HiRez Poll R.E.M. - GREEN [DVD-A]

Please post your comments, thoughts and observations.......

Not bad for a surround retro-fit. Not great but not bad at all. Quite enjoyable overall but you can tell the surround mix is limited by the choice of surround tracks available. I give it a 7.

This one really disappointed me. Probably the weakest of the batch. As I mentioned elsewhere, the "feel" of some of these tracks is so different from the original stereo mixes almost to the extent that they feel like different takes (although I know they're not). The drum sound, in particular, suffers considerably.

And the mix of "Stand" is still messed up (as it was on the "Best Of" DVD-A).

I must say that I'm not a big R.E.M. fan so I'm at something of a disadvantage here. "Green" is the only title I'm even remotely familiar with. I did enjoy it but could tell the surround mix is hurting. I'm being nice by attributing this to multi-track choices since this was not originally conceived for surround-sound. But in reality, I have not clue...

Well, none of their albums were really conceived for surround, and some of the later albums come across much better than this one did, so I'm not sure what went wrong here. I'd even go so far as to say that "Document" (which is older) comes off a bit better, although I'm not a big fan of that surround mix either.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Green disc on DVD Audio. Glad I bought it.

Green isn't my favorite R.E.M. album to begin with, but I think the album works pretty well in surround sound. Stand and World Leader Pretend are R.E.M. classics. Though the mix isn't as good as some of the other R.E.M. albums, it's R.E.M. in surround and the sonics are good. I give it a 9.5, rounded up to 10.

Yeah, pretty hard to get too excited here. A few years ago I found myself really listening to it a bit and was quite happy that it got the dvd-a treatment. When I got it I was a bit dissapointed, it just didn't seem like much of an improvement over the cd. I pulled it out for a few listens over the last month or so and my impression is that it's a nice disc to have - sounds pretty good, mix is fine and there are some really good songs here. I just don't think REM is the best music for surround. My favorite album of theirs is Murmur, I really like very song on the disc - but it probably wouldn't be all that impressive in surround. Not that I hope somebody like Elliot Scheiner doesn't try to prove me wrong.

When I acquire a disc with a discrete surround mix of already familiar music, I am hoping to re-discover the music. REM Green is extremely enjoyable and reveals all kinds of treats in the mix that I had never noticed before despite the countless times I've listened to these tracks. I love this one.

bg

Wonderful, discrete mix by Elliot of a great album by the boys from Athens (who are unfortunately no longer together).

Kinda of a mix between Document and Out of Time with elements of their earlier IRS albums as well.

World Leader Pretend, Orange Crush, Turn You Inside-Out, and I Remember California are all standouts!

Another Elliott Scheiner classic! I remember borrowing 'Green' from my local library and incurring huge late return fees, such was my love of it. Listening now in hi-res multi-channel, it still sounds fresh, relevant and vibrant, perhaps more so. A great collection of songs enhanced by a superb mix from a master of the art of 5.1.

10.

One of their better efforts.


Mix/Sonics.: 9
Music: 7.5

Listening to it now. What does ES have against Mike Mills' backing vocals? There seems to be a common theme throughout some of this series in that prominent parts from the stereo mix (be it guitar, or backing vocals) are sometimes plain missing from the mix making it sound sparse and under produced. Was there some kind of error from mixing to producing the files that lead to elements going astray, or the timing error on "Try Not To Breathe" on Automatic? World Leader Pretender is the first one so far on this play though that doesn't disappoint, although stangely Mike's b/vox are too high in this track, and are jarring by their presence rather than their absence. Get Up and Stand lose so much in these mixes. Pop Song '89 is okay, but there's a vocal effect from front to back/back to front that doesn't work for me at all.

Pop Song '89: okay
Get Up: poor - over basic sounding
You Are The Everything: excellent
Stand: poor - the first note has wonky timing, and the "Stand!" part has a vocal chorus alongside it, rather than instrumental.
World Leader Pretend: good
The Wrong Child: very good
Orange Crush: generally okay, but the vocals on the OOOOOOOOO part are over prominent/isolated, and the track sounds a bit basic. The military section and vocals work well
Turn You Inside-Out: okay, some good ideas, but still sounds way too sparse and unfinished. Mike's vocals mixed badly again.
Hairshirt: excellent - Michael's vocals really clear, but not over isolated nor over present in the mix.
I Remember California: good
11th Untitled Song: good

The authoring is annoying too. I'm currently using the DVD-V layer (player set up that way now to avoid LFE bug affecting some discs) and there's not enough gap between the end of the album and the annoying menu music. Also, the DTS track starts too early, clipping off the beginning of track 1 when selecting directly. 11th Untitled cannot be accessed directly from the menu, I Remember California has to be selected, then a simple track skips gets you there.

