HiRez Poll King Crimson - RED (50th Anniversary) [Blu-Ray Audio (Dolby Atmos)]

[rtbluray]

Please post your thoughts and comments on this new 50th anniversary edition of the classic album "Red" by King Crimson
This 2CD/2Blu-Ray edition of the album contains brand new remixes of the album from Steven Wilson in Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround

 

[adspink]

I should start off by saying Red is one of the most significant albums of my life, so it was very unlikely that a mix of this album done by the Atmos master Steven Wilson was going to get anything less than a 10. The urgency and desperation of this record has left a huge impression on me from day one. After hearing the 50th anniversary Atmos mix, I am of course unobjectively giving it a 10. (My Atmos setup is 5.1.4).

Wilson delivers again. I was so impressed with the Larks 50th Anniversary Atmos mix, I can’t help but compare the two. Red thankfully gets a similar treatment here, though there are some important musical differences between the two albums that it doesn’t feel like just a copy.

Going in order by song, the title track is probably the track that is least conducive to the Atmos format, because the material is more sparse and direct. This is the only track that’s just the trio of musicians from the album cover, plus some guitar overdubs. There isn’t as much musical material to put in the height speakers or to toss around the room, but Wilson does a fine job of making this song sound massive. I’ve always felt this song felt ahead of its time but also sonically it sounds dated, in the sense that it was a metal song before metal guitar recording techniques were perfected.

Fallen Angel is where things really get going from a surround perspective. There is so much happening here, and I love the interplay of Mark Charig’s mournful cornet from the front height speakers, with Fripp’s lead guitar in the rears. The climax of this song gets very intense, which has the weird side effect of making the studio-fade end feel like more of a letdown compared to the original stereo version. This song is so great.

One More Red Nightmare is mixed similarly to Fallen Angel and is similarly excellent. The percussive clapping effects from the height speaks is a cool effect, though on my setup they sound a little loud (though that might be my fault, since I purposely have my height speakers a couple db louder than default to compensate for all those non-Wilson mixes out there that don’t put enough in the heights). The closeout of Side 1 gets intense in all the best ways.

Providence is absolutely perfect. It’s hard to believe this was a live recording because it is so well-captured. The mixing techniques are very similar to the Larks 50th in that some of the percussion sounds are put into the heights and different parts of the room. Cross is in the rear right and Fripp in the rear left. What this mix reveals is how most of the heavy metal elements from the second half of this jam are coming from Wetton, not Fripp. I had read that Cross’s exit from King Crimson had a lot to do with him getting increasingly drowned out by Wetton on stage, and you can kind of hear this dynamic happening in real time on Providence. What starts off as the experimental violin-driven sound of Larks gives way to the heavy metal sound of Red over the course of the piece.

Starless is, in my opinion, one of the greatest songs of the prog rock genre, so I’m glad Wilson got it right. Because this song is so well-loved, it makes sense to play it safe in certain ways, rather than turn the whole thing upside down. But also during the one-note guitar solo in the middle, Wilson has a little fun with moving the auxiliary percussion into the heights and rears, much like Larks. Once we get to the solos at the end, the heights are utilized again, which I think adds to the urgency that the band meant to convey. So Starless was a home run, as was the rest of the album.

 

[sjcorne]

I'm going with a 9, mainly because this isn't my favorite KC record, but these new mixes are fantastic. Comparing the 2009 5.1 with the 2024 version really shows how much Wilson has honed his craft over the years. It's just not even close (at least in my opinion). And of course, the Atmos experience takes it up another level.

Reviewed over at IAA: https://immersiveaudioalbum.com/king-crimson-red-50th-anniversary-5-1-surround-sound-dolby-atmos/

 

[dquad]

Vote: 10

Best Atmos Track: One More Red Nightmare

I have to start out and say this is my favorite King Crimson album. It may be my favorite album of all time. To hear this in Dolby Atmos is an absolute treat. I'm listening to this album on Halloween and can't think of a better album to take in. My favorite song by King Crimson is Starless. It's probably the best prog song ever made in my opinion. There's something about the still image of Robert Fripp just gazing at you while listening to this.

Red: This song starts with a 5.1 feel to it. It's expected with the source material.
Fallen Angel: This is when the Dolby Atmos mix begins to shine.
One More Red Nightmare: Takes It to the next level and feels like the entire song is utilizing the height channels.
Providence: David Cross really shines and has so much space. This is a discrete as it gets. Each instrument is segmented into a separate speaker.
Starless: The calm before the storm. I remember going to their concerts and they would turn the stage red for this song. The mellotron at the beginning just breathes so much life to it. The movie Mandy (Nic Cage) opens with this song in the beginning. The percussion just bouncing all around just adds so much depth.

 

[ssully]

What I want to know are details in how it differs from the previous TWO surround mixes masterings. Especially as for now, I'd be folding it down to 5.1 (5.2 actually).

And yes I realize there's a new 5.1 mix on this too!

(The IAA review thankfully goes into a lot more such detail)

 

[Thonolan]

What I want to know are details in how it differs from the previous TWO surround mixes. Especially as for now, I'd be folding it down to 5.1 (5.2 actually).

And yes I realize there's a new 5.1 mix on this too!

If I remember @sjcorne's review on IAA correctly, he describes the sonic differences between the old and new mixes in detail there.

