DIGITAL At Least a Dozen 2002/2003 Elliot Scheiner 5.1 Mixes Have a LFE Issue (info/list/fixes inside)

[MrSmithers]

Here's the last 2 R.E.M. albums. I think Reveal is out by approx 11 milliseconds? Around The Sun seems to be closer, but out slightly still.

Is there a more scientific tool that could be used to measure the mis-match? I wouldn't want to guess the timing by just looking at it? Also I haven't checked every track on these albums, just a few from each. But I presume that it should be uniform across each album?

Reveal


Around The Sun

 

[mandrix]

Seems like surround sound has had it's problems from the start. From Quad "confusion" to the format wars to screwed up expensive box set BD's, and now to back up in time, so to speak, and discover this. Wow for sure. Starting to wonder if these lfe problems contributed to my basically seldom using my sub, as I usually prefer the sound without it? Don't know, but I'll stay tuned for further info.
Good work, guys!

 

[AYanguas]

I checked "In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003" DVD-A

First Track. Audacity Capture

Seems LFE delayed 6 ms

 

[Guy Robinson]

I can't imagine more bass on Sea Change or the Fagen titles.

 

[quicksrt]

That'd be really good. Like a separate tab or something? To have an issue/fix HQ would be cool. I have some of the titles listed as -

Neil Young - Harvest - Channel assignment errors on certain tracks
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia - Inverted LFE and centre timing issue
Coldplay - A Head Full Of Dreams - Added LFE info in fronts
Jeff Beck Group - Incorrect speed on first 2 tracks
Jeff Beck - Blow By Blow - Incorrect phasing (corrected on Analogue Productions SACD)
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - Wrong Channel assignment track 1
Ten Years After - A Space In Time - Swapped fronts/Rears
Keane - Hopes And Fears - Swapped fronts/Rears
George Benson - Breezin’ - LFE issue
Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Distuction - My Michelle LFE issue

Is that issue on both the Warner DVD-A, as well as the AF SACD Benson?

 

[MrSmithers]

Is that issue on both the Warner DVD-A, as well as the AF SACD Benson?

Yeah I think so. Different mastering but I think the low bass is still copied over from the DVD-A to the SACD? @steelydave's fix works wonders...
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...g-engineer-vol-1-george-benson-breezin.18643/

 

[Cheezmo]

I can't imagine more bass on Sea Change or the Fagen titles.

One could probably argue that by "fixing" these we are boosting the bass beyond what was intended. When these were mixed, Scheiner and everyone were listening with the same delay on the releases. Fixing the phase/delay issues changes the mix from what they were hearing. (Depending on what stage of processing they evaluated and when the problems were introduced, of course).

 

[4-earredwonder]

As I recall the original SACD of Norah Jones - Come Away With Me also suffered from an LFE phase inversion. It is great to call these out so they can be repaired. Perhaps once the offenders are all nailed down, a separate concise roundup could be posted. Thanks for your very useful thread!

It was later corrected when Analogue Productions reissued the multi~CH SACD

 

[MrSmithers]

One could probably argue that by "fixing" these we are boosting the bass beyond what was intended. When these were mixed, Scheiner and everyone were listening with the same delay on the releases. Fixing the phase/delay issues changes the mix from what they were hearing. (Depending on what stage of processing they evaluated and when the problems were introduced, of course).

I don't think that's the case in this situation. As I understand it's actually trying to get back to how this was mixed in the studio and what Elliot was hearing, and how he intended the music to be heard? It looks more like a mastering or authoring issue when these titles have been prepared to be printed on disc.

One good thing looking at the titles is realising again just what an awesome job ES did/does with his mixing. Man I would get anything he mixes - even monk chanting music as I know it'd be great!

 

[4-earredwonder]

Makes one appreciate Dutton Vocalion's QUAD SACDs with no center nor LFE to fret over!

 

[jimfisheye]

I have 4 full range floorstanders + centre and no LFE, so I have never noticed anything Bass wise on the albums that have the error. I doubt if many people who aren't Electronic Engineers (as I am) would even consider that a filter would add a delay, so they wouldn't think about having to correct for it. Hence it would be missed.

We (audio mixers) were VERY aware of different plugins having different lag times back then. It was part of "digital audio 101". Minding your different delay compensation times for every track in the mix as you added different plugins (eq, compression, etc). We were celebrating a monumental great new feature when they created automatic Plugin Delay Compensation. (2004?) Pretty sure Protools was the first (back in their flagship status days).

