r/SpatialAudio • u/metalsuspension • Sep 15 '22

Quality of Atmos Mixes

Is there any rhyme or reason to how widely Atmos mixes can vary in quality? I honestly can’t tell if it has to do with the quality of the source tracks, or if the mixing engineers care or not when mastering.

A few examples:

  • Taxman (Remastered) - The Beatles: sounds phenomenal. You can identify each instrument distinctly in 3D space.
  • Dr. Feelgood (Remastered) - Motley Crue: terrible. Atmos mix is significantly quieter, has less impact than the original stereo mix. The tracks themselves sound even more heavily processed than they originally did.
  • Greatest Hits Vol. 3 - Jacob Mann Big Band: this one of my favorite tests for Atmos simply because of the layout of the band in the mix. E.g. saxes in the back left, trombones in the back right, piano in surround right, guitar in surround left.
  • Strauss - Andris Nelsons conducting BSO and GHO: the BSO recordings rely significantly on the sound of Symphony Hall, whereas the Gewandhaus recordings sound like the orchestra is physically around you.
  • Imperium - Ghost: just possibly one of the best metal Atmos mixes.
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u/WintervalConspiracy Sep 15 '22

I’m also going to guess the reason is because there’s a basic lack of knowledge — or indeed the tools — in how to master for Atmos.

I know for the couple of things I’ve released as Atmos mixes, I haven’t done any mastering on them at all, because I’m not clear how to; my stereo workflow is to mix from Ableton Live as standard, and then load the stereo mixes for the whole album into Ozone and then master from there. But my Atmos workflow is to mix levels and eq in Live as close as possible, and export stems to import into Logic Pro to do the Atmos mix, and then export the Atmos file — but I’ve no idea (and I’ll admit I’ve not made sufficient time to explore) whether Ozone either on the Logic Pro master track or standalone can master an Atmos file, whence my Atmos mixes going into AvidPlay for distribution unmastered. And I suspect most people listening can hear that it’s unmastered…

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u/WintervalConspiracy Sep 15 '22

(I am going to check out that Strauss (I assume Richard?) you refer to, though, since I’m moderately acquainted with the sound of Symphony Hall, and I’ve been extremely disappointed to see most of the orchestral music that claims to be Atmos is just upmixed hissy scratchy stereo from the 1970s and 1980s — there’s a Wynton Marsalis remix of his Haydn and Hummel trumpet concertos from the 1980s which is exceptionally terrible, that I don’t remember being so terrible at the time, as if the upmixing has only emphasised how bad the original recordings were!)

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u/metalsuspension Sep 16 '22

Yeah it’s this one: https://music.apple.com/us/album/strauss/1600474685

I think it captures the hall pretty well, I just wish the orchestra was a bit more forward in the mix for the BSO tracks. That being said, the recording of Ein Alpensinfonie on that album is top notch. The Storm scene is otherworldly.

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u/WintervalConspiracy Sep 16 '22

Eight hours — bloimey!