Mike Mettler

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Mike Mettler  |  Nov 26, 2024

Shaboozey continues to capture that good ol’ country-tinged lightning in a bottle with his latest single, “Good News,” which was released by American Dogwood/Empire in multiple formats on November 15, 2024. Chances are, you just might see and hear Shaboozey perform this hopeful new track as part of his headlining performance during halftime at this Thursday’s Thanksgiving NFL game between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears. Read Mike Mettler’s review to find out if the Dolby Atmos mix of “Good News” maintains the bright-star country artist’s winning streak. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Jul 04, 2006

Godsmack, Boston's multiplatinum metal growlers, took the nation by storm this past April by debuting at #1 with their heavy-hitting, aptly named fourth album, IV (Republic/Universal). And though the band's drummer Shannon Larkin loves his iPod ("every single song on it came from my own collection"), he still has a thing for CDs.

Mike Mettler  |  Feb 19, 2015
Performance
Sound
“Exciting new sounds in the folk tradition.” So went the saying on the sleeve of the 1964 debut album by Simon & Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. And how telling that seemingly innocent but steadfast declaration was, as over the course of five studio albums and one soundtrack released during those heady days of 1964-70, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel forged a singular sound that mixed the core tenets of folk with the then-burgeoning pulse of rock. The duo were masters of blending their pitch-perfect harmonies on a cornucopia of intimate tales that concerned matters of both the heart and the state. Not bad for a pair of schoolboys from Queens originally known as Tom & Jerry.
Mike Mettler  |  Jul 05, 2017
Sonny Landreth is the consummate slide player’s slide player. His smoky, swampy, down-home, Nawlins-certified slide playing carries such a unique blend of influences and originality that the phrase “slydeco” was coined just to describe it. I got on the horn with Landreth to discuss his SQ aspirations for the double LP Recorded Live in Lafayette, respecting and building on music history, and how learning to play wind instruments influenced his guitar style.
Mike Mettler  |  Dec 18, 2013
“That’s the cartridge you want — the one that’ll get you kicked out of the house!” And that’s Derek Trucks, empathizing over the price of high-end audiophile gear, both in terms of how it affects your wallet and your personal life. “I’ve had that conversation too,” he adds with a chuckle. The good-natured Trucks — seen at the center of the above photo, with his arms folded — drenched his sweet-toned slide-guitar stamp all over one of 2013’s best albums, the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Made Up Mind (Masterworks; you can read my 4 1/2-star review of it in the Discs & Downloads section.) Here, Trucks, 34, and I commune over his favorite gear and LPs, how good Mind sounds on vinyl, and its thematic album-closing parallel. (Hint: “Darling, won’t you ease my worried mind” is a line from said album's title track.)

Mike Mettler  |  Feb 25, 2022
The phrase “immersive audio” and the name of producer Giles Martin are practically synonymous terms these days, and his magic Atmos touch is out in full force on “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (Remix),” an updated Spatial Audio take on this most head-trippy of tracks from The Beatles’ truly seminal June 1967 masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 26, 2022

As August comes to a close, it’s time for the first monthly installment of our ongoing Spatial Audio File column. As always, I’ve thoroughly spec’ed and checked all five tracks I’ve selected here by way of my personal deep-dive listening sessions on both my home system and headphones alike. You’ll find each and every one of them amidst the cavalcade of Made for Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos tracks within the ever-expanding Apple Music library.

With the fall season seemingly right around the corner, let’s take one more summer spin together and check out this month’s fine quartet of truly immersive tracks, which are. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Jul 15, 2022

Spatial Audio: The Final Frontier. Those are two phrases that naturally came together in my mind as I, like many of you, marveled at the deep space images sent back to us here on Planet Earth via NASA’s James Webb Telescope. They’re a stunning reminder the universe is as big as we can comprehend, if not more so.

Audio can be like that too, especially when you listen to music mixed in 360 degrees. Done right, these fully enveloping mixes can be as vast as you can possibly imagine, and they can go to places somewhat hard to fathom, even in the exact moments they’re swirling in and around your head. Either way, they’re joys to behold—or should that be, behear?—which is but one reason I consistently relish the tracks I cover each and every week here in Spatial Audio File, because I always hear something I’ve never experienced before.

As always, each of the five deep space cuts that follow has been thoroughly spec’ed and checked by way of my personal deep dive listening sessions on both my home system and headphones alike. You’ll find each and every one of them, alongside a veritable starfleet of other astronomical Made for Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos cuts, within the ever-expanding universe that is the Apple Music library.

Let’s now engage with this week’s cosmic cavalcade of five celestially immersive tracks, which are. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Mar 04, 2022
All-channel mixing maestro Giles Martin shared some truly key insights during his sitdown with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in a global virtual live event this past Monday, in celebration of the Atmos mix Martin had recently completed for The Beatles’ November 2000 collection of (count ’em) 27 U.S. and U.K. chart-toppers oh-so-appropriately titled 1—as well as for their groundbreaking double-A-sided February 1967 single, “Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane.”

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