DIGITAL Futzing with the HARVEST DVD-Audio

[neil wilkes]

This is some great detective work but if it is a screw up it proves labels do not check their ref copies..
There is another one with very odd placement - Velvet Underground's "Loaded" - at least one possibly 2 tracks from memory have the drums in the rear channels.....
Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" in Quad has vocals in left rear IIRC too
How can this happen? A mis-labelled asset would do it every time.

 

[quicksrt]

This is some great detective work but if it is a screw up it proves labels do not check their ref copies..
There is another one with very odd placement - Velvet Underground's "Loaded" - at least one possibly 2 tracks from memory have the drums in the rear channels.....
Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" in Quad has vocals in left rear IIRC too
How can this happen? A mis-labelled asset would do it every time.

I do think that a given album should be mixed with instrumental placement consistent from track to track when possible. But I have nothing against drums in rear speakers. VU drums are only a anchor to the rhythm anyway, may as well get them their own space, and it not be anywhere near front and center. In this case it is an artistic choice and not a screw-up.

 

[neil wilkes]

I do think that a given album should be mixed with instrumental placement consistent from track to track when possible. But I have nothing against drums in rear speakers. VU drums are only a anchor to the rhythm anyway, may as well get them their own space, and it not be anywhere near front and center. In this case it is an artistic choice and not a screw-up.

I did not mean to imply the VU is a screwup by any means, just....odd.
All the drums are actually mono and when I actually bothered to read the blurb in the book - and looked at the pictures - I can see why. The mix seems to have been done from a mix tape as opposed to original multitracks unless of course the drums were tracked to mono in the first place. I say it is odd because there is no consistency in this one. Sometimes they are on the left, then the right, sometimes phantom centre and on 2 occasions in the rears.

 

[quoddiophile]

I somehow managed to replicate what FredBlue outlined (brilliantly helpfully) above. And, oh my goodness, Harvest now sounds wonderful - with the soundstage spread across all speakers in a much more balanced and appealing way, no black hole on the rear right, and just beautiful. Took me a while to figure out Audacity - but I'm sure glad that I stuck with it. Wonderful - and thanks so much, FrebBlue... Amazing work, really. How'd you figure it all out...?

I just tried the same thing and I can only echo Cornwall's sentiments above. The recreated disc sounds terrific!

Kudos to DrPaulNG, Jim the Oldbie and any others who came up with this. Special Kudos to FredBlue for the final touches; I celebrated by drinking a bottle of Old Peculiar in his honour.

Jim

 

[zimmy]

I want to thank for the BIG help i have gotten to create an better version of Harvest.
Before i just lowered the back channels to make it sound better but i didn´t know that it actually was an error in the mixing.
After switching back and front as described on the tracks that needed it everything sounds much better.
As i had started messing with this i also followed the steps to change track 1 like fredblue described and i actually think i managed to do all the changes and i think it sounds even better now.

So thanks very much for the help!

 

[karlkastner]

Zimmy's thread resurrection came at a good time for me.

I have the JVC sampler DVD audio disc w Heart of Gold on the way. Anyone know if this version has the same reversal of front and rear channels? According to a post by JonUrban, this sampler predated the Harvest release if that matters. Now I can have the same fun as others in comparing both configurations. I had been in the fence about buying the whole Harvest DVD audio, but all the enthusiasm about content and sonics has placed this on my short list. Comparing mixes will be a bonus.

Another question:

I down mix all 5.1 content to stereo on my Oppo105, and output that to my Surround Master for "up mixing". Sooo... will the SM "correct" the mixing mistake on those tracks or just reproduce it faithfully?

Shirley there must be a fanatic amongst you who has both the Harvest and JVC sampler DVD Audios, a Surround Master outputting to vintage 70's amplifiers, and sufficient free time to enlighten me.

 

[JonUrban]

Zimmy's thread resurrection came at a good time for me.

I have the JVC sampler DVD audio disc w Heart of Gold on the way. Anyone know if this version has the same reversal of front and rear channels? According to a post by JonUrban, this sampler predated the Harvest release if that matters. Now I can have the same fun as others in comparing both configurations. I had been in the fence about buying the whole Harvest DVD audio, but all the enthusiasm about content and sonics has placed this on my short list. Comparing mixes will be a bonus.

Another question:

I down mix all 5.1 content to stereo on my Oppo105, and output that to my Surround Master for "up mixing". Sooo... will the SM "correct" the mixing mistake on those tracks or just reproduce it faithfully?

Shirley there must be a fanatic amongst you who has both the Harvest and JVC sampler DVD Audios, a Surround Master outputting to vintage 70's amplifiers, and sufficient free time to enlighten me.

