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Dream Theater => Dream Theater => Topic started by: aglenn01 on March 17, 2019, 07:08:58 PM
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I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc. It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!
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I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc. It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!
More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.
-Marc.
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More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.
-Marc.
Yeah, I'm quite sure that it's almost entirely a mastering thing.
I mean, if you listen to HD Tracks version of, say, Systematic Chaos, or DT12, they open things up dynamically in a big way. But really, it is still the same mix.
I had an opportunity to master a soundtrack that was already premixed (the only thing I've ever had a chance to master, so I have virtually no experience or expertise in the field, in case you're wondering), and yeah, it was all in my hands. If I wanted to, I could've compressed the crap out of it (which I didn't).
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Awesome guys, I am not technically savvy enough to discern between the mastering and the mixing! Thanks for the insight. I guess what I am getting at is that I just want the fucking records to sound good when I listen to them,, and let each member of the band do their thing. My point was that their are so many albums from the past that sound great, and yet now it's like trying to crack the nuclear code to make a record SOUND GOOD!! I mean if the guys from the 70's and 80's could do it, why cannot we do it now?? Jesus, we can shoot a fuckin dunebuggy from Earth and have it land on Mars, but can't figure out how to make a record that sounds good???
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Awesome guys, I am not technically savvy enough to discern between the mastering and the mixing! Thanks for the insight. I guess what I am getting at is that I just want the fucking records to sound good when I listen to them,, and let each member of the band do their thing. My point was that their are so many albums from the past that sound great, and yet now it's like trying to crack the nuclear code to make a record SOUND GOOD!! I mean if the guys from the 70's and 80's could do it, why cannot we do it now?? Jesus, we can shoot a fuckin dunebuggy from Earth and have it land on Mars, but can't figure out how to make a record that sounds good???
It's maddening, I know. Despite it being mixed very hot, I don't have a big problem with the sound of the new album, although I'd love a more dynamic version. That said, the other day I had some DT on shuffle in the car and one of the new songs came right after a song from Awake, and the drop-off in sound quality was really obvious when listening to the two songs back-to-back.
The real pisser is that the hot and compressed versions are the normal releases, and then fans of us who care about albums actually sounding good on a real stereo, as opposed to these stupid mixes that are meant to appeal to the jugheads who only care about it sounding good on their ear buds when hooked up to their iPhone, have to go out of our way and spend more money to get the better-sounding version. It is disappointing.
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I really don't understand the details about this "Loudness War" thing. I've believed it was a matter of dynamic range, until I started to check the data on albums with zero sound complaint and realized that they also have a horrible DR scores (like Haken's Vector).
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Have to say I'm not too thrilled with the dynamic range of this (Kind of reminds me of Systematic Chaos, my least favorite album, in that regard.)
That's one of the few aspects of this album I don't like. I'd love to hear something better. Haven't put the instrumental version of this in the CD player yet. Want to get used to it vocally first.
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My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity.
This always baffles me. I understand the issues about compression, but I haven't heard a DT album where you can not hear JM's bass clearly.
As for the Loudness Wars, I have read a lot of times that the kicker really was the change in the listening habits of people. The culprit really is Apple when they introduced the concept of a shuffled playlist and the concept took off. When you are in a sea of shuffled music almost all of which have a hot master, the "good-sounding" songs become bothersome because one has to crank up the volume to hear the song properly. I recently had this experience when I was listening to a shuffled playlist and suddenly a Steven Wilson song came up, and I indeed has to pause momentarily what I am doing to turn up the volume and then after the song ends, turn down the volume again because the next song is hotly mastered.
Now it can be said that DT can just follow the lead of somebody like SW or Haken and just come up with good-sounding records to hell with shuffled playlists, but the band's situation is different. They are a relatively much more popular act than those two and their songs are included in thousands of shuffled playlists everyday (just look at Spotify). They are sort of being forced to engage in this Loudness War.
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Well, overall I don't care too much, I've never complained about the sound quality of any album (ehm...with one Metallica exception maybe...) and a bad sound quality never destroyed the value of the underlying music for me.
But...if asked a direct question on the sound quality of D/T, for me it's the worst ever by Dream Theater.
I listened back to DT12 just after D/T, and IMHO they are pretty similar as concerns the overall sound, with D/T being significantly worst due to the vocal mix, that is way too low for my tastes.
Probably only Myung is marginally better on D/T, but the issue with the voice destroys any marginal improvement with the bass.
I think it's due to a combination of musical direction (e.g. filters on the voice, many low tuning guitars), recording (e.g. still the drum snare lacks dynamics...), mixing (voice too low) and mastering (loudness war).
I personally don't like this kind of direction in "producing" music, but my overall impression is that Dream Theater and Petrucci in general are satisfied with it, and they don't understand all the critics because they honestly like the sound as it is today.
I also think it is correlated with the increase amount of songs written on 7 strings/ 6 strings with low tuning, that is one other thing I don't love about modern Dream Theater music (yeah, I am and I&W fan...:) )
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I don't get the complaint about the dynamics of the snare. S2n's ghost notes not enough dynamics?
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I don't get the complaint about the dynamics of the snare. S2n's ghost notes not enough dynamics?
Well, I am not a big fan of Rush overall, but I just listened back to Animate (because my memory told me that there where "nice ghost note" there..) and, well, I like that kind of "dynamics" on the snare way more that S2N.
As everything in this discussion, I think it's mainly a question of taste and impossible to "prove"...:)
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To me it's the best sounding album since Octavarium, but doesn't sound as good as any album before Systematic Chaos. However, it's the first DT album since 8vm where I feel like the sound of the band is 'free-er' if that makes sense, more open. What sets it apart is JLB vocals, don't sound like they belong in the songs sometimes, too processed, I'm not really thrilled with JLB's vocals on any Mangini albums mainly due to all the post-production work and recording in Canada, especially on DoT. He sounded best on TA.
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It would be interesting to see if DT can write an entire album with JP only using a normal 6 string, preferably all standard tuning, so long as JP isn't feeling too metal about things, because then it would probably sound like a Metallica album, as that's what I'd be 'concerned' about. I doubt he'd do it.
