Transatlantic Official Thread

[Ben_Jamin]

As always, and now I that I can do it. I just made myself an Ultimate Playlist. And I just listen to that.


Although, I am more interested in the live aspect of this album. Which I think they will just play MP's Ultimate Version.

[Kram]

I don't. I just accept Forevermore as the definitive and Only version and be done with it.

I'm the same.  I haven't heard one note of TBOL.  Forevermore is now tied with BAF as my favorite TA album. Stunning piece of work!

[Ben_Jamin]

When I don't have the opportunity to listen to my playlist. I just put on Forevermore. I don't think i've even listened to The Breath Of Life as much as I have Forevermore. I only listened to Breath of Life just to hear the differences.

[darkshade]

Forevermore is THE album for me. The Ultimate version might have 5 minutes more music, but Forevermore is what the band created before Neal double dipped.

[Setlist Scotty]

The Breath Of Life has some really great moments but seems a bit fragmented when compared to Forevermore which I think holds together better. Definitely prefer Forevermore but The Breath Of Life is not horrible although I am wondering if listening to Forevermore first affected my perception of The Breath Of Life in any way. The Ultimate Mix will coming next at some point soon.

I would say yes, definitely.  Once you get used to the rhythm and flow of a piece of music, any radio edits or remixes always tend to have a sort of "wrongness" to their sound.  I think it's a perfectly natural reaction.  I have listened to both versions now fairly extensively.  Probably 20 times through Forevermore and 10 or 12 times through The Breath of Life and they are both appealing in their own ways, but I find that the Forevermore version seems to flow much more naturally.  But I fully believe that my opinion on that is informed by the fact that I listened exclusively to Forevermore about 15 times in a row before I ever picked up TBOL. 

Just to confirm this from the perspective of someone who listened to The Breath of Life first: I have no sense of it being fragmented at all.

I also started with Breath of Life. Not sure I get the sense it is fragmented, but some of the transitions seem a bit rough like the tracks don’t quite fit together the way they should. Some of that is the case on Forevermore too though.

Add me to the list of those that started with TBoL. And I purposefully listened to it exclusively for weeks just because I wanted to have it fully engrained in me before taking the plunge with Forevermore. I look at it as seeing a favorite film and then watching the director's cut later. I did this so that it would be very easy for me to pick out the differences between the two versions, and they were very glaring.

I'm sure it's because I got to know TBoL version so well that hearing Forevermore has been very jarring for me in many cases, and for the most part I do prefer TBoL. Some of Roine's guitar work seems a bit superfluous in the Forevermore version, and I do think that overall, TBoL is much more focused. I definitely prefer the transitions from Take Now My Soul into Looking for the Light as well as the extension added to the end of Love Made a Way (Prelude).
 
 

Not to be a Debbie-downer but I find this whole alternate/abridged/ultimate version of The Absolute Universe album to be annoying. Maybe it’s just the grumpy old man in me.

Well, nobody's forcing you to buy both (or I guess all 3) versions of the album. Personally, I love the fact that there's the two versions and that TBoL is not simply an abridged version with no other changes. In fact I would welcome this sort of thing more in the future, from TA as well as DT and other bands I enjoy. Maybe DT can do a sort of "Choose your own adventure" type of concept album if/when they choose to do another one with alternate versions of songs available on a second CD so fans can mix things up as they like.   

[KevShmev]

As always, and now I that I can do it. I just made myself an Ultimate Playlist. And I just listen to that.


Although, I am more interested in the live aspect of this album. Which I think they will just play MP's Ultimate Version.

I would hope that decision would made democratically by the band, and not one member saying, "Okay, this is what we are doing," but I fear that won't be the case.  I recall in that interview where Neal and Roine were both asked the same questions, Roine said something along the lines of hoping he gets to play all of the guitar work that he did for the Forevermore album live (could be slight paraphrasing, I am going from memory), which almost sounds like he won't have much say-so in the decision.  With something like this, I would think the four would get together and come up with a version that makes everyone happy.  I hope it happens that way.

