Please post your thoughts and comments on this new edition of the album "Sylva" by Snarky Puppy, now available as a CD/Blu-Ray set with Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround mixes
HiRez Poll Snarky Puppy - SYLVA [Blu-Ray Audio (Dolby Atmos)]
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Very remarkable. The group and the orchestra integrate seamlessly, and the sound is stellar. Unlike large venue concerts, this appeared to be a relatively small area with few people so you don't get any audience racket and reverberations other than mostly polite applause.
No "Royal Albert Hall" full of screams and whistles and plethora of unwanted racket.
The film crew was by and large unobtrusive.
All in all one of most deserved 10 ratings I've given in a long time.
Whether the music appeals or not to your particular tastes, the performance and recording/mixing was excellent.
I have only listened to the Atmos version, and this is what I based my rating on.
No "Royal Albert Hall" full of screams and whistles and plethora of unwanted racket.
The film crew was by and large unobtrusive.
All in all one of most deserved 10 ratings I've given in a long time.
Whether the music appeals or not to your particular tastes, the performance and recording/mixing was excellent.
I have only listened to the Atmos version, and this is what I based my rating on.
I have a difficult time wrapping my head around this amazing band. 18 band members (how does this financially pencil out ) and how in the world these live recordings can sound this good. It's uncanny. I'll reserve my vote until I get my bluray, but I don't see how it cannot be a 10 after listening to the streamed version.
My only criticism is their store marketing could use some help. It's clear as mud as to what the bluray contains from a format perspective. Neither the description of Sylva or Empire Central mention anything about Atmos, or even the fact that its mixed in surround at all.
) and how in the world these live recordings can sound this good. It's uncanny. I'll reserve my vote until I get my bluray, but I don't see how it cannot be a 10 after listening to the streamed version.My only criticism is their store marketing could use some help. It's clear as mud as to what the bluray contains from a format perspective. Neither the description of Sylva or Empire Central mention anything about Atmos, or even the fact that its mixed in surround at all.
Yes, I've checked it out on Tidal, amazing stuff. Ten for sure. But I'm not rating it as I don't actually own it.I have a difficult time wrapping my head around this amazing band. 18 band members (how does this financially pencil out
My only criticism is their store marketing could use some help. It's clear as mud as to what the bluray contains from a format perspective. Neither the description of Sylva or Empire Central mention anything about Atmos, or even the fact that its mixed in surround at all.
Love this. Music is amazing and surround mix fills the room. One of my new favorites. An easy 10
AudiophileStyle
Well-known Member
Are the chapters screwed up for other peoples' blu-ray discs as well?
The times don't match the Atmos release on Apple Music and the ast chapter / song is only 0:01 long on mine.
Also, the blu-ray only reports being 54:58 long, while the Atmos album on Apple Music is 1:15:00 long. Looks like a blu-ray authoring error or something else strange.
The times don't match the Atmos release on Apple Music and the ast chapter / song is only 0:01 long on mine.
Also, the blu-ray only reports being 54:58 long, while the Atmos album on Apple Music is 1:15:00 long. Looks like a blu-ray authoring error or something else strange.
Last edited:
Plays fine for me (ripped as .iso). I don't examine minutiae like track times, especially compared to streaming versions: I mean, why?
No offense meant.
AudiophileStyle
Well-known Member
Only becuase the physical blu-ray says it has 8 songs. Skipping to song 8 and it's only 1 second, is problematic.
It appears the blu-ray only has 6 actual songs, even though it's listed on the packaging and disc as 8.
I agree completely that there are people that are very good at authoring BD's, and some not so much.
Plus we know no one ever screws up and makes obvious mistakes.
AudiophileStyle
Well-known Member
Here's the answer - https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...t-is-coming-in-atmos.35889/page-7#post-815738I agree completely that there are people that are very good at authoring BD's, and some not so much.
Plus we know no one ever screws up and makes obvious mistakes.
It seems also they had a hard time getting this release out. I don't know if it was authoring or pressing/both.
I don't debate your point, I just think it's an excellent release.
I don't debate your point, I just think it's an excellent release.