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My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity.
This always baffles me. I understand the issues about compression, but I haven't heard a DT album where you can not hear JM's bass clearly.
As for the Loudness Wars, I have read a lot of times that the kicker really was the change in the listening habits of people. The culprit really is Apple when they introduced the concept of a shuffled playlist and the concept took off. When you are in a sea of shuffled music almost all of which have a hot master, the "good-sounding" songs become bothersome because one has to crank up the volume to hear the song properly. I recently had this experience when I was listening to a shuffled playlist and suddenly a Steven Wilson song came up, and I indeed has to pause momentarily what I am doing to turn up the volume and then after the song ends, turn down the volume again because the next song is hotly mastered.
Now it can be said that DT can just follow the lead of somebody like SW or Haken and just come up with good-sounding records to hell with shuffled playlists, but the band's situation is different. They are a relatively much more popular act than those two and their songs are included in thousands of shuffled playlists everyday (just look at Spotify). They are sort of being forced to engage in this Loudness War.
I'm surprised as I thought Inside Out didn't engage in those shenanigans.
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I admit my blissful ignorance when it comes to audio matters, but the new record sounds just fine to me.
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Best sounding album since 8V for me. Far and away superior to
all MM albums. Absolutely love it!
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I really like this album too but the sound does detract from it. The compression kills the feel of the music. I also think JL is mixed too low. I also think JR is too low. Even when there is just the piano it feels weak and when the guitars kick in there is a huge difference.
A simple solution is just to release and audiophile version from the beginning. When everyone has the two to compare side by side the compressed versions will be seen for the the crap they are and perceptions will change. As of now most people don't know the difference. Some don't care which is fine.
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My personal feeling is that people put to much faith into http://dr.loudness-war.info/ and pages like this. Low DR doesn't even have to be worse than high imo (like swearing in church I get that). When clipping happens it's ofc not acceptable but a riffy album like D/T can easily get away with low DR for me, I even prefer it. Pink Floyd Shine on You Crazy Diamond (which comes to mind as a song I have with very high DR) is an awesome song but damn it's hard to listen to without the correct surroundings.
D/T I find have an excellent overall sound. Every instrument is audible (what is this thing that JL is low?) and the overall sound characteristic is just my cup of tea. I can't hear any clipping. Actually the best in a long time for DT. And this thing that JM isn't audible, are people listening with low quality equipment? Because in the end that is the most important part of it as well. I have a 100$ headphone and 400$ headphone, ofc the audio on the later ones are a lot better. Good equipment will be multiple times more efficient than downloading a HDtrack version. Ofc you can/should have both but don't stare blindly into the loudness and DR quality as a measurement of sound quality.
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Did anyone else an emotional reaction to the second ending in At Wits End? Even though it was a raw recording from the studio it "felt" very emotional. In some ways more so than the actual song. You also can clearly hear all of the instruments. So, I guess there is a comparison on the album itself. This type of feel can be captured in a more produced version but I have no idea how engineers can live with themselves by taking that feeling out of the music.
The OP is right that some older albums sound more crisp, clear, and energetic than current albums.
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I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc. It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!
More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.
-Marc.
Yes you got it. Modern mastering includes squeezing as much volume out of the mix as possible, using limiters to bring all of the lower stuff up, while bringing the peaks down. A maximum decibel limit is set, so that nothing can pass this threshold. This raises the overall volume of everything, averaging the volume and preventing the peaks from clipping.
The problem is that when this is done, you can lose the dynamics of the sound, and cause everything to sound too flat.
As for the OP post, I agree with your sentiment here. I've thought SO many times, "how can a band of this caliber think that DT12 sounds good?"
With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound. I've actually tried to do a new mix on a couple of the songs myself, but you are very limited only having the single track. Would have been awesome if they released the stems for every instrument.
Which leads me to DT12 and TA. Over-compressed garbage of a mix with a TERRIBLE triggered drum sound. It wasn't as muddy as ADTOE, but it just sounded too polished.
D/T sounds incredible! Drums sound big but not triggered. The bass sounds better than ever - it maintains a very tonal quality but also shines in the sub range. JP's lead tones are just amazing. JLB's vocal mix isn't the best I've heard, but it's not bad. And the clarity + separation of the mix is much improved.
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I don't get the complaint about the dynamics of the snare. S2n's ghost notes not enough dynamics?
So, I'm listening to the instrumental album right now, with good headphones ... and I don't hear any ghost notes in S2N. Can you point out specific occasions of them?
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I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc. It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!
More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.
-Marc.
Yes you got it. Modern mastering includes squeezing as much volume out of the mix as possible, using limiters to bring all of the lower stuff up, while bringing the peaks down. A maximum decibel limit is set, so that nothing can pass this threshold. This raises the overall volume of everything, averaging the volume and preventing the peaks from clipping.
The problem is that when this is done, you can lose the dynamics of the sound, and cause everything to sound too flat.
As for the OP post, I agree with your sentiment here. I've thought SO many times, "how can a band of this caliber think that DT12 sounds good?"
With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound. I've actually tried to do a new mix on a couple of the songs myself, but you are very limited only having the single track. Would have been awesome if they released the stems for every instrument.
Which leads me to DT12 and TA. Over-compressed garbage of a mix with a TERRIBLE triggered drum sound. It wasn't as muddy as ADTOE, but it just sounded too polished.
D/T sounds incredible! Drums sound big but not triggered. The bass sounds better than ever - it maintains a very tonal quality but also shines in the sub range. JP's lead tones are just amazing. JLB's vocal mix isn't the best I've heard, but it's not bad. And the clarity + separation of the mix is much improved.
there is no such thing as sounding too polished. Ever.
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With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound.