 

[sjcorne]

Were there really two previous 5.1 mixes? Based on comments here, I was under the impression that the 5.1 in the 2013 Road To Red box was just a different mastering of the original 2009 version.

 

[ssully]

That was my impression too. I'll revise the previous post.

 

[duneman]

Yikes! Can’t review as my set contains 2 BD#1 discs instead of a #1 and a #2. Crazy. Bought from the big river and getting a refund. Will rebuy in the hope that it’ll be right the second time.

 

[AYanguas]

This album contains my favorite song of all time: Starless. This is the reference sound of the Mellotron, for me, which puts me in a very relaxed state of meditation, as soon as it starts. The bonus about “The Making of Starless” are also interesting to me. The album represents the culmination of my favorite period of King Crimson.

Steven Wilson's Atmos mix being excellent, I want to comment on some aspects according to my taste: one good and two bad.

The good one is about the evolution of Steven Wilson's Atmos mixing approach of expanding the lead vocal beyond the Center channel, following the similar criteria from Bruce Soord's mixes.

In this case, having Wides in 9.1.4, we get John Wetton's voice exclusively in the Wides. There is no trace of voice either on the fronts or on the Sides. And none on the Center neither.

The feeling I get, which I like, is a voice with a more “ethereal” location in a wider frontal area above you, more "Atmos-pheric", compared to the more centric voice of the previous 5.1 mix from 2009.

The bad one is that I find the overall volume not good balanced in the Atmos mix, especially in the first track Red. The guitars at the sides are too high volume in such a way that they hide the drums sound that only comes from the front. I want the kind of great sound of Gavin Harrison's drums, and I rarely hear the sound of Bill Bruford's drums due to its low volume. I have to increase up to 6 dB both Front Channels to get a better-balanced volume sound. On the contrary, the 2024 5.1 mix is correct, and I perceive the drums at the appropriate level, more surrounded, not so frontal and without the guitars masking the drums sound.

The other bad thing is that the Bluray authoring leaves each song in an individual file, so the first seconds of the songs are lost, due to the HDMI sync, and they have forced me to prepare a single full MKV, with some initial 10 seconds silence Atmos, to be able to listen perfectly the beginning of Red and the other songs in Atmos.

For that, I cannot give 10 points, and I only give 9.

 

[Thonolan]

The bad one is that I find the overall volume not good balanced in the Atmos mix, especially in the first track Red. The guitars at the sides are too high volume in such a way that they hide the drums sound that only comes from the front. I want the kind of great sound of Gavin Harrison's drums, and I rarely hear the sound of Bill Bruford's drums due to its low volume. I have to increase up to 6 dB both Front Channels to get a better-balanced volume sound. On the contrary, the 2024 5.1 mix is correct, and I perceive the drums at the appropriate level, more surrounded, not so frontal and without the guitars masking the drums sound.

Wow that's surprising. One of the things I like best about SW's multichannel mixes is that, generally, they seem perfectly balanced between the different instruments all the time, compared to many other mixing engineers' work. I'm curious to check out whether this will replicate on different systems such as mine (7.2.4 in contrast to your 9.1.4).


The lead vocals, well, you know I actually love them in the center channel so...

I do agree about "Starless": the warmth of those initial Mellotron chords is something else. It's among my top-5 prog songs ever.

(I haven't even ordered this edition yet - I found Larks' quite a bit cheaper a couple of months after release and I have the 2009 edition, so I will wait for this one too).

 

[AYanguas]

Wow that's surprising. One of the things I like best about SW's multichannel mixes is that, generally, they seem perfectly balanced between the different instruments all the time, compared to many other mixing engineers' work. I'm curious to check out whether this will replicate on different systems such as mine (7.2.4 in contrast to your 9.1.4).


The lead vocals, well, you know I actually love them in the center channel so...

I do agree about "Starless": the warmth of those initial Mellotron chords is something else. It's among my top-5 prog songs ever.

(I haven't even ordered this edition yet - I found Larks' quite a bit cheaper a couple of months after release and I have the 2009 edition, so I will wait for this one too).

I'm surprised too.

I have thought about poor calibration of my system. In fact, I'm still without Subwoofer since it broke. But I reconfigured and ran Audyssey to get all Speakers LARGE (Except Tops). The LFE channel goes properly to both the Fronts and the side Surrounds (to get a kind of Quad balanced SUB). Could that LFE going to Sides cause that increase of perceived volume if there is too much LFE?

I will recalibrate in depth when I buy a new SUB. For the moment I listen good enough to the rest of Atmos albums and I don't perceive any unbalanced volume problems. I have an acceptable low end level with all my speakers, although I cannot increase manually as before by turning up the SUBwoofer gain button.

I have seen the channel weaveforms with Audacity (decoding Atmos) and playing with Audacity (PC Stereo) I dont find that unbalanced anomaly.

Thus, another theory from mine is that the distorted Fripp guitars running at the Side Surrounds (very near to 90º) are too intrussive for me and for my ears, blocking my whole old hearing.

And, as said, Increasing Fronts 6 dB (that have the main Drums content) I get similar Drums balanced level in Atmos that I get with the 5.1 mix without altering the Fronts level. That's with my ears, in my MLP at my room. If I move forward towards the fronts, of course the balance improves and I hear the drums better, but I prefer to be sitting on the couch.

Sorry for the slight off-topic digression