The Enemy Inside Discussion Thread

[BlobVanDam]

I think people make too big of a deal out of the whole compression issue. At least in this particular case. Listening to Dream Theater albums, never in my life, have I felt like I was experiencing that "Wall of sound" effect, or any kind of audio issues. Yes, I can hear the compression, but it's never diminished the quality of the audio for me. And yes, I am picky about having good quality music, but I can still enjoy a dynamically compressed song if it's well produced.

What's more, I constantly hear complaints about clipping. Here's the thing, I don't necessarily have the greatest audio system in the world, but what I do have still makes the music sound fantastic. It can play the music loud and clear and crisp. And I've never had any clipping issues. Certainly not with DT albums. What I never understood is the people who have these high end, audiophile sound systems, and then they complain about clipping, and it's like, if it's going to make the music sound worse, why even have a super amazing audio system?

It doesn't make the music sound worse, it makes it more accurate, which will highlight any problems. On a lower end system, everything sounds equally bad, so you don't notice if an album is that much worse than another. On a high end system, a good album will sound so much better than it does on low end equipment, but it will also highlight the faults of a badly produced album.

To use an analogy, it's like watching a DVD and a Bluray on both an old 12" CRT TV, and a 40" full HD TV.
On the CRT TV, the DVD and the Bluray both look about the same because of the limitations of the output. The DVD looks good, and the Bluray looks good, maybe a tad better, but the equipment isn't high def, so you're not getting the full quality out of the Bluray.

If you then rewatch both on the large screen, the Bluray now looks a lot better than it did on the CRT, because now your equipment is high enough quality to appreciate the full quality of the Bluray. Because the DVD is not great quality, not only does it not look better, but it will look worse, because the higher quality of the TV would show up the low resolution, and the jagged compression blocks and it won't look as good as it did on the CRT. If you only ever saw the CRT, you wouldn't have known any better, and everything would have looked good, but once you see it in HD, you couldn't go back after seeing the extra clarity that was possible.

Hopefully that makes some sense.

[noxon]

I think people make too big of a deal out of the whole compression issue. At least in this particular case.

I listened to the track many times without any input from anyone. And i have to tell you - my reaction to the album the first few times was an overwhelming numbness. I couldn't remember -anything- from the album. It was just a blur of constant noise. If this had been -any- other band or album I probably wouldn't have picked it up again for a long time, if ever, because that's how uninterested I was in the album. And this has also been the reaction of both my GF and two close friends of mine who I've played it for.

If this is the general reaction, it's not positive at all! That's why it's a big deal.

[Blackfield]

Yeah that's what I've feared. The new song is nothing but repetitions of previous material. Nothing new and not very interesting.
If they're going to repeat material don't do it from fucking Systematic Chaos.. choose a good cd.

[KevShmev]

What song from Systematic Chaos does The Enemy Inside supposedly sound like?

[Blackfield]

Prophets something, constant motion, dark eternal night and every other generic metal song on that album.

[TheGreatPretender]

It doesn't make the music sound worse, it makes it more accurate, which will highlight any problems. On a lower end system, everything sounds equally bad, so you don't notice if an album is that much worse than another. On a high end system, a good album will sound so much better than it does on low end equipment, but it will also highlight the faults of a badly produced album.

To use an analogy, it's like watching a DVD and a Bluray on both an old 12" CRT TV, and a 40" full HD TV.
On the CRT TV, the DVD and the Bluray both look about the same because of the limitations of the output. The DVD looks good, and the Bluray looks good, maybe a tad better, but the equipment isn't high def, so you're not getting the full quality out of the Bluray.

If you then rewatch both on the large screen, the Bluray now looks a lot better than it did on the CRT, because now your equipment is high enough quality to appreciate the full quality of the Bluray. Because the DVD is not great quality, not only does it not look better, but it will look worse, because the higher quality of the TV would show up the low resolution, and the jagged compression blocks and it won't look as good as it did on the CRT. If you only ever saw the CRT, you wouldn't have known any better, and everything would have looked good, but once you see it in HD, you couldn't go back after seeing the extra clarity that was possible.

Hopefully that makes some sense.

I understand what you're saying and the analogy, but I really don't agree with the highlighted part. How is listening to a song (on, let's say, a typical $100 - $200 surround sound system) sounds 'equally bad'? Like I said, the sound is crisp and clear and the bass is present. I'm sure if I got a super high end sound system, it would make a well produced album sound amazing, but with what I have now, I have never in my life felt like, the sound quality is not good enough.

