He always heard that crazy sound…
Tony Visconti has been in touch regarding the sound on the David Bowie – A Reality Tour… So I’ll shut up and let him get on with it:
To Bowienetters and David Bowie fans everywhere:
When I heard the official release of the Dublin Live DVD, I perceived a kind of compression effect on the audio, especially noticeable on songs like “Sunday” and “Hallo Spaceboy.” They sounded different from the mixes I had done. This was reflected in some posts I had read on the message boards here.
The production team in London conducted comparison tests between the original mixes I had sent and the final DVD, and concluded that the sound was virtually the same. Then we started looking at the way it was being played back on domestic equipment. Whereas most modern DVD players will default to the correct playback setting for this DVD, a lot of older models won’t automatically. Even if you have a 5.1 system this would somehow effect the surround playback too. I had to go into the menus of both my DVD player and my DVD amplifier to set the surround menu for this specific product manually. The sound is now perfect on my home system.
I can now positively say that there is no manufacturing fault with the Dublin Live DVD. Unfortunately Surround Sound is still in its infancy. So many incompatible formats are available to the public and then there are so many options available in the way you can enhance the playback. As an audio professional this makes me very sad, because Surround Sound is a fantastic way to listen to music. For those of you who are still hearing this ‘compression’ effect, you’ll just have to get into those menus and tweak. This is not a fault of Sony, Blink TV or anyone involved in the making of this fine David Bowie release.
Tony Visconti
Thanx for taking the time to let us know that Tony, much appreciated. Well it seems from the message boards that there are many of you that have had no problem with the sound at all, but for those of you that have, I’m afraid you’ll have to try Tony’s suggestion and get tweakin’!