Hoping to create new versions of classic albums

[~dave~~wave~]

sorry - just had to add these!!! it was after all the very first album I ever mixed!! Bless you Tommy!! Such fun times!! SWTx

Tommy Bolin - Dennis MacKay (producer) - Stephen W Tayler (mixer) - Neil Ross (assistant engineer) - Private Eyes Mix Sessions - Trident Studios Mix Room - August 1976

Gold Cassette/CD award for Private Eyes, from the Tommy Bolin Archive display at Sioux City Museum, August 2, 2024, on the weekend of the 30th annual Bolin Festival.

 

[GOS]

sorry - just had to add these!!! it was after all the very first album I ever mixed!! Bless you Tommy!! Such fun times!! SWTx

Tommy Bolin - Dennis MacKay (producer) - Stephen W Tayler (mixer) - Neil Ross (assistant engineer) - Private Eyes Mix Sessions - Trident Studios Mix Room - August 1976

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LOL, I didn't know that was you Stephen. All joking aside on my part, that is a freaking super cool set of photos.

 

[Fourplay]

sorry - just had to add these!!! it was after all the very first album I ever mixed!! Bless you Tommy!! Such fun times!! SWTx

Tommy Bolin - Dennis MacKay (producer) - Stephen W Tayler (mixer) - Neil Ross (assistant engineer) - Private Eyes Mix Sessions - Trident Studios Mix Room - August 1976

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These photos look like a callback to the "Ummagumma" album cover, with each person occuping each position in successive photos.

 

[Fourplay]

Won't let me post unma gumma as a single word, auto corrects to electric moo. Funny!

 

[Stephen W Tayler]

These photos look like a callback to the "Electric Moo" album cover, with each person occuping each position in successive photos.

Never heard of that - but that was our plan - each position along with the hats!! I own the original negatives of these photos - I must have convinced a teaboy to take them on my camera!!!

So incredible to have a record of such an iconic moment - SWTx

 

[Marplot]

I enjoyed the dresscode. The person at the helm gets to wear that snazzy hat.

 

[5.1 4 Life]

I'd be so happy if Gentle Giant approaches Mr Tayler with the stereo master of In A Glass House to create a 5.1 mix.

And I'd be so happy if Eddie Jobson approaches Mr. Tayler with the masters for U.K.'s 2 studio albums for 5.1 mixes of them.

 

[steelydave]

And member & moderator Steely Dave seems to have direct contact to Dutton Vocalion.

Yes, I'd be happy to put SWT in touch with Mike Dutton if it would help any, but I think for this kind of thing you need to start with the parent label (ie Sony, UMG, etc.) and get permission first. I don't know about UMG so much, but Sony rarely let outside engineers remix legacy material unless it's an artist-driven request. So unless that's the case, or you have someone in A&R who wants to make this kind of thing happen and will fight your corner, it's a non-starter.

...and possibly an unpopular opinion (and it's only mine, I'm not telling anyone else how to think or feel) but I have no interest in surround mixes derived from upmixed, demixed, or AI-assisted 'stems' generated from stereo sources - I've never heard a single one that made want to give up my preferred mastering of the original stereo mix.

Life's too short, and the major label vaults are full to overflowing with more than 70 years worth of actual multitrack masters to get sidetracked with stuff like this. Once you've made a stew, you can spend all the time you like straining the ingredients out and separating them into their original constituent parts, but they'll never come close to resembling their form before they went in the pot.

 

[Fourplay]

I've never heard a single one that made want to give up my preferred mastering of the original stereo mix.

Maybe this will be the first one. There are also numerous albums for which the multis are missing for only one or two songs. Aja springs to mind. If the method proves to be appealing, perhaps it could lead to the liberation of otherwise inaccessible material. Worth a shot I say...

 

[Horbus]

And I'd be so happy if Eddie Jobson approaches Mr. Tayler with the masters for U.K.'s 2 studio albums for a 5.1 mixes of them.

Dangerous, dangerous, because it's danger money

 

[RustyM]

Good morning Stephen. I enjoyed scrolling through your credits on Discogs. I see that you've done a lot of work with John Bolin, Howard Jones, Bruford. I learned that you worked with Cerrone, Bing Crosby, Peter Gabriel, The Fixx, Stevie Nicks, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bob Geldof, Be Bop Deluxe, and Depeche Mode (to mention a few artist I enjoy). What a wonderful life to work with so many artist. The following three made me stop and put on a bib for drooling...
Jethro Tull - Crest of A Knave
Rush - Presto
The Moody Blues - Strange Times

Lastly, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Muse, and Thomas Dolby could be a lot of fun mixing into 5.1 and Atmos. Thanks you for your time.

 

[Stephen W Tayler]

Good morning Stephen. I enjoyed scrolling through your credits on Discogs. I see that you've done a lot of work with John Bolin, Howard Jones, Bruford. I learned that you worked with Cerrone, Bing Crosby, Peter Gabriel, The Fixx, Stevie Nicks, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bob Geldof, Be Bop Deluxe, and Depeche Mode (to mention a few artist I enjoy). What a wonderful life to work with so many artist. The following three made me stop and put on a bib for drooling...
Jethro Tull - Crest of A Knave
Rush - Presto
The Moody Blues - Strange Times

Lastly, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Muse, and Thomas Dolby could be a lot of fun mixing into 5.1 and Atmos. Thanks you for your time.

Mostly correct, although I sometimes was confused with Steve Taylor, another sound engineer (that is why I adopted my middle initial as so many people could never spell my first or last names correctly!) I worked with Tommy Bolin, not John Bolin, I never worked with Bing Crosby or Depeche Mode, but all the others are correct!

 

[mandrix]

Yes what I refer to has nothing to do with upmixing - that is simply putting the existing stereo file through an upmix plugin that does things for you. I use de-mixing tech to pull the material apart - and that in itself is not really AI as some people like to call it - you still make many decisions about how that progresses, and then you can not just line up the parts and reposition them - you have full control and editing possibilities, control of equalisation, compression, noise control, effects etc. - so it is absolutely all about mixing, not just remastering.

There are people here, myself included, that do more than plug a stereo track into a program and accept the results. Call it demix, AI, or whatever, but once you get the component parts you still have to do the mixing and whatever treatments you choose to give the music.
I would never call myself a professional. But I get results that I can live with from music that will likely never be offered in mch.
FWIW.

Someone of your caliber would obviously do a much better job, and I look forward to what you produce.

 

[somethingcleveridunno]

If you have this ability, and such projects come to fruition, we should come up with a new term to describe your process other than upmix as the term upmix has such a negative connotation in the industry. Stereo Master To Multichannel Reconstruction maybe?

What about ESS - Extracted Stem Surround, or EES - Extracted Element Surround, or DES - Digitally Extracted Surround, as a label for the technique, to distinguish it from algorithmic upmixing?

As a listener, I will never complain about a well-intentioned genuine effort to make surround from the best source available, if there are no multitrack, safety or other source tapes to go back to. Life is richer for having such mixes available.

 

[mandrix]

What about ESS - Extracted Stem Surround, or EES - Extracted Element Surround, or DES - Digitally Extracted Surround, as a label for the technique, to distinguish it from algorithmic upmixing?

As a listener, I will never complain about a well-intentioned genuine effort to make surround from the best source available, if there are no multitrack, safety or other source tapes to go back to. Life is richer for having such mixes available.

Many of us used to call upmixes "conversions", as convert stereo to surround. I believe EoH coined the phrase.