Comments Inspired by Lennon, John - GIMME SOME TRUTH (Ultimate Remixes) [Blu-Ray Audio]

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Imagine has double stereo, or multi channel stereo piano. I would have put piano in rears, with strings back behind, mic/room/ambience above, bass, drums and vocals in front.

It may not be possible to separate the vocals and piano to that degree because of the way it was recorded. I'm assuming--someone correct me if I'm wrong--that Lennon recorded his vocals while playing the piano, so there is probably some piano bleeding into the vocal mic and vice versa. Keeping both elements in the same relative space on the surround mix would cover up the crosstalk. I haven't heard this new version yet, but there is piano in the center channel along with Lennon's vocal on both Peter Cobbin's 2003 5.1 mix and Paul Hicks' 2018 5.1 mix. Even the extreme hard-panned 'raw studio mix' on the 2018 set doesn't separate the vocals from the piano.

This set sounds like it has been mixed by an engineer with very little surround experience

As I mentioned in the pre-release thread, Paul Hicks is responsible for the very discrete 5.1 mixes on The McCartney Years DVD video compilation.
 
If GST already has a
Ok, As of the time I write this, Pepper has 129 votes with a weighted rank of 8.31. Gimme some truth has only 17 votes with a rank of 9.47, including several 10s in there from Atmos fanboys that seem to vote 10's on anything Atmos. Come talk to me when the Lennon Release has 129 votes, if it ever gets there. There will be additional low votes coming for it once everyone lives with it for a while. You can pretty much bet on it.


Fair enough. But also consider that there are a fair number of members here who adjust rear levels for every release based on what they hear. There are also those who will rip this music and adjust levels permanently on their ripped copy. All I'm saying is the Pepper mix is not a total disaster by any means. There seems to be a trend with Beatles albums and these Lennon albums where the rear channels are kept lower than they should be. Though Abbey Road didn't have that problem, and the White Album was better in that respect than Pepper was.


That's what your post looked like to me. If you didn't, I'm glad because they aren't. And I apologize if I took somethin out of context.

And I apologize to everyone else for rambling through this discussion in a poll thread where it really has no business being.
GST won't get even get close to 129 votes because it's not Sgt. Pepper but it looks like it's already ranked higher.
I didn't call Pepper a total disaster but if you have to compensate the rears maybe they should have called it "stunning" 3.1
 
Ok, As of the time I write this, Pepper has 129 votes with a weighted rank of 8.31. Gimme some truth has only 17 votes with a rank of 9.47, including several 10s in there from Atmos fanboys that seem to vote 10's on anything Atmos. Come talk to me when the Lennon Release has 129 votes, if it ever gets there. There will be additional low votes coming for it once everyone lives with it for a while. You can pretty much bet on it.

On an kinda off note, let's put this in real perspective...Pepper has been out far longer than GST-Lennon. In fact, 3 1/2 years longer (May 26, 2017). The White Album poll was 1 1/2 years later from Pepper and has 131 votes for an average of 9.58 just a little shy of Abbey Road at 9.68 average. Perhaps in 3 years GST-Lennon will have 130 some-odd votes...and i'm sure by then the votes will balance out a bit better :hi
 
The Pepper issue was a balance problem. Adjust the real level up by 3-5dB and that album became pretty good on most of the tracks (unfortunately not all).

I do not think Imagine was missed opportunity. Check out those raw studio mixes. Its like the material was mixed 2 ways. Conservative and aggressive.

Heavy Metal??? The Beatles????
So I took your suggestion and turned up the rears on Pepper and it was a much more immerseve presentation. I'm trying to think others that
Compare the poll on this new one to Pepper.
If I have to adjust my system to make it sound correct than something's wrong. I don't have to do that with properly mixed discs.
Are you saying I compared The Beatles to Heavy Metal?
So I took LuvMyQuads advice and juiced the rears on Pepper and was pleasantly surprised. It made it a much more enjoyable immersive experience. Now I'm trying to remember if there's any other's that need some aural Viagra in the rear.
 
