Radiohead Kid A MNESIA Exhibition: Immersion and audio download

[popshop]

Radiohead have done something pretty unique. They released a free exhibition packaged as a game or download. Essentially you can walk around in the digital world of Kid A and Amnesiac while listening to stems from those albums. As you would expect, the audio has been extracted and can be downloaded (with some effort). The app download itself is 10 gigs and takes some time. PC/Mac/PS5.
Links:
Trailer:

 

[alansanchez86]

I tried downloading the .exe however I got lost/tangled in the process of creating an account and logging in.

 

[humprof]

Radiohead have done something pretty unique. They released a free exhibition packaged as a game or download. Essentially you can walk around in the digital world of Kid A and Amnesiac while listening to stems from those albums. As you would expect, the audio has been extracted and can be downloaded (with some effort). The app download itself is 10 gigs and takes some time. PC/Mac/PS5.
Links:
Trailer:

Thanks for starting a dedicated thread about this, @popshop. @AshBuchanan reported on it a few days ago, but since his dispatch (and the ensuing discussion) was hidden inside another thread, I think a lot of people missed it.

Because I had to install the "game" on a computer not connected to my AVR, I haven't been able to experience it in its full surroundi-ness. But it's still incredibly cool. Here are two reviews:
https://www.theverge.com/22788135/radiohead-kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-reviewhttps://www.polygon.com/22792342/radiohead-kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-not-a-game

 

[popshop]

Indeed I missed the post from @AshBuchanan and the discussion. Sorry gents.
@alansanchez86 I also got a little lost there. I downloaded the epic games launcher and then the actual game download took an hour or more because of the size. Agreed it wasn't very intuitive to have to pretend to pay for a free download.
The reddit post has more info on the audio.

 

[PurpleMoustache]

Bumping this for this near behind the scenes article over on the Unreal Engine site (Epic Games, owner of Unreal Engine funded it, partially as an ad). It goes a bit into the weeds on the graphical end more than audio, but the first half, and a bit near the end are all audio talk:

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/...usive-look-at-radiohead-s-new-virtual-exhibit
I myself don’t have a PS5, but I did stream it to my TV via Steam Link on the Apple TV (you have to add the .exe to steam as a “Non-Steam Game), which streams over 5.1, and can confirm the game is very surroundy.

 

[LTW]

I had to resurrect this thread as I’m surprised this hasn’t been talked about more here.
This virtual exhibition has to be the most incredibly immersive audio/visual experience I’ve had in my own home.

And the immersive mix is INCREDIBLE! I don’t think there’s anything quite like it out there. The way it blends and adapts to your movement through space.
The closest equivalent I can think of is the Beatles’ ‘Love’ with its custom combinations and sequencing of songs. But that isn’t interactive like this is. Its straight up revolutionary but I feel it hasn’t really been recognised as such.

There must be a few more people on here that have experienced it? I played on a PC connected to my AVR and TV then PS5.

And it’s free!

 

[popshop]

I think I had initially tried it via laptop and headphones, but tried it tonight with PS5 (playback in 7.1). Agreed with everything you said. Spot on @LTW. I hadn't realized that it was initially planned as a physical exhibition you could walk around, and that covid turned it virtual. Tasty lemonade.
Quite an amazing piece of art. Someone could absolutely change their life in there.
The cheapest drug there is!

I found an interview with an interesting quote about Nigel Godrich.
"Obviously none of this happens without Nigel - he so clearly and eloquently laid out the audio concept to us from the beginning, and held firm to that vision throughout while tweaking and shifting his approach as we learned more about the possibilities within Wwise & Unreal. He went back through the old album sessions and created several awesome, major set piece 6-channel surround mixes, as well as a bunch of mashups that we peppered around various spaces." ***(to clarify: 6-channel like a hexagon, not 6-channel like 5.1)
from this interview: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/en/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-interview/

 

[humprof]

I think I had initially tried it via laptop and headphones, but tried it tonight with PS5 (playback in 7.1). Agreed with everything you said. Spot on @LTW. I hadn't realized that it was initially planned as a physical exhibition you could walk around, and that covid turned it virtual. Tasty lemonade.
Quite an amazing piece of art. Someone could absolutely change their life in there.
The cheapest drug there is!