Mike Portnoy playing on that album would have truly been a dramatic turn of events. :P
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I was intro'd to DT in the fall of 2007. Was blown away. Lifelong RUSH fan, and was so exited about a band I was not familiar with to bring so much to the party musically. So I've been listening to the band for over a decade. I've read the complaints and personally experienced the issue over the years re:sound quality of the albums released in that time. It's a known issue in the last decade, the loudness wars, etc...it has affected so many bands, releases...what I don't understand is that with a band like DT, who is really trying to sell albums to their fans, why they get caught up in the "loudness wars" issue, compression, etc. It's not like DT are going to get massive airplay on mainstream radio, so from what I understand, that whole issue began because bands wanted their sound to be LOUD to be heard thru the radio and shitty earbuds/headphones.
The new record sounds so much better than the last several releases. Drums sound great, JM is clearly heard (this is huge!), I just don't understand what is so difficult to make a good sounding record. I've listened in the last few weeks to records from the 80's by RUSH, Steely Dan, Winger, LZ, etc. thru my good headphones, and these records sound so crisp and easy to listen to relative to the albums of the last decade.
My point is.....just make good sounding records. Seperation of instruments. DT is wasting JM's talents over the years by not mixing with clarity. Listen to Zeppelin II...JPJ is amazing, but you would not know it without proper sound engineering. JM sounds so good on D/T, and DT need to keep this up in regards to final product. They can spend months "making" a new record, but if it sounds like shit, it really detracts. It's so easy----spend months making the record. Spend hours mixing it correctly!
More knowledgeable audiophiles can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with the Loudness Wars stems from poor mastering, not mixing. Often times, the album is mastered pretty hot and the audio tends to clip, which isn't a problem from the mix, though a bad mastering job could muddle the mix to the point of being unlistenable.
-Marc.
Yes you got it. Modern mastering includes squeezing as much volume out of the mix as possible, using limiters to bring all of the lower stuff up, while bringing the peaks down. A maximum decibel limit is set, so that nothing can pass this threshold. This raises the overall volume of everything, averaging the volume and preventing the peaks from clipping.
The problem is that when this is done, you can lose the dynamics of the sound, and cause everything to sound too flat.
As for the OP post, I agree with your sentiment here. I've thought SO many times, "how can a band of this caliber think that DT12 sounds good?"
With ADTOE, it was just straight up bad mixing. Everything sounded muddy and it lacked clarity and separation. The one thing I am happy about is that MP's drums didn't have that DT12 / TA sound. I've actually tried to do a new mix on a couple of the songs myself, but you are very limited only having the single track. Would have been awesome if they released the stems for every instrument.
Which leads me to DT12 and TA. Over-compressed garbage of a mix with a TERRIBLE triggered drum sound. It wasn't as muddy as ADTOE, but it just sounded too polished.
D/T sounds incredible! Drums sound big but not triggered. The bass sounds better than ever - it maintains a very tonal quality but also shines in the sub range. JP's lead tones are just amazing. JLB's vocal mix isn't the best I've heard, but it's not bad. And the clarity + separation of the mix is much improved.
there is no such thing as sounding too polished. Ever.
Sure there is. For me too polished means that a sound of an instrument has been processed so clean that the sound loses texture and starts to lose the sound of a real instrument. The sound can certainly be too sterile to lose that live feel of the band and the instruments. This is how I feel about the sound of TA. It has a nice mix, but it just sounds so dull because of being too polished and lacking in dynamic range. I think it is also a weird production choice for a metal or rock music as this kind of music should at least have some grit.
I think that D/T sounds quite good but that is only on the blu-ray and presumably on vinyl too but haven't heard that yet. The CD version is brighter, harsher and has some audible distortion so I am not inclined to listen to that. I just need to rip the BD stereo track to play it on the go. Although the blu-ray has better dynamics and more warmth to the sound it still seems to be a tad loud for some reason. The vocal mix / production also takes the sound a notch down, but overall the sound is an improvement over the RR and MM era albums.
Mastering is the stage where the dynamic range compression is usually done, but I've heard that in some cases this has already been done during mixing process. And sometimes it can affect the mixing process when it is known that the album will be compressed in mastering stage so they mix it that in mind.
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I don't have anything to really add on the technical end, everyone seems to have summed it up.
But I do agree wholeheartedly that DoT is the best sounding Dream Theater record in a LONG time. I was very pleased when I saw Ben Grosse listed as the mixer. He's mixed some albums I really enjoy and I love the sound he gets. The first Alter Bridge record, One Day Remains, comes to mind immediately.
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Although above I stated my preference for dynamic range, and I stand by that, I'm also savvy enough to tweak the dynamic range to my liking. So I can take my MP3s, the most dynamic music I have, and put a limiter on it if I wanted to. Why would I do that? Well, mostly for travel, if I have to be on a loud bus or train, I want to be able to hear all the parts. But not everyone has that luxury, not everyone knows how to edit audio files and compress them properly, or things like that. And even if they knew how, they wouldn't be able to with streaming services anyway. The fact is, they mentioned that they... Well, Jimmy T, said that he wanted an album that would sound optimal on the biggest amount of formats, including different types of headphones, streaming, varied bit rates, etc. The thing is, to find the best middle ground for all of those things, I think it's inevitable that the absolute purest of audiophile formats would have to take a bit of a sacrifice.
When you are an audiophile, you can easily say, "How could they take such wonderful music and compress it so much? It's criminal," but the simple truth is that the vast majority of music consumers are not audiophiles, and Dream Theater caters to more than just a hardcore niche demographic. Funny enough, they just posted on Facebook, proclaiming that Distance Over Time got over 10 million streams on Spotify. They're obviously excited by this figure, and it does prove that a lot of people listen to them on Spotify, for better or for worse. The bottom line is, they are a commercial band and they're catering to a larger demographic than just people with big, expensive hi-fi systems, studio monitors, and headphones.
I think the fact that they're releasing their music on vinyl, and in several other formats on the Blu-Ray is proof that they do want to appease the demographic that really cares about dynamics and sound quality, but the album itself, its standard master that appears on the CD and on streaming and download services, that's for the common consumer and it has to accommodate people who are going to be streaming it on their smartphone, while traversing noisy places. All I'm saying is that the way it's been mastered, I think, is completely justified based on that reasoning.