If this is the culprit for these rogue Lfe channels, I'll suggest a mistake was made with the delay time and not just an unawareness. Could be though. I kind of remember some people being a little confused by this.

With bass frequencies, a faux pas like this gets into actually cancelling out the bass notes rather than comb filtering than might sound like an eq move. When the bigger waves line up with peaks vs crests at 180 deg like some of those examples it starts to null.

Still shaking my head a little at catching this! The 20/20 hindsight aside, you'd have to think "No, I don't think someone screwed up mixing the bass on this collection of suspect albums here. I think there was a collective mastering mistake that's nulling the bass out. There it is!"

No surprise that a mistake like this could slip out unnoticed in surround land where we're riddled with faux surround mixes, up mixes, stereo in front and added reverb only in back mixes, and other novelty mixes.

 

[Mcallister]

Ok so I just downloaded the media music helper update (great program by the way thank you!) and want to fix Sea Change. Do I just add 8ms of delay of the LFE to each track or 8ms to all channels except the LFE?

 

[jimfisheye]

Doing this by trial and error typing in nudge values would be painful IMHO. Just split the files into individual channels in your favorite DAW and click-drag the Lfe track into alignment visually. Zoom into the waveforms as you go to nail the alignment. Then there's no guessing if you "entered the right number".

Just thinking out loud...

We have these online databases for matching up artwork/tracklist/etc metadata with CDs. Musicbrainz, Gracenote, and maybe a couple others. Maybe this forum could spawn a "correction" database for this growing collection of rogue flawed surround masters? Then people could "correct" their albums the same way you would download the metadata before ripping a CD. This could include other faux pas like swapped channels.

The other angle of making a utility with DSP to auto-align the peaks sounds like a more complex project. But then programming isn't my main gig! (More "knows enough to be dangerous" level of knowledge.)

 

[Cheezmo]

Another exception. One on Faith Hill's Cry does not have delay (it also appears to not have gone through a low pass filter). A few tracks appear to be delayed 5ms but most are 4ms.

 

[LennonCobain]

Maybe a specific area of the forum can be created, "Fix The Mix", including there all the finds done in the past about authoring problems.
One section for analog (which will be 99% Q8) with list of swapped channels etc;
One section for digital, which can include:
- the above issue of LFE phase invert and /or delay
- the messed channels configuration (example: TYA A space in time DVD, swap f/r)
- the "we tried to 5.1fied a quad mix but we did a dud" (example: Deep Purple Stormbringer dvd)
- other stuff (example: the l/r delay on the Sly&FS GH stereo track)

I mean, there's a wealth of information in this forum that is really precious; having a single point for collecting all this stuff will be important for the years to come, especially for the newcomers.

This would be a fantastic idea! Kind of like a QQ-wiki.

 

[marpow]

I don't know if I want to be in awe or ***** about this thread. My truth is I am in awe and want to be part of this great news that something that appears to be broken can be fixed. But as a member of QQ I fight for the common person. I have been everyone that views QQ from a zero to whereever I am now.
This type of news can be so overwhelming, but at the same time we have guys like Homerjau, who just stand up and say, OK, I can help you, thank you Garry.

We as music hobbyists fall into different categories.
1. Members just want to buy a disc, put in tray, and have a good time listening.
2. This evolves to lets rip and file so we no longer have to touch physical media. This can be challenging and overwhelming for many. Plus added equipment/expense.
3. Going into the next phase making our own upmixes into surround, etc, that is a fringe part of the hobby that is exciting for many and for some not necessary.
4. This news which is fantastic and should not be held back just because it is uncomfortable, well it is uncomfortable. None of us want to purchase music to later find out it was done incorrectly especially by a well none music mixer.
If you are a person who has no skills learned to make these changes, it can be very disapointing to know that what you own is flawed, still good and enjoyable but flawed.
5. I personally have put much time and effort into my hobby, equipment, room acoustics, etc and I am repeating myself, can seem I just keep chasing the dragon, but that's why it is a hobby, like building a car, the building is the fun part the driving is secondary, well sort of.

I would not change anything on this thread as Dave's information and others that have posted is so valuable. I only write out of frustration for the common man, that we have to put up with so much as MCH listeners, as someone else said on this thread, it is no wonder surround music listening is fringe, as it is just plain hard to deal with, technical, expensive (added equipment) it is no wonder that stereo remains king.

Personally I love the challenge, and believe me it is a challenge to start thinking about going back and changing all these digital music files listed and that I own. I am currently being stonewalled trying to get my digital Atmos files to play back with JRiver, almost there, just not quite.

