I’m remixing an older file from around 2016. It’s mostly MIDI Production with a couple of live instruments. I spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the MIDI tracks from the demo and rendered all them in stereo, since the renderer won’t let you print mono sources like Kick, Snare, Flute etc. without a lot of hassle.
I got a rough 7.1.4 mix that sounded really good until I went back to the stereo demo. The ATMOS mix was clean, almost pristine and an accurate representation of the song. But the stereo mix was KILLIN’!!! It had so much more passion and excitement that it was quite startling! It was as if the spreading out of the instruments and FX had somehow diluted the “Presence” of the song.
I’ve seen a couple of tutorials where the instructors warned that this could happen. But this was my first time experiencing it. I suppose that’s because, until now, all of my ATMOS mixes were one offs. The projects were written and produced with ATMOS as the final product from the start. So, there was nothing to compare those mixes to. They sounded good as is and the client was happy.
But THIS one is a Rebuild/Remix and the stereo version is obliterating the ATMOS version at present. Anybody else experience this? If so, what are your suggestions for keeping the excitement in the song itself? Otherwise, the ATMOS version just sounds like a gimmick.
Thanks