Mike Mettler

Trevor Rabin is all in on leaping directly into the Atmos-mixing universe, having immersed himself in composing in surround sound for the 50 or so films he’s scored over the past three-plus decades—plus the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix he supervised for his new solo album, Rio. Recently, Rabin—the onetime Yes guitarist/vocalist/composer behind the somewhat unexpected No. 1 hit single from November 1983’s 90125, “Owner of a Lonely Heart”—and music editor Mike Mettler got on Zoom to discuss the creative surround arc of Rio, how his mentor influenced his compositional-oriented way of thinking, and what songs from his era of Yes would benefit the most from new surround mixes. . .

When The Orb and David Gilmour came together over a decade ago to produce the two-part, 49-minute ambient soundscape dubbed Metallic Spheres, there almost seemed to be a bit of unfinished business attached to what we were hearing—and now we know why. To take its music to the next level, original Metallic Spheres producer Youth has just recast it in Dolby Atmos as a more concise 40-minute edition duly renamed Metallic Spheres in Colour. Recently, Youth and music editor Mike Mettler got on Zoom to discuss how Metallic Spheres morphed into its current full-bodied Atmos Colour and shape, what notable Orb song seems ready-made for an immersive remix, and what else he’d like to mix in Atmos next. . .

ABC didn’t exactly fit into the expected early-1980s new-wave mold—and that was just fine with the band’s co-founding lead vocalist and chief songwriter, Martin Fry. To that end, ABC’s debut album, June 1982’s The Lexicon of Love, cut a wide compositional swath that deployed a mixture of broadstroke keyboard flourishes, grand orchestral swells, and call-and-response vocal passages—and now, it sounds even fuller in its just-released 40th anniversary Dolby Atmos mix on Blu-ray. During a recent Zoom call with S&V music editor Mike Mettler, Fry discusses producer Trevor Horn’s and ABC’s original intentions for how The Lexicon of Love ended up sounding, why he feels listening to it in Atmos is akin to “climbing inside a crystal kingdom,” and what he likes best about how Steven Wilson mixed it for Atmos playback. . .

It’s no surprise that Stewart Copeland and Ricky Kej’s collaborative effort Divine Tides won a Grammy Award in February 2023 for Best Immersive Audio Album for the 360 Reality Audio version of it done by the ace surround-sound mixing team of producer Herbert Waltl and mixer Eric Schilling. Here, Waltl and Schilling discuss how they created that richly expansive 360RA mix, as well as the key differences between stereo mixes and immersive mixes, how to best tap into emotional responses in a spatial audio setting, and how they strive for their mixes to get you to experience hearing certain mix elements both well above and well below your ear height. . .