I understand the appeal of having the best possible sound system to listen to something that's uncompressed and produced really well, but I'd rather be able to actually enjoy the music that may have some production flaws, if you want to call them that.

Like I said, I've never felt like my $100 speakers (or my car audio system) sounded bad. All the music I listen to on them sounds great. I can listen to Images and Words, or Systematic Chaos with equal enjoyment and I've never felt like I was short changed on quality, and needed an upgrade.

Prophets something, constant motion, dark eternal night and every other generic metal song on that album.

Yes, because everything that's heavy is automatically generic. 

[KevShmev]

Prophets something, constant motion, dark eternal night and every other generic metal song on that album.

In other words, you have no idea.  Duly noted.

[lyfeternl]

As a wade through the collective tears of ridiculousness of all the audiophiles in this thread, as well as all of the butthurt regarding this "metalz" single as unoriginal regurgitations from previous albums, I can still say I'm excited about the new album 

[Blackfield]

Prophets something, constant motion, dark eternal night and every other generic metal song on that album.

In other words, you have no idea.  Duly noted.

If you can't hear similarities to previous records then I'd say that you've propably not grown tired of the concept of reusing past melodies and ideas.

[425]

Prophets something, constant motion, dark eternal night and every other generic metal song on that album.

Haha no.

Exactly none of those is a generic metal song.

How many generic metal songs have you heard with ragtime solos in them (TDEN)? Or any type of keyboard solos (CM)? Or Queen-style backing vocals (POW)? Or a singer like James LaBrie (all, especially TDEN and POW)? Or the level of complexity that Dream Theater brings to almost every song they write?

Plus, though I've only heard it a few times, I can say with certainty that The Enemy Inside sounds nothing like any of those. For one thing, a notable aspect of all three of those songs is significant vocal contributions by a vocalist with a harsher style - Mike Portnoy. On TEI, I heard JP in the background in a couple of places, but never at any point in a more noticeable way than JLB. Also, on TEI Jordan makes more symphonic use of the keyboards than on any of the aforementioned SC songs.

If TEI sounds like any other DT song, it has to be Panic Attack because both are mostly heavy throughout but have fairly melodic choruses.

[BlobVanDam]

I understand what you're saying and the analogy, but I really don't agree with the highlighted part. How is listening to a song (on, let's say, a typical $100 - $200 surround sound system) sounds 'equally bad'? Like I said, the sound is crisp and clear and the bass is present. I'm sure if I got a super high end sound system, it would make a well produced album sound amazing, but with what I have now, I have never in my life felt like, the sound quality is not good enough.

I understand the appeal of having the best possible sound system to listen to something that's uncompressed and produced really well, but I'd rather be able to actually enjoy the music that may have some production flaws, if you want to call them that.

Like I said, I've never felt like my $100 speakers (or my car audio system) sounded bad. All the music I listen to on them sounds great. I can listen to Images and Words, or Systematic Chaos with equal enjoyment and I've never felt like I was short changed on quality, and needed an upgrade.

I was simplifying for the analogy, only relatively speaking.

I always thought my existing cheaper equipment was just great, and I enjoyed my music, but once I got better equipment, I discovered how much better the music could sound, and I appreciate a good sounding album a lot more than I did before. Blind Faith and Trial of Tears are pure eargasm.
Unfortunately it does mean that bad sounding albums sound even worse by comparison, but I couldn't switch back now. My old headphones that I used to think sounded incredible now sound nasty to me.

I don't see why they shouldn't just release albums with better dynamic range. If people don't have a problem with it now, they certainly wouldn't have a problem with it sounding even better. It just bothers me when people have the attitude of "it sounds ok to me, so it's no big deal." I don't hear anyone complain about an album having too much dynamic range. It would be a win-win.

[KevShmev]

Prophets something, constant motion, dark eternal night and every other generic metal song on that album.

In other words, you have no idea.  Duly noted.

If you can't hear similarities to previous records then I'd say that you've propably not grown tired of the concept of reusing past melodies and ideas.

Changing the goal posts now?  I didn't say it didn't have similarities to previous songs they have done, but you are the one who made the assertion that they repeated something from Systematic Chaos, and when asked which song, mentioned nearly half of the songs on the album, as if they all sound the same, and came off sounding like you have no idea what you are talking about.

