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#PlanetJarre


Post Posted Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:44 pm
nexxxus


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shadow wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:34 pm I just downmixed it stereo and listen to those tracks on their own. They sound to much better than the CD. Curious how the LP's sound.
I'll try to compare with a downmix. The LP or 48/24 version sounds good
Post Posted Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:01 pm
Jote


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shadow wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:34 pm I just downmixed it stereo and listen to those tracks on their own. They sound to much better than the CD. Curious how the LP's sound.
Just make sure to completely omit Center, Rear Left, Rear Right channels in the downmix. Technically (since this particular 5.1 is an upmix) Center+RL should downmix to FL and Center+RR should downmix to FR, but there might be artifacts involved (because the upmixing process might be not entirely lossless, depending on the extraction algorithm)
nexxxus wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:44 pm I'll try to compare with a downmix. The LP or 48/24 version sounds good
48/24 has the exact same loud mastering as CD. You won't hear the extra frequencies nor the 24-bit DR. If you think it sounds better then it's a placebo effect.
Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:31 am
shadow


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Can't say that I've noticed any issues by downmixing the entire thing to stereo. Sounds just as it should.
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Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:59 pm
nexxxus


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it's subjective and a question of resolution vs perception. I just talk about the final result without down or upmix. Just what the artist creates. And if a master exists in 48/24 or more, I think there more details. The 5.1 mixes of PlanetJarre are, for me, strangly mixed.
It's different way to create the mix totally in 5.1 like on the album Aero... All sounds migrate through channels
Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 2:57 pm
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nexxxus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:59 pm And if a master exists in 48/24 or more, I think there more details.
There are more details, which you won't be able to hear, because science. 44kHz/16-bit was chosen for CD for a very good reason: psychoacoustics. Not because of medium constraints. No, the medium was designed to handle these particular audio parameters.
Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:16 pm
shadow


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I'd love it if Jarre actually kept his promise of Aero, that going forward all albums would be in 5.1. We got Téo & Téa, and... That's where it stopped. We got some 3D tracks with Electronics, 5.1 upmixes with Planet Jarre, new mixes of the NYE concert and we'll see what we'll exactly be receiving with Amazonia. But all albums with a true 5.1 mix? Yeah, that never happened again...

Oxygene 3 in true 5.1 could've been so lovely, but alas...
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Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:43 pm
Richard-Eastham


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I'm not really up on the audio tech side of things, but without the consumer hardware, isn't a 5.1 mix a bit redundant? And the uptake for 5.1 hardware in the home consumer market never really picked up to a level where regular 5.1 audio mixes made sense. Maybe I've misunderstood?
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Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:57 pm
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I haven't kept up with technology much myself, but I think there's pretty high-spec laptops that play 5.1 nowadays. HDMI supports 5.1 sound just fine too, so I guess it's pretty much still a thing, but not that popular probably. I'm going to convert the 5.1 files of WTTOS and Amazonia to DVD for my 5.1 DVD set to play them, same as I did for Planet Jarre.
Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:17 pm
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5.1 audio just hasn't caught on. And probably never will. And thus producing a 5.1 album from the ground up is just not worth the effort, because you need to provide a legacy stereo version as well (5.1 might not downmix to 2.0 as intended). Not to mention that the more speakers you have the more careful you need to be with their placement - I recall Geiss (?) mentioning all sorts of phase cancellation problems in some interview before the release of Aero in 2004. Obviously phase cancellation is no stranger to stereo, but with 5 channels that is one massive headache.

And let's be honest: Aero was gimmicky at best. The panning was pretty severe to demonstrate the surround effect but there was just not enough audio material to spread across all those channels and the mixes seemed pretty "disjointed". Now, with tracks like Time Machine, which has an utterly complex arrangement (as somewhat evidenced by the WTTOS 5.1 mix) that could actually make sense, as it is simply too rich for stereo and many of the sounds just go unnoticed. With 5 channels there's more channels accommodate and thus an opportunity to separate the sounds and give them room to breathe. But again - not worth the effort. Probably easier to bet on binaural - much easier to work on two very similar 2.0 mixes than one 2.0 and one 5.1.

BTW. besides T&T we also had Oxygene 2007 - one of the editions had a 5.1 version of the "new master recording" (lol) of the 1976 album. However both of those were upmixes as well.
Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:30 pm
SF01


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Jote wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:17 pm 5.1 audio just hasn't caught on. And probably never will. And thus producing a 5.1 album from the ground up is just not worth the effort, because you need to provide a legacy stereo version as well (5.1 might not downmix to 2.0 as intended). Not to mention that the more speakers you have the more careful you need to be with their placement - I recall Geiss (?) mentioning all sorts of phase cancellation problems in some interview before the release of Aero in 2004. Obviously phase cancellation is no stranger to stereo, but with 5 channels that is one massive headache.

And let's be honest: Aero was gimmicky at best. The panning was pretty severe to demonstrate the surround effect but there was just not enough audio material to spread across all those channels and the mixes seemed pretty "disjointed". Now, with tracks like Time Machine, which has an utterly complex arrangement (as somewhat evidenced by the WTTOS 5.1 mix) that could actually make sense, as it is simply too rich for stereo and many of the sounds just go unnoticed. With 5 channels there's more channels accommodate and thus an opportunity to separate the sounds and give them room to breathe. But again - not worth the effort. Probably easier to bet on binaural - much easier to work on two very similar 2.0 mixes than one 2.0 and one 5.1.