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It’s definitely a step back from TA as far as overall sound quality goes.
Personally, I think brickwall compression on your album is inexcusable and it’s BS I have to buy a Blu-Ray to get high quality audio. DT have had issues with most of their releases but at the end of the day they are the artists and this is what they feel best represents their vision, so it is what it is.
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The mix on D/T is much improved, but the mastering ruins much of my listening experience. I would certainly buy a more dynamic version if made available.
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It’s definitely a step back from TA as far as overall sound quality goes.
Personally, I think brickwall compression on your album is inexcusable and it’s BS I have to buy a Blu-Ray to get high quality audio. DT have had issues with most of their releases but at the end of the day they are the artists and this is what they feel best represents their vision, so it is what it is.
I'm not arguing at all. More dynamics = better, as far as I'm concerned, and, pretty much just objectively better. But just humor the flip side of the situation, someone who uses Spotify, or even someone who downloads from iTunes or rips their CD, puts the music on, while on a noisy bus, and half of the album ends up being too quiet for them to hear all the parts. And this is how they listen to music, almost exclusively. If they don't really have music and sound know how, they'll probably just think it's too quiet and never play it again. That's not something DT can afford, I don't think. I tried listening to King Crimson on a train once, and I could barely hear half of the Larks Tongues in Aspic album, even at maximum volume.
Personally, I think the real solution to this would be if the music software for modern portable devices, like smart phones, etc, had a built in real-time limiter function, that processes the audio signal and compresses it on the fly, something that a person who knows and cares about dynamics would know how to toggle on and off if they want. That way, we can have music that has broad dynamic range, and the software that plays it can compress it for those who need it louder due to their surroundings. But that would require a common goal, attitude, and synergy between record labels, music distributors, and their software engineers, and I don't think any of them care enough to try and push for something like that.
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how do we get HD tracks and what type of medium would I need to listen to them?
I'm curious to hear. Do they make a huge difference?
I love D/T and think the sound is a big improvement over their last several releases.
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how do we get HD tracks and what type of medium would I need to listen to them?
I'm curious to hear. Do they make a huge difference?
I love D/T and think the sound is a big improvement over their last several releases.
The HD tracks version currently available uses the same master, unlike some prior HD offerings, and therefore is not an improvement on the sonic quality.
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I insist: why does everyone talk so much about DR?
I can't understand why many complain about the dynamics on the latest records and don't complain about the dynamics in an album like FII (FII's DR is the same as in d/t).
It can't be just that.
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When I listen to the kick drum in D/T vs. the kick drum in FII, I can feel a seismic difference. The busy sections where the snare and guitars share a fill are not garbled in the older catalog recordings.
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When I listen to the kick drum in D/T vs. the kick drum in FII, I can feel a seismic difference. The busy sections where the snare and guitars share a fill are not garbled in the older catalog recordings.
Fair enough. But, doesn't change the fact the average dynamic range is the same. The way we feel things is irrelevant to objectively answering the question. If DR is the "answer", similar scores should have similar results.
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The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.
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The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.
That's a good start.
It's been a while since I've realized that audiophilia and science aren't good friends. A lot of "I think", "I feel", "I perceive a difference" and little scientific evidence.
I'll add this to the list: we have a DR measure that is not so good at measuring ..... dynamics. Wonderful! :lol
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The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.
That's a good start.
It's been a while since I've realized that audiophilia and science aren't good friends. A lot of "I think", "I feel", "I perceive a difference" and little scientific evidence.
I'll add this to the list: we have a DR measure that is not so good at measuring ..... dynamics. Wonderful! :lol
No, the DR range does make a difference in most instances. I think it is fair to say though that it is not the ONLY factor. I don't know if FII is the best comparison because it is so different from later albums. Much more variation in the songs themselves and more mellow sections / songs. This makes the constant high compression less noticeable. I remastered FII and it sounds better with more dynamics restored.
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The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.
That's a good start.
It's been a while since I've realized that audiophilia and science aren't good friends. A lot of "I think", "I feel", "I perceive a difference" and little scientific evidence.
I'll add this to the list: we have a DR measure that is not so good at measuring ..... dynamics. Wonderful! :lol
No, the DR range does make a difference in most instances. I think it is fair to say though that it is not the ONLY factor. I don't know if FII is the best comparison because it is so different from later albums. Much more variation in the songs themselves and more mellow sections / songs. This makes the constant high compression less noticeable. I remastered FII and it sounds better with more dynamics restored.
You can change FII for Haken -Vector or PoS - In The Passing Light of Day or Soa - Psychotic Symphony or any Metal Allegiance album or any Flying Colors album or any Periphery album etc. All these albums have in common low average DR scores.
But I think you're right on bolded part.
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The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.
That's a good start.
It's been a while since I've realized that audiophilia and science aren't good friends. A lot of "I think", "I feel", "I perceive a difference" and little scientific evidence.
I'll add this to the list: we have a DR measure that is not so good at measuring ..... dynamics. Wonderful! :lol
No, the DR range does make a difference in most instances. I think it is fair to say though that it is not the ONLY factor. I don't know if FII is the best comparison because it is so different from later albums. Much more variation in the songs themselves and more mellow sections / songs. This makes the constant high compression less noticeable. I remastered FII and it sounds better with more dynamics restored.
You can change FII for Haken -Vector or PoS - In The Passing Light of Day or Soa - Psychotic Symphony or any Metal Allegiance album or any Flying Colors album or any Periphery album etc. All these albums have in common low average DR scores.
But I think you're right on bolded part.
Falling into infinity sounds surprisingly good for DR6, but even that sounds better on the vinyl because of better dynamic range. I don't agree with the albums you mentioned at least with the ones I've heard. I can't stand the debut album of Flying Colors because of the loudness. It just sounds harsh. The True colors release with DR8 sounds considerably better that the original release with DR6. Same thing with PoS - Passing light of day. Yes, it is a lot better than the previous albums, but still way too compressed to actually sound good. And based on what I've heard from Periphery their albums are really loud and would also sound a lot better with better DR. FII even in digital sounds a lot better than any of these albums.
