R.E.M. - "Out of Time" 25th Anniversary Edition (with Blu-Ray) coming soon!

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I have all of the original REM DVD-A releases, along with LPs, CDs, and they just don't sound top drawer to me.
Not the mixing or the mastering but they have a digital sound and I hate that term but I can't think of any other way to describe it.
Not bad by any stretch but I always wondered where in the process they fell a little short.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part REM is one of my absolute favorite bands.
Been into them since Chronic Town and seen them several times live.
As LuvMyQuad said, AFTP is essential.

Not surround titles but the first 2 CDs on Mo-Fi are exemplary releases.
FWIW, I bought a couple of the Deluxe Edition(cd only) releases and they are not good.
 
I have all of the original REM DVD-A releases, along with LPs, CDs, and they just don't sound top drawer to me.
Not the mixing or the mastering but they have a digital sound and I hate that term but I can't think of any other way to describe it.
Not bad by any stretch but I always wondered where in the process they fell a little short.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part REM is one of my absolute favorite bands.
Been into them since Chronic Town and seen them several times live.
As LuvMyQuad said, AFTP is essential.

Not surround titles but the first 2 CDs on Mo-Fi are exemplary releases.
FWIW, I bought a couple of the Deluxe Edition(cd only) releases and they are not good.

Well, I don't have to have top shelf...I would take a shelf about 2/3's up the ladder I suppose. :)

EDIT - oops, you said drawer....now that's totally different. lmao
 
Does anybody know if the mixes on the Best of DVD-A are the same as this album?

I need to review them first before I give you a definitive answer, but I think the "Losing My Religion" 5.1 mixes are different, with the album 5.1 mix being the superior mix.

Yep, after listening back, I was right. Not only is the 5.1 mix of "Losing My Religion" different on "In Time" as compared to "Out of Time", but the "Out of Time" mix is so much better, it's not even close at all!
The "Out of Time" 5.1 mix is not only so much more discrete, but it has more punch and power in the low end too. It's definitely a much more satisfying mix!

Glad they decided they could mix it better, and they did! :)
 
Yep, after listening back, I was right. Not only is the 5.1 mix of "Losing My Religion" different on "In Time" as compared to "Out of Time", but the "Out of Time" mix is so much better, it's not even close at all!
The "Out of Time" 5.1 mix is not only so much more discrete, but it has more punch and power in the low end too. It's definitely a much more satisfying mix!

Glad they decided they could mix it better, and they did! :)

Hmmm - do you think they may have done something like upmixing for the Best of set? Would the really do one inferior discrete set of mixes for the Best of, from the multis, then do completely separate, discrete mixes, from the multis, for each album?
Is there some history written on this somewhere?
 
Hmmm - do you think they may have done something like upmixing for the Best of set? Would the really do one inferior discrete set of mixes for the Best of, from the multis, then do completely separate, discrete mixes, from the multis, for each album?
Is there some history written on this somewhere?

I might have to dig some more into this to see what went down between the DVDA release of "In Time" and the individual album DVDA releases, but another thing's for sure.

The 5.1 mixes of "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" are also extremely different between "In Time" and "Monster".
The "In Time" 5.1 mix is not discrete at all, while the "Monster" 5.1 mix is a radically different mix when compared against the stereo mix, yet it's very discrete.

I'm comparing all of the other mixes right now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I have all the R.E.M DVD-A's and like them all. I'm an Elliot fan and even though I was a big R.E.M fan I had never heard all their songs until the DVD-A's and some of the obscure songs have grown to be my favorites and in 5.1 it's just so much better.

I'm hopeful Concord will release all their albums in this BD format.
 
I'm hopeful Concord will release all their albums in this BD format.

Well first off, not all of the R.E.M. albums have been mixed in 5.1 surround, but out of the ones that were, Concord have the rights to release all of them except for "Document", which is still owned by Capitol Records.
The distribution deal that R.E.M. made with Concord only covers their Warner Bros albums and nothing before that, so that excludes everything before "Green".
If Concord continue to reissue more of these R.E.M. 5.1 mixes on Blu-Ray, it will take a while though if they wait for each album's 25th anniversary… :confused:
 
AFtP DVD-A available pretty cheap. If the mixes are better than In Time, it's worth it to me. Very solid, though somewhat boring album.
Just picked one up brand new for $23 shipped.

I have not compared the "In Time" mixes for the "Automatic for the People" and "Reveal" songs yet to their album mixes, but I can confirm that all of the "Green", "New Adventures in Hi-Fi", and "Up" tracks found on "In Time" share the same 5.1 mixes as their album releases.
So far, it's only "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Losing My Religion" that are different from "In Time" to their album releases.
 
The problem is very discrete (which the true mixes indisputably are) vs cohesive and beguiling.
 