[atmyne]

I listened to the track many times without any input from anyone. And i have to tell you - my reaction to the album the first few times was an overwhelming numbness. I couldn't remember -anything- from the album. It was just a blur of constant noise. If this had been -any- other band or album I probably wouldn't have picked it up again for a long time, if ever, because that's how uninterested I was in the album. And this has also been the reaction of both my GF and two close friends of mine who I've played it for.

If this is the general reaction, it's not positive at all! That's why it's a big deal.

wow that doesn't sound very promising :/
Although, that was my reaction on my first listening to the enemy inside: it was just a thing that I heard... and I didn't take anything away from it except maybe "wow mangini sounds great on this!". And now I think it's pretty good!

[Nefarius]

I listened to the track many times without any input from anyone. And i have to tell you - my reaction to the album the first few times was an overwhelming numbness. I couldn't remember -anything- from the album. It was just a blur of constant noise. If this had been -any- other band or album I probably wouldn't have picked it up again for a long time, if ever, because that's how uninterested I was in the album. And this has also been the reaction of both my GF and two close friends of mine who I've played it for.

If this is the general reaction, it's not positive at all! That's why it's a big deal.

That's certainly sad, yet not really surprising to be quite honest. In fact it was to be expected, I guess, though maybe not to that extent.

Greetings...
Nef

[aprilethereal]

If there is any DT song that TEI reminds me of, it's BITS, simply because of the intro and the catchy chorus (although TEI's chorus doesn't even come close to BITS'. That one is amongst the best choruses I have ever heard).

[DeanTheater]

Prophets something, constant motion, dark eternal night and every other generic metal song on that album.

In other words, you have no idea.  Duly noted.

If you can't hear similarities to previous records then I'd say that you've propably not grown tired of the concept of reusing past melodies and ideas.

Changing the goal posts now?  I didn't say it didn't have similarities to previous songs they have done, but you are the one who made the assertion that they repeated something from Systematic Chaos, and when asked which song, mentioned nearly half of the songs on the album, as if they all sound the same, and came off sounding like you have no idea what you are talking about.

THIS.  I agree with Kev.  There are alot of inticacies on all of those songs he mentioned off of SC.  Just not appropriate to lump it all together.  BTW,  TEI  just plain rocks my socks off and it is a precursor of Good things yet to be delivered!

[dparrott]

Noxon can't remember anything from the album, yet a lot of us find ONE SONG from the album memorable.  I guess we'll all have to judge for ourselves.  So some of it may be a re-interpretation of past ideas!  That's pretty good to me, I like consistency.

[TheGreatPretender]

I was simplifying for the analogy, only relatively speaking.

I always thought my existing cheaper equipment was just great, and I enjoyed my music, but once I got better equipment, I discovered how much better the music could sound, and I appreciate a good sounding album a lot more than I did before. Blind Faith and Trial of Tears are pure eargasm.

Okay, well, on that note, from some analyses I've read, most DT albums, including SDOIT and FII aren't really all that dynamic, relatively speaking. So if they can still sound like eargasm, then clearly some compression is okay.

Unfortunately it does mean that bad sounding albums sound even worse by comparison, but I couldn't switch back now. My old headphones that I used to think sounded incredible now sound nasty to me.

Well, I don't know what kind of headphones you're using, but my friend let me listen to his Beats by Dr. Dre, which cost him $450, and I honestly didn't think they made that much of a difference. Yes, you could feel the bass pumping against your ear, but they did very little to actually improve the sound quality. Certainly not enough to justify the price tag.

I don't see why they shouldn't just release albums with better dynamic range. If people don't have a problem with it now, they certainly wouldn't have a problem with it sounding even better. It just bothers me when people have the attitude of "it sounds ok to me, so it's no big deal." I don't hear anyone complain about an album having too much dynamic range. It would be a win-win.

I get what you're saying. But like I said, I think my speakers sound just fine, and they make all my albums sound great. If you want to use the TV analogy, then let's go with this. Some Blu-Rays are released without really being mastered for HD, right? Well, here's the thing, if I see a movie, and it's super clear and crisp, and amazing looking, yes, then I might say that viewing that movie on anything less, wouldn't be quite as amazing of an experience.
But let's say I see a movie that wasn't properly mastered for HD. Well, it's still the best quality of that particular movie that I've ever seen. So I guess that's how I see it. It would be different if they released The Enemy Inside in super high quality audio with plenty of dynamics, that sounded like the aforementioned 'eargasm'. And then released the actual album compressed, then yes, I'd say that would definitely be something to complain about.
But as of right now, the 320kbps MP3 download of The Enemy Inside is as good of quality as anyone has heard the song thus far (except the people at the listening party). So right now, that's as good as this song has ever sounded and I really can't say, "Well, it's not good enough, because I'm used to better," because I haven't heard this particular song sounding any better. Does that make sense at all?
Basically, I judge every piece of music based on its own merit, and not based on how other pieces of music are mixed and mastered.
Yes, I think ADTOE has some mixing issues, with the guitar and the drums, but the thing is, I have not heard a better sounding version of Outcry than what's on the album, or what's on the HD tracks. So I still enjoy it on its own merits.
Maybe once Luna Park comes out, and we'll heard ADTOE songs, they'll actually sound better live than they did on the album. And then, the live versions of those songs might become my definitive versions of how I listen to them. That's certainly the case with WDADU, I pretty much only listen to various live versions of those songs anymore.

