The Enemy Inside Discussion Thread

[ariich]

In fairness to jayvee, this thread has become pretty rubbish. It's meant to be about the single and instead it's just become a whine-fest about the state of production in the music industry. I would prefer if that side of the discussion was kept to the RR petition thread, and this thread was used to discuss the single.

[BlobVanDam]

Since we have a thread specifically about the loudness war relating to DT, I agree it should be discussed there, but it is still an aspect of the single, and one worth discussing. If anything, it's the people whining about the whining that are turning the thread to rubbish.

[ariich]

For sure, everyone is whining about something.

[Nefarius]

All the finest whines improve with age!

Greetings...
Nef

[soulburner]

I think it is important to talk about the production of TEI right here in the thread about it. Production of a song can make it shine or nearly ruin it.
The fact that people are talking about this so much means something. It's not like suddenly audiophiles came in and started teaching people about what's good and what's bad. People who rarely, if ever, notice the effects of loudness war start to notice it on TEI.

Someone mentioned cymbals a few posts ago - I have noticed it too. They sound weird, somehow distorted and are too quiet... which is also some kind of a trend in modern music production which for some reason has much less going on in the high frequencies range. Older recordings almost drilled a hole in your head with the cymbals but today I can sometimes barely hear them.

A few pages ago someone mentioned that loudness war negatively influences bass too. To make things as simple as possible, bass takes a lot of space in the waveform. To make the whole wave as loud as possible you have to make sacrifices. Why does the bass on latest Daft Punk record sound so good? Because it's not overcompressed. Do people complain it's too quiet? Nope.

I think much has been already written about the production of TEI. It's bad, very, very bad. People who don't notice it should be happy and enjoy the music and write here about what they feel and try to filter out the complaints. But would you enjoy it less if it was 20% quieter? You'd probably use your volume knob to turn it up and enjoy it the same (or more) but you wouldn't have so many people whining and writing strange words like brickwalled We should be vocal about it, though, because it's a serious issue and without any benefit (loud records don't sell more).

It may not be the greatest Dream Theater song ever written but I like it a lot. And the problem is... when the album is released (HDTracks, most definitely) I will have to skip it... because I'll probably hear this song a billion times by then, despite the bad production

[serrano]

It may not be the greatest Dream Theater song ever written but I like it a lot. And the problem is... when the album is released (HDTracks, most definitely) I will have to skip it... because I'll probably hear this song a billion times by then, despite the bad production

That's why i'd wish them to release the HD tracks at release date. I still hope that the 5.1 mix or the flac tracks on the box set will not be brickwalled.

Edit: I assume that the flac tracks will be made out of the CD, so i have more hope on the 5.1 mix.

[soulburner]

Megadeth's Supercollider was released on HDTracks on the same day the CD premiered. There's hope for Dream Theater too

[Groundhog]

A few pages ago someone mentioned that loudness war negatively influences bass too. To make things as simple as possible, bass takes a lot of space in the waveform. To make the whole wave as loud as possible you have to make sacrifices. Why does the bass on latest Daft Punk record sound so good? Because it's not overcompressed. Do people complain it's too quiet? Nope.

It was me who mentioned that about the bass and Daft Punk RAM is a really good example to throw in here. Especially because of the bass sound. I'm not saying that I don't hear the bass at all on TEI, but it sounds muffled, lacks punch and gets drowned at some points. Random Access Memories mostly has a good dynamic range, but for example in the last song Contact the DR drops to 6 and and all of the low bass which was apparent in the beginning of the song disappears at that point. Someone informed that TEI is DR5 so based on this there just isn't room for bass frequencies. More on RAM's sound on the link at the end of the post.

The mixer of RAM has actually said that "We never tried to make it loud and it sounds better for it".

For those interested here is a really good explanation why RAM sounds so good and especially why the bass sounds good.
https://productionadvice.co.uk/daft-punk-mastering/

[Kotowboy]

It's a shame because Jordan specifically said around the time of A Dramatic Turn Of Events - that

" We won't be competing in the Loudness Wars with our albums " .

But I guess he got vetoed.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I have a question for those familiar with mastering: When you master an album do you master all the songs as one cohesive song or do you treat each song independently?

[noxon]

You can treat each song indepentently, but you would want the entire album to be cohesive so you'd probably do it as similarly as possible across teh album so as to not create awkward jumps in the sound...

