What To Do and What Not To Do in a Surround Sound Mix.

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I've no idea.
Just forgot to mention him in my post.

His Opeth - Deliverance 5.1 mix is quite good and the latest Pineapple Thief album too.
He uses the rears in most of his live mixes for instruments. What I like!
I'm sure I've listened to some of those. I remember not liking the music but the mixes were fully on point. I'll suggest someone was critiquing the music and not the mix.
 
I don't about the rest here, but when I think of Jakko, I think of the ELP surround mixes, particularly Brain Salad Surgery.

That shouldn't discount the great work he did on the aforementioned Scarcity Of Miracles and King Crimson's THRAK. Regarding ELP, my recollection is that the criticism those titles received here had more to do with alterations made to the music itself in the remix (missing and/or buried instruments, alternate takes, etc) than use of the surround field, which appears to be the topic of this thread. Steven Wilson's ELP 5.1 mixes seem to get criticized for the same reason. I actually think Jakko is quite good at incorporating the rear speakers in his 5.1 mixes, or at the very least he's way ahead of a Rich Chycki or Nick DiDia.
 
I'm going to suggest from the evidence on hand that THRAK and SoM are Robert Fripp mixes with JJ as assistant. (This is also a direct admission in the liner notes in the 5.1 THRAK release.) I still think the man has skills. He's obviously a musician. (You have to be a musician to mix. Weather or not you learn any instruments.) Literally every other mix I've heard with his name on it is unfinished at best.

That ELP BSS rough mix with the bass routed to all channels in KE93. If that was, say, the wrong file set delivered, why didn't it get corrected for reissue? The Chris Squire album is missing mix elements and unfinished. There's a grossly unmixed live set on one of the Tull releases from the Bursting Out tapes. You might guess it was labeled wrong and just an upmix... until you check out the stereo mix of the same. There are balance differences between them that show that these must be mixes from multitrack. Just blown off and less than a scratch mix. How about that Moody Blues upmix? Yes, the tapes don't exist anymore but why was that failure ever even released? The vocal issue on his ELP Trilogy mix. Is the vocal reverb really printed to the vocal track and there was nothing that could be done? That issue isn't there on the original mix, so... nope!

So, those would all be things not to do in a surround mix.

I still honestly hear elements in some of this work that suggest a serious effort was at least started. Proper natural unhyped and not shrill sound elements in place. Dynamic range and some mix elements really on point. But then the errors and unfinished bits that just step on the whole thing. Doesn't make much sense.
 
Back
Top