Sorry for long winded post, but I just know there are many others out there on QQ reading all this but not saying anything just to sit back and go, what the ****, my disc is not what it should be? I sympathize with all of you just wanting to make this hobby easy and sometimes it just isn't.
Sincerly, thank all of you, I would rather know then not.

 

[humprof]

I don't think that's the case in this situation. As I understand it's actually trying to get back to how this was mixed in the studio and what Elliot was hearing, and how he intended the music to be heard? It looks more like a mastering or authoring issue when these titles have been prepared to be printed on disc.

One good thing looking at the titles is realising again just what an awesome job ES did/does with his mixing. Man I would get anything he mixes - even monk chanting music as I know it'd be great!

Also: if I understand Dave's explanation right, it's only in the rare instances where the LFE signal is completely inverted that correcting it audibly boosts the bass. In the majority of instances, where the LFE is out of phase by several milliseconds, correcting it "tightens" the bass and gives it more definition.

 

[jimfisheye]

Just for perspective @marpow, we have plenty of messed up examples in stereo too. Some consumers also collect for sound quality. (Jeeze, you know... I thought that would have stopped being a thing in the digital age! It's actually more of a thing than in the past!)
And some consumers listen to only one channel of their stereo in their car and just listen to stuff that way with no care or interest to explore further.

I suppose there could be an example where the mistake was on the mixing board (as opposed to the mastering board) and thus the mix balances are proper with the mistaken phase issue. You'll just have to listen and decide and it will be subjective! If the sub bass sounded fine out of the box and then "correcting" it ends up making it sound way too hot, then there it is.

Sub bass and how accurate by the book anyone's system is dialed in is in subjective territory to begin with!

Looking at waveforms of a sound element across more than one channel being out of sync/phase is very matter of fact though! And no one would do this move intentionally. You'd start from a place of sanity and simply adjust for the level of sub bass you wanted for a sound element.

 

[LennonCobain]

So I can't take full credit for making what I think is a pretty big discovery, but recently a user on Reddit put up a post that made a pretty watertight case that the LFE channel on Beck's Sea Change is 8ms delayed from the 5 main channels. That got me thinking because as we know, Porcupine Tree's In Absentia also suffers the same problem (I think @edisonbaggins discovered this, correct me if I'm wrong), and both of those 5.1 mixes were done by Elliot Scheiner in roughly the same time frame.

I started to wonder if Scheiner was the common denominator here, or if this was just some kind of fluke, or possibly if this was an intentional thing, like some part of the LFE creation process that I didn't understand and that the channel was meant to be offset slightly.

So because I have my entire collection ripped to files, I started going through some of the obvious ones to see if any others exhibited the same issue. The first couple I tried (America's Homecoming and Grover Washington, Jr's Winelight) were fine, but then I moved on to Donald Fagen and found that both The Nightfly and Kamakiriad had the same issue while Morph the Cat was fine.

At that point it seemed like it was pretty obvious that this issue wasn't confined to one or two discs, so I decided a more methodical approach was necessary, so summoning all of my nerd powers, I created a spreadsheet of either most (or all) of Scheiner's 5.1 music-only mixes (I don't have the interest, time or ability to do this for DVD or BluRay video) culled from the Surround Engineers poll information and augmented/double-checked with all his surround mixing credits on discogs.

Over the last few days I've gone through my entire collection of Scheiner's 5.1 mixes (I have most of them, except for the R.E.M. ones, Boz Scaggs Dig, and a handful of other stragglers) and determined which ones are fine, and which ones aren't, and for the defective ones, what adjustments need to be made. My process was pretty thorough: after importing a track from an album that I'd identified as faulty into my DAW (Nuendo 4.3) I zoomed way in and eye-matched the waveform of the LFE track with the waveforms of the front three channels (where most of the bass content usually is in the main mix) and then listened to the results on headphones - the result there was always that there was more bass after my adjustment. Lastly I checked my work using the phase correlation meter in the Voxengo SPAN VST plugin and always showed that my changes turned the LFE channel from being totally out of phase to fully in phase.

What my research revealed is that this issue started to crop up sometime partway through 2002 (his earliest 5.1 mixes, like the Doobie Bros. Captain and Me and Toy Matinee's self titled albums, both released in 2001 are fine) and then remedied itself sometime in 2003 - some 2003 mixes, and everything 2004 and onward is fine, bar some phase issues. However, not including the aforementioned titles I was unable to check, there are at least 12 of Scheiner's 5.1 mixes (across both DVD-A and SACD) that suffer from this problem.

