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Paul McCartney issues a Dolby Atmos Mix of Red Rose Speedway

Streaming-only before you get too excited

By Paul Sinclair

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40

Paul McCartney and Wings’ 1973 album Red Rose Speedway has been mixed for Dolby Atmos and made available on streaming. This coincides with the album’s 50th anniversary and the physical release of the half-speed mastered vinyl for Record Store Day.

Officially the second Wings album (albeit ‘Paul McCartney & Wings’), Red Rose Speedway didn’t garner the critical acclaim McCartney might have hoped for (that would come with the next album, Band on the Run), but it did do very well commercially, with the single ‘My Love’ reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in America. The album followed suit, reaching number one on the album charts in the US.

Red Rose Speedway was reissued in 2018, over a year after INXS released the first Dolby Atmos Mix of a studio album physically via the Kick 30 package (closely followed by R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People). It’s the first Wings album to be given the Atmos treatment, although Paul’s three McCartney solo albums (I, II & III) were also issued in Dolby Atmos, again streaming-only.

You can find the Dolby Atmos Mix of Red Rose Speedway on Apple Music by searching for the “2018 Remaster”. It’s not clear who has remixed it, but it is likely to be Giles Martin and Steve Orchard who did the McCartney albums.

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40 Comments

40 thoughts on “Paul McCartney issues a Dolby Atmos Mix of Red Rose Speedway”

  2. Streaming has no interest for me in any way. Physical product yes. Please can we have a physical release of this? If only SDE can get the rights.

  3. The latest issue of What HiFi contains a guide to Spatial and Dolby Atmos if anyone here would find that useful. If you don’t want to fork out for a copy may I suggest getting a free one-month trial of the Readly app because the magazine is available on that platform. Whether you keep the app after a month is of course entirely up to you.

    1. Alternatively, if you’re in the UK, join your local library and use the Libby app. Hundreds of top titles free to loan for 21 days at a time, including What Hi-Fi, Uncut, Mojo, Record Collector, etc. Works an absolute treat on a tablet (see screenshot).

  5. This isn’t anything new. When I flip thru Apple Music I am amazed to see how many albums are offered in Atmos. It’s disgusting to see how much is available in streaming and not physical format.

  7. Only streaming and no blu-ray??? We can´t really then expect too much with the future Beatles remixed box sets… “Revolver” was a sort of precedent…

    1. I’m still a hold out on the Revolver box because of that, all the others were snagged the moment they were available for preorder. Raise the price and remove the best content, such a dumb move.

      1. Andy, I totally agree. I had been religiously buying the boxed sets but Revolver brought it to a screeching halt. Would love to see sales figures. Did sales drop significantly or are we such a small minority of buyers, it was barely perceptible? You can get all the Revolver tracks on the CDs in 96/24 from Qobuz. But the lack of the Atmos mix on Blu-ray was a deal killer for me.

  8. Would have loved this on blu-ray. MPL do love to leave a little bit of money on the table at times. A nice run of Archive Collection hi-res stereo/Atmos mixes of Paul’s albums would be great on disc.

    And a reissue of Wings Over Europe on vinyl!

  10. Hoping apple , amazon etc make identifying Dolby Atmos easier when searching their respective sites. I come across a lot of albums in Dolby or Spatial audio purely by accident .
    It’s even harder using the Sonos app with Sonos era 3 as there is no distinction at all between the stereo or dolby atmos versions of the same album.
    I did read they are working on this though.

    1. Agree completely. It is hard to locate Atmos mixes. Worse yet, some albums have a single song in Atmos but the entire album will be identified as Atmos.

    2. The search function in Apple is terrible in general. It is almost always hard to find whatever I’m looking for. Totally unworthy of Apple. Thankfully I have my physical music but in the car it is crisis!

  11. I would love to hear the Atmos mix of this and other Macca recordings but I don’t subscribe to Apple Music .
    Surely to get the most exposure these should be on all streaming services ?
    I can’t subscribe to everything .
    Obviously he hasn’t heard of the good work Paul is doing with blu ray audio .

  12. I could be wrong but I believe the only way to stream ‘true’ dolby atmos through speakers or asoundbar is via a Tidal Hi fi subscription. None of the other platforms will stream in true discreet atmos…just a simulation. The best way of course to listen to spatial audio is via a physical medium such as an SDE blu-ray through an av amp and speakers or atmos soundbar.

    1. This isn’t actually true. You can connect an Apple TV box to your AMP via HDMI and what you are getting is ‘proper’ atmos, although it’s significantly compressed.

    2. Amazon music on The amazon fire stick 4k max provides true Dolby Atmos, although as lossy as on any other streaming platform, including Tidal (hi-fi or not) . The overall volume of the atmos mixes on Amazon music is significantly lower than the stereo mixes of the same music on my Marantz system, I don’t know why, as it is not the case for movies on amazon video or Netflix. As it surely is not the case with SDE Blu-ray audio. :-)

      1. I just received and last night listened to the EBTG Fuse Blu Ray. It is a great album, but the Atmos mix is next level! Thank you for sorting this out Paul. Dynamically it is extremely involving, and has much more ‘air’ than the original stereo mix, (even though I downmixed to stereo). The result is that the Atmos mix draws you in, and provides a totally different experience, in a really good way. Were that more physical content like this could be available, because you are not going to get such a thrilling sonic experience, even with high bit rate streaming. To address the previous point, I did notice that the Atmos mix was significantly quieter than the stereo mix, and to level match, I had to turn up my system about 50%. As we are emerging from the loudness war, music is being mastered at lower levels, which provides greater headroom and dynamics, and I wonder if this might answer the question as to why folks are experiencing lower volumes on streaming Atmos content.

