Frank Zappa Waka/Wazoo Deluxe 4CD + Blu-Ray 5.1 and Atmos!!!!

[GOS]

Dad didn’t listen to a lot of music and had no tolerance for rock.

Obviously curious. What did your dad like? No music at all? Hobbies? I know, too much digging. My pappy was a music freak, and I'm certain I acquired love of music from him. Regardless on genre.

 

[Blackwood]

Obviously curious. What did your dad like? No music at all? Hobbies? I know, too much digging. My pappy was a music freak, and I'm certain I acquired love of music from him. Regardless on genre.

Nah, not too much digging. Totally fine. I never remember him listening to music at home or in the car. He was working a lot to build and maintain a business and I think at the end of the day he was happy to veg a bit in front of the TV. Golf was his hobby. Great guy (still alive), but my love of music came from my mom for which I will always be grateful and happy to have passed on to my kids.

Because I feel a bit guilty for steering this thread a bit off-topic, I’ll say this for the Zappa disc. It did take me a few extra moments to figure out how to choose the album to listen to. The menu structure was a bit odd to me. Felt a bit stupid, but finally figured it out. Don’t know if I was the only one confused for a moment.

 

[citysoundman]

It got to me as well when I saw him still limping from the attack. If you are interested, I did a radio show on both the Montreux fire and subsequent attack. Its on YouTube:

Really informative & entertaining! I had no idea Smoke On The Water was about this horrible event, wow.

 

[sjcorne]

it seems after all these years of coming across it, i'm still missing the actual point of Dialog Normalisation specifically for Music?

i can see the sense in it for Movies and TV shows but what scenario would make it necessary for Music playback?

I dunno, but the Dolby Media Encoder (the software that converts up to 8-channel PCM or object-based ADM files to TrueHD) forces you to pick a dialnorm value and -31 is not the default. I’m guessing that’s where things went wrong here.

 

[fredblue]

I dunno, but the Dolby Media Encoder (the software that converts up to 8-channel PCM or object-based ADM files to TrueHD) forces you to pick a dialnorm value and -31 is not the default. I’m guessing that’s where things went wrong here.

wow.. i guess that's why one album would be -18 and the other -31..

 

[sjcorne]

wow.. i guess that's why one album would be -18 and the other -31..

Grand Wazoo is -18 and Waka/Jawaka is -26. Every other Atmos Blu-Ray I’ve got is set at -31, except for Kiss’ Creatures Of The Night at -18.

 

[himey]

Short answer: Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar

Long answer:

As a kid, Zappa, uh... concerned me a bit. It wasn’t the “safe” sort of music I grew up with living in a farming area.

And then I saw a video on some late-nite show for You Are What You Is and that didn’t help. I did get caught up in the Valley Girl craze at the time, though. That was a fun song.

As time went on, I came to respect Zappa as a musician and leader, primarily because so many of the people he played with had so much respect for him, especially the guitarists like Vai and Belew. Didn’t mean I wanted to buy the whole back-catalog, but I thought certainly in his vast catalog there was at least one Zappa album that could be in my library.

Because I mess around a bit on guitar, I figured Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar was as good a choice as any. I kind of left it at that.

Fast forward a few decades and now I’m a bit more open to different things in music than I was as a kid, and I’m a sucker for at least exploring Atmos music... that I can actually own.

Didn’t hurt that this release is primarily instrumental, which I enjoy more than the vocal music. Also didn’t hurt that this release is so good in Atmos.

I know there are other Zappa albums that lean more on the instrumental side, but for now I’m good. I will, however, be paying much more attention to future Zappa Atmos releases. I can easily see other purchases in the future if they continue down this road. Hot Rats or Jazz From Hell would be instant pre-orders.

I can't imagine being "good" without owning a copy of Hot Rats or Joes Garage. Shut Up and Play Your Guitar is amazing too. The other two, especially Joes Garage is more of a cohesive album experience. He released over 60 albums over his lifetime so I can understand how it would be difficult to find a place to start.

 

[Blackwood]

I can't imagine being "good" without owning a copy of Hot Rats or Joes Garage. Shut Up and Play Your Guitar is amazing too. The other two, especially Joes Garage is more of a cohesive album experience. He released over 60 albums over his lifetime so I can understand how it would be difficult to find a place to start.

I’ve come to grudgingly accept that I’m going to miss a lot of really good music. I feel guilty as it is that I’m buying stuff that I have a difficult time finding opportunities to listen to more than a couple of times in the midst of all the other great albums I own and want to listen to.

I get ever-so-slightly nostalgic for the days when I was a kid with limited income and had time to get to know an album inside and out because I could only afford an album or two each month. Between having more income and streaming, it’s like a firehose of music that’s hard to keep up with.

 

[dabl]

The Alternate Mixes are great but I prefer all the final mixes much better. Frank made the right choice with all of it especially Big Swifty.