[Nefarius]

Being disappointed about the mastering does not mean one dislikes the song(s) or the band!

It's just sad when something inherently great doesn't live up to its full potential due to the shortsightedness of label executives fighting and competing in the trenches of the loudness war and needs extra work or effort by the listener, like hearing fatigue, special EQ settings to compensate and wrongfully disliking something at first because of technicalities and only slowly being able to appreciate it later.

We still love DT and know full well so called "mediocre" or even "bad" DT is still way better than most of the rest can ever hope for. It would just be that much greater if we could have all that awesomeness giftwrapped in high quality sound.

Greetings...
Nef

[TheGreatPretender]

Being disappointed about the mastering does not mean one dislikes the song(s)!

It's just sad when something inherently great doesn't live up to its full potential due to the shortsightedness of label executives and needs extra work or effort, like listening fatigue, special EQ settings to compensate and wrongfully disliking something at first because of technicalities and only slowly being able to appreciate it later.

We still love DT and know full well so called "mediocre" or even "bad" DT is still way better than most of the rest can ever hope for. It would just be that much greater if we could have all that awesomeness giftwrapped in high quality sound.

Greetings...
Nef

Well, I guess there's also the issue of how you define high quality sound. Personally, dynamic compression isn't a factor in how I define quality. I would say that any given Nickelback album has high quality sound and high production quality, in spite of being compressed to hell.

Poor quality sound, to me, equates either to actual MP3 compression, so something like 96kpbs. Or, something poorly recorded, like the Majesty Demos, or 1970's punk rock albums.

[?]

My original intention was not to post my opinion on TEI, because I didn't want to feel like a party pooper, but in the end I realized others have criticized the song as well and nobody will probably get hurt by what I say so what the fuck...

I've listened to the single three times and to be honest I find it quite underwhelming and average. I don't know why, but nothing about the song manages to impress me in any way. I'm not saying TEI is bad by any means, but I was expecting more from DT, especially because OTBOA blew me away right away despite having a more complex structure. Hopefully I'll like the rest of the album better...

[dparrott]

Well, I don't know what kind of headphones you're using, but my friend let me listen to his Beats by Dr. Dre, which cost him $450, and I honestly didn't think they made that much of a difference. Yes, you could feel the bass pumping against your ear, but they did very little to actually improve the sound quality. Certainly not enough to justify the price tag.

What kind of music does the maker of those headphones produce?  Nuff said.  JP needs to make his own headphones!  But then all you will hear is guitar! 

[Ben_Jamin]

Being disappointed about the mastering does not mean one dislikes the song(s) or the band!

It's just sad when something inherently great doesn't live up to its full potential due to the shortsightedness of label executives fighting and competing in the trenches of the loudness war and needs extra work or effort by the listener, like hearing fatigue, special EQ settings to compensate and wrongfully disliking something at first because of technicalities and only slowly being able to appreciate it later.

We still love DT and know full well so called "mediocre" or even "bad" DT is still way better than most of the rest can ever hope for. It would just be that much greater if we could have all that awesomeness giftwrapped in high quality sound.

Greetings...
Nef

I like this post.

I don't get upset about quality unless it is really distractingly bad (punk albums). But, what matters is the energy or how great it'll be when played live. And The Enemy Inside is going to rock, as I'm sure the entire album will.

Also, I hear JM just fine,  he mainly doubles the guitar and has his distortion on to give it more oomph to compensate for no guitar rythym, especially live. And the snare gives the song an entirely different feel.

[GasparXR]

Pigs and cows will have wings before JM cuts his hair

Pigs got wings in 1977, so we're halfway there.

