Mettler: To me, the best thing is being able to hear Big Chair in a high-res surround-sound mix by Steven Wilson, which just gives the original deeply layered mix an added dimension.
Orzabal: Yeah, he’s amazing. He had to create the new mixes before we put it into 5.1, and after he sent them to me, it was like, “Wow!”
Smith: Yeah, he did a fantastic job.
Mettler: How did Steven get involved in the process? Who approached who?
Orzabal: It was the record company. He’s done a few for them, and he’s quite well known as being one of the best. And he’s a Tears for Fears fan, so that all made sense.
Smith: We had heard of him, obviously. The record company had suggested some people, but he was at the top of the list. And listening to his work helped. We all basically chatted over the phone — Steven, Roland, and me — and everything he said pushed the right buttons.
Mettler: Big Chair is in 96/24, and in 2013, The Hurting was also released that way on Blu-ray in the High Fidelity Pure Audio format, though only as a stereo mix. Do you think high-res 5.1 is the best way to hear your work?
Orzabal: Yeah, I do. I do. I think it’s really good.
Smith: I love 5.1 mixes; I have for a long time. I don’t know how practical it is other than for audiophiles — although it could be done in the car, and you’d have to fiddle with balances and things like that. But yeah, I like it.
Smith: I think the best thing about “Shout” in 5.1 is the ability we had to separate things more. Given with the two speakers left and right, you could move things behind, and especially for things like you say, where percussion no longer gets lost in the track. With surround, you get a far greater spectrum of sound, and the low end is definitely improved.
Smith: “Mother’s Talk” was probably the track for us that was the most difficult to do. We did it a few times, and there are different versions of it, which tells you in the end it wasn’t as synched as some of the other songs, because we had to find a way to make it feel like it’s in a pocket. It’s a track that has a lot on it, and the 5.1 mix just makes it sound a lot more open.
Smith: My favorite track, I think, has to be “The Working Hour.” It was a striking track in stereo, and in 5.1, even more so.
Mettler: I vote for you keeping it in the live set. I also love having all the demos and bonus material in this box set, which really shows us what I call the Big Chair sketchpad. Could we expect something similar for the next album in your catalog, which has such an incredible level of depth to it, The Seeds of Love (1989)? Are you thinking about that already?
Orzabal: I think we know where the tapes are, so that’s a start. (MM laughs) It was recorded on an early digital machine, a a 32-track Mitsubishi digital recorder. In fact, we had two of them at one point, when we were trying to bounce about the drums. We spent years on that and months mixing it, so good luck to anyone who has to recreate it. But what is on tape does sound great.
Mettler: Well, you’ve already got a built-in mixing man in Mr. Wilson, who probably would love to get his hands on that one. Would you vote for having Steven do it in high-res?
Orzabal: Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I think it won’t be so difficult once he’s got all the parts.
Smith: Oh, yes, absolutely! Steven should do it.
Mettler: I’ll have to let him know! So if Steven does get to do Seeds in high-res, do you see listeners getting something even more out of an album people already feel is a sonic benchmark?
Orzabal: I think so. In the early days, we started mixing to DAT, and then things still had to be cut, and it still had to end up on CD. Hopefully, it should be better.
Smith: Oh, without question, yeah. To hear the depth in the production on “Sowing the Seeds of Love” — just that one song — would be great in surround, and so would “Woman in Chains.” Most records, to me, that are perfect for surround are ones that are that layered, the ones that have so much information on them that it’s sometimes hard to mix them, and sometimes hard to get the separation. And obviously, that’s easier with surround.
Having said that, “Woman in Chains” is a bit more similar to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in the sense that there’s not a lot on that song, believe it or not, but I know that you would get a bunch more out of it — you’d hear more of the guitars and different things doubled and separated. It would be so great. Once you start separating them more, you get to play with them more.
Mettler: In terms of equipment, what do you listen to at home?
Smith: I do have a Bose 5.1 setup in my den, but a lot of the time kids are listening to stuff, so we actually also have the Sonos system. They’re great-sounding speakers, with low maintenance.