The unusual thing is that (as I'll outline in the table below) is that the amount of delay seems to vary from album to album - several are in the 4ms - 5ms range, but Queen's A Night at the Opera is 6ms, Steely Dan's Everything Must Go is 7ms, Sea Change is 8ms, and Porcupine Tree's In Absentia (the worst offender) is 9ms.

This is a graphic I made of a selection of the "faulty" albums - the blue line is to give you a sense of time alignment, and then the red arrows point out the ridge in the LFE waveform that's lagging behind and should be under the blue line:

View attachment 63878

Compare that with a release that doesn't have the same problem, Donald Fagen's Morph the Cat - this is from the intro to the title track, which has those heavy bass notes:
View attachment 63879

(Notice how perfectly everything lines up compared to the previous "faulty" examples.)


If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering "does this affect me?" and the answer is yes, especially if you're using bass management (ie running your front speakers in 'small' mode). If you're running all your speakers in 'large' mode (ie no low frequency content from the mains is being crossed over into the sub) this delay issue will only manifest itself as a slight lack of tightness in the low end, sort of like a very (very) short bass echo, but in 'small' mode, where the bass content from the main channels is being crossed over and sent to the LFE along with the dedicated LFE content, there's a serious phase cancellation issue that will rob any mix of a considerable amount of bass. A number of the titles in the table below like Fagen's Nightfly and Kamakiriad, Toto's Toto IV, and Steely Dan's Everything Must Go (especially in comparison to Fagen's Morph the Cat) have always seemed a little light in the low end and I believe this issue accounts for that shortcoming. The difference isn't night and day like with titles where the LFE is actually phase inverted (like the Jeff Beck Blow by Blow SACD for example) because that's a 100% loss of whatever's duplicated between the out-of-phase channels, but the difference to my ears was significant - the bass sounded tighter, more prominent, less boomy, and extended deeper in to the lower frequencies.

Full disclosure here, I haven't actually listened to all of these albums with my fixes applied on my 5.1 system (only selected tracks) but everything I've heard both in surround and downmixed to stereo on my headphones suggests that I'm correct. I'm kind of hoping that someone with actual professional experience (like resident QQ mastering genius @Plan9 ) can validate my conclusions before I go modifying more than a dozen albums.

As far as a hypothesis on how this might have happened, the only educated guess I can make is that Scheiner was either using a piece of outboard gear to do his LFE channel creation that induced a slight delay, or a computer plugin that didn't compensate for latency induced by processing time. I think this is the likeliest scenario because, having critically listened to the LFE channels on every one of these albums on headphones, they all sound to me like a low-pass filtered mono sum of the 5 main channels (ie the result of some kind of process) rather than having anything intentionally discretely mixed there, like (for example) the Chycki Rush 5.1 mixes, which have full-range bass guitar in the LFE, which would suggest a mastering issue rather than a mixing issue. I do, however, thing it would be wise to look at more DVD-A/SACD releases from around the same 2002-2003 timeframe these were released to find out if this LFE problem was more widespread than just Elliot Scheiner's mixing rig. I personally haven't noticed any in any of the discs I've ever looked at, but it doesn't hurt to be 100% sure.

So you're probably saying to yourself "that's fine and dandy, Dave, but I don't have the time, patience, or money to learn how to operate all the high-fallootin' technical contraptions to fix this!" (or words to that effect) and the good news on that front is that (if you have your music ripped to 5.1 files) Forum Genius @HomerJAU is working on an update to his fantastic Music Media Helper app that will allow you to adjust the the time alignment of the LFE channel relative to the other channels. So all you need to do is point it at the folder where the album is, input the value in milliseconds, and it'll do the rest. I'm sure he'll post when it's done, but I believe it should be ready in the next few days and will work with both FLAC and DSD (.dsf) files.

