From Billboard: Studios Are Rushing to Record Music in Hi-Def Surround Sound

[PK]

While I don’t dispute that there are some better mixes, it’s still leading away from physical media. This became readily apparent with Revolver. What a let down after the first four boxes. My feeling is that if we boycott streaming we can show the labels that we prefer physical media. It will be a tremendous loss if labels stop including/releasing spatial mixes in a physical format. I’m fine with stereo over Apple’s ‘spatial audio’, etc. Sorry to be so militant, but I’ve already seen this movie before with MP3s, and look what that got us.

I too want Hi Rez 24/7/365...physical media, keep it coming. Steaming is bitchin' though too...to boycott streaming would just be shooting ourselves in our tiny little QQ foot, IMO. I get the point about MP3, but couldn't an argument also be made that MP3 got us to Atmos and hi rez downloads?

 

[ted_b]

Are there more Atmos streams other than American Beauty?

Hundreds! Check out this thread:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...atmos-streaming-via-tidal-apple-amazon.31491/

Streaming surround is weak and runs contrary to the aims of QQ. We should insist on physical media until the artists and labels get it.

I couldn't disagree more. Streaming surround and Atmos is, on the whole, quite amazing and strong and a great way to discover both diamonds and turds. I have plenty of Atmos recordings on both TrueHD uncompressed Atmos and streamed, and the differences (on a good system, and mine is pretty good) are there, but not categorized as strong vs weak. Listen to the fidelity of SW's American Beauty, or the ethereal mix of John Luther Adams' Sila and tell me they are weak. Streaming has saved me hundreds if not thousands of dollars picking the wrong Atmos album to buy, and has educated me (thanks to this forum, among others) on where the good stuff usually comes from. And the surprises out of left field would never be possible simply rummaging through physical discs.

VM;s Moondance is an example, for me. I like the Atmos mix, and have played it more than once since discovering it, but it's not brought me so much closer to this album that I have to have it uncompressed.

Finally, on physical discs.....if uncompressed downloads become more of a thing (and how can they not) then my disc buying will go the way of cds...haven't bought a physical cd in years. And I'm good with it. My $.02

 

[himey]

I have plenty of Atmos recordings on both TrueHD uncompressed Atmos and streamed, and the differences (on a good system, and mine is pretty good) are there, but not categorized as strong vs weak.

Funny how this isn't obvious. Understanding that the mix and mastering are what is important, and not the format is hard for some people, and I just don't understand why? Does bias win out over good judgement and common sense? A bad mix/mastering will ALWAYS sound bad at any resolution, in any format. A lossy format and a quality mix can be jaw droppingly amazing. It doesn't go both ways, yet some people defend a (lossless) format, while overlooking the value of what is most important, the mix.

 

[hi-res_edition]

I can't read the small text on the covers anymore anyhow, but I can read the lyrics that are displayed on screen when I play Atmos music from Apple Music. Also on Apple Music, I listen to music that I would not have bought even if it was on disc.

I have said this here on QQ before, I seriously hope that an integrated way to include the cover art and credits via streaming and downloads will become reality. Not only would this be helpful for vision impaired and blind listeners, but certainly way to save space for ones media collection. PDF's are an example of how this could be done, but I am certain there will be even better technology that could integrate the cover art, credits, and commentary. I envision that this could be accomplished with a unified set of tools that includes a control center from a tablet, on which one could also view (and hear the descriptive text) the cover art, etc.

 

[François]

Apple tried this 15 years ago or so (that was likely a Steve Jobs project), at the height of the iTunes / iPod popularity, with a format that could provide more than cover art and booklet, with multimedia capabilities like included videos. And it didn’t work at all, not technically (that was well done), but more than a chicken and egg problem: consumers weren’t that much interested, music companies weren’t committed to it, not willing to fund the (rather small) increased expense necessary to produce such content. Very few albums in this format were available to buy on iTunes, like no more than a dozen, IIRC.

 

[WozzaDog]

There is actually a proven alternative, make everything Bluray audio and display everything on screen. This started with DVD-Audio.

Additionally lobby governments to introduce standards on minimum font size. Some countries as already have such standards that apply to business cards.

Oh and for todays humour: Did you know there are two international size business cards? There’s the NA business card bigger then a credit card and doesn’t fit in a wallet, and there is the rest of the world whose business card is the same size as a credit card.

 

[hi-res_edition]

Of course Apple tried it! Didn't know about that one from years back. But, clearly way before its time. In today's iPad / Apple Music world, I think they could pull it off. Not sure about fan interest in the multimedia (video) aspect, but think there would be way more interest in the electronic packaging that would mimmick physical media releases. And while I am a BIG fan of Blu-ray and its capabilities, it is missing a key aspect, or if it is part of the tech, I have never seen it used... anyway, to my knowledge it is not accessible for vision impaired and blind users. Add that to the product, and I would become a 100% advocate for Blu-ray. On the other hand, Apple Music is accessible and just lacks the finer details that come along with physical releases. That is all I'll add, as I don't want to derail this thread further.

 

[barfle]

This thread is seriously derailed! FWIW, I have “Moondance” on Van Morrison’s three CD compilation album, so it exposed me to a handful of songs I hadn’t heard before, albeit in stereo.

But to continue the off-track comversation, Every now and then, Amazon gives me a few months of Amazon Music. Right now I’m about one month into a three-month freebie, and I’m using it to try out some of the music I see recommended here. Got a few temptations, although a lot of what other people like simply doesn’t speak to me, particularly through an entire album. But I think I’ll be dropping a fair chunk of change on Alan Parsons soon.