I have not compared the "In Time" mixes for the "Automatic for the People" and "Reveal" songs yet to their album mixes, but I can confirm that all of the "Green", "New Adventures in Hi-Fi", and "Up" tracks found on "In Time" share the same 5.1 mixes as their album releases.
So far, it's only "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Losing My Religion" that are different from "In Time" to their album releases.

So would it be true to say the "In Time" 5.1 re-mixes preceded the album 5.1 re-mixes? At least on some of the tracks? Then they decided they required a better mix the 2nd time around? I cant imagine them creating a sub par mix after having a decent one in hand (but then again... record company logic and all...). I don't know the chronology of all the releases, and I don't have "In Time", just the separate albums ("Adventures in Hi-Fi" has eluded me, unfortunately, and ironically).

I guess I applaud them if they remixed what they felt were sub par mixes at some point.
 
While I have no proof, I suspect the DVD-A may have been rushed in order to get it out at the same time as the compilation on CD/other formats..?
 
So would it be true to say the "In Time" 5.1 re-mixes preceded the album 5.1 re-mixes? At least on some of the tracks? Then they decided they required a better mix the 2nd time around? I cant imagine them creating a sub par mix after having a decent one in hand (but then again... record company logic and all...). I don't know the chronology of all the releases, and I don't have "In Time", just the separate albums ("Adventures in Hi-Fi" has eluded me, unfortunately, and ironically).

I guess I applaud them if they remixed what they felt were sub par mixes at some point.

Here's the chronology:
Both "Automatic for the People" and "Reveal" were released in 5.1 before "In Time".
All of the other Warner albums ("Green", "Out of Time", "Monster", "New Adventures in Hi-Fi", and "Up") were released in 5.1 after "In Time", even though certain songs from those albums were released in 5.1 on "In Time" before the albums themselves were released in 5.1

The same thing happened to a certain extent with the Genesis 5.1 mixes. Nick Davis mixed the videos in 5.1 for "The Video Show" DVD, then he reevaluated all of those 5.1 mixes when mixing the individual albums in surround. Some 5.1 mixes changed drastically ("Land of Confusion" being the most significant example) while a lot of the others pretty much stayed the same with minor tweaks here and there.

Anyway, I'm not really sure how I feel about the "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" 5.1 mixes as neither one really hits the mark completely for me, but the 5.1 mix of "Losing My Religion" on "Out of Time" is perfect, so I'm very glad they took time to remix the surround mix of that song for the album release.

:)
 
I have all of the original REM DVD-A releases, along with LPs, CDs, and they just don't sound top drawer to me.
Not the mixing or the mastering but they have a digital sound and I hate that term but I can't think of any other way to describe it.
Not bad by any stretch but I always wondered where in the process they fell a little short.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part REM is one of my absolute favorite bands.
Been into them since Chronic Town and seen them several times live.
As LuvMyQuad said, AFTP is essential.

Not surround titles but the first 2 CDs on Mo-Fi are exemplary releases.
FWIW, I bought a couple of the Deluxe Edition(cd only) releases and they are not good.

Same experience here. They are not poor by any standard, but if you listen to them after a title that is "reference," they just don't hold up sound quality wise. King of Birds is my favorite in surround. Most of Green is excellent too...
 
Most of Green is excellent too...

:yikes

I thought Green was pretty terrible in surround. For me, it frequently killed the feel of the original album, and if anything made it sound under produced in places. Out of interest, was this an album you were well acquainted in stereo beforehand? I think I may understand the love for ES work here in terms of him sticking a lot in the rears, but some of the mixes seem to be over dry for my tastes. That said, his mix of the Hotel California album is amazing, but I guess that was a very dry sounding album to begin with.
 
I'm In the camp that I was disappointed with the REM DVDAs I think they are possibly the worst of Elliot's Work, not bad but disappointing.

it may also be that I was not that Big a REM fan but then I was not a big fa of talking heads until I got the DVD's of those a revelation
 
:yikes

I thought Green was pretty terrible in surround. For me, it frequently killed the feel of the original album, and if anything made it sound under produced in places. Out of interest, was this an album you were well acquainted in stereo beforehand? I think I may understand the love for ES work here in terms of him sticking a lot in the rears, but some of the mixes seem to be over dry for my tastes. That said, his mix of the Hotel California album is amazing, but I guess that was a very dry sounding album to begin with.

Sorry but I don't judge a mix based on the stereo version. If I want the stereo version mix, I listen to that. I prefer my surround with a lot in the rears. Green is my favorite mostly for the content of the music, but I do like the mix, not overall reference, but I do like it. I don't get the "dry" terminology for ES, wouldn't that be a result of the original production rather than the surround mixers choice of what instruments to place in each channel? I don't consider Hotel California a reference disc either, but it is very good, again, I don't get the "dry" adjective to describe the mix, the recording, maybe.
 
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