John Darko
In recent installments, we’ve looked at remastered albums from The Cure, Pixies and Orbital. Today we turn our attention to Peter Gabriel’s i/o. It’s not a remaster but it already needs one. Let me explain…
i/o is Peter Gabriel’s first album in 21 years; his first since the respectable (if not outstanding) Up. Ever the restless innovator, Gabriel released numerous tracks on streaming services ahead of the album’s proper release, each dropping on a full moon. An alternative mix was then released on the following full moon.
Gabriel commissioning alternative mixes of each track gave rise to an album release twist: a Bright-Side Mix from Mark “Spike” Stent and a Dark-Side Mix from Tchad Blake. Fans of Gabriel’s (err) darker side – as heard on Peter Gabriel 3 (‘Melt’) and Peter Gabriel 4 (‘Security’) – are likely to favour Blake’s take. The Bright-Side Mix lets in more daylight and air to better please fans of So and Us.
Vinyl enthusiasts wanting hard copies of both versions of i/o were invited to pony up for two separate double LPs, each selling for around €40. Ouch. CD spinners fared considerably better: two CDs containing the Bright-Side and Dark-Side mixes were bundled with a Blu-Ray disc containing Hans-Martin Buff’s Dolby Atmos mix for €23. If you wanted everything as a special edition for €150, you’d have to wait until April 2024 for a deluxe set that wraps the two double LPs, the two CDs and the Blu-Ray in a box with a hardback book.
So – where’s the beef?
I began listening to both CDs in December and sometime in January, once the novelty of a new album from Peter Gabriel had worn off, I started asking myself: why was everything on this album so darn LOUD? According to Discogs, i/o was mastered at Metropolis Studios. Had they really gone that hard with dynamic range compression?
Yes, they had.
I ripped the Bright-Side Mix to a hard drive (in FLAC format) and ran it through MAAT’s DR Offline MKII software. The album average came back as a disappointing DR6. This tells us that, on average, i/o‘s peak volume differs from its average volume by 6dB. This gives the album plenty of presence behind a nice pair of speakers or headphones but also makes it a tiring listening experience when attempting all 12 songs across a 68-minute runtime. As you can see from the scale provided by the DR Loudness Database, there is considerable room for improvement.
Admittedly, these are audiophile considerations but DR6 is a disappointing result from an artist who has often seemed sensitive to technology’s use and abuse. The Dark-Side Mix fares no better. It comes back from a trip through DR Offline MKII with an album average of DR6.
Too much dynamic range compression and the way it audibly crushes the contrast between quiet and loud is why (in my opinion) i/o needs remastering.
Vinylistas might find their listening experience a little more agreeable. It’s hard to cut a DR6 master to vinyl (but it’s not impossible) and perhaps the compression was backed off a little for the black stuff. I don’t know as I’ve yet to do a vinyl rip. The downside of the vinyl versions is a heavily altered track sequence. On side A for example, “Playing For Time” follows “Panopticom” instead of “The Court”, thus robbing the album of the killer one-two punch that we hear from the CD and streaming services.
What I do know is this: i/o‘s Dolby Atmos mix saves those of us with an aversion to dynamic range compression from having to grin and bear it.
I visited Atmos mix engineer Hans-Martin Buff at his Berlin studio last November to hear his take on i/o. That was the day before its official release. Buff told me he’d commissioned additional instrumentation from Gabriel to include in his Spatial/Immersive mix. Yes, there are sounds in the Atmos mix that don’t exist in the stereo versions.
Not only.
When streamed from Apple Music via a Spatial Audio-capable pair of headphones, Buff’s Atmos mix of i/o sounds more relaxed and less in-your-face than either of the stereo versions. According to the DR Loudness Database, the Atmos version of i/o has an album average of DR13. That’s about as good as it gets. And despite the lossy compression that can make Apple Music’s Spatial Audio streams sound a little ragged in the upper treble, the Dolby Atmos version of i/o has become my preferred version.
It then begs the question: if the Atmos mix can be mastered with good dynamic range, why can’t the stereo mixes?
Further information: Peter Gabriel