[The Letter M]

I don't. I just accept The Ultimate Edition as the definitive and Only version and be done with it.

FTFM. I've had the Ultimate Edition as an mp3 on my.phone for over a month and it's been the only one I've listened to.

Sure. It isn't the "original" version, i.e. the Forevermore version, but it also includes some of my favorite parts of both versions of the album.

-Marc.

[Stadler]

The Breath Of Life has some really great moments but seems a bit fragmented when compared to Forevermore which I think holds together better. Definitely prefer Forevermore but The Breath Of Life is not horrible although I am wondering if listening to Forevermore first affected my perception of The Breath Of Life in any way. The Ultimate Mix will coming next at some point soon.

I would say yes, definitely.  Once you get used to the rhythm and flow of a piece of music, any radio edits or remixes always tend to have a sort of "wrongness" to their sound.  I think it's a perfectly natural reaction.  I have listened to both versions now fairly extensively.  Probably 20 times through Forevermore and 10 or 12 times through The Breath of Life and they are both appealing in their own ways, but I find that the Forevermore version seems to flow much more naturally.  But I fully believe that my opinion on that is informed by the fact that I listened exclusively to Forevermore about 15 times in a row before I ever picked up TBOL. 

Just to confirm this from the perspective of someone who listened to The Breath of Life first: I have no sense of it being fragmented at all.

I also started with Breath of Life. Not sure I get the sense it is fragmented, but some of the transitions seem a bit rough like the tracks don’t quite fit together the way they should. Some of that is the case on Forevermore too though.

Add me to the list of those that started with TBoL. And I purposefully listened to it exclusively for weeks just because I wanted to have it fully engrained in me before taking the plunge with Forevermore. I look at it as seeing a favorite film and then watching the director's cut later. I did this so that it would be very easy for me to pick out the differences between the two versions, and they were very glaring.

I'm sure it's because I got to know TBoL version so well that hearing Forevermore has been very jarring for me in many cases, and for the most part I do prefer TBoL. Some of Roine's guitar work seems a bit superfluous in the Forevermore version, and I do think that overall, TBoL is much more focused. I definitely prefer the transitions from Take Now My Soul into Looking for the Light as well as the extension added to the end of Love Made a Way (Prelude).
 

That's me exactly.  I LOVE TBOL, and it's not like I don't like the longer version, but there are too many moments of "that doesn't belong there!" simply because I'm not used to it.  I'll continue to go back and forth, but I have to say this:  the switching of CDs is more of an issue than I'd ever have imagined. 

[kirksnosehair]

I don't. I just accept The Ultimate Edition as the definitive and Only version and be done with it.

FTFM. I've had the Ultimate Edition as an mp3 on my.phone for over a month and it's been the only one I've listened to.

Sure. It isn't the "original" version, i.e. the Forevermore version, but it also includes some of my favorite parts of both versions of the album.

-Marc.

What did you use to rip it from the DVD?  I just got my box set yesterday (finally!) and I'm having a hell of a time getting the audio off the bluray

[faizoff]

I don't. I just accept The Ultimate Edition as the definitive and Only version and be done with it.

FTFM. I've had the Ultimate Edition as an mp3 on my.phone for over a month and it's been the only one I've listened to.

Sure. It isn't the "original" version, i.e. the Forevermore version, but it also includes some of my favorite parts of both versions of the album.

-Marc.

What did you use to rip it from the DVD?  I just got my box set yesterday (finally!) and I'm having a hell of a time getting the audio off the bluray

There might be easier tools out there, but me I use
1, MakeMKV to rip lossless the bluray to hard drive in .mkv format (with video)
2, Use a tool called MKVToolNix to split the audio to it's own file (.mka format)
3,  Lastly, use Foobar to convert and split to mp3s.

Looks daunting but I'm so used to it now.

[kirksnosehair]

Yep, I already ripped the MKV files to the hard drive, now converting it to one massive MP3 file


Is that the end result of your process?  One big huge audio file?

[devieira73]

Just a heads up about the bluray version of the album - it arrived today at my home - it doesn't have a booklet, which I thought very very disappointing since it's the only version of the album that I choose to buy. And kind of ironic since I thought that it was the more "complete" version of the album.

