OTHER TECH

As for the rest of the Aerosmith catalog, Messina is hoping to do more surround mixing, but there are no definite plans. Which album would be next on his list? That's easy: Rocks. Sweet discussion: Messina and the author at Sony Studios in New York City

"Back then, the band was rehearsing in a warehouse," Messina recalls, "and it was feeling really good. So we said, why don't we just do the record here? We brought up a recording truck, parked it outside, and did the album like a live situation - to capture them in their raw state. . . . There was a big amp behind Joey Kramer. We had an extra mike in his bass drum, with all the top rolled off, and Joey was feeling that rush of air behind him. And that bass drum went in all the other mikes. So that's where the big bass-drum sound of Rocks came from."

Turning to other albums Messina has worked on, I mention the celebrated Live at Budokan by Cheap Trick. "That I would love to do in surround - although it might take a little longer. I didn't record the album, but I mixed it originally, and that was a tough one. The overall live sound was good, but some of the individual close-miked sounds weren't great, especially the bass drum. I had to do some work on that."

He'd also like to revisit Kiss's Destroyer, which he engineered for producer Bob Ezrin. "And I'd love to do Supertramp." Although Messina didn't record that band's landmark albums, he engineered 1997's Some Things Never Change and produced 2002's Slow Motion - and he did remaster the back catalog for its recent CD reissues. "I got psyched all over again about Breakfast in America. It's such a classic record. Crisis? What Crisis? is another record that would be great in surround."

Speaking of crisis, does Messina think that high-resolution, multichannel music can survive in an era of downloads, MP3 sound quality, and music-industry turmoil - not to mention the competition between SACD and DVD-Audio? "None of that stuff helps. And the format war certainly doesn't help. That's an unfortunate situation." He hopes universal players will force a truce. "That's what I've got at home.

"The way I've tried to get across to people the concept of surround is to say: when you go to a movie, the sound knocks you out. And that's what this is: you can have it at home, with just music. Also, more than ever, a lot of music listening happens in cars. That's a good, um, vehicle to get the idea of surround out there.

"I certainly hope it survives. I've got a good feeling about it." He didn't feel that way about quad, whose vinyl LP medium was just the beginning of its technical limitations. "Compared to quad, surround is a much bigger leap forward from stereo. And if people can just get to hear it, they're likely to embrace it."