Yes, DR is not the only factor and FII proves that. But albums like that are far and between. To me there is a clear correlation with DR and sound quality. Albums under DR8 rarely sound good to me.
Do I recall correctly? Was FII recorded on analog tape?
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DoT could’ve used some breathing room in the mastering department but at least the sounds are there this time! Badass, full sounding DT record.
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I believe FII was recorded on tape. IIRC, Six Degrees was the last DT album recorded on tape, which still sounds warmer than the newer stuff.
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For those who own the Artbook, I don't know if you've noticed, but the Instrumental mixes of the album are actually much less compressed than the album itself.
They're not quite as dynamic as the Blu-Ray 2.0 mix, but even from a casual glance at the wave forms, the difference is very noticeable.
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When you are an audiophile, you can easily say, "How could they take such wonderful music and compress it so much? It's criminal," but the simple truth is that the vast majority of music consumers are not audiophiles, and Dream Theater caters to more than just a hardcore niche demographic. Funny enough, they just posted on Facebook, proclaiming that Distance Over Time got over 10 million streams on Spotify. They're obviously excited by this figure, and it does prove that a lot of people listen to them on Spotify, for better or for worse. The bottom line is, they are a commercial band and they're catering to a larger demographic than just people with big, expensive hi-fi systems, studio monitors, and headphones.
I think the fact that they're releasing their music on vinyl, and in several other formats on the Blu-Ray is proof that they do want to appease the demographic that really cares about dynamics and sound quality, but the album itself, its standard master that appears on the CD and on streaming and download services, that's for the common consumer and it has to accommodate people who are going to be streaming it on their smartphone, while traversing noisy places. All I'm saying is that the way it's been mastered, I think, is completely justified based on that reasoning.
Unfortunately, you are right. I can't really listen to this more than once at a time (even though it's somewhat short by Dream Theater standards) I get ear fatigued because the nearly everything on the CD is at the same level. I really want to listen to this more than once at a time.
It's unfortunate for me because I think this is a very inspired album (aside from some vocal things that I suppose are modus operandi at this point.)
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The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.
I wouldn't know. I know DR is popular with many in the audiophile crowd (Which I suppose I am one to some extent) but I only go by what I hear when I pop the CD in my CD player. There's so much cool stuff going on musically with this record but it's all at the same level and it's hard to listen to what's going on because there's not a lot of separation on instruments. Jordan is on fire on this record but it's very difficult to focus on any one thing without being clouded by something else.
A lot of this stuff should be cleared up live.
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For those who own the Artbook, I don't know if you've noticed, but the Instrumental mixes of the album are actually much less compressed than the album itself.
They're not quite as dynamic as the Blu-Ray 2.0 mix, but even from a casual glance at the wave forms, the difference is very noticeable.
I have not test driven the instrumental disc yet. I wanted to get used to the album as it was intended to be. I thought there might be an improvement. I might try the other formats this weekend and see if that improves things for me.
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Falling into infinity sounds surprisingly good for DR6, but even that sounds better on the vinyl because of better dynamic range. I don't agree with the albums you mentioned at least with the ones I've heard. I can't stand the debut album of Flying Colors because of the loudness. It just sounds harsh. The True colors release with DR8 sounds considerably better that the original release with DR6. Same thing with PoS - Passing light of day. Yes, it is a lot better than the previous albums, but still way too compressed to actually sound good. And based on what I've heard from Periphery their albums are really loud and would also sound a lot better with better DR. FII even in digital sounds a lot better than any of these albums.
Yes, DR is not the only factor and FII proves that. But albums like that are far and between. To me there is a clear correlation with DR and sound quality. Albums under DR8 rarely sound good to me.
Do I recall correctly? Was FII recorded on analog tape?
Well, I just decided to choose recent albums with low DR that were well received (understand: no complaints about the sound). I don't remember a lot of people complaining about the sound of Psychotic Symphony or In the Passing Light of Day. In some cases the album was praised for having a great sound (Vector).
My point has always been: why does the complaint happen in some cases and not in all of them?
Actually I think it's a sum of reasons:
- Physical and technical factors, such as DR.
- Particularities of each album.
- Individual auditory perception (real and imaginary ones)
- Herd behavior
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I can see the digital files being brickwalled, but the CD shouldn't be. I doubt people are still walking around with Discmans or having a multi-CD player that shuffles songs on multiple discs. And even if there are, they can change the volume.
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nothing should ever be brickwalled. Nothing. Sadly almost everything is nowadays.
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The DR database is a really cruddy measurement. All it does is calculate the peak volume minus the average volume. So, FII has a lot of dynamic variance, but it never extremely peaks, and thus gets a low DR.
I think the DR database is a useful guide, but I would agree that is not the end-all be-all that some make it out to be when it comes to sound quality.
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I find the DR database very helpful. It helps when there are multiple releases. You can pick the one with the best DR.
Preserving dynamic rage is important. That is the way the music sounds live. In fact most sounds you hear have dynamic range. The only sound that doesn't is white noise. So, when you take out the dynamic range you are not hearing the sounds the way they actually are.
A sound wave is like waves on the ocean. It has peaks and valleys that you can feel and your ear senses. When you flatten all the sounds through compression it is like an ocean with no waves. It is flat and boring. You can not feel the peak and valley of the sound wave. It is subtle but it affects the listening experience.
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You all canl be right. Makes sense.
But I still have doubts about the limits of "reality" and the reveries of audiophilia. To what extent it is not something like the difference between MP3, Wav, etc., which people can't distinguish (at least most of them - yes, it includes most audiophiles).
Double blind tests! :biggrin:
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Falling into infinity sounds surprisingly good for DR6, but even that sounds better on the vinyl because of better dynamic range. I don't agree with the albums you mentioned at least with the ones I've heard. I can't stand the debut album of Flying Colors because of the loudness. It just sounds harsh. The True colors release with DR8 sounds considerably better that the original release with DR6. Same thing with PoS - Passing light of day. Yes, it is a lot better than the previous albums, but still way too compressed to actually sound good. And based on what I've heard from Periphery their albums are really loud and would also sound a lot better with better DR. FII even in digital sounds a lot better than any of these albums.
