Listening to in Dolby Atmos Streaming, via Tidal/Apple/Amazon

[PurpleMoustache]

Got some more Jazz for everybody. This may have been posted before, but this last week has been a haze with my brother’s wedding.

Speaking of which:
The AirPod Max (overears) noise cancellation beats the AirPods Pro Gen 2 for airplane cabin noise. Both do a pretty darn good job, but with the Max you’d barely know you were on a flight

 

[mrcond]

Accordng to this little trailer/documentary, 128 channels of audio recorded.

Technically this is a "live album," but as with all of Snarky Puppy's recordings, it's really more of a hybrid approach, one that I think is pretty much unique to them. They play the album in a live music venue (in this case the Deep Ellum Art Co.) in front of a crowd, but there's no PA system. It's done like a "silent disco" - that is, everyone wears headphones, both the musicians and the audience, which means there's no sound leakage between the PA or the instruments. As a result you get an album that is (ideally) the best of both worlds: the excitement of a live recording with the sonics of a studio recording.

These guys are one of my favourite bands of recent years, and I've touted them on here a number of times so I was incredibly excited to see this album getting the Atmos treatment. 2015's Sylva (with the Metropole Orkest) and 2016's Culcha Vulcha are amazing albums - I didn't like their last album, Immigrance (from 2019) nearly as much, but Empire Central is a real return to form, my ears.

This album is also notable that it features that last recorded performances of Bernard Wright, who came out of the same Jamaica area of Queens in the early 80s that produced Marcus Miller and Tom Browne (and whose 1981 album 'Nard spawned the jazz-funk classic Haboglabotribin') and who was Snarky Puppy founder Michael League's mentor. He died in a car accident just a couple of months after this album was recorded.

If you like jazz-funk or jazz-fusion of the '70s and early '80s you must give this album a spin.

Fantastic musicianship. I highly recommend "We Like It Here" (both audio and video). Would love to get a surround version of that.

 

[Dan T]

Wow, Fastlove is massive!

Its great isn't it. Really plays around with the sound field. A friend of a friend was supervising this, and apparently used to work with GM a lot, so was very reverent with the material.

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Lord Love A Duck!
What in the world is going on with these mixes?
After the delightful Snarky Puppy comes this travesty, which seems to be cut from the same cloth as Domi & JD Beck.

Only this one has zero in the surrounds & nothing audible in the center, LFE or back surrounds.
Other than the fronts, a mere whisper of signal in the heights.
This snapshot from Loopback indicates exactly what I'm hearing.

 

[~dave~~wave~]

...seems to be in the functional equivalent of all-channel stereo...

I appreciate this is your perception, and the latest in a string of disappointments.

While not an adventurous discrete mix, my listening and analysis of isolated channels convinces me it's not strictly "copying-and-pasting the stereo image from the fronts into the rears, sides, and overheads."

I determined this by placing the front left channel in headphones, level-matching & panning the left rear, sides, etc. to the right ear.
If they were identical one would expect to hear mono, but I do not.
I hear stereo-like differences, though admittedly subtle.

My comprehension in this case is the Atmos is superior to a stereo upmix.
YMMV. It will stay on my playlist.

Interesting times, with this pipeline of diverse genres and the mixing styles applied to them.

 

[dabl]

Thanks for the sleuthing/testing. -40dB! Surely even "verb tails" would be more audible than that. Gotta be a screw-up--one would hope. I read that New Yorker profile, too (and another one in DownBeat), and like you, it moved me to want to give their music another chance, especially given some of the folks they work with (Flying Lotus, Robert Glasper, Anderson .Paak...). The advertised Atmos mix was another incentive. But in stereo, it's still not grabbing me, and I donno how much harder I'm willing to try.

Re: the DOMi & JD BECK record I agree as a standalone experience it's maybe hard to appreciate what the fuss is all about.

It doesn't surprise me the Atmos mix is crap. That's unfortunate.

For my money what got me interested in them was seeing some of their live performances which I found pretty astounding, proof positive there are still young developing musicians with serious chops. When you see how they're making those noises (particularly the drummer) the record makes more sense. But based on my experience with both I'd rather see them live for sure.