  13. Yep the Tidal listing has ‘Immersive Mix Engineer’ as “Giles Martin, Steve Orchard”. It’s a really good Atmos mix as well, nice and discrete. Best way to listen to this album and a slight notch up in terms of the Atmos mixes on I, II, III.

    1. So…. If the 4 or 5 speaker version has all of those channels compressed – I can’t imagine how that would sound better than 2 channels in true 96/24. These sound excellent over Qobuz hi-rez but they sound even better from the downloaded FLAC files that I got by buying the boxes.

      1. We don’t have to imagine, we can just compare them. :-) It’s the same reason that stereo was an improvement over mono. It’s a different mix and when done well can bring out much more of the recording. Music in surround is mono to stereo – but 10 times better. Even in a lossy DD+ container. Lossless would be the ideal obviously though.

        The Qobuz hi-rez will be the same digital files as those downloadable ones from the boxset.

  14. Not being an audiophile could someone give an idiot’s guide to what would be the cheapest way to listen to Dolby Atmos?
    I think I read Paul mention a soundbar several months ago in one of the SDE blu series articles. I have an average setup at present (speakers and woofer) but quite loud which connects both to my PC (for CDs and digital tunes) and a 4K TV (for streaming shows/movies/watching music blu-rays).
    I guess my overall question is could I replace that with a sound bar which would still be loud and circumvent the need for a speakers/woofer combo? A google search gets a bit too technical and I would be interested in other forum member’s opinion on a basic practical level. Thanks in advance for any advice.

    1. Trapdoor – I’m in the same limbo as you. I’m very curious about all this surround/Atmos phenomenon, but I can’t be convinced that the sound quality will be up anywhere as good as a poper stero system set up, unless one is willing to spend a whole lot of money + refurbishes the room with several speakers, even hanging from the ceiling. I imagine, if you go the whole hog, the experience will be phenomenal. But there’s a whole stretch of not-really-the-whole-hog where disappointment seems to be lurking … (I’d love to be proved wrong, by the way! That would solve my present conundrum.)

      1. If it helps: I’ve got what I presume to be a fairly budget 5.1 system with decent stereo speakers and the rest a bit of a mis-match. I am rarely disappointed by a 5.1 mix, some are better than others and there are real stand outs (The Band ‘Big Pink’, Doobies Quadio, Floyd) I wouldn’t consider any of my surround sound purchases unworthy though. Incidentally I think I have spent around £650-700 on my current set up.

        1. Always difficult to get my head around this: so you buy a receiver that does atmos and 5.1. Where does this piece of machinery go? Does this replace the amp? Do you connect it to a bluray player? To a TV? Can you still connect it to record player (phono) and a cassette player? Are there receivers with a built-in bluray//DVD/Cd reader? I already stumble at this stage …

        2. Whew!

          I’ve spent MULTIPLES of that on my (front) speakers, alone!

          I won’t give any advice!!!

          Okay, I can’t help myself…

          “Take the plunge.” You won’t regret it!

    2. Hi Trapdoor,

      It really depends on whether you already have a receiver which will decode Atmos – I wouldn’t think a soundbar alone would be sufficient, though I have not really looked into it. However, I’m sure there are some “all in one” systems that are fairly cheap and include a receiver and speakers, although in my experience these systems are not very good.

      The only real difference between Atmos and 5.1 from a setup standpoint is the receiver and the ceiling speakers.If you want to set it up on your own, you have to start with a receiver capable of decoding Atmos. In addition to your 5.1 set up, you would want a pair of Atmos speakers that would typically be mounted near or in the ceiling – there are also speakers which typically sit on top of your tower speakers and are “upward firing,” they basically bounce the sound from the ceiling to provide the Atmos effect.

      My set up isn’t cheap, but it was not terribly expensive either. I use a Sony receiver for the Atmos decoding, Klipsch tower speakers in front, as well as the center channel, Klipsch surround sound speakers and subwoofer in back, and a pair of Klipsch upward firing Atmos speakers in front. I use Apple TV for access to the streaming Atmos recordings, which is connected to my television and the receiving.

      If you want the absolute cheapest access to Dolby Atmos, my recommendation is an iPhone, a subscription to Apple Music, and a pair of AirPods Pro. The Atmos effect is actually quite good, surprisingly.

      Shawn

          2. ah. ok. I knew there was a catch. I’ll just wait for the SDE McCartney ATMOS blu ray then. any day now, right???

  15. Another potential physical immersive mix slips through the net. Streaming? No thanks.
    Would have loved this and obviously Revolver. SDE surround series?

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