AudiophileStyle
Well-known Member
The music and mix is fantastic. I just wanted to make sure I got all of it off the disc :~)
I wouldn't normally (and may never again) do this, but I feel this strongly about this release:
Up until a week or so ago, my Atmos experience had been via up-firing speakers on top of my front L&R speakers that I'd been growing increasingly dissatisfied with after the initial "ooh, height!" thrill wore off. I actually bought a set of speakers to mount on the ceiling almost a year ago, but the challenge in finding low profile mounting hardware in white (so they were onobtrusive on my ceiling) and just the general complexity and effort in doing the job meant they sat in their box, untouched.
As I've mentioned a few times around these parts, Slyva is one of my favourite albums of the last 10 years, and I've probably watched it on YouTube at least a half-dozen times a year since it came out, along with lots of other audio-only listens on my portable DAP. When this disc was announced, I knew it had to be my first "real Atmos" experience, and as such, it provided the impetus to finally get my ceiling speakers mounted (a job that took parts to two days, a lot of measuring and angle calculation, and even more swearing) and in a feat of unparalleled self-discipline, I managed to save viewing this for the months it took to finally get the job done.
I had a lot of trepidation about this mix for a number of reasons - chief amongst them that "live" performances have yielded some of the worst surround mixes ever committed to tape (or file) either by engineers who felt duty bound to create a mix that replicated what sitting in the middle of the audience would sound like, or worse, just took the stereo mix, put it in a surround container and added fake "hall" reverb or ambiance to the rear, or even worse still did that and derived a fake mono center channel by summing the common content from the left and right channels of the stereo mix.
My other worry was that as a surround mixer, Nic Hard was something of an unknown quantity as a surround mixer - I'd heard a couple of tracks from the DD+ Atmos streaming release of Empire Central and thought they were "ok" but not mindblowing - and "first timers" often seem to err on the side of caution when it comes to aggressiveness in mixing. I'd also just subjected myself to the entirety of Richard Whittaker's Thin Lizzy 1976 Atmos mixes, an experience so disconcerting that by the time it was finished I was actually angry, and starting to despair about the future of surround in general. I'll probably write a review for that disc at some point, but I want to go back and listen to it again to make sure I wasn't just grouchy that day.
I'm also conscious of the fact that when you've listened to an album as much as I've listened to Sylva that you can come to know all the nuances so well that any change can seem bad, or wrong simply because it's different so I tried to calibrate my expectations accordingly, enter with an open mind and like I did with the 1976 disc (only to be let down there) tell myself that even if it was only a "big stereo" mix that was a 6/10 from a surround POV, that that was still an improvement on the old stereo mix.
Well, it turns out that any worries I had were completely unfounded - right from the first minute of the first track with the notable left/right push/pull of the woodwinds I could tell I was in for something special. Not only did this mix live up to even the highest expectations I could've had (and tried to suppress) it's one of the best surround experiences I've had in recent memory.
Now I will caveat this by saying that obviously enjoyment like I had hinges on whether you like the music as much as I do, and that I'm in somewhat of a unique position having hoped-for and anticipated a surround mix of this album for almost 10 years, but even still...wow.
I don't want to give away all the surprises because I feel like that's part of the kind of Christmas-day fun of "unwrapping" a new present, but I will say that not only does the mix make great use of the surrounds and heights for 3D imaging (strings and horns often arrayed around the listener in various configurations) there is also plenty of discrete elements in the rear corners, not to mention liberal use of the center channel and heights for solo instruments too. There are also some great panning moments including having the drummer's rack and floor toms arrayed around the room in a horseshoe, so some of the big fills start in one rear corner, move across the front soundstage and then end in the other rear corner. Whatever the opposite of a "set it and forget it" mix is called, this is it - you can tell that great care and forethought was put into the placement of instruments in the soundfield, which vary from track to track, and often even within the same song. There's an inventiveness and playfulness to the mix that kept me not just engage but rapt for all of this album's nearly hour-long runtime.
