Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Dec. 06 2005, 07:52 |
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I don't know who did it, but I know where it came from - it's the same mix that would likely be released by Virgin, if they were going to.
Just like the four channel tapes of Tubular Bells which went to form the SACD, there are four channel (quad) tapes of Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, Incantations and Exposed in the vaults which as far as I know have now been transferred to DSD (that is, the native format of SACD) and could be released without much trouble...
Apart from Hergest Ridge, which was done by Mike, they're all the work of Phil Newell, and were all done for quadraphonic releases of the albums. Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn became Boxed, Exposed was only ever released as a quad album, and Incantations never saw the light of day.
A few people with the necessary bits and pieces have taken time to transfer all manner of quad records to digital formats - generally DTS, as people have an easier time of getting it to work from a CD - Ommadawn being one of them. I suppose it would have come from the SQ CD (it would certainly give the best result), though I think there's a transfer of the QS version out there too, which would have come from an LP. The SQ and QS versions are identical mixes, just encoded differently (so they'll sound different if played in stereo, but not if properly decoded). If it was decoded with a decent decoder before encoding into DTS, the result ought to be quite reasonable, and even stuff decoded with a really basic passive decoder can be entertaining, if a bit underwhelming.
The nice thing about releasing it on SACD/DVD-A is there'd be the potential for a good quality stereo mix too - second only to going and listening to the master tape in the studio.
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