Yes, DR is not the only factor and FII proves that. But albums like that are far and between. To me there is a clear correlation with DR and sound quality. Albums under DR8 rarely sound good to me.
Do I recall correctly? Was FII recorded on analog tape?
Well, I just decided to choose recent albums with low DR that were well received (understand: no complaints about the sound). I don't remember a lot of people complaining about the sound of Psychotic Symphony or In the Passing Light of Day. In some cases the album was praised for having a great sound (Vector).
My point has always been: why does the complaint happen in some cases and not in all of them?
Actually I think it's a sum of reasons:
- Physical and technical factors, such as DR.
- Particularities of each album.
- Individual auditory perception (real and imaginary ones)
- Herd behavior
That's fair and I get that. I think that people have gotten so accustomed to low DR sound and that's what they are usually comparing the sound of different albums. So when something, in low DR, sounds better than average it will be received better and thought of a good sounding album. From what I've heard from Periphery they seem to have better than average sound within the confines of low DR. The way I see that is that they've just managed to have less negative side effects of dynamic range compression than usual. So to me it's more about damage control rather than sounding as good as possible.
I agree that the final sound on the album is combination of different things (recording, production, mixing, the format of the album, the system that the album is listened to, etc), but dynamic range in my opinion is the factor that sets the upper limit on how good the album can sound. Even if everything else is great from recording, production and mixing it cannot sound great if the dynamic range is over compressed.
You all canl be right. Makes sense.
But I still have doubts about the limits of "reality" and the reveries of audiophilia. To what extent it is not something like the difference between MP3, Wav, etc., which people can't distinguish (at least most of them - yes, it includes most audiophiles).
Double blind tests! :biggrin:
I claim that I can hear difference between MP3, FLAC, CD etc., but in some cases the difference between a good MP3 and CD quality can be really hard to distinguish. You need to have a sound system that can produce a good sound stage if you want to hear the difference between a good mp3 and cd quality. I prefer to listen to in CD quality, but I would rather have 320kbps MP3 with good dynamic range than a hi-res file with low DR. The difference that a lack of dynamic range does is in whole another level than that of the formats.
The reason why I am so obsessed with dynamic range is that I really cannot enjoy music with low DR properly. I know that I am way more sensitive to this than most people. I have friends that also think that music should be dynamic, but they can enjoy albums with low DR and it does not bother them nearly as much as it bothers me. I have a really good sound system at home, but I do most of my listening in my car nowadays as with family and children it's hard to find the time to enjoy music at home. Even in car I prefer the more dynamic sound. When listening to album with low DR it only takes three to four songs when I get the need to lower the volume and after couple of songs I need to lower the volume again. My ears tire just just like as I was exposed to noise. So listening through an album, no matter how good musically, can be really tiring to my ears. With dynamic albums I don't have this problem. Actually the opposite happens I get the feel to turn up the volume and I don't have a problem of blasting out an album or two.
I've heard an sound engineer comparing the dynamic range of Metallica Death Magnetic and some Arctic Monkeys album to a vacuum cleaner. He had actually measured the dynamics of the sound of a vacuum cleaner and it was more dynamic than those albums. :lol
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I claim that I can hear difference between MP3, FLAC, CD etc., but in some cases the difference between a good MP3 and CD quality can be really hard to distinguish. You need to have a sound system that can produce a good sound stage if you want to hear the difference between a good mp3 and cd quality. I prefer to listen to in CD quality, but I would rather have 320kbps MP3 with good dynamic range than a hi-res file with low DR. The difference that a lack of dynamic range does is in whole another level than that of the formats.
The reason why I am so obsessed with dynamic range is that I really cannot enjoy music with low DR properly. I know that I am way more sensitive to this than most people. I have friends that also think that music should be dynamic, but they can enjoy albums with low DR and it does not bother them nearly as much as it bothers me. I have a really good sound system at home, but I do most of my listening in my car nowadays as with family and children it's hard to find the time to enjoy music at home. Even in car I prefer the more dynamic sound. When listening to album with low DR it only takes three to four songs when I get the need to lower the volume and after couple of songs I need to lower the volume again. My ears tire just just like as I was exposed to noise. So listening through an album, no matter how good musically, can be really tiring to my ears. With dynamic albums I don't have this problem. Actually the opposite happens I get the feel to turn up the volume and I don't have a problem of blasting out an album or two.
I've heard an sound engineer comparing the dynamic range of Metallica Death Magnetic and some Arctic Monkeys album to a vacuum cleaner. He had actually measured the dynamics of the sound of a vacuum cleaner and it was more dynamic than those albums. :lol
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I am the same way. After awhile I have to stop listening.
That is hilarious about the vacuum cleaner. :rollin
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You all canl be right. Makes sense.
But I still have doubts about the limits of "reality" and the reveries of audiophilia. To what extent it is not something like the difference between MP3, Wav, etc., which people can't distinguish (at least most of them - yes, it includes most audiophiles).
Double blind tests! :biggrin:
It is a much bigger difference. I can actually listen to a new album and tell pretty quickly when it is heavily compressed.
On the positive side I heard the first tracks from the new Neal Morse Band release The Great Adventure and it sounded very good. I though the dynamic range was improved and sure enough it was.
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I definitely don't want to sound in a negative way, but I'll take the risk.
I still don't have a final opinion so formed about how far DR's impact on music is. I think you're probably more certain than I am. But I'm definitely REALLY skeptical with everything involving audiophilia
That's why I mentioned the WAV, FLAC, MP3, etc. files. I'm fully convinced that people can't differentiate them. Some may, but are rare. Outliers. I'm well acquainted that MANY people say they can. Whenever this subject is discussed, at least half of the people say that. It is not difficult to make this statement. It's difficult to actually achieve. And when I say that it's from an absolutely scientific point of view. I'm sure many people "differentiate" the files, but if we test them rigorously, they will fail (for the most part, I have no doubt). With whatever equipment they choose. Placebo effect. What's more, everyone wants to be on the "special side".
