HiRez Poll Medeski Martin and Wood - UNINVISIBLE [DVD-A]

[mam]

Fantastic. All around my listening place. It`s a disc for demonstration multichannel sound. I like it.

 

[blue.monk]

Groovalicious! As others have pointed out it's an interesting surround stage with keys panned left (front and rear), drums panned right and bass in center. But additional instruments and effects can and do pop up anywhere and everywhere making for an extremely entertaining surround experience. The music is often sparse, experimental and improvisational but also highly accessible (IMO) thanks to the infectious old school grooves that this trio is famous for. A 9 for me.

 

[keenly]

Link to purchase? I have never heard of this title before. I can not find it on Amazon.

Got it, no worries.

 

[steelydave]

fredblue asked me to look at this title because keenly was complaining that the drums were in the rear speaker. As I said in the 'what have you purchased lately' thread, that's not the case - the mix is pretty consistent across all of the tracks, the keyboards are in left front and rear, drums in right front and rear, bass guitar in the center. When there are occasional guitars and turntable scratching, they're across the front three speakers. Sometimes there is additional drums and/or keyboard in the center speaker, such as the first track. Because of these other instrument placements, it would be impossible to do any channel swaps to, say, put the drums in the front speakers because you'd get weird diagonal panning of guitars and turntables. Everything looks perfectly balanced and in phase, as shown in the images below:

Spectrum analysis of Front Left (green) and Rear Left (pink) channels showing the organ is basically perfectly balanced.


Spectrum analysis of Front Right (green) and Rear Right (pink) channels showing the drums are balanced.


I think they made the artistic/technical choice to have the bass produced by these stereo pairs directed a little more to the rear speakers (you can see it as the pink swells towards the left of each of those images) so as not to clash with the bass guitar that is discretely placed in the center speaker.

 

[keenly]

Everything is in phase, who said it is not? The mix is immensely annoying. If people like it, great, I detest it.

 

[steelydave]

I just added it as a point of information, to discount it as a cause of any playback problems - I didn't say that anyone said it wasn't in phase. You said the drums came out of the rear speaker, making it sound like they ONLY came out of the rear speaker which is factually incorrect as the drums are a stereo spread between front right and rear right. I just used a bit of science to prove it was so, because fredblue asked and I was curious too.

 

[fredblue]

Everything is in phase, who said it is not? The mix is immensely annoying. If people like it, great, I detest it.

I suggested to steelydave there might be something up with the disc's channel assignment.. he's taken the time and trouble to look into it (for which I'm immensely grateful, thank you Dave) and he's found there's nothing wrong with it wrt channel mapping.. so, I guess you just hate the mixing decision made with this one and that's that. Moving right along... @:

 

[fredblue]

I just added it as a point of information, to discount it as a cause of any playback problems - I didn't say that anyone said it wasn't in phase. You said the drums came out of the rear speaker, making it sound like they ONLY came out of the rear speaker which is factually incorrect as the drums are a stereo spread between front right and rear right. I just used a bit of science to prove it was so, because fredblue asked and I was curious too.

TYVM! HNY! DLTBGYD!

 

[timbre4]

The band is an unorthodox trip so the mix is bound to be unusual and it does play to their strengths. I suspect that's exactly how they wanted it to be heard..


From QQ Happy New Year

 

[wavelength]

The band is an unorthodox trip so the mix is bound to be unusual and it does play to their strengths. I suspect that's exactly how they wanted it to be heard..


From QQ Happy New Year

That comment whenever it is used always makes me think "okay but do they really know what's best when it comes to surround?" Often I think "no". Rush comes to mind here as well.

 

[timbre4]

The only thing they have in common with Rush is being three guys. Their music is quite specifically oppositional between drums and keyboards unless John Scofield joins for an album and then The entire chemistry changes.

How good is it for a surround mix? Subjective as always. If it's thought to be on par with Rush mixes, that's not how I remember it. Since Its been a while I'll pull out the MMW disc for a fresh spin tomorrow..


