AtmosMixer
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I'm a professional Immersive mixer who wants to see some good feedback on mixes from outside of the industry.
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Excellent. Are you allowed to give us some examples of your body of work; and perhaps a few bits here and there about you mixing philosophy?
Welcome!
....and yes, please let us know what titles you have mixed and if they are available on any streaming platform or physical media. There are plenty of folks here who would be happy to give feedback.
AtmosMixer
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I think I'll ease into Doxing myself. I'm not really looking for comments on my mixes; more a general sense of what is liked and not liked.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Here's a few off the top of my head.
Atmos mixes
Excellent:
Anything Steven Wilson - The Harmony Codex, Future Bites, Porcupine Tree - Closure/Continuation, Tears for Fears - The Tipping Point, The Who - Who's Next, Richard Wright - Wet Dream, Van Morrison - Moondance
Peter Gabriel - I/O (Hans-Martin Buff)
Pink Floyd - Animals, Dark Side of the Moon (James Guthrie)
Good:
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
The Doors - Hits
Mark Knopfler - One Deep River
Rolling Stones - Hackney Diamonds
INXS -Kick
Mixed Bag:
U2 - Achtung Baby
5.1 mixes
Porcupine Tree - any of the catalog in 5.1
Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair (30th Steven Wilson)
AtmosMixer
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Ok, listened to a few of these; Listening on Apple Music, 7.1.4 speaker layout in studio. IMHO.
Moondance, vocal in the center sounds very hollow. INSX Kick lost all the punch and is hollow.
Pink Floyd - Animals not available in Atmos on Apple. DSOTM - I mean, how can you go wrong on that. So much material to move around. Great!
Hackney Diamonds - Not sure that the balances line up to the stereo mixes, but nice use of the space.
INXS Kick would go on my "missed opportunity" list too, but I think Moondance sounds great - no complaints about the vocal sounding 'hollow' here (and it's not just in the center, the signal also hits the side and wide speakers).
Some favorites not mentioned yet:
Some favorites not mentioned yet:
- Grateful Dead - American Beauty
- Yes - The Yes Album
- Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
- Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa
- Tori Amos - Ocean To Ocean
- The Church - The Hypnogogue
- St Vincent - Daddy's Home
- Suede - Suede
- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Greatest Hits
- Madeleine Peyroux - Let's Walk
- Bruce Soord - Luminescence
love that Spoon record. I've become a big fan of Jim Eno's stereo mixing, and this was his first foray into Atmos, I believe. Great job...
Since I do not stream music nor do I have Apple. But from a visual point of view it is a big difference between streaming a film or watch from physical blu-ray discs visually as well as sound wise. What do the experts mean, is this also true for music??
INXS Kick I believe is a product of how it was originally recorded. It needs a more than average volume to sound it's best in my setup. I put it in good because it's the best it's sounded to me over the years. Not going to argue it's anywhere near the top of Atmos recordings though. I don't know if it makes any difference but I listened to this via disc which has lossless Atmos.
Hackney Diamonds wise, in general I consider Atmos/spatial to be it's own thing and I'm never really concerned how well it matches choices made in the stereo mix. It may even be a release where the 2ch and the Atmos were engineered by different people. The Atmos mix was Giles Martin, no idea if he did the 2ch.
Moondance the vocals are solid in my setup as well, not hearing anything hollow.
Edit: my setup is 7.2.4
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I haven't listened to the Atmos mix of The Yes Album, but did enjoy the 5.1. Sampled some of the Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers Greatest hits in Atmos on Tidal and enjoyed it, but haven't given the whole thing a listen. I probably should just breakdown and buy The Church The Hypnogogue from Immersive. I sampled a few tracks on the PC and liked what I heard. If it made your list I would assume the Atmos mix is very good.
Welcome in!
Being one here that still only has a 5.1 system, I won't make too many offerings; however many of us have been listening to and enjoying the Atmos mixes via Apple on their 5.1 systems.
Lots of opinions on this thread-
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...atmos-streaming-via-tidal-apple-amazon.31491/
But one I always liked a lot (music & mix, with mix appropriateness to the style/genre is a big factor IMO) is this Willie Nelson title.
Would appreciate your opinion of this one if you don't mind.
jimfisheye
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I'm usually pretty easy to please with Steve Wilson mixes also. So, mixes should be about the music... Shouldn't matter. Shouldn't be a contest if something is worthy of a 12 channel mix or not. But here we are after just recently hanging 4 new speakers from the ceiling and extracting the reference player software from Dolby's greedy hands... and we want to be impressed with something that needs the channel count and this kind of mix!
King Crimson - Larks' Tongues and Yes - The Yes Album struck me as next level 12 channel mixes. A big part of that is the dynamic range presentation and control of it.