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The files I mostly listen to are the ones I purchased from iTunes in m4a format which are "mastered for iTunes". I remember that Apple undertook this program because just using the same master used for CDs did not sound good on iTunes. I wonder if they indeed used a different master for D/T for this format.
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I listened to all of Octavarium and d/t last night which was alot of fun! I love both albums but d/t sounds miles better as far as production goes. It's just so much cleaner and the guitar tone has way more punch.
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I listened to all of Octavarium and d/t last night which was alot of fun! I love both albums but d/t sounds miles better as far as production goes. It's just so much cleaner and the guitar tone has way more punch.
I wouldn't say miles better..? Just a matter of taste I'd say in this case. I could argue that the drums on 8VM sound a little bit more natural and that the overall production is less 'smashed'. But anyway, they both sound good.
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I think it sounds good. No fancy vocabulary from me, I like how it sounds. Streaming via Spotify, to my phone, using bluetooth headphones. :lol
Although.. I put on Awake regularly, and the sound on that is just ... brilliant. So much more dynamic, the snare is crisp, I can hear every instrument clearly.. The 90's aren't coming back but I don't get why they couldn't keep recording albums like that.
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I think it sounds good. No fancy vocabulary from me, I like how it sounds. Streaming via Spotify, to my phone, using bluetooth headphones. :lol
Although.. I put on Awake regularly, and the sound on that is just ... brilliant. So much more dynamic, the snare is crisp, I can hear every instrument clearly.. The 90's aren't coming back but I don't get why they couldn't keep recording albums like that.
This is exactly what I am stating with my initial post. Record from 25 years ago sounds great. We have come so far technologically in that period of time, yet somehow nobody makes a record that sounds as good as a record from a quarter century ago?!?!
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Honestly, most of the mixes and masters from the Mangini era have been good, or at the very least fine. ADToE gives every instrument ample room to breathe, nothing is stepping on each other's toes, and the mastering isn't classical levels of quiet where you have to turn the volume up to max to hear the slow movement and then someone freaking coughs and your house explodes from the sudden jump in volume and it's not painfully loud either. The Astonishing is in a similar situation. D/T tends to push Rudess a bit back in the mix, sure, but it doesn't have any problems outside of that. DT12, on the other hand, is loud. Very loud. Things are constantly fighting each other for attention, Rudess is pushed back in the mix again, and the album is almost painful to listen to it's so loud. DT12 has some issues in its mix, and it probably has the worst mastering job out of any DT album.
Now let's break some of the common complaints about poorly mixed and mastered albums:
1. Why Are Albums So Loud These Days?
First off, I want to clarify that albums being too hot is mostly a fault of the mastering, not the mixing. The mixing, arrangement, composition, and recording all play a role in the dynamics, but most of the problems arise from mastering.
It's basically common knowledge that songs are on the whole, getting louder. While a lot of the complaints are probably exaggerated (not every song is completely brickwalled, and even most loud recordings tend to have a bit of dynamics), the claims aren't completely unfounded. The levels of recordings from the 20s to the 40s tended to be mostly around -15db, which began to steadily increase from the 50s to the 80s, and then accelerated during the 90s and exploded during the 00s, where it's stayed. Songs now tend to hover around -5db, and those hitting as low as -15db are very rare (still, those at 0db are even rarer). [1] (https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/88q0d1/songs_have_gotten_louder_over_time_oc/)*
Now why did these jumps occur?
Well, these three movements coincide with three moments in music history: the explosion of rock'n'roll in the 50s, the adoption of the CD in the late 80s, and the advent of streaming and digital files in the 00s. Rock'n'roll pushed the limits of what was considered acceptable levels of noise and volume, especially with its introduction of the distorted guitar and louder drum and vocal styles. Around this time, the amplifier, microphone, and 45rpm record were all being introduced into the music industry, which allowed greater dynamic heights to be reached. [2] It also doesn't help that things like song length and placement would affect the dynamics, bass frequency levels, and speed of the song. [3]
The second of these three jumps happens in the 80s, when the Compact Disc started making waves in the music industry. The Compact Disc had a unique advantage over the vinyl record and cassette: it allowed for a much greater dynamic range than ever before. It could go as quiet as it wants and as loud as it wants. This also coincided, interestingly enough, with the birth of grunge and the rise of metal, which are two genres known for being loud.
The third of these jumps happens in the 00s, with the universal acceptance of the CD as the go-to form of music distribution and (as erwinrafael pointed out) the advent of streaming and digital files. The elimination of giant leaps in dynamic ranges makes for a smoother listening experience when shuffling between songs by different artists and is part of the reason why every music service has some sort of audio compression applied automatically to everything uploaded. I can attest from personal experience that it's really annoying to have to turn the volume WAY up for a classical piece and then get deafened by a Dream Theater or Taylor Swift song (or by another part of that classical piece). One of the things to note is that dynamic levels haven't just gotten louder, they've gotten more homogeneous too. Almost every song tends to hit around the -10db to -5db range, where as in the 20-40s it was anything goes really.
Now, the question is, why have things gotten louder? The ability for recorded music to get quieter has also increased in the last 30 years. Well, there's two phenomenon at play here: 1) as mentioned previously, the homogenization of dynamics to fit streaming culture and 2) the fact that loud music sounds better to us. [3] Radio stations, streaming apps/sites/whatever, digital music stores, and record companies all want to take advantage of this phenomenon and ensure their product is going to sell. It's also why most live amateur DJ sets usually end up with blown out stage monitors.
However, an interesting peculiarity is that this decade is actually slightly QUIETER than the one that came before it. It's only by a bout 1 or 2db or so, but it's still worth mentioning. Weird, huh? And, as an aside, songs have actually gotten longer over time too!
*Yes I know this is a chart on reddit, but they DO cite their sources here, which I checked out and they are legit.