I found an interview with an interesting quote about Nigel Godrich.
"Obviously none of this happens without Nigel - he so clearly and eloquently laid out the audio concept to us from the beginning, and held firm to that vision throughout while tweaking and shifting his approach as we learned more about the possibilities within Wwise & Unreal. He went back through the old album sessions and created several awesome, major set piece 6-channel surround mixes, as well as a bunch of mashups that we peppered around various spaces." ***(to clarify: 6-channel like a hexagon, not 6-channel like 5.1)
from this interview: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/en/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-interview/

Thanks for linking to that interview. (And thanks to @LTW for reviving this thread.) Hopefully those comments, together with other hints and second-hand reports we've gotten over the past year or so, mean that Nigel has had a come-to-Jesus moment re immersive/spatial audio.

I agree that this is an amazing piece of work, and I get that, like Bjork's immersive videos (collected on the VR version of Vulnicura, only available on the Steam gaming platform), you're really meant to experience it as a carefully engineered audio-visual gestalt. Just the same, I'd also love to see them release the audio in some kind of standalone format, if only for old guys like me who didn't grow up with videogames and don't seem to be able to get the knack of navigating through a virtual space on a computer. I've managed to play the Exhibition once on a computer powerful enough to run it without glitching (and that I could easily connect to my AVR), and it was amazing. But even after dinking around with it for 90 minutes or so, I'm still not sure I managed to find my way to all of the rooms/galleries/corridors/spaces and hear all of the available audio!

 

[AtAlls2Words]

Interesting but looks complicated. Can it be accessed using Apple TV only ? I think that would be my only way to get the surround sound from it.

 

[LTW]

I think I had initially tried it via laptop and headphones, but tried it tonight with PS5 (playback in 7.1). Agreed with everything you said. Spot on @LTW. I hadn't realized that it was initially planned as a physical exhibition you could walk around, and that covid turned it virtual. Tasty lemonade.
Quite an amazing piece of art. Someone could absolutely change their life in there.
The cheapest drug there is!

I found an interview with an interesting quote about Nigel Godrich.
"Obviously none of this happens without Nigel - he so clearly and eloquently laid out the audio concept to us from the beginning, and held firm to that vision throughout while tweaking and shifting his approach as we learned more about the possibilities within Wwise & Unreal. He went back through the old album sessions and created several awesome, major set piece 6-channel surround mixes, as well as a bunch of mashups that we peppered around various spaces." ***(to clarify: 6-channel like a hexagon, not 6-channel like 5.1)
from this interview: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/en/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-interview/

It's interesting, after rejecting surround sound mixing, that Nigel embraced it for the exhibition. I guess because it was going to be a sound installation for a real exhibition, he saw the utility of it. I found a very technical break down of how the engineers programmed the audio for the game: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/en/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-interview/

Interesting but looks complicated. Can it be accessed using Apple TV only ? I think that would be my only way to get the surround sound from it.

It needs to be run on a console or PC as it is an interactive video game essentially.

 

[humprof]

I found an interview with an interesting quote about Nigel Godrich.
"Obviously none of this happens without Nigel - he so clearly and eloquently laid out the audio concept to us from the beginning, and held firm to that vision throughout while tweaking and shifting his approach as we learned more about the possibilities within Wwise & Unreal. He went back through the old album sessions and created several awesome, major set piece 6-channel surround mixes, as well as a bunch of mashups that we peppered around various spaces." ***(to clarify: 6-channel like a hexagon, not 6-channel like 5.1)
from this interview: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/en/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-interview/

I found a very technical break down of how the engineers programmed the audio for the game: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/en/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-interview/

That interview is fascinating. (Actually, the entire blog looks like a potential rabbit hole for anyone interested in how immersive audio is conceived and executed in game soundtracks.) News to me is this comment from Clay Schmitt, which reveals that parts of the Kid A Nmesiac Exhibition were actually designed with Atmos in mind:

