Interview concerning the surround sound SACD of Dark Side Of The Moon

Q: Originally you did a quadraphonic mix of the album. How did the idea of a 5.1 mix arise?

David Gilmour: I remember at the time thinking that the quadraphonic mix wasn't quite 100%. I listened to it again recently and had exactly the same feeling. People have been asking for that quadraphonic mix to be released in recent times. We did dig it out and we all came to the conclusion seperately that we needed to remix it.

Q: How could you hope to improve on the stereo mix, which is widely considered perfect?

Rick Wright: It was quite a hard process. The original mix I think, is brilliant. There's so much emotion and magic. How do you get away from that? When I heard the first 5.1 mix, I was constantly comparing it to the stereo version: "what's happened to this?" or "where's that gone?". After a while I decided it had to be an alternative mix, just because of the format. Having come to that realisation, I wanted to keep the emotion and the magic, but where we put the instruments is different. And you're now hearing guitar notes, keyboard chords, things that you can't hear on the stereo mix. I'm very excited about it.

Q: James Guthrie remixed it in Lake Tahoe, America, while you were all in England. How did that work?

David Gilmour: We have a method in place which isn't as perfect as all of us being in the same room mixing it, but we are pretty hands on. James can mix a song and get it on to Federal Express and it can be with me the next day. I can then email him my responses. He even sent tracks by MP3 emails. The quality isn't quite good enough for proper listening, but you can judge certain things.

Rick Wright: There are changes I asked James to do, and the others have done the same. He then had to go back to try and satisfy us all.

Q: Which tracks have fared best from the remix?

David Gilmour: "Us And Them" is, at this moment, the best mix on the album.

Rick Wright: "Us And Them" is so much more exciting, without losing the magic. It was the one mix on the original that I wasn't totally happy with. I found it a bit muddy. Some parts of the remixed album sound live, we're playing so well together, and there's great empathy between the guitar and piano. Also, the girl backing vocalists are much clearer in the mix. There's a great warmth to them.