So I took your suggestion and turned up the rears on Pepper and it was a much more immerseve presentation. I'm trying to think others that

So I took LuvMyQuads advice and juiced the rears on Pepper and was pleasantly surprised. It made it a much more enjoyable immersive experience. Now I'm trying to remember if there's any other's that need some aural Viagra in the rear.

There are quite a few that need a boost in the surrounds...and of number of them need more than just a judicious cranking. For example, if you have The Beatles 1+, crank the surrounds of the 5.1 of Let It Be by 6db. On the Imagine album, I cranked up the title song and a few more tracks by 6dB, although other songs didn't need nearly as much.
 
There are quite a few that need a boost in the surrounds...and of number of them need more than just a judicious cranking. For example, if you have The Beatles 1+, crank the surrounds of the 5.1 of Let It Be by 6db. On the Imagine album, I cranked up the title song and a few more tracks by 6dB, although other songs didn't need nearly as much.
When you say "the Imagine album" are you talking about The Ultimate version?
 
This set sounds like it has been mixed by an engineer with very little surround experience, and no Atmos experience. This is of course the case!
As I mentioned in the pre-release thread, Paul Hicks is responsible for the very discrete 5.1 mixes on The McCartney Years DVD video compilation.

This article in Recording magazine that @~dave~~wave~ posted in the pre-release thread needs a little more exposure:
https://recordingmag.com/resources/recording-info/on-mixing/remixing-john-lennon/
 
I've seen too many cases of timid front heavy mixes. They are what they are. Turn up the rears and now it's that same mix but with the rears awkwardly up - it sounds wrong in that way is what I mean. First listen to the lossless rip and it really sounded like one of those. Some decent fidelity in general I suppose as far as that goes.

Yeah, that's enough.

Holy hell they really butchered this release! You don't accidentally hit music with 6db of limiting. But what you DO accidentally do is inadvertently miss applying your hatchet job to the lossy dd copy and it escapes unmolested! If there's a bit of a veil over the dd copy it pales next to the damage in the lossless copy. It looks like the L R C & Lfe channels were limited and boosted 6db. Enough to make noticeable distortion. (Anything past 4db IMHO) Probable done as 2 stereo pairs because the Lfe is riding along with that boost. So we're left with the rears 6db low and distortion. The presence and depth are just gone no matter what you do trying to message the levels. The dd copy is a cleaner copy of the 5.1 master here. For whatever decoding or other reason the dd copy is overall 1db lower than the corrected (rear channels as is) lossless copy. A/B it with all that normalized and you find a really nice and properly balanced discrete surround mix in the dd copy vs that mix run through a meat grinder in the lossless copy.

This is embarrassing from a couple different angles.

The lossless 7.1 program is about 1.5db less boosted than the 5.1 but messed up in the same way overall. The L/R rears are also boosted here but not as much as the 1st 4 channels. The sides (5/6) appear not boosted.

The lossless stereo mix is full on volume war hash.

Ripping the bluray disc with MakeMKV, I am not able to see the Atmos copy. 2.0, 5.1, & 7.1 I don't think ffmpeg would have the codec even if I could rip it though. This may still be restricted to secret codecs in select hardware decoders at present.

Getting well done 5.1 mixes like this even in dolby dd is still hits high marks! You don't hear this every day and it deserves celebration. Jaw dropping for all the above though. I wonder what shape the Atmos mix is in?

Edit: OK, there isn't supposed to be an intentional 7.1 mix. This is the Dolby TrueHD core of the Atmos mix and it's the only part MakeMKV can see per the design of the system and MakeMKV not being updated with the Atmos codec. (Possibly with the height and object mix elements folded in. They're supposed to be in this scenario but not everything is up to speed with all this yet.) As mentioned, this 7.1 mix is clearly destroyed just like the dts 5.1 and lpcm stereo. Atmos listeners are screwed with this release.
 