I decided what [the opening forest setting] needed was some soft, wooden branch sounds and knowing that players would be able to use Dolby Atmos output I wanted to take advantage of the top channels! I always travel with my Tascam DR-100 (a handheld stereo recorder). While I was in Ohio visiting family I went out in the yard, hit record, and shook some oak branches! I processed the recordings in the Waves B360 Ambisonics Encoder so that players with Dolby Atmos playback would hear the softly rustling branches above them.​

 

[LTW]

That interview is fascinating. (Actually, the entire blog looks like a potential rabbit hole for anyone interested in how immersive audio is conceived and executed in game soundtracks.) News to me is this comment from Clay Schmitt, which reveals that parts of the Kid A Nmesiac Exhibition were actually designed with Atmos in mind:

I decided what [the opening forest setting] needed was some soft, wooden branch sounds and knowing that players would be able to use Dolby Atmos output I wanted to take advantage of the top channels! I always travel with my Tascam DR-100 (a handheld stereo recorder). While I was in Ohio visiting family I went out in the yard, hit record, and shook some oak branches! I processed the recordings in the Waves B360 Ambisonics Encoder so that players with Dolby Atmos playback would hear the softly rustling branches above them.​

This is so cool. When I first 'played' this exhibition I saw the potential flashing before my eyes; this was the future of immersive audio. But I really doubt anyone but Radiohead would put this kind of forward thinking effort into a release. It might be a one off.

 

[LTW]

Following some guides online I managed to extract ALL the audio from the game (on PC). There are a mammoth amount of loose stems which could probably be used to create your own custom mixes (I’d love to try an Atmos one). BUT there is also a ready-made surround mix for what I consider the best part of game: the How To Disappear Completely/Pyramid Song/You and Whose Army? medley (which is labeled as the ‘Lidar’ medley’).

After piecing the mono files together it looks like it’s a 5.0 mix. And I can report that it sounds gorgeous even removed from the game.

I’ll have to dig more to find out if there are any other accessible mixes that don’t rely on the game engine to construct.

 

[coolerking101]

It's interesting, after rejecting surround sound mixing, that Nigel embraced it for the exhibition. I guess because it was going to be a sound installation for a real exhibition, he saw the utility of it. I found a very technical break down of how the engineers programmed the audio for the game: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/en/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition-interview/

It needs to be run on a console or PC as it is an interactive video game essentially.

The individual audio tracks/stems remain available for download on various sites or through the program itself. I assume gathering the stems from the program would be legal given that it is free to users and the files are readily available within. I recall many people on Reddit had indicated they were able to use those stems to create surround mixes....though I had a great deal of trouble doing so and gave up. It's probably a bit beyond my capabilities. If you have luck, please let us know!

 

[LTW]

The individual audio tracks/stems remain available for download on various sites or through the program itself. I assume gathering the stems from the program would be legal given that it is free to users and the files are readily available within. I recall many people on Reddit had indicated they were able to use those stems to create surround mixes....though I had a great deal of trouble doing so and gave up. It's probably a bit beyond my capabilities. If you have luck, please let us know!

I’m a few years late it seems! I did peruse the Reddit threads but didn’t find any specific mention of people making custom mixes outside the one I mentioned above. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Radiohead fans had done it already. They can be quite enthusiastic.

 

[timbre4]

ALL: This thread is open once again, but I would caution everyone that this thread is an 'edge case' that is now referenced in rule #5. Please tread carefully.

(5.) No Piracy or Uploading of Copyright Material
Discussion of any illegal activities (bootlegs) involving music, video, DVD/Blu Ray discs, streaming service piracy and other intellectual property violations are not allowed. Edge cases may be removed at moderator discretion. Do not upload any media files (original or modified form) to QQ; instead use YouTube links for reference purposes.

 

[LTW]

I think posting this should be ok, as it's cleared and recognized as Radiohead's copyright on YouTube.

Here are the fruits of my fan project exploring the audio of the freely released Kid A Mnesia exhibition: the full Kid A album in surround. This YouTube video has 5.1 audio so needs to be played back on the correct software and hardware to access the (unfortunately low bitrate) multichannel mix. Note: this is a 5.1 mixdown of my Dolby Atmos mix.