[spl23]

I was listening to this at the weekend on my new system - it's the first time I've had a centre channel speaker. I had the DTS mix on, and it sounded pretty good, but there was something a bit weird that I couldn't quite put my finger on. After a few minutes, I stuck my ear next to each speaker in turn, to discover that the vocals are mixed evenly between the left and right channels, so you get a phantom centre image. Meanwhile, the bass guitar gets the centre channel speaker all to itself...

I know Steve Harris does a lot of the mixing for Maiden, and in the past he has been guilty of, shall we say, overemphasising the bass at the expense of the vocals (see "A Real Live One", for example), but I've never heard such a bizarre method of mixing as the "I'll have a whole speaker all to my own instrument, thank you very much" technique he adopts here...

[Hungrystu]

Wow, interesting... I watched this the other week with my wife (educating her in all things Maiden ) but can't say I noticed. Maybe wasn't the DTS track though... I'll try and watch a bit tonight and post my findings.

Any particular songs to look out for?

[spl23]

It's very obvious on the first couple of tracks, but I suspect it is all the way through - I stopped noticing after a while! I don't know if it only happens on the DTS mix, though, but I suspect the DD mix is the same.

[Hungrystu]

Just had a listen to this...

First of all I tried the DD soundtrack...

Wickerman... centre speaker was guitar only, I think it was Adrian Smith's guitar. Bass seemed panned right mostly.

Hallowed be thy Name... centre speaker during the intro was just the crowd clapping and cheering. Once the main riff starts and the full band come in, it's mostly just guitar in the centre.

On closer inspection it seems that Janick's panned right, Dave's left and Adrian's in the centre which is odd as that's not how they stand on stage! Bruce's vocals are evenly mixed left and right along with Steve's bass.

DTS appears exactly the same.


Gotta love the performance of Hallowed on this DVD. My fave Maiden song, although they've got so many good ones!!!

[spl23]

Hmmm - weird. I'll have to have another listen, as it sounded like it was the bass in the centre to me, but maybe it varies at different parts of the song. Still seems odd that it isn't the vocals in the middle... ;-)

Agree about Hallowed - probably my all-time favorite of theirs too...