“Anyway, it’s all very exciting and starts building up, and out of nowhere, behind my head, this frigging Hammond organ kicks in [ed. on Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain”], and I was like ‘what the hell is that?’. And he said ‘well, y’know, it’s something they had on the multitrack and they didn’t feel there was enough room in the stereo field in the original mixes, so now that it’s 5.1 they’ve put it in’.
“And I said ‘OK, that’s enough for me’, that’s proof that this is wrong. It’s just fundamentally not right, because a ‘pseudo-technical’ decision had been made, as opposed to a musical decision. And that’s what’s wrong with all of these things; people are pushing things, and their priority is the technology, not the music.”
I have always listened to and mixed music with the idea that the music is in front of me. The only thing I want behind me or above me, maybe, are the room’s acoustics (I love being able to hear studio acoustics in recordings). This article creates the impression people are just throwing anything on a surround sound mix to give a reason to do the mix (I leave room open for the possibility it’s clickbait and taken out of context).
I don’t even like surround sound for film, especially at home; random whooshes put me on edge. I can totally see surround sound being used for sound art / installation, wherein the surround experience is integral. And ofc its not at all out of place in gaming / virtual reality. But I don’t foresee myself wanting at any point an instrument behind or above me because that’s not how I want to experience music (ok I do adore Zaireeka, but that’s more installation than music…I guess?).
Cantankerous-old-rant-at-clouds-over. What’s your take? Do you consider mixing your music in surround?
For most music I think I agree - even very wide mixes can sound a bit off to me - like, why are your high hats all the way over there do you have spaghetti arms?
Where I think this stuff does work well is for more ambient stuff. If I had a field recording of some birds on a track I’d quite like it to exist in 3D space, even if the music only exists in the front. Maybe that would sound weird?
I think for more immersive, cinematic, drone, ambient type stuff I could really get into it, because it’s a bit more involving, really wrap you in the sound.
omg seriously. Some mixing choices are so weird to me. Which kind of begs the question how much were conditioned to a band setup and whether that informs how we like to listen to music? Sometimes even stereo over does it…
Agreed. Suzanne Ciani works in Quadraphonic (I think Buchla designed some instruments for it), which is an aesthetic decision being explored. That makes sense.
I suspect that’s more it than anything else. We defintiely hear in surround, and if we were sat round the fire and some folks were walking around with drums it wouldn’t be locked to the middle.
It’s funny really that we limit drums to their physical limitations on a stage when we could do whatever we want with those sounds.
This is only superficial observation but music being in front of us - an artist(s) to watch - seems so detached from the social experience of music being played amongst a group of people, spatial positioning and mixing be damned; very hierarchical.
I get that a full on concert with band members in different corners of the venue would be a logistical and mixing nightmare…but this resocializing of music could be executed nicely in surround.
I’ll admit he sounds like a bit of a curmudgeon, but he has me totally convinced Dolby Atmos is garbage for typical music productions.
Drums sound uneven and wonky to me when you pan them all over the place. I like a cohesive groove right down the middle, although cymbals are fine in the stereo field, but I think the rhythm looses power if it’s scattered all over the room. Of course in a movie production with a scene by a campfire your example would be great, sure make it feel like the guy is walking behind me.
Totally agree, but is that intrinsic to the sounds or our familiarity with existing arrangements?
I’m not educated in this area so there’s probably lots of academics on it but there is something to be said for the higher frequencies working better in the stereo filter, regardless of whether it’s drums or not.
Well, I guess all sounds exist in a relative relationship to the subject experiencing them, so nothing is “correct”. But it makes sense somehow to me to perceive drums the way another human being might when sitting at an actual drum set, limited by the reach of their four limbs.
Which is sort of interesting right - cause I agree - but I’m not troubled if the arp is twinkling in space even if the keyboardist is stood to the left of the drummer.
Maybe that’s a more abstract sound and so gets away with it.
Its like the format of drums is so baked into us that its ‘weird’ for them to be different.
Do people that don’t make music or have any relationship with a drumkit feel the same way I wonder?
Is it as much because we know it’s wrong, as it actually sounding wrong?
Many drum tracks are a single instrument, even if using different drum sounds. The typical kick hat snare patterns, to me, are a single voice. In that regard, I find it confusing when they’re separated too far. Crashes, arbitrary percussion, etc could be anywhere else. I wonder if this stems from me listening to so much jungle and hiphop/triphop in my teens in the 90s. Mono samples etc…
I suspect I’m more open to separating them in music that’s obviously not “band music”… like a lot of techno.
I’ve thought a lot about doing stuff in surround, but I’m doing more of a space/ambient/soundscape type of thing so it seems like a good fit.
As far as remixes of legacy material, I think it depends on what it is. The big Beatles guys seem pleased with the new surround mixes from what I’ve seen, and they are pretty detail-oriented about what sounds are in the originals. I don’t think any of them would want the surround mixes to be the only ones available, though - it’s more like a fun extra. Also you can separate out the channels and hear things individually, which allows them to geek out even more on the individual parts. It’s something that works well for the trippiness of Sgt. Pepper, but we’ll have to wait and see with Revolver (coming soon), which has always felt more direct and punchy to me.