All 9 Steely Dan albums to be released on Hybrid Stereo SACD courtesy of Analogue Productions

[kenm]

Cocaine and cocaine accessories.

same problem Fleetwood Mac had on Rumors...LOL>

 

[kenm]

Beside AJA what other Steely Dan albums were released in 5.1 disc ? What a shame we can't get Atmos and 5.1 remixes of these great albums.

 

[bookofsaturdays]

Beside AJA what other Steely Dan albums were released in 5.1 disc ? What a shame we can't get Atmos and 5.1 remixes of these great albums.

Aja has never had a 5.1 mix, some of the multitracks are missing.

The only Steely Dan albums available in surround are Gaucho and the final two albums “Two Against Nature” and “Everything Must Go”

 

[Fourplay]

Aja has never had a 5.1 mix, some of the multitracks are missing.

The only Steely Dan albums available in surround are Gaucho and the final two albums “Two Against Nature” and “Everything Must Go”

Unless you count the first three albums in analog quad.

 

[bookofsaturdays]

Unless you count the first three albums in analog quad.

Yes very true I should’ve specified 5.1 not surround.

 

[ProgRules]

You're kidding right? Fez

I'm well aware of what a fez is. But putting on a hat is a euphemism for wearing a condom. Seems like an realistic interpretation for a band named after a dildo...

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I'm well aware of what a fez is. But putting on a hat is a euphemism for wearing a condom. Seems like an realistic interpretation for a band named after a dildo...

and not just any generic dildo, a ‘Naked Lunch’ Steam-Powered Dildo

 

[Tres Discrete]

I'm well aware of what a fez is. But putting on a hat is a euphemism for wearing a condom. Seems like an realistic interpretation for a band named after a dildo...

Actually…I had never thought of it that way…but there is a twisted (pretzel?) logic there…
I on the other hand, being a simple person, conjure up an image of a Shriner dancing madly to the song itself

 

[Paulosophy]

The issue is baked into the stereo master tape. Unrecoverable; it can only be mitigated.

That's what I thought. Although we're just learning what A.I. can do, I don't think Fagen is ready to let that into his previous work.

 

[steelydave]

Thought this was worth posting here, photos of the master tapes for Katy Lied in the new LP reissue confirm that the master tape isn't DBX encoded, it's 30ips Dolby.

Also interesting to note that the engineer at Kendun actually twiddling the knobs for the stereo mix (presumably supervised by Nichols, Katz and Donald and Walter) is Rick Heenan, who did the quad mixes for a couple of Keith Jarrett albums as well as the unreleased (up until last year thanks to D-V) quad mix of the Isley Bros. The Heat is On - I don't recall ever seeing his name associated with this album.

Given his quad bona fides and the fact that all of Steely Dan's previous albums had quad releases and ABC/Dunhill's general support for the format, you have to figure if this mix was done a few months earlier - or if the recording itself wasn't so problematic - that we most likely would've got a quad mix of this album. Maybe Elliot Scheiner will bless us with a 5.1 or Atmos mix one day and correct this injustice.

 

[JediJoker]

...quad mixes for a couple of Keith Jarrett albums...

Is it known whether these exist as discrete quad masters? I think they were single-inventory matrix releases with no dedicated stereo mix, so it's possible they were only laid down that way, but I'd love to hear them in discrete digital quad (PCM or DSD).

 

[steelydave]

Is it known whether these exist as discrete quad masters? I think they were single-inventory matrix releases with no dedicated stereo mix, so it's possible they were only laid down that way, but I'd love to hear them in discrete digital quad (PCM or DSD).

There's a case for both outcomes: in the 'yes' column is that there was a Billboard article about Ed Michel, who ran Impulse! back (and was the one behind the label going single-inventory quad) and he said he did discrete and matrixed mixes simultaneously at the Village Recorder by connecting two studios together using tie lines, and using one for the discrete mix and one for the QS mix, and he'd walk between the two control rooms to make sure both sounded good. Also in the 'yes' column is that the Sun Ra quad master tapes that sold on ebay (like this one for example) were both 4-channel discrete and 2-channel QS encoded, which backs up this assertion. So you'd figure if Michel did discrete tapes for the albums he produced, that he'd probably insist on other mixes done for the label by other producers and/or at other studios deliver both discrete and matrix tapes too.

In the 'no' column, the fact that the two Isley Bros. quad mixes done at Kendun (Live It Up and The Heat is On), the latter done by Heenan, both don't have discrete quad masters - and we know that Live It Up never did because the vintage Q8 has the same matrix-decoded mix found on the D-V SACD - so it's possible that Heenan's SOP was to just mix direct to matrix-encoded stereo and not do a discrete master at all. I'm still not sure why this was the case for the Isley Bros. because every single other mix done for CBS has a discrete master tape, and even just from an efficiency standpoint, you can make a matrix master from a discrete master, but you can't make a discrete master from a matrix master. Unfortunately Heenan passed away a decade ago after a battle with cancer so these are questions that can never be answered.

Unfortunately I think the whole thing is moot because as far as I can discern, if there were discrete Impulse! quad masters, they all went up in smoke with all the other ABC tapes (and all their subsidiaries like Bluesway, Cadet, Chess, Command, Dot, Dunhill, Paramount, Ranwood etc.) in the 2008 UMG vault fire.