This album may have been recorded with an audience present, but the mixing philosophy definitely treats it like a studio album - the decisions are made almost entirely with respect to what serves the music and arrangements, and not the visuals. Much like the people who were lucky enough to be there, you feel like a fly on the wall at the recording of the album. It's also fascinating, with the benefit of the visual component to observe the mixing desk being used like a kind of secondary conductor: take note, particularly in the quieter or less intense sections of just how many times you see a musician (either foreground or background) playing something that's either barely audible or entirely inaudible in the final mix. In a smaller band setting this might be annoying but I think it illustrates the genius it takes to sculpt this kind of semi-controlled anarchy into a cohesive final product that balances the scripted and improvisational elements so finely. One sidenote is that this is an entirely new edit of the film as well, and while a lot of the shots are similar (or the same) as the old edit, the video quality is a massive improvement (unsurprisingly) on what was available on YouTube (low bitrate HD) and DVD (30fps 3:2 pulldown SD). I also felt like there were a few more shots of the musicians interacting with each other, either during or between songs, which was one of my favourite elements of the original edit, and why this album for me is a "must watch" rather than "just listen".
Mention also has to be made of the massively increased dynamic range in the Atmos mix. The original stereo mix was a respectable by modern standards but not great DR9 (and the new stereo mix is even worse, DR6!) with tracks varying from DR8 to DR10. Because of the poor dynamic range of the new stereo mastering, I did a stereo downmix of the Atmos track and it measures DR14 (with tracks varying from DR12 to an impressive DR16) and while getting a DR reading from a stereo downmix might not be perfect science, it gives you some indication of just how much more dynamic this new mix is. These numbers aren't purely academic either, they really translate into the listening experience as well - there are several moments where the combination of the surround mix and dynamic range yield the kind of drama you'd normally only find in classical music. There were a few times where the hair on the back of my neck actually stood up - again I don't want to give too much away but that combination of surround height and dynamic range made the timpani drums sound absolutely epic, like they were 15 feet in diameter and being played by a race of giant men (or women, I don't discriminate when it comes to giants).
So yeah, if you're on the fence about this one at all, hop off and pick this up. If you like jazz, funk, jazz-funk, funky jazz, fusion, jazz-fusion, fusion-y jazz, orchestral music, orchestral jazz, orchestral maneuvers not in the dark, funky orchestral maneu...ok I'll stop now, but you get the idea. What Nic Hard (and Michael League, leader of SP who supervised this mix and runs GroundUP, the band's record label) have done here is remarkable. If more albums were mixed in Atmos this well the world (and QQ in particular) would be a better, happier place. I hope that the success of this release emboldens them to go back and tackle some of their other releases, Culcha Vulcha and We Like It Here in particular.
[...and another side-note, after watching Sylva and enjoying it so much, I also watched Empire Central and found it nearly as engaging from a surround perspective. I dunno if it was placebo effect, being able to see the visuals, or what, but the TrueHD Atmos seemed much better and more "surround-y" than my memories of the "just ok" DD+ Atmos streaming mixes of the same few tracks from months earlier.]
Up until a week or so ago, my Atmos experience had been via up-firing speakers on top of my front L&R speakers that I'd been growing increasingly dissatisfied with after the initial "ooh, height!" thrill wore off. I actually bought a set of speakers to mount on the ceiling almost a year ago, but the challenge in finding low profile mounting hardware in white (so they were onobtrusive on my ceiling) and just the general complexity and effort in doing the job meant they sat in their box, untouched.
As I've mentioned a few times around these parts, Slyva is one of my favourite albums of the last 10 years, and I've probably watched it on YouTube at least a half-dozen times a year since it came out, along with lots of other audio-only listens on my portable DAP. When this disc was announced, I knew it had to be my first "real Atmos" experience, and as such, it provided the impetus to finally get my ceiling speakers mounted (a job that took parts to two days, a lot of measuring and angle calculation, and even more swearing) and in a feat of unparalleled self-discipline, I managed to save viewing this for the months it took to finally get the job done.
I had a lot of trepidation about this mix for a number of reasons - chief amongst them that "live" performances have yielded some of the worst surround mixes ever committed to tape (or file) either by engineers who felt duty bound to create a mix that replicated what sitting in the middle of the audience would sound like, or worse, just took the stereo mix, put it in a surround container and added fake "hall" reverb or ambiance to the rear, or even worse still did that and derived a fake mono center channel by summing the common content from the left and right channels of the stereo mix.