From QQ Happy New Year

 

[steelydave]

Agreed, there's nothing similar between this mix and the Rush mixes. The Rush mixes are basically 'big stereo' and this mix has discrete information in the rears the entire time. About 80% of the time there are only 3 instruments playing (keyboard/bass/drums) so what are you going to do with that? Put drums in the front and have the keyboard, the only lead instrument, in the rears the entire time? Sure it would be surround, but I don't think it would be great. I think they did the best with what they had, and at the same time paid homage to a lot of the organ trio albums of the late 60's' which had organ and drums panned hard left/right and bass in the middle. With this mix you get discrete bass guitar in the center speaker, and stereo organ on the left of you, and stereo drums on the right of you. When there are other overdubs they're all over the place, like the horns on the first track for example.

 

[timbre4]

Thank you! Could not have summed it up any better.


From QQ Happy New Year

 

[keenly]

I suggested to steelydave there might be something up with the disc's channel assignment.. he's taken the time and trouble to look into it (for which I'm immensely grateful, thank you Dave) and he's found there's nothing wrong with it wrt channel mapping.. so, I guess you just hate the mixing decision made with this one and that's that. Moving right along... @:

Yes; the mixing decision.

 

[keenly]

Agreed, there's nothing similar between this mix and the Rush mixes. The Rush mixes are basically 'big stereo' and this mix has discrete information in the rears the entire time. About 80% of the time there are only 3 instruments playing (keyboard/bass/drums) so what are you going to do with that? Put drums in the front and have the keyboard, the only lead instrument, in the rears the entire time? Sure it would be surround, but I don't think it would be great. I think they did the best with what they had, and at the same time paid homage to a lot of the organ trio albums of the late 60's' which had organ and drums panned hard left/right and bass in the middle. With this mix you get discrete bass guitar in the center speaker, and stereo organ on the left of you, and stereo drums on the right of you. When there are other overdubs they're all over the place, like the horns on the first track for example.

I agree with you about the Rush mixes.
As far as MMW; the amount of instruments is really irrelevant. It is all abut the amount of tracks the music is recorded on. You can create a great surround sound with JUST THE DRUMS alone.

Motorhead's The world is Ours Vol 1 Live Blu Ray had a great 5.1 mix from three instruments. It is all about balance. I really hate drums in one channel. I can't stand it. I would prefer them in the center if they are only recorded on one track. In this case, I presume the album is a 24 track recording? Plenty could of been done with the drums. I wouldn't of minded them being in stereo in rear speakers and the others instruments in fronts.

 

[timbre4]

Played UNINVISIBLE today and it was fine. Maybe 5-6 great songs with the balance of them more improvisational or spur of the moment ideas realized to some degree. The band is augmented here with some demented dub horns and the occasional turntable or guitar riff. Give the choice, I would have preferred Friday Afternoon In The Universe or Shack Man mixed in surround for their consistent material I like more. This was one of those "let's do your latest record' moments so this is what we got. I won't play it that much but it does have some keeper tunes on it. This disc also has a DTS -EX 6.1 mix on it that I've never played; that'll be for next time (folded down to 5.1).

As for the surround mix, it works for me. It was similar to seeing them live in a way (which we actually did when this or Shack Man was new) as it reflects their actual placement on stage much of the time. I believe that someone commented earlier about old organ trio records being mixed as drums versus keyboards and this could be some homage to that approach. In any event, there is some interspersed sonic mayhem from unexpected places so it's immersive in odd ways at times. While I may sell discs sometimes, I will be keeping this one.

Speaking of trios, it would be nice to hear some Morphine mixed up for surround one day.

 

[windhoek]

This album is too freaky for mere mortals like me... but I like it anyways

 

[beerking]

Freaky
Wierd
Out there


But it sure is fun.
Great mix

Well my off tangent listeners, I give it a organ, percussion, bass.. tastic 9