exploding. 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 rear speakers)... well so everything sounds so much better really because you can actually hear it clearer than you ever could before!

Keep It Dark! Fantastic. I am working on a cover of that with Simon Collins actually but I won't digress (shameless plugs). But "I wish that I could really tell you" about it.

"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 is rare. 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 anyone who likes Genesis and 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. So, I hope that not only audiophiles get it but also anyone (even people that feel the incentive to pick up one of the Sony or other 5.1 systems you can get for not too much these days). I hope these are successful though because if they are then they may move on to do the Genesis live albums in 5.1 That would be just awesome. Some bands are just MADE for 5.1 music and I think Genesis is definitely one of them.

I can also give my impressions of the promo disc which I have heard in my own studio. They gave it out at a press conference and it has Turn It On Again, Dodo/Lurker, Follow You Follow Me, One For The Vine, Behind The Lines, Los Endos, Many Too Many, Your Own Special Way on it. Again, it's all really brilliant. I give it every thumb up I have, including my big toes. I highly recommend them even if you are new to some of the Genesis albums of this era. In my opinion it is THE WAY to experience their music.

How's that for my first post?

Cheers!

Squids

 

When he of the "Mighty Wurlitzer" speaks, we listen. Thanks, Dave. Can't wait to hear these myself and indeed "Wind and Wuthering" ought to be just spectacular.

 

Haha. Wow, that is perhaps the best reception to a first post I could possibly ask for. Very esoteric! That is actually one of my favorite KG songs and I like the live version best (no not because I am mentioned in it). Also, a bit of side esoteric knowledge, the middle section of Joytown live was partially my idea. Kevin and I were talking and I said "let's just go somewhere else with this completely" and we went into a sort of Genesis "Waiting Room" kind of thing which was so unexpected that it really got everyone's attention. Then when we went back into "Joytown" verses the audience participation went up a few notches. Apparently there is a DVD vid of this performance but I don't have it. I think I can get it though and I'd like to see it. This was a really good show! I remember it well.

It would be cool to mix that show in 5.1 as well as Shaming and our one off performance of The Lamb. What a lot of people don't know is that it was recorded unusually well for a live one time gig. Kevin was close with Bill Botrell who surprised us all by coming at the last minute to mix the live sound.

I was going to post some links to tunes but I have to go to a company party actually. But will be back. Thanks for that post though. Made my day.

Cheers.

Dave

PS. I was at Oceanway when they did Spilt Milk. Just down the hall in fact. Good stories there as well. Great album.

 

That's my favorite album (next to Revolver). I'd love to hear some stories.

Glad to have you here!

 

Welcome and thanks for the great post, Dave! You have definitely come to the right place!

 

Welcome squids! Thanks for choosing us to spill the beans to. We are salivating for these discs, and although you got to hear them in a mixing room, we'll be just tickled to get them into our home systems, wallow in them, then dissect every little minute detail. I'm sure there are as many of us who are thrilled to have the hi-res, as the surround.

Feel free to hang around awhile - you'll find a lot of the pro's check in.

 

Squids, you're my hero I'm a HUGE Genesis fan and reading your reviews just sent chills up my spine! I can't wait for the catalog to get reissued. I see you're from Miami. I'm just up the road a piece in Tamarac. I have store called CD Heaven. Welcome to the best place online to talk anything audio and video!

SeeeeeeeeeeeeYa, Bruce

 

I have just touched myself

 

Damn these sound right up my alley!

Great review Dave, now I'm salivating to hear them all.

 

I have been a Genesis fan since 1971 and have all the remastered german cd's from the early 90's I believe. My fav is The Lamb, with SElling England and Foxtrot a close 2nd and 3rd. I met Steve Hackett in Toronto years ago when his "Cured" album was released. Great guy, very friendly and open to talking about his Genesis years. His personal fav of Genesis is Wind & Wuthering (at least at that time it was) and we talked about the romantic nature of the music, melodys and especially those awesome arrangements that are actually quite unique to that particular album.

I look forward to hearing the 5.1 out of curiosity, but my feeling still is that reprocessed sound as compared to the original 2 channel mix down, is just that, reprocessed and reinvented as it were. It's reimagined and has little to do with what the original engineering intentions were. I say let the 2 channel image works it's magic. Let the musical sound stage speak for itself rather than forcing a new perspective which frankly makes no logical sense when you listen to it. I mean, a drum kit high hat should be in front of you not behind and to the left. My overall fav is The Lamb which sounds pretty good remastered as it is.

The best engineered Genesis album is what, probably Abacab right? Selling England sounds great, ...and then there were three is another. What's with the tweaking people, leave well enough alone. I would have loved to visit The Farm though. That must have been a real treat. Now, let's just convince the band to reform a do a tour!

 

I have the "Naminanu" and "Submarine" 45's, love both tracks. Am eagerly awaiting hearing those tracks, AND "Keep it Dark" and "Whodunnit" in 5.1.

 

Would love to read some of those if they are fit for public consumption. Having heard Roger Manning's new solo record, its now very clear where his influences got into the music. Especially in the ideal-childhood imagery.

