www.billnelson.com

Hi Bill, been a while since I posted here but still stop in and read posts frequently (and buy the cd's of course).

A member over at the QQ Surround Music Forum posted an image that Mark Powell put up on Facebook of a "2018 5.1 mix" of Crying to the Sky."

Are we really getting a 5.1 mix of the whole album in this reissue - that's huge if true and I can hardly wait!!!! Others over at the forum are pretty excited as well, and even those that never heard BBD are curious to check it out.

Is there any chance of other albums getting the same treatment? Drastic Plastic maybe?

Thx

Did you have much input into this reissue, Bill, or are Cherry Red doing their own thing? It seems to me that the ideal person to do the 5.1 mix would have been Steven Wilson since he has already done acclaimed mixes for the likes of XTC, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Yes and I know he is a fan of your music. Also, I seem to remember a Dreamsville rumour he was going to remix Sound On Sound, which I know he particularly likes.

Thanks a lot Bill - many over the surround forum are really looking forward to it!

And Esoteric/Cherry Red have now put up all the details, pre-order etc
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/be-bop-deluxe-sunburst-finish-3cd-1dvd-limited-edition-deluxe-boxset/

Ian McNabb of Icicle Works fame has had his facebook account suspended for posting a picture of the Sunburst Finish sleeve So be careful out there kids

https://twitter.com/empiresend/status/1030833792435531777

Long time since I posted but delighted to see the Sunburst Finish re-issue will have 24/96 Stereo versions of the Original and remixed Album. I alwyas felt it feels a bit closed in so Am looking forward to hearing if it makes a difference.

Interesting point. I always had trouble with the stereo on Sunburst Finish, and more so on Modern Music. Didn't seem to be a wide stereo field, and a lot of the music seemed to be in the centre - as you say, "closed in".

Probably because I was used to hearing bands with the guitar on one side, keyboards on the other, drums and vocals in the centre. I can understand a deliberate decision not to do that, to try to make it more interesting, and maybe Bill insisted that his voice and guitar were both in the centre. Yes I can hear guitar and keyboards move from side to side, and wasn't Bill using a stereo output Gibson back then? But even now, listening to these albums on headphones, so much seems to be in the centre.

Would be interesting if Bill could remember any thoughts from the time about mixing these albums.

YouTube recently sent me an early ‘70s interview of John Lennon in which he was commenting on that very thing that you’ve laid out . It was after the release of the red and blue Beatles compilations .

He said he’d been hoping the original mono versions would’ve been kept intact because “artificially” forcing these into stereo, where the guitars were on one side and the drums on the other, ruined the songs, at least for him, made them too thin .

It's worse than that, Alec. On the "stereo" versions of their first two albums, the vocals are on the right hand side, and everything else on the left

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that every musician or instrument has to have a fixed position in the mix. That could be boring.

But I am saying that the stereo soundstage on these BBD records is, to me, not as clear and well-defined as that on, say, "Dark Side of the Moon", to take an obvious example.

Maybe the remix will remedy that.

BTW, here in the UK, Amazon are asking for about £30 more for the Sunburst Finish reissue than Cherry Red are! Buy it from the source, folks.