Hello,
Daft Punk make a remarkable comeback with a special version of “Random Access Memories“, their ultimate opus. Last May, they surprised fans by releasing a commemorative edition to celebrate the album’s 10th anniversary, enriched with 35 minutes of previously unreleased tracks. However, the iconic duo have another surprise in store for this new edition. After testing the first track, entitled “Within“, here’s a review of the album, which has been reworked without any drum or percussion elements, giving a new artistic vision to this unprecedented approach. Is the album as successful as the first single? That’s what we’re going to find out with different formats such as vinyl, digital stereo and Dolby Atmos.
The curves below compare the album’s waveforms for the vinyl disc, Tidal MAX (eq Deezer) and Dolby Atmos (downmixed to 2.0) versions for the Drumless version and also the original Tidal version.
We can clearly see the effect of DR on waveform rendering, which becomes more and more detailed as we go down the curves, from the Tidal MAX (eq Deezer) version (DR9) to the Dolby Atmos version (DR13 downmixed in 2.0).
The graph below shows the spectrum of the vinyl record (white curve) and the Tidal MAX version (blue curve), and shows that the two curves are identical from 400 Hz to 10 kHz.
Spectrum Vinyl (Drumless Edition) - 2023 (white) vs Tidal MAX Flac (Drumless Edition) - 2023 (blue)
The graph below shows the spectrum of the Deezer version (white curve) and the Tidal MAX version (blue curve). The two curves overlap perfectly up to 22 kHz (yellow arrow), the limiting frequency of the Deezer version due to the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency used.
Spectrum Ed3 Deezer - 2023 (white) vs Ed 2 Tidal MAX Flac (Drumless Edition) - 2023 (blue)
The spatialization of the Dolby Atmos version varies from track to track, with values ranging from 4.5 to 9.
The Drumless version features a different spatialization from the 10th anniversary mix, with a greater presence of the center channel (except on “Contact”) and with a beautiful use of spatialization by spreading the music over all the channels allowing greater immersion in the music.
The high-resolution digital stereo version delivers a very precise rendering, with “limited” dynamic compression that favors bass rendering compared to the softer, more natural vinyl version.
But the version that really stands out is the Dolby Atmos mix, particularly in 7.1.4 multichannel listening, where the mix totally immerses us in the music while respecting the spirit of each track. Daft Punk offer us one of the best Dolby Atmos mixes available today ( to be listened to on an Atmos system if you get the opportunity).
You can compare the different versions by listening to the samples, and also find all the measurements HERE.
Enjoy listening,
Jean-François
That’s exactly what I thought … But then I listened to the album and I have to say I REALLY enjoyed it. It doesn’t sound incomplete at all and the removal of the drums brings so many other elements into focus. And it didn’t sound like the drums were weirdly missing, with the exception of the last track … where I could still hear the drums in my head. It was a very interesting album which I will certainly revisit again and again.