[faizoff]

Yep, I already ripped the MKV files to the hard drive, now converting it to one massive MP3 file


Is that the end result of your process?  One big huge audio file?

I'll have to check but I think the MKVToolNix program can retain the chapter markers. And foobar can split the file using those markers into separate mp3s.

[kirksnosehair]

Well, it's been ripping for about an hour now and the file is up to 6.4GB and it's a 320kbps MP3


I guess I don't really care if it's just one huge file, though, because when I listen to this album I listen to it from beginning to end without skipping anything

[Stadler]

Well, there are easier ways... 

I do one of two things, depending on the source:  I rip to MKV, then convert to wav (using the MK program).  If it's a multi-song show, I will then pull it into Garageband and export each 'song' into a file.   

If the source has accurate breaks between the songs, I will rip the DVD/Blu-ray using... dammit, I can't remember, and it's upstairs, but I think it's "DVD Audio Extractor" or something like that.  It will rip to the chapters, and export as a wav (or any other format you want).   The problem is, I think with the TA, the markers are off by a second or so (or as much as two or three seconds).

Taking a whole concert and breaking it into songs can be tedious, but lots of times it's not that bad.

[Setlist Scotty]

The way that I extract audio from video files is by importing the audio into Audacity, and then set the track markers myself. Then I export to FLAC although you can also export to MP3, too.

[KevShmev]

Honestly, this is why I was hesitant to buy the Blu-ray out of the box, as I wasn't sure if they'd give an easy-to-download link for the digital files with it.  In this day and age, it's hard to believe, really.  Fans shouldn't have to do this much work to get the digital files, IMO.

[faizoff]

Well the blu-ray is meant to be a multi-audio track lossless version of the album. It's 22 GB in size and they typically don't offer a watered-down version of it. That's what the CD is for, though in this case you are right seeing as the BR is yet a different version of the album you'd want a ripped version of it.

[gzarruk]

I'd buy the digital download of the Ultimate version too if there was one. I have no use for the blu ray.

[Kram]

I'd buy the digital download of the Ultimate version too if there was one. I have no use for the blu ray.

Same

[The Letter M]

Well the blu-ray is meant to be a multi-audio track lossless version of the album. It's 22 GB in size and they typically don't offer a watered-down version of it. That's what the CD is for, though in this case you are right seeing as the BR is yet a different version of the album you'd want a ripped version of it.

I'd say the BD would be meant for visual enjoyment only if they only included the 5.1 surround sound mix, but they also included a down mixed stereo version of the Ultimate Edition Mix as well, so it seems odd that they could not just offer that as a digital download for folks, especially those who bought the BD and don't have any way of ripping the audio.

As for my version, I got the FLAC files from a fellow member here and then converted them to WAVs, used Audacity to tweak the track indexing a bit (as the raw audio tracks started each song just slightly before the downbeat of each new song, which annoys the hell out of me), and then I reconverted those WAVs into MP3s, which now reside on my phone, right under Forevermore and The Breath Of Life.

Personally, it really is the best of both worlds, more or less, though even if I wanted to take something from either Forevermore or TBOL and put it into my Ultimate Edition Mix, it would take a bit of audio level editing as the stereo mix of the Ultimate Edition is a bit quieter, maybe more dynamic, than either of the two CD versions of the album.

You can see how the WAV files compare in terms of audio peaks here in my Audacity comparison of the Overtures:


And here's one of how the 3 versions of "The Greatest Story Never Ends" compare:


The BD's visualizer that accompanies the audio is a trippy journey with some fantastic artwork and animations, definitely worth viewing. Whenever they actually get to play the album live, I'm almost sure these animations will be used as their back screen projections.

-Marc.