[noxon]

Noxon can't remember anything from the album, yet a lot of us find ONE SONG from the album memorable.  I guess we'll all have to judge for ourselves.  So some of it may be a re-interpretation of past ideas!  That's pretty good to me, I like consistency.

Did you even read what I wrote and what I quoted? The music may be excellent, but if it turns into a muddy mess that simply overwhelms my senses, what i hear is a constant drone. So what I've had to do with this album (and i've -never- had to do that with a DT album before) is listen to the songs in a manner that didn't cause my ears to go to strike, so i could pay attention to the song. And you have to remember - I've been hearing the whole album, and the constant onslaught of volume and energy starts almost immediately at the first song and doesn't let go until "along for the ride".

It's not like i'm the only one reacting to the mastering of this...

I mean; think of the best beer you've ever tasted. Now think that there's a bathtub of it and you're forcefed a constant stream. You'll manage to take some gulps of it, but you have to take breaks to breathe unless you want to drown. But the beer is still flowing, so it gets into your eyes and ears. Now the best beer in the world isn't so good anymore - there's just too much of it.

[dparrott]

I hear ya, but if it's constant energy and volume since the start until almost the end, sounds like a sequencing problem.  That sounds like 6 heavy songs in a row before it lightens up. 

[Nefarius]

A song doesn't necessarily need to be heavy to be loud, could be pretty much everything that's not a mellow ballad.

Greetings...
Nef

[Groundhog]

Relentless metal song doesn't automatically equal to DR5. Just for an example let's take another relentless metal song like Pantera's Fucking Hostile which is a DR9. I think TEI could easily have similar kind of dynamic range if it were given a chance to breath.

BTW any of you heard the new Avenged Sevenfold single Hail to the king? While it is not a busy song arrangement wise like TEI I think it makes a good comparison because of the modern production. I really wasn't expecting a dynamic sound on it but I was pleasantly surprised. And it really doesn't take an expensive audio system to hear the difference. Put that song on and crank it up and then listen to TEI with same volume setting and tell me what you hear.

[dparrott]

Yea, for some reason record companies think we don't know how to turn a volume knob anymore.  Everything now needs to be slammed to 0dB.

[Onno]

Pigs and cows will have wings before JM cuts his hair

Pigs got wings in 1977, so we're halfway there.

 

[aprilethereal]

I mean; think of the best beer you've ever tasted. Now think that there's a bathtub of it and you're forcefed a constant stream. You'll manage to take some gulps of it, but you have to take breaks to breathe unless you want to drown. But the beer is still flowing, so it gets into your eyes and ears. Now the best beer in the world isn't so good anymore - there's just too much of it.

You've got some weird fantasies man

But other than that, your post makes me worried a bit. I'm not an audiophile, but I don't want my listening experience and joy to be diminished by bad mastering.

[bosk1]

I mean; think of the best beer you've ever tasted. Now think that there's a bathtub of it and you're forcefed a constant stream. You'll manage to take some gulps of it, but you have to take breaks to breathe unless you want to drown. But the beer is still flowing, so it gets into your eyes and ears. Now the best beer in the world isn't so good anymore - there's just too much of it.

Yes, but all the finest beers improve with age.

[Scorpion]

I mean; think of the best beer you've ever tasted. Now think that there's a bathtub of it and you're forcefed a constant stream. You'll manage to take some gulps of it, but you have to take breaks to breathe unless you want to drown. But the beer is still flowing, so it gets into your eyes and ears. Now the best beer in the world isn't so good anymore - there's just too much of it.

You've got some weird fantasies man

But other than that, your post makes me worried a bit. I'm not an audiophile, but I don't want my listening experience and joy to be diminished by bad mastering.

I agree with this, but since I don't have a problem with how TEI sounds, I think that I should be fine.

[Jaffa]

I've seen several people complain that the vocals are too quiet.  Personally, I actually really like their volume.  It kind of gives the vocals a muted quality, as if they're being overwhelmed by the music around them - which, to me, actually fits really well with the subject matter and style of the lyrics. 

... I realize nobody else was talking about the vocals at the moment.  But I've been meaning to comment on it, so, there ya go. 

[King Postwhore]

I mean; think of the best beer you've ever tasted. Now think that there's a bathtub of it and you're forcefed a constant stream. You'll manage to take some gulps of it, but you have to take breaks to breathe unless you want to drown. But the beer is still flowing, so it gets into your eyes and ears. Now the best beer in the world isn't so good anymore - there's just too much of it.

Yes, but all the finest beers improve with age.

I approve this answer as a beer drinker and a DT fan. Nuggets for all!!