BTW. besides T&T we also had Oxygene 2007 - one of the editions had a 5.1 version of the "new master recording" (lol) of the 1976 album. However both of those were upmixes as well.
Tell that to Steven Wilson.
And the whole Quad/Surround facebook group. Electronic music has probably the greatest potential for surround mixes, even better than classical. But still, it was and will be a niche and 5.1 won't replace stereo, as stereo replaced mono. It's nice to have a bonus BD, or even DVD to the CD album though.
Post Posted Mon Mar 22, 2021 11:30 pm
nexxxus


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Richard-Eastham wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:43 pm I'm not really up on the audio tech side of things, but without the consumer hardware, isn't a 5.1 mix a bit redundant? And the uptake for 5.1 hardware in the home consumer market never really picked up to a level where regular 5.1 audio mixes made sense. Maybe I've misunderstood?
In a way it's true and we associate 5.1 mix with visual support most often.
Therefore I find the binaural approach much more relevant
Post Posted Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:38 pm
shadow


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Dr_Jones wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:57 pm I haven't kept up with technology much myself, but I think there's pretty high-spec laptops that play 5.1 nowadays. HDMI supports 5.1 sound just fine too, so I guess it's pretty much still a thing, but not that popular probably. I'm going to convert the 5.1 files of WTTOS and Amazonia to DVD for my 5.1 DVD set to play them, same as I did for Planet Jarre.
Dolby Atmos and DTS:X have a stereo equivalent that for many work really well. I'm personally not a huge fan of the sound, but with some video games that go absolutely insane with the surround sound channels, I must admit that occasionally, the Atmos (up)mixing for it works better than it should. It's a bit comparable to those 3D mixes that were included in the Electronica boxset, but without the echo-y sound that came with those mixes.

Also, I strongly disagree that music in 5.1 can't be done good without enough layers. Mike Oldfield was doing his back catalogue from Tubular Bells until Discovery (and I'm still waiting on Islands and Amarok) all done in 5.1 with even the least layered sections sounding terrific. Considering the amount of sound effects Jarre uses, you can do crazy fun stuff with the different channels. I gets its a niche, but that was something that even back in 2004 was clear when DVD Audio never picked up any momentum. But then my counter argument is an easy one, don't make the promise and claim your all about the cutting edge constantly and never deliver.

We'll see if the binaural approach will get any foothold, but my bet is it's dead on arrival as all the other.
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Post Posted Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:51 pm
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I disagree - it's all about layers. Panning some sound effects is not enough to justify the effort because the difference between 2.0 and 5.1 would not be that noticeable for most. So you need to shift more things around to make it interesting. And Aero proves that more than anything that older JMJ tracks are not rich enough to be spread across 5 channels. Or perhaps it was just done in a terribly wrong way. Electronica stuff like Time Machine, Stardust, some of the Equinoxe Infinity tracks - sure.

"don't make the promise and claim your all about the cutting edge constantly and never deliver."

It gets the job done - it gets attention. And then the non-die-hards forget.
Post Posted Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:21 pm
Richard-Eastham


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JMJ quote around the time Aero comes out in 2004 - "this tech feels to us like stereo first did to an earlier generation" - or similar.
JMJ quote around the time he performs his VR concerts in 2020 - "this tech feels to us like cinema first did to an earlier generation" - or similar.

He's good creating the catchy soundbite headline!
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Post Posted Tue Mar 23, 2021 10:43 pm
shadow


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Jote wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:51 pm I disagree - it's all about layers. Panning some sound effects is not enough to justify the effort because the difference between 2.0 and 5.1 would not be that noticeable for most. So you need to shift more things around to make it interesting. And Aero proves that more than anything that older JMJ tracks are not rich enough to be spread across 5 channels. Or perhaps it was just done in a terribly wrong way. Electronica stuff like Time Machine, Stardust, some of the Equinoxe Infinity tracks - sure.
And that's where we got to agree to disagree. You can make a mix out of a few channels as long as you utilize what you have properly. AERO is not a good measurement to see what you can and can't do with 5.1 audio. It was a gimmick fueled album, it's fun don't get me wrong, but it's still nothing more than a gimmick. Even the included CD had a ridiculous stereo mix. There's a ton of music (even old song) that's (re)mixed into full 5.1 that sound absolutely terrific, even when it's barely got anything to offer in the format. Pretty much 99% of the Queen remixes didn't really offer something new in 5.1, but they still sound great in the format (or technically 4.1 in most cases). You can absolutely immerge someone in the sound without having to have a completely separate sound per channel. Especially when you considering how many different channels the average Jarre track will probably have.
Can you imagine how a track like Ethnicolor would sound if panned across six channels instead of the regular two? There's an insane degree that can be done with that (and that's ignoring a Atmos mix where you can pan stuff across your head as well). Just because you don't think it's enough to be justified, doesn't mean that it can't be done.

If Oldfield can create a great 5.1 tracks for Foreign Affair, one of his most boring tracks he ever created, than there's really no excuse...
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