[Kotowboy]

^ That.

You do it as one long piece of music essentially to make each song uniform.

This is also when you would choose the gap between tracks and if tracks fade in underneath the previous track etc etc.



- However - i'm not entirely sure if pro mastering involves twaeking the 2 tracks of every song or each instrument individually.

I'm assuming that all the individual tracks are processed during mixing and the mastering is just the left and right channels.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

  Yea I thought so! So cohesiveness is the word, in that case i'm a bit interested how the more "not in your face metal" and proggy songs on the album will sound like.

[aprilethereal]

I just listened to the song again for the first time in a couple of days, and it grew on me even more. Incredible

[webpoet73]

Without really reading the other 60+ pages, I will just state my opinion on the song...

I was underwhelmed by the single.  I had some sort of different expectations based on this statement from JP: "This is the first self-titled album of our career and there is nothing I can think of that makes a statement of musical and creative identity stronger than that."

The song sounds like an extension of the last few albums, but not so much ADTOE... call me crazy (many of you probably could), I found nothing in it to be real excited about.  I thought ADTOE was fantastic and was hoping to carry that forward...

[TheGreatPretender]

Without really reading the other 60+ pages, I will just state my opinion on the song...

I was underwhelmed by the single.  I had some sort of different expectations based on this statement from JP: "This is the first self-titled album of our career and there is nothing I can think of that makes a statement of musical and creative identity stronger than that."

The song sounds like an extension of the last few albums, but not so much ADTOE... call me crazy (many of you probably could), I found nothing in it to be real excited about.  I thought ADTOE was fantastic and was hoping to carry that forward...

Really? I actually found the song to have much more similar qualities to ADTOE, than any of the previous albums. The style of the atmospheric effects they used, and just the types of notes and overall mood was very reminiscent of ADTOE. Only better sounding.

[Nefarius]

However much I complain about the sound and the fact that all out metal is not my favorite DT style the song really is fun. The melody has a nice flow and it's been inspiring enough for me to sit on my ass, write down the chords with the lyrics, transpose it to something that works for me, and start to think about doing an acoustic version. And even if I don't it's still fun to just play the chords and sing it.

Greetings...
Nef

[Zydar]

Would you mind sharing the chords? I suck at trying to take out the chords by ear.

[emtee]

So gang...has this song gotten better for you over the last few days, stayed the same or gotten worse?

Just curious.

I still really like it.

[mikeyd23]

So gang...has this song gotten better for you over the last few days, stayed the same or gotten worse?
Just curious.
I still really like it.

I liked TEI when I first heard it, and I would say that it has grown on me since then, I think I like it more now!  Sure it has its flaws in production, that have certainly been discussed here, and its not the most impressive or masterful DT song, but for what it is, I like it.  Its a straight forward, heavy metal single. I think it serves it's purpose well!

[Zook]

Great song. Still think LaBrie should be louder, but when I just listened to the song, he sounded alright. This could be a case like Redemption's This Mortal Coil where Ray Alder was also mixed kind of low, but over time he somehow became more audible.

Another production observation *gasp* the version I'm listening to (Amazon) sounds way more lossy than a file of 256kbps should be. Maybe it'll sound way better on CD. Who knows.

[?]

I haven't listened to the song since I posted my opinion on it here (3 days ago), so I can't really say anything, but the fact that I haven't felt any desire to listen to it again is kind of alarming IMO. Well, at least there's no risk of overplaying

[The Boomr]

Thank you very much for doing that. Could you do me one more favor since you seem to have the ability to do this easily? Could you find one of the loudest sections on ADTOE and let us see what the wave form looks like? My guess is it will be very similar to TEI. In fact, if you have an MP3 of one of those sections in ADTOE it would be even more apples to apples.

OK - this made me actually laugh out loud when I threw it into Audition.

Lost Not Forgotten:


HULK SMASH!!

Hahahaha god I love that song

[Grisel]

Wow... all this went too technical for me! I'll just say that, even though I loved the tune, it did not cause the same effect as when I listened On The Backs of Angels the first time.

I think I'll wait to listen the full album to see how it goes

[Ben_Jamin]

After listening to it a zillions times (50)............... well I like it. I like the drum sound. I like the heavy guitar sound. I hear the bass just fine. JR is not over-powering as he has been in the past. I love the riffs and as usual everything is more technical than one can imagine.  I also love JLB vocals, they fit the song so well. The mix sounds fine to me as does the mastering for an internet release, I'm sure it'll be less compressed on the CD.

