“Assembly line” mixers? Seriously? That just reeks of doing things half-assed and on the cheap.
Do you really want movie studios doing surround mixes for music releases?
Every day Hollywood pumps out a new surround mix of an old catalog movie using an "assembly line" of mixers and guess what, most sound pretty Damn good.
and btw, in today's world that "Ford" Tech in Hollywood is more skilled than a Mercedes Tech (in England) because mixing a movie in atmos is worlds more difficult than mixing a music album in 5.1
Yes, surround mixes are for a niche audience. And will continue to be given the way most people listen to music today. Past history of surround music in the marketplace just reiterates that—it’s never caught on on a mass scale and most likely never will.
Surround mixes
were a niche market, just like surround mixes for movies
were a niche market 15-20 years ago because the vast majority of people couldn't afford a 5.1 surround system for their movies back then. Also, it was deemed "too complicated" for the masses just like why Quad never caught on 40 years ago.
Now that surround movies are ubiquitous and HT surround systems are
much cheaper and easier to setup and use people are realizing they can
also use the same system they use for movies for their music (they get a 2fer and people like 2fer's)
So now it's a supply and demand equation and the music industry is not supplying enough to meet the demand because they are living in the past, doing what they've always done, thinking the outcome will be different. There's a phrase for that btw.
On the other hand, the movie industry
is supplying the demand and is thriving once again. The music industry could learn a thing or two from that.
Walk into any Bestbuy and look at the rows and rows of surround movies and then look at the 1/4 size row of music.
In the old days the music rows were the same size as the movie rows. Gee, I wonder what the music industry could do to make that possible again?