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I've seen too many cases of timid front heavy mixes. They are what they are. Turn up the rears and now it's that same mix but with the rears awkwardly up - it sounds wrong in that way is what I mean. First listen to the lossless rip and it really sounded like one of those. Some decent fidelity in general I suppose as far as that goes.

Yeah, that's enough.

Holy hell they really butchered this release! You don't accidentally hit music with 6db of limiting. But what you DO accidentally do is inadvertently miss applying your hatchet job to the lossy dd copy and it escapes unmolested! If there's a bit of a veil over the dd copy it pales next to the damage in the lossless copy. It looks like the L R C & Lfe channels were limited and boosted 6db. Enough to make noticeable distortion. (Anything past 4db IMHO) Probable done as 2 stereo pairs because the Lfe is riding along with that boost. So we're left with the rears 6db low and distortion. The presence and depth are just gone no matter what you do trying to message the levels. The dd copy is a cleaner copy of the 5.1 master here. For whatever decoding or other reason the dd copy is overall 1db lower than the corrected (rear channels as is) lossless copy. A/B it with all that normalized and you find a really nice and properly balanced discrete surround mix in the dd copy vs that mix run through a meat grinder in the lossless copy.

This is embarrassing from a couple different angles.

The lossless 7.1 program is about 1.5db less boosted than the 5.1 but messed up in the same way overall. The L/R rears are also boosted here but not as much as the 1st 4 channels. The sides (5/6) appear not boosted.

The lossless stereo mix is full on volume war hash.

Ripping the bluray disc with MakeMKV, I am not able to see the Atmos copy. 2.0, 5.1, & 7.1 I don't think ffmpeg would have the codec even if I could rip it though. This may still be restricted to secret codecs in select hardware decoders at present.

Getting well done 5.1 mixes like this even in dolby dd is still hits high marks! You don't hear this every day and it deserves celebration. Jaw dropping for all the above though. I wonder what shape the Atmos mix is in?

Edit: OK, there isn't supposed to be an intentional 7.1 mix. This is the Dolby TrueHD core of the Atmos mix and it's the only part MakeMKV can see per the design of the system and MakeMKV not being updated with the Atmos codec. (Possibly with the height and object mix elements folded in. They're supposed to be in this scenario but not everything is up to speed with all this yet.) As mentioned, this 7.1 mix is clearly destroyed just like the dts 5.1 and lpcm stereo. Atmos listeners are screwed with this release.

Well stated Jim.

Like I stated earlier, play the Dolby Digital 5.1 and you will hear it properly. I for one am glad they forgot to crank the LOUDNESS BUTTON on that version. It escaped! :)
 
Here is the MediaInfo from the mkv of just the Dolby Atmos mix:
Audio #4
ID : 5
ID in the original source medium : 4354 (0x1102)
Format : MLP FBA 16-ch
Format/Info : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation
Commercial name : Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos
Codec ID : A_TRUEHD
Duration : 2 h 17 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 475 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 450 kb/s
Channel(s) : 8 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 1 200.000 FPS (40 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 5.27 GiB (23%)
Title : Surround 7.1
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Number of dynamic objects : 15
Bed channel count : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration : LFE
 
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Here is the MediaInfo from the mkv of just the Dolby Atmos mix:
Audio #4
ID : 5
ID in the original source medium : 4354 (0x1102)
Format : MLP FBA 16-ch
Format/Info : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation
Commercial name : Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos
Codec ID : A_TRUEHD
Duration : 2 h 17 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 475 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 450 kb/s
Channel(s) : 8 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 1 200.000 FPS (40 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless
Stream size : 5.27 GiB (23%)
Title : Surround 7.1
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Number of dynamic objects : 15
Bed channel count : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration : LFE
What app did you use to rip the mkv? And then what app to probe it?
 
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