I've been playing guitar since 1977 and have been in the studio with bands many times and I have NO problem with this. I'm just happy to hear new energetic music from the band.

THIS....is exactly how I feel. I don't care about the mix or mastering, as long as the song is energetic, then that's all good. This song has many DT fans that have wondered away, now excited again. Not since 6DOIT has my friend been excited about a DT release.

Also, this really is the first true DT album since 6DOIT.  ToT was their metal album, 8vm their light album, SC their have fun lets not be serious album, BC is their epic album, and ADTOE they took it easy and safe.

[BlobVanDam]

Also, this really is the first true DT album since 6DOIT.  ToT was their metal album, 8vm their light album, SC their have fun lets not be serious album, BC is their epic album, and ADTOE they took it easy and safe.

You could come up with a similar label for any of their albums really. That doesn't make them any less "true" DT albums. I think by DT's nature, that diversity is exactly what makes them all "true" DT albums. Your statement doesn't even make sense to me.

[Zydar]

So gang...has this song gotten better for you over the last few days, stayed the same or gotten worse?

Just curious.

I still really like it.

I like it even more now than a week ago. Still sounds fresh to me, and I enjoy it more than OTBOA and other singles from the recent albums.

And thanks for the chords, Nefarius 

[TheGreatPretender]

Also, this really is the first true DT album since 6DOIT.  ToT was their metal album, 8vm their light album, SC their have fun lets not be serious album, BC is their epic album, and ADTOE they took it easy and safe.

You could come up with a similar label for any of their albums really. That doesn't make them any less "true" DT albums. I think by DT's nature, that diversity is exactly what makes them all "true" DT albums. Your statement doesn't even make sense to me.

WDADU is their amateur experimental album.
I&W is their super proggy album.
Awake is their heavy, grungy album.
FII is their commercial appeal album.
SFAM is their concept album.
and SDOIT is their big, epic, double album.

Dream theater apparently doesn't even have a "True" album yet.

[Kotowboy]

" Dream Theater  " is their NEW album.

[Lucien]

" Dream Theater  " is their NEW album.

[Onno]

Just listened to TEI again after a few days. I think it's a good song, and I think the mix is good. The vocals may be a bit too low, but it's not that bad. The bass is clearly audible, and the keyboards are loud enough, though difficult to hear for the most part 'cause they are doubling the guitar (I think). The guitar is great as usual. The drums are mixed BRILLIANTLY! I think the snare sound fits really well and I can finally hear the dynamics of MM's playing and his kit. The song itself is a good metal song with good lyrics, and I especially like the solos. I still like OTBOA better though.

[Ben_Jamin]

Also, this really is the first true DT album since 6DOIT.  ToT was their metal album, 8vm their light album, SC their have fun lets not be serious album, BC is their epic album, and ADTOE they took it easy and safe.

You could come up with a similar label for any of their albums really. That doesn't make them any less "true" DT albums. I think by DT's nature, that diversity is exactly what makes them all "true" DT albums. Your statement doesn't even make sense to me.

Exactly my point, a bit. This new album, heck even the single, is causing a lot of talk amongst the fans,  and that really shows where they went with this album.

I know a lot of fans are a bit sad at the master, but it is a stream and the free preorder download release,  I bet it'll sound better. But sadly its going to be a big sound, and pretty much epicloud, not that its bad, I personally think the mix and master is perfect.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

This song has grown on my so much. I love everything about it. This album is going to be incredible!

[bosk1]

In fairness to jayvee, this thread has become pretty rubbish. It's meant to be about the single and instead it's just become a whine-fest about the state of production in the music industry. I would prefer if that side of the discussion was kept to the RR petition thread, and this thread was used to discuss the single.

This.  If you are chiming in on the song and want to mention that you dislike some aspect of the production, that's fine.  But let's keep the extended discussion about the "loudness war," audio compression, and related subjects in the other thread because it is causing this one to wander WAY off topic.

[TL]

The song has definitely grown on me quite a bit. I found with both TEI and OTBOA, I liked them more once I'd listened to them a few times and got what they were doing. I like OTBOA more, but TEI is a solid track.