Talking Heads in Atmos

[Clement]

This track from Casual Gods got lots of airplay:

This one, too:

 

[Cyber 1]

I have not. Why do you ask?

possibly you may find it may change your opinion? of all the band members solo albums
it to me shows the best T heads sound style, it's a great album

 

[ProgRules]

possibly you may find it may change your opinion? of all the band members solo albums
it to me shows the best T heads sound style, it's a great album

I'll have to check that out. Thanks. And of course, it's always difficult to rate band member's importance when you haven't actually been part of the band experience.

One thing I give JH huge credit for is the awesomeness of the band's surround mixes. IIRC, he was the main force in doing those.

 

[ssully]

The Jan 2023 issue of Tape Op magazine has a long interview with Jerry Harrison, who talks a lot about mixing Talking Heads in 5.1 and now in Atmos.



https://tapeop.com/interviews/153/jerry-harrison/

 

[humprof]

The Jan 2023 issue of Tape Op magazine has a long interview with Jerry Harrison, who talks a lot about mixing Talking Heads in 5.1 and now in Atmos.



https://tapeop.com/interviews/153/jerry-harrison/

Dang--I just took out a (free) subscription and it starts with issue 154. Gladly shelled out three bucks for a pdf of the previous issue, though, as it also includes interviews with ET Thorngren (who collaborated with Harrison on the Brick and Atmos mixes) and Russ Gary (studio engineer at Wally Heider and Fantasy), as well as a handy short primer on some basic audio recording terminology (track vs. stem, channel vs. bus, etc.).

 

[humprof]

Dang--I just took out a (free) subscription and it starts with issue 154. Gladly shelled out three bucks for a pdf of the previous issue, though, as it also includes interviews with ET Thorngren (who collaborated with Harrison on the Brick and Atmos mixes) and Russ Gary (studio engineer at Wally Heider and Fantasy), as well as a handy short primer on some basic audio recording terminology (track vs. stem, channel vs. bus, etc.).

The entire Harrison interview is great. Excerpts:

When we were doing the 5.1, we listened to all of these different [surround] records. There were certain people who wanted to make mixes feel like you were on stage, with the musicians around you ... We felt that was not a very successful way to look at it. The other thing is that we realized that people would have these stereo systems, and then who knew what the rest of the speakers would be. We used the faux center of stereo, as long as it was then reinforced with the center speaker. By the time that we’ve now reached with Atmos, people have more sophisticated systems. I think that surround audio could be wonderful, but the majority of people who are going to be listening to Atmos will probably be listening to it on headphones, to begin with.​

​

When we do a mix for Atmos, we have the same philosophy as we did for 5.1 – more like you’re watching it from close to the stage. It’s still in front of you, but you’re hearing reflections and certain things. We did move sounds around the room for effects. Like the song “Drugs” from Fear of Music has all these sounds ... And “The Great Curve” from Remain in Light – with the three contrapuntal vocal lines happening simultaneously – it was so great in surround to have them coming from different directions ... When we were remixing [that album], there was so much room in an Atmos mix that we were able to make the drums and the bass a little more present, without taking away from the feeling of the stereo mixes.​

​

With the Talking Heads records, we went and listened to a bunch of other Atmos mixes, and some of them feel like they’ve taken a mix and pulled it apart. We could hear individual parts, but we’ve lost the glue that a good stereo mix has. When we did the Talking Heads Atmos mixes, we tried to keep that cohesion. In the days of 5.1 we had multiband compressors to do that. Now there is no 11-channel compressor that I know of. But we found ways to do it. ET came up with ways of using compressors but using the same key [sidechain]. We did these records where we want elements coming from different directions, but we still wanted some glue. That was our approach.​

 

[austinsignal]

The entire Harrison interview is great. Excerpts:

When we were doing the 5.1, we listened to all of these different [surround] records. There were certain people who wanted to make mixes feel like you were on stage, with the musicians around you ... We felt that was not a very successful way to look at it. The other thing is that we realized that people would have these stereo systems, and then who knew what the rest of the speakers would be. We used the faux center of stereo, as long as it was then reinforced with the center speaker. By the time that we’ve now reached with Atmos, people have more sophisticated systems. I think that surround audio could be wonderful, but the majority of people who are going to be listening to Atmos will probably be listening to it on headphones, to begin with.​

​

When we do a mix for Atmos, we have the same philosophy as we did for 5.1 – more like you’re watching it from close to the stage. It’s still in front of you, but you’re hearing reflections and certain things. We did move sounds around the room for effects. Like the song “Drugs” from Fear of Music has all these sounds ... And “The Great Curve” from Remain in Light – with the three contrapuntal vocal lines happening simultaneously – it was so great in surround to have them coming from different directions ... When we were remixing [that album], there was so much room in an Atmos mix that we were able to make the drums and the bass a little more present, without taking away from the feeling of the stereo mixes.​

​

With the Talking Heads records, we went and listened to a bunch of other Atmos mixes, and some of them feel like they’ve taken a mix and pulled it apart. We could hear individual parts, but we’ve lost the glue that a good stereo mix has. When we did the Talking Heads Atmos mixes, we tried to keep that cohesion. In the days of 5.1 we had multiband compressors to do that. Now there is no 11-channel compressor that I know of. But we found ways to do it. ET came up with ways of using compressors but using the same key [sidechain]. We did these records where we want elements coming from different directions, but we still wanted some glue. That was our approach.​

With high energy stuff, keeping that energy intact when teasing musical parts away from the front wall is a challenge, for sure. I'm working on a punk record right now, and the stereo version is mixed/mastered true to the genre - blistering, hot, compressed/limited - in your face. Need to use tricks like duplicating guitar tracks, chopping them up, filtering/time delay etc and placing them in other places besides the front wall,. Also - there are more tools now - compressors and limiters for use on the entire bed, with the ability to compress and/or limit individual channels or groups in the bed (front wall, surrounds, uppers for instance). These compressors/limiters are reallllly useful in creating glue-y, energetic mixes. None of these products except for 1 can operate on beds AND objects, however. So objects have to be manually treated. Dolby has a product called the Album Assembler that is a finalizing, mastering tool. It has EQ and soft limiting capability across the whole song - beds and objects - also very useful.

 

[PurpleMoustache]

Probably worth posting this here too, though a somewhat disappointing mix compared to the studio albums, much closer to the film which was never really fully discrete. Just gave Life During Wartime (better than the studio version, imo) a spin on my AirPod Max’s and it seems like this mix is definitely targeting headphones, as it’s far more “full” sounding on headphones than my speakers.

Interestingly, Psycho Killer has also been changed, omitting the “Hi, I have a tape I’d like to play…” line from Byrne and using the film version of the drum machine