I've heard more 7.1.4 mixes that were good overall than not. Part of that might simply be a strong policing of mastering levels that seems to be going on. A pleasant surprise with that alone! The worst one I've heard that just screamed not being worthy of the format was the recent Rolling Stones mix. Seemed half assed and like the mixer wanted to make a point that they were into stereo and not really into surround. Points for not being volume war slammed though!
That Yes album has a live track in the middle of side one that's just a stereo board recording. It's presented well and doesn't detract. A whole album of something like that delivered in 12 channel would get a side eye though! This should just be what it is and not some kind of contest. But it's natural to want something kind of special when one goes to the trouble to set up a sound system that's kind of special! The stereo or streaming listeners will be none the wiser.
King Crimson - Larks' Tongues and Yes - The Yes Album struck me as next level 12 channel mixes. A big part of that is the dynamic range presentation and control of it.
I've heard more 7.1.4 mixes that were good overall than not. Part of that might simply be a strong policing of mastering levels that seems to be going on. A pleasant surprise with that alone! The worst one I've heard that just screamed not being worthy of the format was the recent Rolling Stones mix. Seemed half assed and like the mixer wanted to make a point that they were into stereo and not really into surround. Points for not being volume war slammed though!
That Yes album has a live track in the middle of side one that's just a stereo board recording. It's presented well and doesn't detract. A whole album of something like that delivered in 12 channel would get a side eye though! This should just be what it is and not some kind of contest. But it's natural to want something kind of special when one goes to the trouble to set up a sound system that's kind of special! The stereo or streaming listeners will be none the wiser.
AtmosMixer
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Yes this is a pretty good one I think. A few technical issues for me personally. I'd like them to have taken some of the hiss out of the rear speakers. Yes it is there in the stereo mix, but those things build up in the breakout to surround.
Also, the Top speakers, especially the top rear, are playing a lot up-mixed effects and the artifacts (warble) bother me, but only when I solo. As I said, technical issue.
Some balances get a bit out of whack. The Rimshot on Dreaming again gets really snappy on parts.
Overall pleasing and nicely done.
After seeing your response above re: the Willie Nelson album, I thought I'd ask a question....but I want to be respectful of your time, so if you feel this is turning your introductory post into a consumptive Q&A, feel free to ignore! You mentioned hiss, rimshots, levels being out of whack etc. I'm curious as to how much you 'fix' in your mix projects? One thing I've become acutely aware of is - how revealing and unforgiving mixing Atmos is. Things that normally get stuffed into a stereo mix without notice become really obvious when you spread things out into high fidelity speakers all around you...clicks, hiss, even timing issues all of the sudden become apparent. So generally, do you fix that stuff? And secondly - if you get a stereo reference mix that you just don't like/agree with (too bright, too compressed, bad low end, whatever)...do you 'improve' those things? or just match the reference track? Everything I do is indie - so I may get more of this kind of thing that you do, but just curious....
AtmosMixer
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I do try to remain faithful to the stereo mix, but some added problems crop up in Atmos, which I will fix. One is hiss; it may be there in the stereo mix, but it tends to accumulate more in Atmos because we are building up the number of pathways that are adding hiss in the mix. I'll take it out in the added channels, leaving it in the front as it was in the stereo mix. I'll also be more careful about clicks and pops because they stick out more in surround than in stereo. Timing issues I would likely leave in; hard to tell if that is an artistic choice or not. If it is in the stereo, I'd not correct it in Atmos.
There have been a few occasions where I have done things to Improve bad mixes when I do the Atmos. It is rare, but sometimes you just can't help yourself!
There have been a few occasions where I have done things to Improve bad mixes when I do the Atmos. It is rare, but sometimes you just can't help yourself!
Thanks!
I run the Life in Surround YouTube channel.
Lots of immersive music critiques from outside the industry to be found there.
https://youtube.com/@lifeinsurround?si=o4Gh0llIAjVuRVto
Lots of immersive music critiques from outside the industry to be found there.
https://youtube.com/@lifeinsurround?si=o4Gh0llIAjVuRVto
I can give you my personal feelings but I do believe they are reflected in the feelings of many here. Whatever the number of channels used, I enjoy hearing them used for discreet positioning of the many instruments etc in the mix and not just as a way to add a lot of ambiance. It is the type of mix that many from the "2ch forever" world point out as being gimmicky but this allows us to hear much deeper into the mix and separate the individual musical parts. Immerse me in the artistry of the music in the way Michelangelo and the other great artists immerse us in their painting, sculptures, etc; artwork at the Sistine chapel and other places in Rome. These genius's understood what it meant to make the viewer part of the art itself.
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