In the middle of the day on Friday, Kendrick Lamar surprise released an album
At the start of the day on Monday, that album is now in Atmos
At the start of the day on Monday, that album is now in Atmos
Listening to in Dolby Atmos Streaming, via Tidal/Apple/Amazon
- Thread starter beerking
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alansanchez86
800 Club - QQ All-Star
It wasn't in atmos last Friday, will check it out. Thanks!
DoublePackage
Member
Haven’t seen this on the thread:
I'm glad someone said this, because the cognitive dissonance between my listening experience and the previous few (overwhelmingly positive) posts made me feel like I was taking crazy pills.
I'm not even really a massive fan of these albums - I prefer the Rush of the five years following these albums - but I'm always open to the idea of a great mix helping me 'get' or reevaulate something that never really connected with previously.
I'm also no fan of Richard Chycki's surround mixing, as I've mentioned in some of the Rush poll threads, but as a cautious optimist/pragmatic pessimist I live in the hope that people can always get better at their craft, or have a 'Eureka!' moment about mixing philosophy no matter how long they've been doing the job. Look at Ryan Ulyate - his Tom Petty 5.1 mixes (Mojo, Hypnotic Eye, Damn the Torpedoes) are some of the most pedestrian "big stereo" you're ever likely to hear, whereas his recent Atmos endeavours are some of the best the format has yielded thusfar.
Sadly, with Chycki I was barking up the wrong tree because for me, they're just more of the same flat-sounding big stereo mixing that characterizes all his work. Obviously some of the elements have been pushed upward, but to no great or exciting effect. Every 5 or 10 minutes you'll get a swirly effect, or short burst of a discrete instrument, something to remind you that your rear speakers are indeed functioning, only for whatever it was to disappear again in short order - I find this incredibly frustrating because it's like he's telling you I know these speakers and placement options are available to me, but I'm not gonna use them. After I was done listening to these four albums I went back and listened to Steven Wilson's 5.1 mix of A Farewell to Kings (or snippets of it anyway) just to confirm I hadn't suffered some kind of system misconfiguration (or brain/ear malfunction) and it sounded just as I'd remembered it.
One thing I will give Chycki is that while he hasn't "seen the light" with regards to immersiveness, his attention to detail and execution of the nuances in these mixes is considerably better than his 5.1 mixes, some of which had actual mistakes (unfiltered bass guitar in the LFE channel of one) or just poor or lazy mixing choices, like elements placed in mono in the phantom position between front and rear left or front and rear right. Chycki's Atmos mixes are often wrought the same way, but it seems like more thought has been put into things room and individual instrument/element reverbs and echoes which helps things feel a little more 'alive' and three-dimensional than his older work.
Having said that, however, while I might give these one more go to make sure I wasn't just having a bad day, on first blush there was nothing compelling in them that made me want to revisit them.
Garage Rock Fans:
The Chesterfield Kings - We're Still All The Same
The Chesterfield Kings - We're Still All The Same
For New Order, I see Blue Monday in Atmos. Are either True Faith or Bizarre Love Triangle in Atmos yet?
Movement, Low-Life, and "Blue Monday" are the only New Order titles currently up in Atmos.
Dunno if I've linked this right but an expanded version of Hans Zimmer's Interstellar soundtrack is out there.
I always hoped for this one because I love this soundtrack (and the attendant film) but never expected it to happen because Christopher Nolan (for reasons unknown) only mixes his films in 5.1 and not spatial audio of any sort.
I'm presuming that this was done to coincide with the 10th anniversary 4K Blu-Ray release next month (which still doesn't have an Atmos mix) and I guess Nolan doesn't have veto over the soundtrack release, or doesn't mind it being mixed/released separately from his picture.
Anyway, it's very well done and the epic emotional moments sound absolutely huge - don't think I'll ever go back to the stereo version after this. If you like this soundtrack, it's well worth a listen.
By all accounts the label didn’t know they were putting an album out until the night before, so I’m surprised an Atmos mix is ready this quickly
alansanchez86
800 Club - QQ All-Star
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Those deep-bass organ stops are sternum-shaking! And "Murph" is achingly Mahlerian.
Your description (which is excellent) of what you were hearing doesn't match what I was hearing, so, likewise, I feel I must listen to them again (easy, since I loved them) and see if maybe I was having a "way too good day" or something, but, as I said, I compared AFtK directly to SW's 5.1 mix and, other than the worse dynamics and slightly inferior sound quality (which might be mainly due the lossy stream), there was nothing I found disappointing about the new Atmos mix.
But then, already on the poll for the Atmos mix of Signals you can see comments on the first page that range from, literally, "Strongest possible 10" to "this mix shows me how NOT to do an Atmos mix", so I'm not hugely surprised by the disparity of opinions.
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