Producer Nigel Godrich dismisses “all this Dolby Atmos rubbish” as he says that “stereo is optimum”

Not just "my" hobby. People reprint other people's opinions on web boards every day, and board participants comment on them; that's how you start a thread, right?. How is mine any different?

OHHH, that's right...I didn't get mine approved by everybody else on the board first! Mea culpa!

 

some people think that it’s mandatory to place discrete musical elements all over a 360 degree sound field. No doubt, certain recordings benefit from this creatively, but they don’t have to be done this way. There are many new mixes out there that stay true to a stereo sound field, but augment it with the capabilities of surround.

what I like most about surround/ATMOS is the spatial elbow room that it gives to what is still a stereo oriented mix. The by product of this is much greater clarity and detail heard in the individual instruments that make up the mix, and the depth and dimensionality of the stereo sound field can be better appreciated.

 

This doesn’t really surprise me. For a massive band who you’d think would opt for better fidelity options, Radiohead is notorious as basically shunning anything to do with that.

 

They’re surprisingly the luddites of the top tier rock echelon. No AAA releases of their early stuff, mediocre pressings and masterings on vinyl of all their stuff

So expecting Atmos from these guys is just a no go.

 

Mono is optimum for mixing surely

 

The Fleetwood Mac story is hilarious. Radiohead’s Kid A would be amazing 5.1, but I do agree with Nigel, in spirit, that 5.1 is more of a curio than a representation of what the artist intended. Full disclosure, I own many Steven Wilson remixes and listen to the hires stereo versions 99% of the time vs 5.1.

 

Not ALL their stuff. The In Rainbows discbox is a wonderful vinyl pressing.

 

I’m going to listen to the entire podcast interview this discussion is based on on my walk later today. I really don’t trust that the article the OP linked to while framing NG’s comments in the most uncharitable and negative way possible is an accurate or fair summary.

 

In my (entirely work-related) experience, 3D Dolby Atmos spatial audio mixes are less irritating and fatiguing than multichannel-based audio mixes, in that for lack of a better term they feel more "realistic" in the way the instruments and voices are integrated.

I still find them gimmicky and would never seek one out for my personal listening pleasure.

 

But wouldn't it be cool to hear him saying it from behind you!

 

a lot of the original pressings are quite good; it’s everything since then that’s the problem.

 

Yep! I started thinking back through what I’ve got and I’m really happy with my original copy of the Bends and my old Parlophone OKC. Hail to the Thief is excellent on 2 12”s at 45 RPM. It feels like their issues really started with A Moon Shaped Pool and the reissues after that

 

I think there are a lot of different considerations, and the applicable ones vary often, project by project. If the mix is for a living artist who has control of the work in question, and the artist is okay with what's been done, I don't see why anyone else should have a prblem. As an example, Steven Wilson's remix (both stereo and 5.1) of King Crimson's Lizard. Fripp felt the original was too congested and maintained a bad opinion of it for years. Wilson's remix opened the music up for him, brining it back to something much closer to what he orginially envisioned. And you can still get the original mix if that's your rpreferred listeneing experience.

Once you get into the grey area of mix decisions the remixer has made, you're in a different arena. Everyone's going to have an opinion. Some are just person taste, some are going to be about more technical aspects of the mixing process. Wy a remixer leaes an obvious mistake in a mix is always a point for discussion. Making everything audible and equally present is a lame decision in my book, as someone who has been involved in recording on both sides of the board since the late 1970s. Sometimes things are meant to be subtley placed in a mix and not in your face. Now that the shaker is as a loud as the lead vocal, yes, it's a new take and everything is much clearer, but that was never the point musically. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Sometimes all the limitations that things were recorded under helped created the mood and vibe of a piece and isolating everything, changing reverbs and delays (if and where possible) and making everything supler clean and present, does indeed clarify things and allow everyone to hear all the parts that were "buried in the original mix". But is the vibe still intact? Or was something lost in the process?

I love a good 5.1 mix, the more immersive the better. Some reccordings are better suited to that than others. That's fine. I love a good stereo mix, too. And there's loads of music where I prefer the original mono, as the stereo didn't have the impact. It's all on a case by case basis for me.

 

We don't only process two channels though - obviously, or how could we listen to 5.1, Atmos, or any other multi-directional mix. When we're in nature, for example, we hear sounds from behind, above, below, wherever. Two ears, two speakers? Do you exclude mono?

Now, I agree with those saying to second-guess artistic decisions made when the music was mixed for stereo is usually a mistake. It will, though, be interesting to hear what can be done when an album is made for Atmos from the ground up. And I agree with @aphexj in post #25 about the Hammond part.

I don't yet have the tech to listen to Atmos or 5.1 so maybe it always a terrible experience. I doubt it, but my only 5.1 experiences have been movies in a cinema.

 

This. It's obviously a musical choice. It's not as if they recorded those keyboards to fill space in the mix. It was in the original recording, and left out because of the limitations of stereo. Now they do a surround mix, it's a new mix so they have to make a choice, except now the sound landscape is larger. Then it's a matter of opinion if the mix is good or bad, or if the inclusion of that element works or not, just like in any remix.

By the way, now I need to hear that 5.1 mix of Rumours, I didn't even know it exists.

 

Nigel Godrich is an amazing producer

But as a sound engineer ...

 

I haven't heard it either, but their s/t '75 album has a 5.1 remix included on the deluxe set (unfortunately only as a lossy Dolby Digital track on the DVD) and it's pretty cool. Very much like having the band placed all around you. The only drawback is that when the song fades out gradually (and many on that LP do), it unsettles that illusion a bit, kind of like they're all creeping away slowly while continuing to play...

 

I was also a stereo purist until I finally listened to the 5.1 layer on my Rumours SACD. I was blown away.

 

I love mono stereo and quad. 5.1 is ok but shifts the balance to the front which I'm not keen on. The new surround mix of Pink Floyd Animals kills the stereo mix IMO.

 

Seems Atmos and 5.1 stuff gets better DR numbers to the now frankly ridiculous CD standard for DR5 across the board. Take the recent Tears for Fears album as a prime example of this

 

Come, come, Mr. Bob, surely such considerations are pseudo-technical rather than musical

 

That's a better context.
No I didn't check out the article....

Based on this I would say.

Rumours isn't a very good album to draw a decision from (though it is an excellent mix) because that album specifically brought in removed elements from the original mix.

Firstly, most surround albums don't do this.
Secondly, Rumours could very easily have made a great surround album without any extra elements, but that isn't what they decided to do.

So I would still throw the same criticism at this person.
It appears this person is merely trying to justify their dislike for surround, with a hyperbolic, nonsense response to a mix that has been out over 2 decades.

"That's proof that this is wrong" ??? Wtf
What kind of statement is that?
I don't care if he likes or dislikes it... but wrong?

If the guy was actually interested, he would have explored the format long before this.

There are hundreds of older albums that have had very good - excellent 5.1 mixes.

Even moreso though, I have many new albums that were recorded and mixed, with and for 5.1 mixes in mind... Porcupine Tree, Devin Townsend, Pineapple Thief and many others... all excellent.

I think this quote actually shows that the heading is certainly not a clickbait heading....

This person is welcome to their opinion, but this statement is an absolute nonsense, and suggests this person willing to step in on "right and wrong" about something he clearly knows very little about, and has very limited exposure to, is a clown, and not really worth paying any attention to.

 

I thought Rumours SACD was mastered from the 1970s quadraphonic mix?