As far as the debate between streaming and physical media is concerned, the difference in listening is trivial. Streaming may be more convenient, although search menus with up-down-left-right keys is a pain, and the streaming hosts are notoriously unreliable. Physical media takes up space, and while I designed my room with what I believe is adequate storage, several releases seem to be deliberately intended to thwart any attempt at integrating the product into a shelf or drawer. I don’t get it.

Bottom line is that it’s all personal preference. And even my own preferences change over time.

 

[key_wiz]

For me the disadvantage is that you don't own it (despite that I strongly dislike that we're expected to rent everything from music, movies and software today), so when they for unknown reasons remove releases from their catalog, you'll have nothing!
If you take a look at movies and streaming, they are licensing it to be on a streaming service for specific time-period, I don't know if that is the case with music yet, but it could easily change to that in the future.

But despite all that (when it comes to music) I hate that they really don't pay the artists nowhere near an acceptable amount for the plays.
And here we are at the point where I'm not sure if it's good business to pay them the necessary amount, and if that's the case,- they (too) will cease to exist, if they change the level of the payments to substantially higher (again leaving you with nothing)!

The other side of that is we all were raised on radio. We got only what they fed us and once something fell off the charts after 12 weeks we maybe never heard it again.

Nothing’s perfect. If I could buy it all and own it? Sure. That’d be great. But that I’m going to choose to not listen to any of it because I can’t? Seems a bit crazy.

 

[StudioAndromeda]

The other side of that is we all were raised on radio. We got only what they fed us and once something fell off the charts after 12 weeks we maybe never heard it again.

Nothing’s perfect. If I could buy it all and own it? Sure. That’d be great. But that I’m going to choose to not listen to any of it because I can’t? Seems a bit crazy.

The Streaming-business with Spotify in the front seat is devaluating the work of the artists, that's my main reason to not support them.

 

[Bill B]

The other side of that is we all were raised on radio. We got only what they fed us and once something fell off the charts after 12 weeks we maybe never heard it again.

Nothing’s perfect. If I could buy it all and own it? Sure. That’d be great. But that I’m going to choose to not listen to any of it because I can’t? Seems a bit crazy.

Well the radio comparison isn’t apt because that was free
As for streaming…. Suppose you subscribed only because you wanted to hear one album by one band and you weren’t interested in listening to anything else. Then after 6 months of paying $5 a month they remove that album. You’ve paid $30 and have nothing to show for it. That sucks for the consumer, wouldn’t you say?

 

[key_wiz]

The Streaming-business with Spotify in the front seat is devaluating the work of the artists, that's my main reason to not support them.

I’m talking about the services that offer surround streaming. The idea that I’d refuse to listen to a surround mix because I can’t buy it?

I’ve seen that several times on this forum but that’s not my position. Life’s too short and I want to hear as many good mixes as I can

 

[key_wiz]

Well the radio comparison isn’t apt because that was free
As for streaming…. Suppose you subscribed only because you wanted to hear one album by one band and you weren’t interested in listening to anything else. Then after 6 months of paying $5 a month they remove that album. You’ve paid $30 and have nothing to show for it. That sucks for the consumer, wouldn’t you say?

If I only wanted to hear one album by one band? Sure. That’d make sense. But I want to hear many albums by many bands. And when you add into that the value of being exposed to new albums by new artists I might not have even heard of otherwise except that they have a surround mix?

 

[StudioAndromeda]

I’m talking about the services that offer surround streaming. The idea that I’d refuse to listen to a surround mix because I can’t buy it?

I’ve seen that several times on this forum but that’s not my position. Life’s too short and I want to hear as many good mixes as I can

For me, the same goes for surround streaming, there it comes back to owning it, not relying on Tidal or Apple to have it on their platform.

 

[marpow]

I was just in the South, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
Visited about 10 recording studios.
I asked the question, are you getting requests from artists, "we would like to release this recording in ATMOS", in other words let's have a good bed of multitracks so it can go to master/mix with Dolby Atmos in mind.
Surprising the answer was mostly NO.

I wonder, if not a big request from artists, than maybe more of a request from record labels?

 

[Bill B]

I was just in the South, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
Visited about 10 recording studios.
I asked the question, are you getting requests from artists, "we would like to release this recording in ATMOS", in other words let's have a good bed of multitracks so it can go to master/mix with Dolby Atmos in mind.
Surprising the answer was mostly NO.

I wonder, if not a big request from artists, than maybe more of a request from record labels?

This gets back to us being a niche group. Most artists don’t care because the vast majority of their fans don’t care.

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

This gets back to us being a niche group. Most artists don’t care because the vast majority of their fans don’t care.

Probably cause that them there are Country Music folks.

 

[StudioAndromeda]

I was just in the South, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
Visited about 10 recording studios.
I asked the question, are you getting requests from artists, "we would like to release this recording in ATMOS", in other words let's have a good bed of multitracks so it can go to master/mix with Dolby Atmos in mind.
Surprising the answer was mostly NO.

I wonder, if not a big request from artists, than maybe more of a request from record labels?

I don't mind that it's not for every style of music,- or artist, but if I ever get to release a record, I would definately want it to be released in surround, wether it's Atmos or 5.1.
That's because I think in multichannel when I program my sounds, so it IS suited for that purpose.

 

[marpow]

Probably cause that them there are Country Music folks.

And Blues, Soul and Jazz.

 

[key_wiz]

For me, the same goes for surround streaming, there it comes back to owning it, not relying on Tidal or Apple to have it on their platform.

But then you never get the hear the mix at all. If it were an either/or? Sure. But it’s not. If there’s a great surround mix of a favorite album that exists would you rather never hear it if you can’t own it?

If that’s your position, fine. It’s not mine. Music is for listening. Even if only one time, as are most live performances.