Well, to answer one of your questions, I pulled out both the Harvest DVD-A and the JVC DVD-A Sampler, ripped "Heart of Gold" from both and scoped them out in Sound Forge, then listened to them, and they are TOTALLY the same. Any difference you see in the jpg below is a function of the image being compressed to fit the screen.

As for downmixing a discrete source to stereo, then running it through the Surround Master.... Hmmm @:

That's wacky! "..........and don't call me Shirley!" :yikes

 

[karlkastner]

Wow. Thanks for the rapid analysis Jon.

Ok, I will see where the SM places the sounds, following along with the thread for things to listen for. I only do the down mix/up mix ploy because I'm using one quad Marantz and 2 stereo Marantz amps in my setup right now. I'm hoping the new Involve Preamp will let me input both stereo and 5.1 from the Oppo.

Thanks again, we were all counting you.

 

[JonUrban]

Wow. Thanks for the rapid analysis Jon.

Ok, I will see where the SM places the sounds, following along with the thread for things to listen for. I only do the down mix/up mix ploy because I'm using one quad Marantz and 2 stereo Marantz amps in my setup right now. I'm hoping the new Involve Preamp will let me input both stereo and 5.1 from the Oppo.

Thanks again, we were all counting you.

No problem! Ooops. I mean "No worries" (Showing my age again)
I was sitting at the PC and the Demo DVD-A was right near me so I figured "What the heck. It's a sleepy Sunday morning, why not check it out?". Glad I could help.

 

[ssully]

I down mix all 5.1 content to stereo on my Oppo105, and output that to my Surround Master for "up mixing". Sooo... will the SM "correct" the mixing mistake on those tracks or just reproduce it faithfully?

well, now I've seen everything.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Ok, I will see where the SM places the sounds, following along with the thread for things to listen for. I only do the down mix/up mix ploy because I'm using one quad Marantz and 2 stereo Marantz amps in my setup right now. I'm hoping the new Involve Preamp will let me input both stereo and 5.1 from the Oppo.

I guess I still don't understand. Why does having six channels of amplification require you to do a mixdown to 2 channels and then play back as synthesized 5.1?

 

[JonUrban]

Anyone else Futzed with Harvest lately? Is the 2019 consensus still that all but 4 tracks are done wrong?

 

[winopener]

Did it last year and agree 100% with the correction - it does works.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Did it last year and agree 100% with the correction - it does works.

So far I know of this one and the Ten Years After - A Space in Time; which need channel corrections. I'm sure there must be others, and it would be great if someone with more historical knowledge of these kind of channel switches could start a thread so they're all in one place.

 

[sjcorne]

So far I know of this one and the Ten Years After - A Space in Time; which need channel corrections. I'm sure there must be others, and it would be great if someone with more historical knowledge of these kind of channel switches could start a thread so they're all in one place.

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...s/channel-reassignment-recommendations.19693/

 

[JonUrban]

Had some time today so I wanted to try something with Harvest. I just did "Out on the Weekend".

What I did was put the 6 Channel wav file (that had been rearranged as per the findings earlier in this thread) into RX 7 Advanced and removed all vocals from all 6 channels, thus creating a 5.1 version without Neil. I then redid the source file, removing everything else but Neil.

I then took what remained in the center channel, and layered it into both the front right and front left channels, then muted the center channel, after which I patched in the vocal only that I extracted earlier. This created a pseudo SW type mix with the lead vocals only in the center channel.

When I played this Frankenstein version back, I expected it to be way better than the "Neil in all of the channels" version, and it did sound very focused, but when I compared it to the unaltered version, I realized that it sounded damn near the same. (This all on the PC, not the car or audio system)

So I guess the point might be:

1) The professionals know what they're doing
2) Leave their work alone

 

[JonUrban]

I just tried fredblue's mods on "Out on the Weekend", since I had it all queued up, re-read this thread, and somehow never got around to trying his method.

Holy Crap! It sounds great that way. Far superior to the original and the Frankenstein attempt I tried referenced in the post above.

So, good job Adam (@fredblue), and well, maybe I was wrong. Disregard the point I made above!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I just tried fredblue's mods on "Out on the Weekend", since I had it all queued up, re-read this thread, and somehow never got around to trying his method.

Holy Crap! It sounds great that way. Far superior to the original and the Frankenstein attempt I tried referenced in the post above.

So, good job Adam, and well, maybe I was wrong. Disregard the point I made above!

So is there any consensus that it holds true with just the tracks from this post (1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7) and not the others; guess I'll need to try it myself and see?
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...he-harvest-dvd-audio.22540/page-4#post-323430

 

[jefe1]

OK Who wants to fix my copy now....

 

[J. PUPSTER]

OK Who wants to fix my copy now....

No kidding, I just read all of Adam's instructions, and that'll take some real time for the whole album