[2] Bogdanov, Vladimir, et al. All Music Guide to Rock the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop and Soul. Backbeat Books, 2002.
[3] Gray, Kevin. “PRODUCING GREAT SOUNDING PHONOGRAPH RECORDS (or Why Records Don’t Always Sound Like the Master Tape).” Record Technology Incorporated, 3 May 1997, recordtech.com/prodsounds.htm.
[4] Blesser, Barry. “The Seductive (Yet Destructive) Appeal of Loud Music.” EContact!, no. 9.4, June 2007.
2. Why does the song sound muddy and cluttered?
This actually isn't the master's fault! This can arise from poor composition, arrangement, or mixing.
1) Composition: probably the rarest source for this problem in modern music. One of the biggest things you learn about in music school is counterpoint, which according to Wikipedia "...is the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent (polyphony) yet independent in rhythm and contour." [5] Basically, it's like how Iron Man is his own character, but he comes to form a part of the Avengers. He is simultaneously his own independent character and "a part of a much bigger universe". How does this concept relate to something sounding muddy and cluttered? Well, it could be that the song has too many distinct melodic voices occurring at the same time, or there's a lot of similar but not identical rhythms, or that the melodic voices are written in a way that makes them less independent of each other. Modern rock/pop/dance/rap/metal is not very contrapuntal, however, so it's not that big of an issue most likely. In metal, however, poor rhythmic layering is probably the biggest culprit! Here's a good explanation of rhythmic layering using Gourmet Race from Kirby Super Star as an example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1DXUMROMgc).
2) Arrangement: more common than you think! There are a number of ways in which arranging can make a song sound muddy. The first is related to the harmonic series. Humans (that's us!) have trouble distinguishing frequencies and pitches at the extremes of pitch. So we have a harder time parsing out two separate "voices" (a fancy term for a unique part of an instrument) when they're really low or really high. That's why you'll frequently see orchestration books recommending that you keep all the crazy contrapuntal stuff in the middle-low (the "tenor" voices) or middle ("alto") or middle-high (usually the "soprano", but that can leap up into the high/stratosphere) rather than in the extremes, especially the low parts. If you have the bass drum doing its own thing, the bass guitar doing its own thing, and two low rhythm guitars doing their own things, it's going to be hard to hear it as anything other than mush. I reference this as an example because I remember hearing a mediocre prog metal song not too long ago that did this exact thing. I can't remember what song it is, because it failed to grasp my attention.
It could also be that the arrangement is too "bottom heavy", where's there's a lot of stuff going on in the low end and it ends up drowning out the middle and higher parts. The Enemy Inside is a really good example of this, where the T H I C C guitar and bass end up stepping on the keyboard and vocal's toes during the choruses. The main part of Blind Guardian's The Ninth Wave (and, to a lesser extent, And Then There Was Silence) also has this problem.
Finally, and this is related to mixing, the dynamics might be bad for a particular section or song or whatever. By this I mean there's no sense of priorities in the song. Everything is constantly demanding equal attention on the part of the listener and they end up stepping on each other's toes. Sometimes the best thing you can do is push a less important part further back so that the important stuff can shine.
3) Mixing: In mixing, we have a "holy quantinity" (dibs on THAT band name) of sorts: volume, panning, eq, compression, and reverb. These are what help define the "3D space" that a recording or live concert sound takes up. Volume defines the forward-backward positioning, panning the left-right, EQ the up-down, Compression the amount of forward-backward movement and how the instruments breathe, and reverb the characteristics of the space and the specifics of location in that space. Instruments and sounds are slotted into a 3D box using this information. Now what happens when two instruments or sounds end up overlapping each other in this box? That's right, they end up competing for attention and you get that muddied/cluttered sound.
An instrument that's too loud can end up drowning out other instruments, or you have that problem I mentioned earlier where everything is trying to compete for the listener's attention because the priorities aren't set. Not mentioned nearly often enough is panning. If everything is in the left, right, or center, you're bound to get more toe-steppin' than awkward cousins at a Kentucky prom. If an instrument with a lot of frequency content (like a distorted guitar/synth/cello or a brass instrument) isn't EQ'd aggressively enough or it has too much going on elsewhere, you might get some muddiness. Compression is also a handy tool for creating space, to the point that it's abused by side-chaining the bass to the drums (side-chaining is basically "one comes in, other goes out. Can't expla-well, actually I guess you can never mind") in genres like Electrohouse. But it's best used for augmenting groove by allowing instruments to breathe. Too aggressive of a reverb can also add unwanted frequencies into a mix, and might end up stepping on another instrument's toes! Usually, you need a good combination of all 5 to get a mix to both breathe and leave enough space for Jesus in the mix.
And I want to echo the claim earlier that Dynamic Range has literally nothing to do with the quality of music. It's almost completely meaningless. A song that centers around -15db and a song that centers around -5db might have the same dynamic range. It has no effect on the quality of a mix or a piece of music. If it did, then Bach wouldn't be the literal, objective greatest composer ever.
[5] Stewart-Macdonald, R. “The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening. By Steven G. Laitz.” Music and Letters, vol. 95, no. 2, 2014, pp. 318–321., doi:10.1093/ml/gcu015.
3. Complaining About The Snare
The thing that armchair audio engineers do the most. Most complaints about the snare are divided into three categories: 1) internet intellectual gesticulating, 2) weirdly specific personal preferences, or 3) a genuinely bad snare sound (the rarest of the three). If someone starts complaining about the snare around you, it's best to lie back and think of English Rock and wait for them to finish.
(for a live performance version, replace with old people complaining about the "drums being too loud", which is also an inevitability)
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a lot of it is personal taste. i think the new album sounds great. someone mentioned haken vector as well, which to me is one of the best sounding albums i've heard in this genre. i think the drums and mix sound amazing on that album.
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Well it's all a matter of taste. That Haken stuff sounds way too sterile for me, but that could also be because of me not liking their music in the first place.
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nothing should ever be brickwalled. Nothing. Sadly almost everything is nowadays.
Except of course the third little pig house.