[kirksnosehair]

I already threw in the towel on converting this shit.  I spent 4 hours yesterday fucking around with MK software and got exactly nowhere. What a fucking waste of money that was     


I think it's kind of a dick move for the band to put this out only in this format.  I have LESS THAN NO USE for a bluray

[darkshade]

So the Ultimate Mix is how TAUF or TAUTBOL should be mixed (aka not loud loud loud)

[faizoff]

I already threw in the towel on converting this shit.  I spent 4 hours yesterday fucking around with MK software and got exactly nowhere. What a fucking waste of money that was     


I think it's kind of a dick move for the band to put this out only in this format.  I have LESS THAN NO USE for a bluray

LOL I hadn't done the conversion for this Bluray yet and after reading your comment, went ahead and did it. It took my 8 core 16 thread CPU to split the audio from the 22 GB mkv file and convert it to 20 mp3 files in less than 10 mins. All tagged and ready for playback 

[Ben_Jamin]

I already threw in the towel on converting this shit.  I spent 4 hours yesterday fucking around with MK software and got exactly nowhere. What a fucking waste of money that was     


I think it's kind of a dick move for the band to put this out only in this format.  I have LESS THAN NO USE for a bluray

While they laugh and say..."Well, you bought it"....

You do know that it's intentional and not a dick move because they could have just released that as a digital download and called that "The Ultimate Version" but who will buy the other versions if that one is easily available. Having the "Ultimate" Version on Blu-Ray only makes it where if you really want to hear it that bad, then you by the Blu-Ray.

I think they should have just left it on the Box Set only. But fans demanded they get a standalone of the Blu-Ray, and they got that. Now they don't want the Blu-Ray and just want the audio.

 

[Ben_Jamin]

So the Ultimate Mix is how TAUF or TAUTBOL should be mixed (aka not loud loud loud)

That might be due to the sound space available on a Blu-Ray. You can fit better sound in there than a regular cd. So it does sound better.

[kirksnosehair]

Thank you to everyone who reached out and offered to help me.  I've been having a rough go of it lately (depression, poor fucking me, boo hoo) and it was kind of cool that a bunch of people PM'd me to offer help on this.  I've finally got it and it's now ripped to my phone.


I not only bought the box set, but I also bought the vinyl TWICE for BOTH versions because I was so impressed with this release I wanted to support Transatlantic and also, I like giving shit away to people who don't have stuff or can't afford it so I'll be giving one copy of each version away very soon. 

[kirksnosehair]

I already threw in the towel on converting this shit.  I spent 4 hours yesterday fucking around with MK software and got exactly nowhere. What a fucking waste of money that was     


I think it's kind of a dick move for the band to put this out only in this format.  I have LESS THAN NO USE for a bluray

LOL I hadn't done the conversion for this Bluray yet and after reading your comment, went ahead and did it. It took my 8 core 16 thread CPU to split the audio from the 22 GB mkv file and convert it to 20 mp3 files in less than 10 mins. All tagged and ready for playback 

10 or 15 years ago I wouldn't have had any issues getting this done myself, but after more than 20 years in management and away from doing technical work I don't have the patience anymore.   

[kirksnosehair]

Also, I think those of you who know me know I would never pirate any music for any reason, so just to quell any speculation on whether or not I actually have this on DVD here's a picture of it in my hand.

[The Letter M]

Thank you to everyone who reached out and offered to help me.  I've been having a rough go of it lately (depression, poor fucking me, boo hoo) and it was kind of cool that a bunch of people PM'd me to offer help on this.  I've finally got it and it's now ripped to my phone.


I not only bought the box set, but I also bought the vinyl TWICE for BOTH versions because I was so impressed with this release I wanted to support Transatlantic and also, I like giving shit away to people who don't have stuff or can't afford it so I'll be giving one copy of each version away very soon.

I feel that - I just bought the stand-alone BD so I could keep the one from the box set inside the box set for safe keeping, just so I can have the BD ready to watch whenever I want to (because I've been enjoying it fairly regularly over the last couple of months). I also just really want to support the band and this fantastic album. I also already had doubles of a lot of TA albums and releases (for example, I have Live In Europe on 2CD, 2DVD, and limited edition media book 2CD/2DVD).