Check this and this out . Also this

 

[fredblue]

Not Atmos, but?...

https://www.discogs.com/release/8400258-Snarky-Puppy-Family-Dinner-Volume-Two?ev=item-vc

its great musically etc but a dud from a Surround p.o.v.

 

[humprof]

I appreciate this is your perception, and the latest in a string of disappointments.

While not an adventurous discrete mix, my listening and analysis of isolated channels convinces me it's not strictly "copying-and-pasting the stereo image from the fronts into the rears, sides, and overheads."

I determined this by placing the front left channel in headphones, level-matching & panning the left rear, sides, etc. to the right ear.
If they were identical one would expect to hear mono, but I do not.
I hear stereo-like differences, though admittedly subtle.

My comprehension in this case is the Atmos is superior to a stereo upmix.
YMMV. It will stay on my playlist.

Interesting times, with this pipeline of diverse genres and the mixing styles applied to them.

Well, that's (sort of) encouraging to hear. Your test methods are more scientific than mine. I've got low ceilings, so I'm basically just listening up-close to the left front speaker, then walking slowly from the front of the room to the rear (and back again), cocking my ear to hear each individual speaker as I go, and repeating that process on the right side. Still sounds like the same content in each L and R speaker, but obviously I can't totally isolate each channel, so I'll trust your analysis that the mix is more than just stereo all the way across. That said: compare something like this with Caroline Shaw & So Percussion's Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, or any of Nathaniel Reichman's John Luther Adams mixes, either chamber or orchestral. Night and day.

 

[sjcorne]

its great musically etc but a dud from a Surround p.o.v.

I've only checked out one or two tracks, but it sounded above average to my ears. The fuzz bass(?) in the first song is mixed almost entirely to the side surround speakers, and I'm pretty sure I heard some horns in the rears and some percussion in the heights.

Edit: I thought you were talking about the new Empire Central streaming Atmos mix

 

[fredblue]

I've only checked out one or two tracks, but it sounded above average to my ears. The fuzz bass(?) in the first song is mixed almost entirely to the side surround speakers, and I'm pretty sure I heard some horns in the rears and some percussion in the heights.

Edit: I thought you were talking about the new Empire Central streaming Atmos mix

ah no, i was talking about the 5.1 on the "Family Dinner Vol.2" DVD-V, in response to the good Mister Pupster

 

[fredblue]

 

[fredblue]

 

[fredblue]

 

[dabl]

Will be interesting to hear the new Giles Martin Atmos mix of 'Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)' presumably out any minute now?

 

[mrcond]

Will be interesting to hear the new Giles Martin Atmos mix of 'Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)' presumably out any minute now?

It’s out now although not in Atmos. Very strange it is.

 

[stereoptic]

Waiting to listen to until Thanksgiving Day:
Dino's Christmas (Dean Martin)

 

[dabl]

It’s out now although not in Atmos. Very strange it is.

Right, he did both a stereo and Atmos mix. I saw the stereo was out. That does seem to be an arguable improvement on the previous one from Anthology 2, presumably due to the use of de-mixing technology.

 

[fredblue]

 

[humprof]

Norah Jones with Jeff Tweedy! Didn't imagine there'd be a lot to do with it, surround-wise, but it's actually quite nice. Isolating Norah's piano in the rears is a nice touch.

Apparently they did five songs together on the debut episode of her new podcast (which I haven't tracked down yet), just a few days ago:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...aying-along-debut-podcast-episode-1234600677/https://www.bluenote.com/norah-jones-launches-new-podcast-playing-along/https://www.norahjonesisplayingalong.com/jeff-tweedy
Their first(?) collaboration was on an EP of hers a few years back. They also did a very sweet video together, pre-pandemic, for a song on her 2020 album Pick Me Up Off the Floor:

 

[LennonCobain]

Right, he did both a stereo and Atmos mix. I saw the stereo was out. That does seem to be an arguable improvement on the previous one from Anthology 2, presumably due to the use of de-mixing technology.

I’m fairly certain only the original album tracks were mixed in Atmos and not any of the outtakes.