The 5.1 SACD Mix of Steely Dan's Gaucho Album

[bmoura]

FYI, Surround Pro has posted an article from their latest edition regarding the new 5.1 Multichannel remix of Gaucho by Steely Dan for release on SACD.

Check www.surroundpro.com/2003/...usic.shtml for a look at the article entitled "Tale of the Tape: The original media from Steely Dan’s 1978 release Gaucho comes out of storage for a 2003 SACD remix"

 

[hiptone]

I like the DTS 5.1 mix very much. It is a little brittle sounding with the 16/44.1 sampling rate, but the mix itself was done with care and class.

So I am glad the same guy is getting another crack at it. And for us folks who enjoy comparing different mixes, it's nice to have 2 MC mixes of an album beyong 70's quad (which was not done for this LP anyway).

Jeff

 

[bmoura]

If you check the article, Scheiner says the new 5.1 SACD mix will be more aggressive than the one released as a DTS disc.

Having heard that version of Gaucho, it seems hard to believe it could get much more aggressive!

This will be an interesting one to hear in Multichannel SACD to be sure.

 

[Cai Campbell]

I love the DTS version of this title! Yes, it will be very interesting to hear the remix on M/C SACD. I can't wait!

 

[JonUrban]

Bring it on. I wish they would do an AJA M/C SACD, and just leave the two tunes they lost the masters for in stereo.

 

[bmoura]

Well, they could do that. Or they could use one of the "unwrap" systems to make even those two tracks into surround (as was done on the two "new" surround tracks on the Police's "The Hits" SACD).

I'd vote to skip the unwrap thing myself. We'll see what happens.

>>Bring it on. I wish they would do an AJA M/C SACD, and just leave the two tunes they lost the masters for in stereo.<<

 

[DPROKOPY]

That's the second reference I've seen to missing "Aja" master tapes, and that being the reason for DTS not attempting a surround version. Anyone know which songs are missing? (There's a couple we can rule out, from the VH-1 "Classic Albums" documentary.)

If they decide to go ahead and try a surround version on SACD, I'm all for "fake" surround versions of those two tracks, since it would be a little less disconcerting in the context of the rest of the album. Presumably, there'd be a high-res remaster of the stereo mixes as well, so they'd still be there for the completists. Honestly, I don't care what they do, they really just need to get this album out! Steely Dan simply cries out for surround remixing. "Gaucho" is one of my most frequently-played surround discs, and it's not even one of my favorite SD albums. And that live DVD they put out a couple years back is one of the best-sounding music DVD's I own.

 

[bmoura]

Well, we'll see how the Gaucho SACD turns out.

As for Aja, DTS' David DelGrosso mentioned at CES in January that Gaucho came out because some of the master tapes were missing from Aja. He didn't specifiy which ones.

If the Gaucho 5.1 SACD is successful, perhaps we will see more of the Steely Dan catalog in hi rez surround. Stay tuned...

 

[shokhead]

So how does the SACD is surround compare to the DVD-A?

 

[rtbluray]

So how does the SACD is surround compare to the DVD-A?

from what I remember, the SACD and the DVDA-V are the same mix. it's the older DTS-CD that is different I think

 

[sjcorne]

Yeah, the DTS-CD has a different 5.1 mix than the SACD and DVD-A editions that came out a few years later (Elliot Scheiner confirmed this when I interviewed him earlier this year).

It's been a while since I closely compared the two versions, but I remember these being the most notable differences:

• Donald Fagen's voice is more evenly spread across the center and front speakers in the DTS version, whereas the vocal favors the front speakers much more on the SACD/DVD-A remix.
• There's a bit of drum sound spilling over to the rear speakers in the SACD/DVD-A version, while the DTS has no drums in the back at all.
• At the very beginning of the song "My Rival," there's a short percussion fill that's present in the DTS mix but missing from the SACD/DVD-A.