Agree 100%

My take away from the outtakes on the CDs was all the decisions for the final albums were spot on, the finals being a far better listening experience.

The outtakes reminded me of what Miles Davis would just release as the album.

I know, them's fightin' words

I love Miles, but man, sometimes the band improvs on some of the albums got a little long for my tastes.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Grand Wazoo is -18 and Waka/Jawaka is -26. Every other Atmos Blu-Ray I’ve got is set at -31, except for Kiss’ Creatures Of The Night at -18.

Maybe a dumb question (or I just don't remember) but, do those dialnorm value numbers relate directly to dbs output at our home systems?

 

[sjcorne]

Maybe a dumb question (or I just don't remember) but, do those dialnorm value numbers relate directly to dbs output at our home systems?

As I understand it, our processors at home (AVR, Blu-Ray player, etc) automatically lower the gain based on the difference between -31 and whatever the assigned dialnorm value is. So if it's set to -31, the overall volume is reduced by 0 dB. But if it's set to -18, the gain will be reduced 13 dB.

I first discovered this when converting my own Atmos mixes from ADM to TrueHD with the Dolby Media Encoder and then playing back the resultant .MLP files with the Reference Player. Once the TrueHD file is created, it appears that the assigned dialnorm value is permanent.

 

[Repel Steel]

I received the box yesterday.
First thing I did was playing The Grand Wazoo, because I know this the best. I was a bit puzzled about the low volume, but cranking it up by 10dB, the sound was very good. After ripping it with Makemkv, I opened it in MKVToolNix and removed the dialogue normalization gain settings. The result was a fine sounding file. I did the same with Waka/Jawaka. Listening it now and I like it very much (this one is new to me).
Another solution could be ripping it with Makemkv with the FLAC profile, if your player supports flac inside mkv.

 

[Quadkid]

Nah, not too much digging. Totally fine. I never remember him listening to music at home or in the car. He was working a lot to build and maintain a business and I think at the end of the day he was happy to veg a bit in front of the TV. Golf was his hobby. Great guy (still alive), but my love of music came from my mom for which I will always be grateful and happy to have passed on to my kids.

Because I feel a bit guilty for steering this thread a bit off-topic, I’ll say this for the Zappa disc. It did take me a few extra moments to figure out how to choose the album to listen to. The menu structure was a bit odd to me. Felt a bit stupid, but finally figured it out. Don’t know if I was the only one confused for a moment.

Same for me as well! Very odd menus!

 

[WBP]

thanks for the answer! It would be interesting to know who changed the order, since Frank had already passed.

Frank made all the alterations to running orders/mixes/extra tracks in the years leading up to his death

 

[bookofsaturdays]

Received this from my girlfriend for Christmas. Volume differences aside, this is a wonderful release and I still haven’t even dug into the CD’s yet.

Blessed Relief in 5.1. Close your eyes. Enough said.

I’ll be interested to see if they’ll have different engineers tackle different periods of the Zappa oeuvre or keep with this duo. I know SW has expressed interest in Joe’s Garage in the past. Either way the material will be in good hands.

Kudos to Joe Travers the Vaultmeister!

 

[CINERAMAX]

Mine shipped on the 16, nothing yet. Where is the Z store located?

 

[SHB]

Mine shipped on the 16, nothing yet. Where is the Z store located?

Mine was supposedly shipped on Sunday, December 18th from the Zappa Store. I have been checking with the carriers (UPS & USPS) daily and they are still awaiting the the package. I contacted the Zappa Store to cancel the order. In the meantime, I ordered a copy from Amazon and I supposed to get that on Tuesday, January 3rd. This has been very disappointing. Did anyone receive their copy from Zappa Store?

 

[DuncanS]

I foolishly ordered from the Zappa Store as I didn't want to miss out on it, so mine is either in New Jersey or is on the plane to the UK (the tracking just says 17th Dec. in NJ), and to add insult to injury I have paid £13 duty (at least no £12 tax gathering fee)

I saw a few other peoples posts and decided to check again, so between 17th & 22nd where was my copy lurking & how far has it moved? As far as I can guess its still in NJ!

 

[4-earredwonder]

I saw a few other peoples posts and decided to check again, so between 17th & 22nd where was my copy lurking & how far has it moved? As far as I can guess its still in NJ!
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Because of the dreadful Winter Storms in the US and the cancellation of literally thousands of flights ... Patience, my man! It will definitely be well worth the wait. Mine arrived from jpc.de last week.

 

[DuncanS]

Because of the dreadful Winter Storms in the US and the cancellation of literally thousands of flights ... Patience, my man! It will definitely be well worth the wait. Mine arrived from jpc.de last week.

I hadn't seen the news for a few days, and that is some really bad weather that has hit you over there, hope everyone is Ok and warm.