Dark Side Of The Moon In 5.1 SACD Surround

31-Mar-03

Last January, EMI Recorded Music announced its plan to release Pink Floyd's ""The Dark Side Of The Moon"" on the Super Audio CD (SACD) format to coincide with the 30th Anniversary of the title on March 25 (U.S.) This release marks the first time Pink Floyd's seminal recording will be presented in a multichannel surround music format since its original release in the quadraphonic SQ 4.0 matrix format. While the highly regarded original 4.0 mix was performed by producer/engineer/artist Alan Parsons, this release is a remix and remastering effort for hybrid SACD by longtime Pink Floyd producer/engineer James Guthrie, who has worked with the band for more than two decades.""This was a very difficult 5.1 mix. Not from a musical point of view, because the record really lends itself to a three-dimensional treatment, but from the point of view that everyone knows the original mix so well. It is indelibly printed on our minds. We've had 30 years to live with it, and some people don't want that image to be altered. Knowing that you are about to start work on something controversial can be unsettling,"" said Guthrie.The original mix was a dedicated four-channel quadraphonic mix of the 16-track master tapes, which was widely credited as one of the finest quadraphonic mixes to be released in the 70s. Guthrie went back to the original 16-track master tapes catalogued at Abbey Road for the remix. He added a ""hard"" discrete center channel while essentially keeping intact the strength of the ""phantom"" center image, and a "".1"" or LFE channel containing bass from all the channels. Guthrie remixed the tracks at his das boot studio in Northern California. For monitoring, Guthrie used one of Widescreen Review's favorite accurate loudspeaker systems -- five ATC SCM150ASL Pro monitors and two SCMO.1-15 Pro powered subwoofers. This was the exact system I reviewed in Widescreen Review (WSR), Issue 65, October 2002 (current subscribers can access the article at www.WidescreenReview.com).""The issues with a 5.1 remix all come down to one question -- have you retained the emotional impact of the songs? All this technology is meaningless if you've turned the album into a video game,"" said Guthrie.By all industry standards, ""The Dark Side Of The Moon"" is a phenomenon. Known for its complex instrumental textures, the album firmly established Pink Floyd as one of the most innovative bands in rock history. Since its release in 1973, ""The Dark Side Of The Moon"" has sold over 30 million albums and spent an incredible 741 weeks on Billboard's Album Chart.The new hybrid SACD release will play on any standard CD player, as well as newer multichannel SACD-compatible players being sold by a number of manufacturers -- both as a fully surround sound-capable disc on SACD players and as a newly remastered CD for CD players.We will soon have a full review of this historically significant surround music project on WSR's www.SurroundMusic.net Web site.Gary ReberEditor-In-Chief & PublisherWidescreen Review

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