My other worry was that as a surround mixer, Nic Hard was something of an unknown quantity as a surround mixer - I'd heard a couple of tracks from the DD+ Atmos streaming release of Empire Central and thought they were "ok" but not mindblowing - and "first timers" often seem to err on the side of caution when it comes to aggressiveness in mixing. I'd also just subjected myself to the entirety of Richard Whittaker's Thin Lizzy 1976 Atmos mixes, an experience so disconcerting that by the time it was finished I was actually angry, and starting to despair about the future of surround in general. I'll probably write a review for that disc at some point, but I want to go back and listen to it again to make sure I wasn't just grouchy that day.
I'm also conscious of the fact that when you've listened to an album as much as I've listened to Sylva that you can come to know all the nuances so well that any change can seem bad, or wrong simply because it's different so I tried to calibrate my expectations accordingly, enter with an open mind and like I did with the 1976 disc (only to be let down there) tell myself that even if it was only a "big stereo" mix that was a 6/10 from a surround POV, that that was still an improvement on the old stereo mix.
Well, it turns out that any worries I had were completely unfounded - right from the first minute of the first track with the notable left/right push/pull of the woodwinds I could tell I was in for something special. Not only did this mix live up to even the highest expectations I could've had (and tried to suppress) it's one of the best surround experiences I've had in recent memory.
Now I will caveat this by saying that obviously enjoyment like I had hinges on whether you like the music as much as I do, and that I'm in somewhat of a unique position having hoped-for and anticipated a surround mix of this album for almost 10 years, but even still...wow.
I don't want to give away all the surprises because I feel like that's part of the kind of Christmas-day fun of "unwrapping" a new present, but I will say that not only does the mix make great use of the surrounds and heights for 3D imaging (strings and horns often arrayed around the listener in various configurations) there is also plenty of discrete elements in the rear corners, not to mention liberal use of the center channel and heights for solo instruments too. There are also some great panning moments including having the drummer's rack and floor toms arrayed around the room in a horseshoe, so some of the big fills start in one rear corner, move across the front soundstage and then end in the other rear corner. Whatever the opposite of a "set it and forget it" mix is called, this is it - you can tell that great care and forethought was put into the placement of instruments in the soundfield, which vary from track to track, and often even within the same song. There's an inventiveness and playfulness to the mix that kept me not just engage but rapt for all of this album's nearly hour-long runtime.
This album may have been recorded with an audience present, but the mixing philosophy definitely treats it like a studio album - the decisions are made almost entirely with respect to what serves the music and arrangements, and not the visuals. Much like the people who were lucky enough to be there, you feel like a fly on the wall at the recording of the album. It's also fascinating, with the benefit of the visual component to observe the mixing desk being used like a kind of secondary conductor: take note, particularly in the quieter or less intense sections of just how many times you see a musician (either foreground or background) playing something that's either barely audible or entirely inaudible in the final mix. In a smaller band setting this might be annoying but I think it illustrates the genius it takes to sculpt this kind of semi-controlled anarchy into a cohesive final product that balances the scripted and improvisational elements so finely. One sidenote is that this is an entirely new edit of the film as well, and while a lot of the shots are similar (or the same) as the old edit, the video quality is a massive improvement (unsurprisingly) on what was available on YouTube (low bitrate HD) and DVD (30fps 3:2 pulldown SD). I also felt like there were a few more shots of the musicians interacting with each other, either during or between songs, which was one of my favourite elements of the original edit, and why this album for me is a "must watch" rather than "just listen".
Mention also has to be made of the massively increased dynamic range in the Atmos mix. The original stereo mix was a respectable by modern standards but not great DR9 (and the new stereo mix is even worse, DR6!) with tracks varying from DR8 to DR10. Because of the poor dynamic range of the new stereo mastering, I did a stereo downmix of the Atmos track and it measures DR14 (with tracks varying from DR12 to an impressive DR16) and while getting a DR reading from a stereo downmix might not be perfect science, it gives you some indication of just how much more dynamic this new mix is. These numbers aren't purely academic either, they really translate into the listening experience as well - there are several moments where the combination of the surround mix and dynamic range yield the kind of drama you'd normally only find in classical music. There were a few times where the hair on the back of my neck actually stood up - again I don't want to give too much away but that combination of surround height and dynamic range made the timpani drums sound absolutely epic, like they were 15 feet in diameter and being played by a race of giant men (or women, I don't discriminate when it comes to giants).