 

I'm really curious to hear "No Reply At All." It would strike me that those punchy horns and cool piano part would lend themselves to surround treatment. "Dodo/Lurker" ought to be good as well.

I never got the 2nd box set, so the bonus tracks will just be icing on the cake.

 

I am really looking forward to Duke in 5.1. It really holds a special place in my heart. Hopefully the surround mix can open up the goopy sound of Polar Studios.

 

Welcome, Squids! It's really kinda thrilling to have someone on board who is (and has been) that close to the inside AND still be as big of a fan as the rest of us. Too often I have this image of the modern day music industry worker bee, whose most interesting story is a breathlessly recanted, "Omigod, I can die happy, I actually saw Britney and Justin IN THE SAME ROOM!!!" Seeing someone who realizes the historic impact of being able to say they were down the hall from the Spilt Milk sessions is pretty f*@#ing cool, no doubt.

As with Mr. Tate, I'm guessing we'll be pumping you for some Jellyfish stories as well, and whatever other chestnuts of lore or oracle you can grace us with.

Again, welcome!

 

Man this gets more and more excited to hear these mixes myself. Can't wait.
I'm totally looking forward to "Firth of Fifth" in 5.1, sigh, *drool*.

thanks for sharing this news and such Dave and welcome to the board!

 

Wow thanks for the warm welcome. I will try to reply in general to the variety of posts post my post. First of all to the person touching yourself... I only pray you are female is all. Just kidding.

To anyone wondering if there's any point in revisiting the material... here is how I look at it. Yes the classic stereo recordings have their art preserved as they are. For years we've gotten to know them well and they still can be considered the definitive version of the album. Those albums had engineers, producers and the band's statement at the time, recorded with intentions of being stereo. They had no idea then that the vocal track would be SOLO down the center channel or that some of the mistakes that get covered up by stereo layers would be more evident when spread out amongst 5 speakers. Although actually this is one of the aspects of this material in 5.1 that I love. It isn't perfect! You can hear these things and it feels like you have the actual multitracks in your hands... I mean you can even change the balance of the mix, bring up the vocal track, just too much fun! So, I say WHY NOT??? Does it hurt anyone to do it? It's not like it is replacing the classic stereo versions. It's something else. But, something incredible I think for any fan of the music because you hear everything so clearly and in spacial positioning that is very pleasing to the ear.

Anyway, if someone took the multitracks and did a gimmicky mix of it with everything flying around (panning between the speakers) of they made it sound cold and digital then maybe that would be something to worry about. But, Nick Davis did a REALLY good job here! In my opinion he struck the right balance of being faithful to the original yet also enhancing it for the 5.1 experience. The word "tasteful" comes to mind. I think very few fans will be disappointed. In fact, in my personal opinion it is such a fantastic balance of great analog recorded sounds and modern mixing that is rare to hear at all! So, I am 110% for it. Although I understand that it isn't for everybody... just almost everybody! Haha.

I will do a separate post about the Jellyfish stories etc.

 

Okay, regarding the comment about me being in the music industry but not forgetting to be a fan of the music... yes, this something I've managed to preserve since childhood and I think it is important fuel to enjoy what you're doing to the max. I remember when I went to a Tears for Fears concert (actually with Kevin Gilbert a week before he died) to see Nick D'Virgilio play with them. I was really impressed with the show! Afterward I ended up talking to someone from the other part of the music industry, the label side, and I said "So what did you think of the show?" thinking he'd say it was awesome and he said "Oh I've seen so many shows I really don't care." I thought to myself HOW DEPRESSING IS THAT???? What's the point? Why even be in this industry if you don't love it?

If you go to our myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/sonicreality and be-friend us then you can read the first blog I did where I talk about how I got into making samples of instruments. The short version is when I was young I was blown away by seeing a Genesis video where Tony Banks was surrounded by keyboards. I thought he could make any sound of the orchestra with that set up so I always wanted one just like it. As it turned out the reality was that "synthesizers", unlike what the salesman at Radioshack told me when he sold me my first synth which was the Reaslistic Moog MG-1!, could not "synthesize" ANY SOUND OF YOUR IMAGINATION! Haha. So, it wasn't until samplers became 16 bit stereo and powerful enough to do it. I've been on a mission since the Akai S1000 came out to "sample everything" and to offer keyboardists and midi musicians what I thought Tony could do in the 70's which is play ANY SOUND of the orchestra or any instrument sound period. The irony is that Tony can now play any sound of the orchestra or almost any other instrument sound and he actually does that with samples from Sonic Reality now with products like Sonik Synth 2 (and his hardware gear as well of course). If you want info on that btw click here
I was really glad I got to tell him this. He loved the story and had no idea I was even a Genesis fan I think, let alone influenced in this particular way.

Hey, here's a picture of me sitting in the middle of Tony's new keyboard set up for the upcoming tour... oh by the way someone mentioned they wished they'd get together for a tour. They are! I got to watch the rehearsals recently and it was absolutely incredible to see. I talk about all of this in the first SR blog on the myspace thing so feel free to check that out if it is of interest.

