Midnight Oil "Capricornia" DTS-ES

[texquad]

Picked up Midnight Oil's new one "Capricornia" on DTS-ES
over the weekend and it's a wonderful sounding disc.
I don't have DTS-ES, but there are some nice panning effects and the like. Good music, great mix, I recommend it to any multi-channel rock music lover.

 

[timbre4]

So glad this is out! Will begin the process of ordering it and adding an earlier album to my wish list elsewhere on this site.

 

[ferret-e]

Listening it right now - good mix !

 

[filper]

Is there a trick to playing this ?

All I get is digital 'static' from my Pioneer 588A and my PS3.

I even tried making a CD copy of it to see if it would play... same thing, static.

 

[BananaSlug]

There is a known issue with this one. The gap preceding the first track is too long and many players don't get a lock on the DTS signal. Try searching on Capricornia here there should be some info. As I recall you need to trim a few seconds off the first track and burn a new copy.

 

[filper]

I clipped a few seconds off of the beginning of 'Golden Age' with Goldwave and re-wrote the disc... plays great now.

Thanks again, BananaSlug. I owe you a beer !

 

[Baker]

There is a known issue with this one. The gap preceding the first track is too long and many players don't get a lock on the DTS signal.

Come on, at the price of a DTS CD, they couldn't even manage to TEST their bloody disc ?!?

At last it works well on my Pioneer DV-595. Not the best DTS CD ever, not the worst either. I'm not so sure about the actual sound quality, the album in itself has a quite muddy mix.

 

[quicksrt]

Can someone help me find the poll or some comments on this release?

DVD Name: : Midnight Oil: Capricornia
(Audio-Only DVD)Studio : DTS EntertainmentSound : 5.1
1.33:1UPC : 692860110021

 

[~dave~~wave~]

No personal experience of the DVD-A, but your post sent me to my library to spin the CD for the first time on the man-cave surround system.

I saw them on their farewell tour in a small hall when this was their current release, it was a great concert.
They played most of the album, loved the new songs mixed with their back catalog.
Bought the CD (their last studio album to date) and played it a lot when I was driving 20+ hours a week.
Brought back great memories of the live show, hard-rocking anthems with literate lyrics.
YouTube "Making Of" video that from the enhanced CD:
https://youtu.be/Ye5XfUyLC-4

But, all my listening was in the car, often on a iPod. :steering:
Which masked horrible brick-walled mastering.
Hearing it now on the home system, the tunes are still great, but sound like an ear-splitting concert.

Had a look at the DR database, it rates a pathetic 6.:yikes
This is only the second example I've found so far in my collection of inexcusable egregious over-compression.

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=midnight+oil&album=

Waveform grab Track 1:




I, too, would be interested in comments on the 5.1 version.
It appears to be scarce and pricey, so unless the mix and mastering are brilliant, maybe best left to the MO fanatics.

 

[quicksrt]

I have an odd feeling that this 5.1 mix is a DTS CD and not a DVD. Or maybe a DVD but not DVD-A at all?

 

[himey]

Opened up my DTS library in Musicbee and giving this a listen now. Not my favorite band but some good songs. It does have that DTS CD tin sound but the mix is discrete. Rears are nicely balanced in relation to the fronts. Doubt I have ever listened to this straight through but may have to. Nothing wrong with the mix for sure...

 

[The Bright Side]

I can't stop listening to this!

Music-wise, this guitar-driven Pop-Rock is right up my alley, and boy does it sound good!! The opener, "Golden Age" is demo material. Just plop a buddy into the sweet spot and fire this up loud. Starts with a lone guitar in the rears only, then after a moment, drums and more guitars blast off in the front. And what a kick!! Great dynamics, great bass. The 5.1 mix is excellent: harmonies, echoing vocals and always instruments in the rears, and that's just the opening track.

Not every song hooks you immediately like "Golden Age" does, but the more I listen, the more this album grows on me, and many songs give you things to discover on repeat listens.

I highly recommend this disc. Try some of the songs on YouTube or Spotify to see if you like them. If you do, rest assured you're in for a disc that sounds great and has a demo-quality surround mix. I have no idea why this has no poll and so few mentions on this forum.

Quoting the song "Too much Sunshine": "Haven't had so much fun since my daddy took the V8 away!" ;-)

 

[haikubass]

Oh man, this reminds me that I have my 7.1 custom (re)mix ready (doubled the rear center channel of the dts-ES 6.1 mix in Audacity), but this summer I've opted for my other receiver that does only 5.1... I guess I can look at the waveforms now, just to wet my appetite even more, ha!

Anyway, great record and mix!
I just wish that Redneck Wonderland would get surround treatment as well - this rock meets electronica stuff worked for me a lot at the time of the release...

 

[sjcorne]

Just picked this one up and I love it! Great music and a very discrete surround mix - drums/bass/lead guitars upfront, lead vocal in center channel, and rhythm guitars/backing vocals rear. Love the opening track, "Golden Age" (very different from Beck's "The Golden Age" ).

I decided to rip the 6.1 tracks (DTSParser -> Foobar2000) even though I don't actually have a rear center channel in my main system, and was surprised to find that the extra channel actually carries quite a bit of isolated discrete information. It turns out that the DTS-ES encoding is subtractive rather than additive - it actually removes the center-panned content from the rear channels and places it in its own speaker.

Towards the end of "Golden Age", there's a section where the lead vocal come solely from the rear channels ("I can see a purple patch of jacaranda..."). - when played in standard 5.1, it's suspended between the left rear and right rear. In 6.1, that vocal is isolated in the rear center speaker and completely absent from the left and right rears.

My only knock on this disc is that the sound quality could be better - not sure if it's in the mix or the mastering, but its got a sort of muddy/compressed sound. It is fairly loud and the front channels have that "haircut" look, suggesting they were limited to some degree.

 

[The Quadfather]

I recently picked this one up. The lead singer's voice ain't that great, but the music more than makes up for it. I've really taken a liking to it.