Artist	Title	Formats	Release Year	LFE Issue?	Adjustment (ms)	Notes / Other Issues
America	Homecoming	DVD-A/SACD	2001	NO
Beck	Sea Change	DVD-A/SACD/BDA	2002	YES	8ms​	SACD & BDA: FL & FR are out of phase (DVD-A is OK)
Beck	Guero	DVD-A	2006	YES	0ms​	LFE is out of phase
Beyonce	Beyonce: The Visual Album	BD-V/DVD-V	2014	NO
Derek and The Dominos	Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs	DTS DVD-V	2011	NO
Doobie Bros.	The Captain and Me	DVD-A/SACD	2001	NO
Dylan, Bob	Blood on the Tracks	SACD	2003	YES	6ms​
Eagles	Hell Freezes Over	DTS CD/DVD-V	1997	MAYBE		LFE either out of phase or misaligned
Eagles	Hotel California	DVD-A/SACD	2001	NO
Eric Clapton	461 Ocean Blvd.	BDA	2013	NO		Give Me Strength' Box Set
Fagen, Donald	The Nightfly	DVD-A/SACD	2002	YES	4ms​
Fagen, Donald	Kamakiriad	DVD-A	2003	YES	5ms​
Fagen, Donald	Morph the Cat	DVD-A	2006	NO
Flaming Lips	Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots	DVD-A	2003	YES	5ms​
Guns 'N' Roses	Appetite For Destruction	BDA	2018	NO
Foo Fighters	In Your Honor	DVD-A	2005	NO
Hill, Faith	Cry	DVD-A	2002	YES	4ms​
Lukather, Steve	Candyman	DTS CD	2002	YES	TBD​	(per HaikuBass)
Lynyrd Skynyrd	Southern Surroundings	DVD-A/BDA	2012	NO
Mallet, Alain	Mutt Slang	DTS DVD-V	2016
Mallet, Alain	Mutt Slang II: A Wake of Sorrows	FLAC D/L	2020	NO
Morrison, Van	Moondance	BDA	2013	NO
Neville, Aaron	Nature Boy: The Standards Album	DVD-A/SACD	2003	YES	5ms​
New York Voices	Let It Snow	SACD	2014
Orbison, Roy	Black & White Night	DVD-A/SACD	2004
Porcupine Tree	In Absentia	DVD-A	2003	YES	9ms​	LFE needs 7.6dB boost / Center channel is out of phase
Porcupine Tree	Deadwing	DVD-A	2005	NO
Queen	A Night at the Opera	DVD-A	2002	YES	6ms​	Withdrawn 1st mix
R.E.M.	Automatic for the People	DVD-A	2003	YES	TBD​	(per MrSmithers)
R.E.M.	In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003	DVD-A	2003
R.E.M.	Document	DVD-A	2003	NO
R.E.M.	Green	DVD-A	2005	YES	TBD​	(per MrSmithers)
R.E.M.	Out of Time	DVD-A	2005	YES	TBD​	(per MrSmithers)
R.E.M.	Reveal	DVD-A	2002
R.E.M.	Monster	DVD-A	2005	YES	TBD​	(per MrSmithers)
R.E.M.	Up	DVD-A	2005	YES	TBD​	(per MrSmithers)
R.E.M.	New Adventures in Hi-Fi	DVD-A	2005	YES	TBD​	(per MrSmithers)
R.E.M.	Around the Sun	DVD-A	2005
Scaggs, Boz	Dig	DVD-A	2001	YES	TBD​	(per MrSmithers)
Steely Dan	Everything Must Go	DVD-A	2003	YES	7ms​
Steely Dan	Gaucho (1998 Mix)	DTS CD	1998	NO
Steely Dan	Gaucho (2003 Mix)	DVD-A/SACD	2003	NO
Steely Dan	Two Against Nature	DVD-A	2002	NO
Sting	Brand New Day	DTS CD/DVD-A/SACD	1999	NO
Toto	Toto IV	SACD/BDA	2003	YES	4ms​
Toy Matinee	Toy Matinee	DTS CD/DVD-A	2001	NO
Washington Jr., Grover	Winelight	DVD-A/SACD	2002	NO

(If anyone can help with the missing albums, that would be great - a screenshot of foobar's 6 channel oscilloscope (or similar) at a moment where there's a big bass hit, like in the images I posted above, will allow me to discern which albums are good immediately, and which ones are bad and need LFE delay figured out.)

Question about the timing adjustments. Are they supposed to be consistent for all tracks on the disc? For example, Toto IV SACD. The suggested adjustment of 4ms seems right (as far as I can tell) for Track 1 (Rosanna), but not enough for Track 10 (Africa). Adjusting Track 10 by 8ms seems to work. Thoughts?

 

[Fourplay]

Norah Jones - Come Away With Me was later corrected when Analogue Productions reissued the multi~CH SACD

Thanks for your follow up! Right you are. I was aware of this. But that does not mean that some of the defective versions do not circulate. Such discs can be clearly identified by us, and the fixes for them can be posted, such that if the AP discs become rare and expensive the other ones can still be enjoyed by those who have the ability to correct them. That kind of information is one of the many valuable functions of this forum.