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

I think he’s saying that they added the Hammond organ because it helped illustrate what can be done with the technology, whereas originally they artistically decided that they didnt like it.

 

If Godrich's report of what Caillat said is accurate (and he heard it from Bob Ludwig who mastered Caillat's remix, so it probably is), it's not that the band didn't like it — but ran out of room for it when presented with the challenge of fitting all the recorded elements into the stereo image. Yes, an artistic decision, but so equally is the decision to use it in the wider canvas of 5.1, not merely a demonstration of tech

I'm thinking also of the fantastic remix of NIN's epic The Downward Spiral in 5.1, where all sorts of elements previously buried in the stereo version envelope the listener and aggressively jump out from all around. Artistically appropriate to the material, not just a gimmick

 

I think every individual sound deserves its own unique dedicated 3-way speaker.


I have 1024 speakers in my apartment, just waiting for the ideal surround system to be developed.

 

This. The concept that there is not enough room for the Hammond (or for any other instrument for that matter) in the stereo image is completely ridiculous. Obviously the original producer decided it didn't fit the song for artistical reasons.

 

His example of Rumors and the added Hammond part reminds me of the Quad Sabbath Paranoid and the Quad Santana with Alice Coletrane i have. Just a new way to hear the albums. Stuff that wasn’t there, panning. I enjoy the new mix. Just interesting. I dont discount Atmos, 5.1 or any new surround for the reason given. I like it for this reason. New approach.


Enjoyed the article. I think he’s saying it’s more focused in stereo. Which makes sense. Some of my mono 45s kick ass. Just so in your face. Or as he says, cooks. I think it’s making a lot of fuss about his pretty logical comments.

 

I consider 5.1 to be, like a film screened in 3D, a curiosity, and possibly worth checking out in some cases, but in the vast percentage of examples, stereo is the original creation and original intention of the musical act.

So a surround mix is fine if people like it and want to buy it, but I've never set up 5.1 in my home because I simply enjoy the listening experience of having my music come from "in front of me", like a performance, rather than all around me at different whimsical angles. If that's old fashioned, then so be it. I'm 38 though so I've grown up with a lot of surround sound fans, and checked out many releases that way. Not my cup of tea, but I'm glad people are able to enjoy music that way. More music the better!

 

Retorical question really.

And surly time is irrelevant, I am sure Andy Partridge and Robert Fripp for instance would agree and Pink Floyd would definitely ageee

 

I was forced to use WordPerfect in an office job once. Doesn't mean I felt any love for that ancient program.

 

not watching a movie. stereo is good enough for me.

 

I'm curious, there is a lot of discussion of Atmos content, but how many of you have Atmos (height channel) speakers, either upfiring or downfiring? I have upfiring Atmos speakers that I'm not currently using because there is so little Atmos content, and honestly they made the sound shrill (also I prefer to have rear surrounds, my HTC is one or the other). Or is music Atmos something else? I will say though watching Mad Max with the Atmos speakers is a creepy experience when Max is hearing the voices of his dead family at the beginning, whispering above and around you.

 

Sure but your ears are hard-wired to an automatic surround sound processor with no off switch.

 

It's not rubbish in general, but unfortunately there are many badly executed multichannel mixes.
There are also a few fantastic ones. But many where you really ask yourself whether they were drunk while doing them...
And I don't like the trend at all that they are not being released physically. A total no-go for me.

 

For me, more than two speakers is unnecessary. I bought a great pair of tall-standing Yamaha speakers recently, connected them to my late Dad's Sansui amplifier. Turned it up and the whole house shook. Sound coming from all directions with just two speakers. Greatest sound, musically, I have heard in my life.
That was a CD, I'm upgrading my 1970s Apan turntable next with a Pro-ject turntable.

 

I believe it. The presence of yet another instrument in a mix can add to the clutter of a sound you don't want to end up with. If the artist or producer doesn't think it adds anything to the stereo soundstage (or the mono presentation, for that matter), that's an artistic decision. However, once presented with a wider, more accommodating sound sound canvas to work in, these artistic decisions can once again be assessed with the extended options of space. And since Ken was involved with the original project, no reason to feel like he was not justified in taking another look at it from that standpoint. So yes, returning the instrument to the mix can be seen as an artistic decision in nature.