He's not the only engineer remixing into surround to have done so but ES has been known to add things (extra acoustic guitar on "Africa" on his remix of Toto IV, for example, which caused a bit of consternation back when iirc) but missing stuff out big time is not really one of his hallmarks, so its surprising (and disappointing) to discover so much is missing on his R.E.M. remixes.

Can I ask Mike, is resorting to the DVD-Video layer the only way you can get around the LFE bug on your setup? You may find these discs were poorly authored to DVD-V but the DVD-A streams are ok? You've played thru the DVD-A Surround on "Green" and come to the same conclusions?

Also (at the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious!) I'm guessing all your relative channel levels are checked a-ok and any distance/room correction etc's all cushty.?

Plus, it might be worth mentioning, some lossy streams on these music discs can have some kooky (pointless, counterproductive imho) quirks like Dialog Normalization encoding going on that knocks the centre out of kilter, etc.. whereas the Advanced Res DVD-A layer hasn't got any of that jazz going on.

Hopefully more tecchy QQ-ers than me can chip in and help get to the bottom of what's up with these R.E.M.'s! Maybe some analysis of the individual stems might reveal some authoring **** ups.. steelydave, where are you!!?!?!

Good questions. I've played the R.E.M. stuff in the past - aside from Document - (and not necessarily all the way through, mind) on my old player which wouldn't let me opt out of the A layer. The AV amp will auto set up for channel level, distance and EQ and allow manual tweaking too, and the rears are clearly doing their stuff. The levels and distances on the player are all set to 0dB, or 0 distance so corrections aren't made twice. The DD layer does sound louder, and possibly more dynamically compressed than the DTS, but all in all the mix is a close feel to the DVD-A layer. The player and the amp shouldn't be adding any additional dynamic compression.

In terms of LFE the R.E.M. stuff was fine of the DVD-A layer on my old player, and I've not tried the A layer (that I recall) on this one. I believe ES likes to use the sub for re-enforcement of the bass rather than the main source of it, so even if it is an issue it shouldn't be too bad.

I may get around to comparing the navigation between the two layers as well, and feed my not very well buried inner nerd.

thanks Mike, I'm still a bit unclear on a few things, so maybe just a couple more Qns. to try & troubleshoot.?

what player and AV amp combo are you using?

are you connecting your player to your amp via 6-channel analogue or HDMI?

if the former, the player needs to do the bass management & room correction if its to be done properly (in my experience) and set all parameters on the 6-Ch In on the amp to default (all Channels 0dB, no distance delay compensation done in the amp etc.).. with HDMI your amp does all that and the settings on the player are overridden.

also what speakers are you playing it back on?

I'm a bit perplexed as to why you'd play the lossy stream on a Hi-Res/lossless DVD-A just to avoid the LFE issue? Most decent surround music mixes shouldn't need a sub to sound great. You can safely mix the LFE-channel on any ES-mixed surround music disc into your Main L&R by setting the Fronts to Large and Sub to Off, there aren't any Low Frequency Effects in his mixes that anything other than a Sub/Sat system couldn't reproduce thru Front L&R alone afaik.

gotta run, work calls I'll be baaaacccck.!

In reverse order, I set to DVD-V to avoid LFE for Rumours, which causes a big issue. It's just kept that way at the moment (although it only takes a few seconds to change I suppose.) I don't expect it to cause much issue with the R.E.M. stuff.

The player is connected to the amp via digital for DD and DTS, and 6 x analogue for DVD-A/SACD. The AV amp seems to retain set-up for analogue in as well as digital.

I'll PM you about the player, etc. But the configuration doesn't loose guitar tracks and vocal tracks! I have other multi-channel discs where stuff is fine, so the config is okay - and centre isn't sent to sub and vice versa on analogue. (I've done it before though!)

crikey.. it wouldn't be the first time a Warner DVD-A had been found to be badly authored or channels futzed with many years later (steelydave where are you??!! ) so what's missing in the 5.1 of Rumours due to the LFE bug?

thanks, all sounds present and correct with setup then. I'll check out your PM now

Rumours loses most of the bass, and possibly kick drum with the LFE bug on my set up.

Mike the Fish said:

Rumours loses most of the bass, and possibly kick drum with the LFE bug on my set up.

Click to expand...

hmm.. what bass you can hear (as opposed to the lowest stuff you only really feel) shouldn't be coming out of the Sub with music.. unless your crossover is high (+100hz). your Front pair are more than up to handling the <80hz where truly audible (but not so localizable) lower bass resides