So yeah, if you're on the fence about this one at all, hop off and pick this up. If you like jazz, funk, jazz-funk, funky jazz, fusion, jazz-fusion, fusion-y jazz, orchestral music, orchestral jazz, orchestral maneuvers not in the dark, funky orchestral maneu...ok I'll stop now, but you get the idea. What Nic Hard (and Michael League, leader of SP who supervised this mix and runs GroundUP, the band's record label) have done here is remarkable. If more albums were mixed in Atmos this well the world (and QQ in particular) would be a better, happier place. I hope that the success of this release emboldens them to go back and tackle some of their other releases, Culcha Vulcha and We Like It Here in particular.
[...and another side-note, after watching Sylva and enjoying it so much, I also watched Empire Central and found it nearly as engaging from a surround perspective. I dunno if it was placebo effect, being able to see the visuals, or what, but the TrueHD Atmos seemed much better and more "surround-y" than my memories of the "just ok" DD+ Atmos streaming mixes of the same few tracks from months earlier.]
Couldn't agree more. This is a very dynamic release. This is live done right.
The gamechanger is that even though it's recorded "live" (ie in front of an audience) there is no PA system in the venue, so no amplified sound bleeding intto any of the microphones. Everyone there is wearing a set of headphones, including all the musicians (who I presume are being fed custom mixes for the instrument they're playing) and all of the audience members, who are probably getting a much more balanced "overall" mix.
SP have recorded all of their albums of the last decade this way (aside from Culcha Vulcha, their lone studio album) and like one of them says in the making-of doc that comes with Empire Central, "I don't know why more bands don't record this way." There are examples too numerous to mention of 'great live acts' that consistently produced studio recordings devoid of the energy and charisma that made them so great.
If GroundUP don't link to this review and put pull-quotes from it in large bold italics on the front page of their website, they're fools!
That's fascinating. Every audience member is wearing headphones? I've not seen the video but I've heard the album on Tidal and love it. However, on a totally personal level, if I'd been there on the night, I'm not sure how I would have felt about needing to wear headphones throughout the concert to hear them. Like one of those silent discos one sees passing you by on a city street now and then. It may have been too claustrophobic an experience for me. But yes, the Atmos mix of the album itself is wonderful, even via streaming. I'm tempted to buy this one properly, depending upon the cost.
[Addl: I'm assuming there must have been volume controls on the headphones.]
Yeah, everyone in the venue is wearing headphones, musicians and audience alike - it's exactly like a silent disco in conception, though you'd obviously be hearing all the acoustic instruments (brass, woodwinds, strings, drums, percussion) unamplified. I'm sure everyone had their own volume control as well.
(Here's an image of the band's pianist, Bill Laurence - you can see a handful of audience members and musicians all wearing headphones.)
You have to bear in mind that this show is more on the side of album recording with invited audience rather than live gig that's just happened to be recorded - the people in audience at this show would've been fully aware that they'd be wearing headphones rather than showing up at the venue and being surprised by it. Like I said as well, the band's previous album, We Like It Here (which yielded the viral hit video for the song Lingus, thanks in part to Cory Henry's brain melting synth solo) was recorded and filmed in the same way so fans of the band are completely on board and aware of this approach. Just to be clear, band's regular touring gigs aren't performed this way, they're just presented "normally" ie with a full PA system.
(Here's an image of the band's pianist, Bill Laurence - you can see a handful of audience members and musicians all wearing headphones.)
You have to bear in mind that this show is more on the side of album recording with invited audience rather than live gig that's just happened to be recorded - the people in audience at this show would've been fully aware that they'd be wearing headphones rather than showing up at the venue and being surprised by it. Like I said as well, the band's previous album, We Like It Here (which yielded the viral hit video for the song Lingus, thanks in part to Cory Henry's brain melting synth solo) was recorded and filmed in the same way so fans of the band are completely on board and aware of this approach. Just to be clear, band's regular touring gigs aren't performed this way, they're just presented "normally" ie with a full PA system.
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