SPOTLIGHT QQ forum members collaboration on new 5.1 and Atmos mix

[stoopid]

By sheer luck after I posted in Mr Afternoon's new album thread early July about my last two albums being possible surround mix candidates, forum member Jared (Methuselah’s Grandpa) reached out privately offering his services. Not even two months later the 5.1 and Atmos mixes went live today on IAA and Bandcamp. Jared did an amazing job having only the stems from when I archived the project files to work with.

Our band's musical style is best described as alternative rock, not a genre well represented in the surround landscape. I joke that our music is kinda like "a guilty pleasure for prog fans", since I don't try to weave super elaborate or note flooded passages, but there's often wide stylistic diversity within and between tracks. My personal interests as a fan of music vary a lot, but I am admittedly not a classically trained musician or someone who spends hours everyday honing mastery at their instrument(s). It's the varied musical interest that comes through in unique ways as you'll hear by the third track on this latest album, "Middle Ages".

I [Kevin] play and produce the music, and my long time friend Scott writes most of the lyrics and does all the vocals. Scott also got more involved in compositional decisions through the use of remote sessions, streaming the DAW audio over the internet so he could make suggestions and fine tune things with me in realtime. It worked out quite well, several interesting ideas he had were only possible because we could work on them over the course of an hour what would previously have taken us many many hours of frustration composing over the phone with only adequate results.

Lyrically this is a dark album. Scott delves into self reflection and societal critique with an unforgiving sharp tongue. There's a beauty in exploring the darkness, and I feel like there's tremendous value in his level of sincerity.

Jared is trying to generate some clients from this (and the next) surround release, so please share (maybe purchase?) and hopefully we can help him gain some traction in the mixing space. Without further ado, here's the links to the album with various low cost price points and format options.

IAA 5.1 and Atmos ($5.99 / $7.99): https://immersiveaudioalbum.com/product/middle-ages-umm-5-1-flac-atmos-mkv-mp4/

Bandcamp 5.1 and DTS-CD ( ) ($6.99)

 

[Methuselah’s Grandpa]

After over 1000 unofficial "bootleg" mixes under my alias of "Methuselah's Grandpa", I am so happy to have my first "official" surround mixing credits (Jared Good)!

I found myself really growing to love this album as I mixed it, ...for an "alternative rock" album, I was pleasantly surprised with how diverse the album is; ...not just rock songs, but acoustic, experimental, & progressive songs with synths, strings, etc. The last track "Yes, You" starts out like a modern interpretation of an 80s synth-based song and by the time the song (& album) reaches the climax, ...there's a fiddle, banjo & even an accordion joining in and it all just fits! What I also found impressive about the album is despite the differences in certain styles or genres from one song to another, the album has a nice flow to it with a cohesive theme (middle age), something that is increasingly rare these days.

From a surround-sound mixing perspective, I definitely lean towards more discrete & maybe even what some would call "aggressive" panning more-so than an ambient-driven style of surround mixing. My introduction into multi-channel music was quadraphonic, & while my mixes may not be that extreme, in a round-about way they are inspired by those old quads.

As far as this album's surround mixes, I tried to offer a more exciting way to experience the music but still trying to stay true to the artists' intent and to not add wild panning or "gimmicks" just anywhere or just for the sake of doing that sort of thing. That being said, if I think that a certain sound or section of a particular song called for something special or different, I looked forward to adding some active panning there; because in my opinion, that's part of what makes surround sound music so cool and enjoyable.
The album, 'Middle Ages' is a cohesive & thematic album, & despite the different styles of songs on the album, I tried as best as I could to allow those songs to share a somewhat similar surround space or atmosphere. It's impressive to me that the band "Ummm" is just two people; Kevin, who is a very talented musician and producer and Scott, who is an equally talented singer & songwriter. Now, I am proud of my own contribution, to allow the listener to experience the music in a new and perhaps more enjoyable way than is possible in stereo.

I encourage you all to give the album a listen, it's not expensive & it's well worth it IMO. The stereo release seemed to get lost in the vast endless sea of new stereo releases last year so I am hoping that these new surround mixes will offer up a sort-of 2nd chance for 'Middle Ages' to be heard by more people and I also hope that I am able to continue on my surround sound mixing path by being part of projects like this.