Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ Newly Mixed in Dolby Atmos

50th anniversary Atmos remix retains the album's original character

Last night (December 3) at members club/coworking space Neuehouse in Kips Bay, Manhattan, Sony/Legacy unveiled the 50th anniversary Dolby Atmos mix of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, soon to be released on December 12 on standalone Blu-ray and in the multi-format deluxe box set. (I assume the Atmos mix will also stream on Apple Music.) Newly mixed by longtime Pink Floyd engineer James Guthrie, this is the third surround iteration of Wish You Were Here, after the original 1975 quadrophonic mix and the 2011 5.1 mix. I haven’t heard those mixes, but this new Atmos mix is a resounding success.

Generally, I consider Dolby Atmos a good idea (adding a height factor to surround sound) that still presents many practical issues—it should’ve spent another five years in research and development before its public implementation over a decade ago. Only recently did a proper Atmos mastering plug-in come along, and home playback is limited to streaming (Apple Music’s lossy Spatial Audio, which apparently isn’t the most spatially accurate rendering of Atmos) or Blu-rays encoded in Dolby TrueHD 7.1 hi-res 24bit. You can’t even play streaming-deliverable Atmos ADM WAV mixdown files outside of your DAW, and those take up 5GB per four-five minute song anyway.

Atmos mixing itself is another issue, as in addition to placement controls (left, right, up, down, around), there’s also a “size” control that can be easily abused. It’s an entirely different beast from normal mono/stereo mixing, as you have to carefully fill a three-dimensional space without making the mix elements (“objects”) sound artificially inflated. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Atmos mixes unceremoniously dumped on Apple are assembly-line jobs done by no-name engineers and filled with errors: elements that should’ve been muted to match the stereo mix, crucial effects inexplicably missing, or an overall washed-out sound lacking impact and texture. Even high-profile Atmos mixes for legacy acts aren’t always great, sometimes too caught up in “spatializing” everything instead of presenting a coherent sonic picture (yes, that sentence is targeted towards Steven Wilson’s New Order remixes).

I say this to emphasize that a good Atmos mix is something to get excited about. Thankfully, James Guthrie’s new Atmos remix of Wish You Were Here is truly excellent for the format. It’s not a gimmicky technical display with shit flying around and above you. Rather, it’s more like “elevated stereo,” replicating and tastefully expanding the original mix, without forensically dissecting it and losing the album’s character. It’s immersive but not overwhelming. You feel each sound tangibly, yet remain at a safe distance. The only rear elements I noticed were the laugh on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”’s first verse and the big blast at the end of “Have A Cigar,” with that song’s outro and “Wish You Were Here”’s intro sequestered into the rear left. Then, on the title track, acoustic guitars appear enlarged in front (maybe a little too big on the size control) with appropriate body and beautiful shimmer. Throughout the album, Richard Wright’s synths envelop the listener, Roger Waters’ bass is fully present and never bloated, Nick Mason’s drums have good balance (cymbals are especially clean), and vocals seem a little less compressed than the original stereo mix.

Overall, Guthrie’s mix is done the way every Atmos mix should be (but sadly isn’t). It’s not life-changing compared to the stereo original, nor would I want it to be. It still sounds like Wish You Were Here as I’ve always known it. While the audio system in Neuehouse’s movie theater wasn’t amazing (it gets bright and hard at loud volumes), I could tell that any issues were with the playback rather than the mix itself. As the album played, we were also shown a specially made visualizer of archive footage, old and new animations, and the original concert projection films. The 4K DCP looked great with film grain rendered very well, and since the projection films are also included on the Blu-ray Audio, I hope they’re encoded to similar standards there. The full album visualizer was exclusive to the small press event and complimented the album well, though I’m curious why they’re not including it on the Blu-ray. It’s not essential, but I don’t think anyone would complain about having the option to see it.

On display in the downstairs bar/theater lobby was a copy of the $250 4LP/7”/2CD/Blu-ray deluxe box set. The vinyl was pressed at GZ/Memphis Record Pressing, with LP lacquers cut as usual by Bernie Grundman (7” cut in-house at GZ). The hardcover book is around 64 pages. Tracking Angle hopes to get a vinyl copy for review (I have an original Portuguese pressing from a UK stamper and the 2011 digitally remastered Doug Sax cut to compare to this latest edition also cut from hi-res). We’ll see how the vinyl turns out, but based on what I heard last night, the standalone Blu-ray Audio retailing for $27 with the Atmos mix (plus the album’s other mixes and almost all of the big box set’s bonus material in hi-res) is an excellent value for any surround enthusiast.