 

Okay, my Jellyfish story. I know a lot of the people on Spilt Milk now but I didn't back then. Lyle Workman and Roger Manning are long time friends, I've talked to Andy on the phone ironically because he's bought a bunch of Sonic Reality products in the past like Vintage Timetraveler and American Heartland. Although I did know Jon Brion who I first met when he hired me to help with Mellotrons on the Aimee Mann record "Whatever". That was at Tony Berg's studio and a cool story itself. But, my Spilt Milk story goes like this...

While I didn't know the band members of Jellyfish at the time I did know their engineer Jack Joselph Puig. He was working on the album in his studio at Oceanway (which is incredible by the way, he has the only Focusrite console I think and his outboard gear is "oven knob central" - that means lots of tube gear haha. I have a picture of it somewhere actually if you want to see). At the same time I was working with T-Bone Burnette in Studio B on a Sam Phillips album "Matinis & Bikinis" (or maybe it was the album before that actually... getting my time-lines mixed up it has been so long). Anyway, I liked Jellyfish Bellybutton and when I walked by Jack's studio he grabbed me and said "Dave! Come in here and listen to this!". Jack is really hyper, talks very fast and you just have to sit back and listen. But he's done so many great records, has such esoteric tastes in gear... you can really learn a lot hanging around him. Anyway, he sat me down in the sweet spot (again, I have gotten really lucky on these listening situations in the studio) and put "All is Forgiven" on FULL BLAST! It was so powerful it blew me away (picture me looking like the guy in the old Memorex ad with his hair blown back in the seat! haha). Those big Queen-like vocals. It was amazing. Actually I think he played me "Hush" also which was a vocal masterpiece. I've always loved their voices and in fact I even sampled Roger Manning doing a lot of Beach Boy-esque oohs and ahs which are in Sonik Synth 2 and a refill we did for Reason called "Vocal Textures" (also has samples of Jason Scheff from Chicago and some other great singers). We sampled Lyle Workman as well actually. But this was later on when I got to know them. I think I met Lyle through Kevin Gilbert because we've both played with Kevin. I forget how I met Roger but I am sure it was vintage keyboard related. I've sold him a lot of my old keyboards and I helped them out with the Moog Cookbook. Brian Kehew (who was Jon Brion's roomate at the time) I also knew so I might have met Roger through him. It's all interconnected!

Anyway, that's my story. It's not nearly as cool as me walking into the room with all of the instruments from the picture inside the album. Isn't that picture just GEAR LUST HEAVEN? That was actually a staged shot, not the actual sessions I don't think. But, I did bring about 8 keyboards over to Sound City where JJP recorded The Black Crowes and (I should have taken a picture actually -what was I thinking???) it looked just like that Jellyfish picture in the studio... except with candles and a lot of "sweet smoke" everywhere. But there was every instrument you ever wanted - vintage keys, guitars, amps... in fact, this was one of the inspirations I had for making plug-ins as well where the sounds have modeled effects (guitar amps, tube gear etc.) as part of the sound and still tweakable. That's why Sonic Reality hooked up with IK Multimedia because SampleTank had that possibility.

To quote The Big Lebowski "Well, that about wraps 'er up! That about does 'er." Hope you liked the story. While I don't have pictures from either of those sessions I can close with a nice picture of one of the racks in Oceanway. Talk about outboard gear to drool over...

 

I've been to your store actually. Small world!

 

Squids, marvelous to have you aboard the forums! I've read your posts on the Keyboard forums before, and love hearing the inside poop on heroes like Kevin, and now Genesis & Jellyfish tales?! Too cool. (I've sent a Friend Request on MySpace, BTW.)

 

Jack Joseph Puig, Kevin Gilbert, Jellyfish, Jon Brion... That's royalty to me. As far as I'm concerned you might as well be talking about the Beatles. You and I are going to become good buddies.

Glad to have you here!

I actually called Jack Puig once to ask him a few questions about the drum sound on Spilt Milk. He was very kind and talked with me for over an hour.

 

Cool, Now you'll just have to bring by some of this stuff for me to listen to and drool over.

SeeeeeeeeeeYa, Bruce

 

Those are some very talented people. I've learned a lot from them. Each one is rather eccentric actually come to think of it. Jon is perhaps a genius. I met him when he was working on that Aimee Mann record (at the time she was his gf I believe) and he hadn't yet moved out to LA yet and worked on all those records. But in the studio he knew exactly what he wanted and I remember Tony Berg's engineer (hovering over a nice API console btw) looking at Jon like "Who the heck are you?" and without saying you got this "I'm Rick James bitch!" vibe from Jon. A sort of confidence and tenacity that you had to admire. I too was thinking "Hmmm. This is my kind of person!".

 

Jon's mother was the secretary in our residential area while I was in college. She used to bring in whole cassettes of these 30 second-to-90 second demos that were basically building blocks for pop songs. This was around 1989 or 1990. They were really lo-fi, but pretty inventive. I wish I had dubbed a copy and saved it at the time.