It's not exactly like Richard Carpenter's remodeling of an album for CD, as an example. But, our reaction to that notwithstanding, it was his choice to make, and he'd had years to live with his earlier thoughts about the original mixes. If we'd never heard the Carpenters albums as originally presented in the first place, and made those emotional connections to them at the time, no doubt we would have been fine with the liberties he'd taken with his own work in the CD era.

 

I mean, imagine if you listened to "It Won't Be Long" by The Beatles in STEREO and concluded that STEREO is rubbish? One song? What a dough head.

Good luck with the ongoing Loudness Wars there Nigel, thanks for nothing.

 

You have two ears…. Mic drop

 

What are head related transfer functions? We may have two ears but but can hear birds above us, dogs below us and the wind blowing from all directions.

 

I don't believe it. In my opinion one of the engineer jobs is to acomodate the envised music to the recording during mixing. It is not like the mono or stereo formats have ever limited the number of instruments present in a final mix. A good stereo mix should be able to accomodate anything. We see all the time on some bonus tracks that sometimes less is more, and that some elements were left out for a good reason. But it's ok. Let us agree to disagree.

 

Except for Radiohead that isn't dynamically compromised.

The balls on Godrich to decry Dolby Atmos when he can't operate a limiter and/or compressor.

 

Agreed with Nigel, most 5.1 and atmos mixes I've heard, suck and are disjointed

 

But, they can get better...said Steven Wilson, a decade-and-a-half after Elliot Scheiner.

I've found a lot of 5.1 mixes that earlier sounded overly-discrete to me, change their character sometimes with either the speaker placements adjusted...or, a higher volume level allows the once-apart channels find their proper place within a larger room.

 

I sat down with a mate who has a 50K hifi and tidal and said play me some 5.1 and atmos mixes in HD, he said you won't like em, most of them suck, I said hit me....

yea it was a disappointing experience to say the least, the older the recordings the worst they were, the best ones were really modern dancy hip hoppy ones, classical worked as well as it was subtle, the Beatles truly was horrible and I had to get him to turn it off....

I was in the perfect spot as well...

 

If Nigel Godrich rubs you the wrong way, you won't like Jonny Greenwood either:

Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood to Audiophiles: Simmer Down

 

"The medium is the message" is a quote that resonates from the days of the McLuhan era. I certainly found my first listens to CD invigorating, when listening to them with my Chief Engineer at a radio station the week before we debuted them for the first time on the air. That was, of course, just before an article came out in our competitor's newspaper: a boilerplate syndicated piece intended to instruct listeners how to perceive digital as "cold" and LP's as "warm analogue" recordings, backed up by "insert-here" quotes by a local used record store owner...whose ad was placed right next to the article.

The CD processing got better over time of course, but the "education" had already taken place in several cities where radio competitors of newspapers had been espousing the benefits of the CD's they played. And, here we are today, in a world of hipsters who can't tell a MoFi mastered from a DAT until they're told about it in breathless prose...on a board run buy a guy with bona fides whose mantras include, "it's all in the mastering". But still they're posting threads asking how to improve their turntable listening experiences with expensive cartridge upgrades, pricey RCM's and cables, cables, cables!...when nobody suggests to just get the LP's with the better masterings.

What does all this have to do with your experience with the expensive gear and the HD stream? The term, "mastered for iTunes", comes to mind. I wasn't there of course, but I am curious as to how many of his examples were directly sourced from verifiably-well-reviewed SACD and DVD-A sources, and which ones were quickly-uploaded to the streaming service on a tight schedule by overworked engineers who had just gotten orders to run the albums they had just signed the rights to, through the algorithm supplied by the Head Office.

The technology is impressive, but you still need people who know what they're doing twiddling the knobs, with the right tools, and the ears for it.

Not just hurry and get it out there before the signatures on the contracts are dry.

 

Yes, there's no such thing as multichannel sound in everyday life, eveything we hear come from two gargantuan celestial speakers and the Lord himself is behind the mixing board.