HiRez Poll Rush - HEMISPHERES [Blu-Ray Audio]

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Rate the BDA of Rush - HEMISPHERES


  • Total voters
    32
After all of these 'corrections' it sounds much better to me, but the vocals (which come mainly out of the mains but also from the rears with a good bit of reverb on them) still seem a little distant and a touch harsh, and the bottom end of the kick drum and bass guitar could definitely be more defined too, with maybe a bit of judicious eq.

I think I may have found a fix for this. I followed your suggestions (great improvement!), but took it a step further by using the new 'spleeter' tool to extract a lead vocal stem and remove it from the front channels. I mixed the isolated vocal stem into the center channel and back into the mains at a lower volume. The vocals stand out much more now, and you can't really hear the digital artifacts from the vocal extraction unless you solo the center channel.

Here's "Circumstances" with the mod:
Circumstances with C vocal.jpg
 
I've been playing around with this in Audacity for a while, and after about 10 different iterations, I think I've finally got it as close as I can for my tastes, as far as just basic level adjusting goes.

The center channel has literally nothing at all a good bit of the time, but quite often does have just a bit of drum bleed, a tiny bit of what sounds like direct injected bass guitar, and occasionally some massively loud guitar solos or keyboard highlights. There are no vocals at all, except for maybe some traces of bleed through. I ended up going with -3dB on the center to reduce the huge discrepancy of the occasional guitar/keyboard part. I could've possibly gone a bit lower, but I didn't want to take away from that little bit of clean direct bass guitar sound, and those solo parts should stand out a little more overall, just not to such a ridiculously absurd degree.

The bass/LFE is incredibly weak to me, so I tried increasing it a stupid amount, which ended up sounding way too thud-like and boomy, just on certain sections, so I kept reducing it to where it still has some oomph without being too boomy, and ended up settling on +9dB.

The surrounds were quite weak to me overall, so I increased them until it sounded more balanced, and while the few bits that are actually back there in the surrounds sounded much better to me, the echoey/reverb stuff stood out too much, so I kept backing it off until it sounded like the best balance between enough of the actual instruments and not too much reverb at +2.5dB.

After all of these 'corrections' it sounds much better to me, but the vocals (which come mainly out of the mains but also from the rears with a good bit of reverb on them) still seem a little distant and a touch harsh, and the bottom end of the kick drum and bass guitar could definitely be more defined too, with maybe a bit of judicious eq.

I'd say that for me, what I did takes it from my original vote of 4 (probably too harsh) to probably somewhere between 7~8.

Well, obviously from my post above I was quite happy with this mix as-is, but I applied some of your tweaks and it really opened it up. I feel like -3dB is a little too much for the center, though, so I'm going to try it with -1dB. Regardless - it's all a matter of taste! Thanks for your suggestions.

Also, the spleeter tool sounds fun, but more work than I want to do right now.
 
Good to know! I'd bet he blocked me because I wrote him asking if he'd heard the commercial blu-ray, giving him the benefit of the doubt that a mistake occurred at mixdown, at mastering or somewhere in the process, maybe not even his fault. If the blu-ray truly does sound like he intended that might have pissed him off. (I may have tweeted that too...) o_O
Maybe it is his truth....
 
I think I may have found a fix for this. I followed your suggestions (great improvement!), but took it a step further by using the new 'spleeter' tool to extract a lead vocal stem and remove it from the front channels. I mixed the isolated vocal stem into the center channel and back into the mains at a lower volume. The vocals stand out much more now, and you can't really hear the digital artifacts from the vocal extraction unless you solo the center channel.

Here's "Circumstances" with the mod:
View attachment 51211
Man, I dig the effort and determination! At the end of the day, is the "surround" experience of this mix really worth all the fixing it needs? Can you employ the same technique to unbury the super-awesome guitar overdub during Armageddon? And the center channel is a mess. Some (maybe all?) guitar leads are WAY too loud, some synth parts are too loud, IIRC, while others are ok. Point is, this thing needs a LOT of fixing. And when all that is done, do we have a better experience than the original Terry Brown mix? While only stereo, that fucker is SWEET. They made sure, trying different mixing studios to get the right vibe, even. I think they chose Trident? And I doubt "Sheekie" did his mix there and I highly suspect he did his mix on a system severely out of calibration. I mean, it must have sounded ok to him?!
 
Yeah, these odd-ball names in album liner notes. Our minds make a best attempt.

https://www.howtopronounce.com/french/chycki
Sounds more like "sheekie" in French.
I could never figure out how to pronounce producer Bill Szymczyk's name when I read it on the back of James Gang and other albums. ( I know now it's "simzik - So why all the extra letters?) I thought it was like Mr. Kltpzyxm from the Superman comics. :)
 
Finally listened to this one today after Steven Wilson's A Farewell To Kings, fully prepared to be underwhelmed... And I was.

MIX: This one does not spark joy, although I don't find it as dire as some others here do. I've certainly heard worse. There's precious little discrete information in the rears, with most of the action being mild wraparound drums and guitars. Guitar solos are too loud, while lead vocals are often just slightly too soft, making the lyrics hard to understand. 1.

FIDELITY: I don't think this album ever sounded as good as AFTK or Permanent Waves, but it never sounded bad, and still doesn't in this disappointing mix. Dynamics are decent. 2.

CONTENT: For me, the album has always been a bit of letdown as a followup to AFTK. The title track just doesn't rise to the level of "2112" and doesn't satisfactorily conclude the "Cygnus X-1" saga in my estimation. That said, side two is enjoyable and contains my favorite Rush instrumental in "La Villa Strangiato." No bonus audio, surround or otherwise, for the menu this time. The promo videos are actually complete new performances, not just miming, so it's kinda cool to see and hear the band performing "live" under ideal circumstances (pun intended). As far as I'm aware, the live clip of "La Villa" is the only performance footage officially released from the '70s, so that's also a nice inclusion (though I wish there were more!). 2.

PACKAGE: The box design is far better than AFTK; there's even writing on the spine! But it's still a big box holding its surround mix hostage. Annoyingly, the digital discs are housed in an Earbook within the box that looks almost fit for individual sale, though it's missing a barcode. Chycki's blurb about the surround makes it clear that he really loves doing these mixes. If only he were better at it. 0.

TOTAL: 5
 
I voted 6. My favourite Rush album did not get the treatment it deserves. Fidelity is decent enough but there’s a certain magic that’s absent from this version. The vocals are probably my least favourite thing about the mix. Way too much reverb and the balancing is way off.

Alex’s solos which are mostly mixed in the center channel are way too loud, the most prominent example being in Cygnus Book 2, the solo right after Apollo’s introduction, I literally jumped out of my seat it was so overpowering and jarring. And the bass? So weak, I can barely make out the masterful bassline during the verses of Circumstances 😕

The best mix would probably be Strangiato, the only reason being it doesn’t suffer from having vocals so the soundstage can breathe a little better.
There’s definitely some fun discrete moments here and there, like the flanger transition between “Apollo” and “Dionysus”, which pans across the back speakers and then in the fronts, but overall until Steven Wilson gets his hands on the tapes the stereo is still is the definitive version here. Terry and the boys got it right the first time.
 
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