Glad to hear you got a lot of help and offers for this! I hope you enjoy hearing the Ultimate Mix as much as I have. Mike and Rich really picked out some of the best parts of TBOL to put into Forevermore. My only gripe is one odd transition in the Overture, but other than that, everything flows and segues so seemlessly and perfectly, and the use of "Love Made A Way (Prelude)" from TBOL between "The Sun Comes Up Today" and "Owl Howl" is really great, as the Forevermore transition into "Owl Howl" never really worked for me, but the one on TBOL did. One of the best parts of the Ultimate Mix is still the "complete" version of "The Great Story Never Ends", which has quickly become one of my favorite tracks on the album (with all the unique music for the song now in one version).

-Marc.

[HOF]

Refresh my memory, but is there any noticeable difference between the tracks on the Ultimate Version and the tracks on TBOL and Forevermore? In other words, can one just recreate the running order on the Ultimate Version from individual tracks from the other two?

[The Letter M]

Refresh my memory, but is there any noticeable difference between the tracks on the Ultimate Version and the tracks on TBOL and Forevermore? In other words, can one just recreate the running order on the Ultimate Version from individual tracks from the other two?

Not exactly, you'd have to do a bit of splicing between the versions. Check out my post above that shows how the Ultimate Mix takes parts of Forevermore and TBOL to make new versions of the "Overture" and "The Greatest Story Never Ends". There are also new segues between some songs, such as "The Sun Comes Up Today" coming in at the fade-out of "The World We Used To Know". And as mentioned just above, the TBOL version of "Love Made A Way (Prelude)" is used between TSCUT and "Owl Howl". And the final track features the timpani extended ending from TBOL but uses the bulk of the song from Forevermore.

I haven't gone through all 3 versions enough to pick out any other differences, especially with regards to mix and arrangements, but as far as I can tell, most of the music/songs come from Forevermore, except "Reaching For The Sky", "Take Now My Soul", "Love Made A Way (Prelude)", and "Can You Feel It", which are, for the most part, lifted straight from TBOL.

-Marc.

[HOF]

Refresh my memory, but is there any noticeable difference between the tracks on the Ultimate Version and the tracks on TBOL and Forevermore? In other words, can one just recreate the running order on the Ultimate Version from individual tracks from the other two?

Not exactly, you'd have to do a bit of splicing between the versions. Check out my post above that shows how the Ultimate Mix takes parts of Forevermore and TBOL to make new versions of the "Overture" and "The Greatest Story Never Ends". There are also new segues between some songs, such as "The Sun Comes Up Today" coming in at the fade-out of "The World We Used To Know". And as mentioned just above, the TBOL version of "Love Made A Way (Prelude)" is used between TSCUT and "Owl Howl". And the final track features the timpani extended ending from TBOL but uses the bulk of the song from Forevermore.

I haven't gone through all 3 versions enough to pick out any other differences, especially with regards to mix and arrangements, but as far as I can tell, most of the music/songs come from Forevermore, except "Reaching For The Sky", "Take Now My Soul", "Love Made A Way (Prelude)", and "Can You Feel It", which are, for the most part, lifted straight from TBOL.

-Marc.

Ah, that sounds different enough that you wouldn't want to just make your own then. Don't see this really being something I'd want, but I can understand the gripe about it only being available on BluRay which isn't how most people listen to music. Of course, on the flip side, artists have to find some way to monetize their product, and I don't necessarily begrudge the guys for trying a bunch of ways to stretch the profitability of the release.

[Ben_Jamin]

Glad to hear you got a lot of help and offers for this! I hope you enjoy hearing the Ultimate Mix as much as I have. Mike and Rich really picked out some of the best parts of TBOL to put into Forevermore. My only gripe is one odd transition in the Overture, but other than that, everything flows and segues so seemlessly and perfectly, and the use of "Love Made A Way (Prelude)" from TBOL between "The Sun Comes Up Today" and "Owl Howl" is really great, as the Forevermore transition into "Owl Howl" never really worked for me, but the one on TBOL did. One of the best parts of the Ultimate Mix is still the "complete" version of "The Great Story Never Ends", which has quickly become one of my favorite tracks on the album (with all the unique music for the song now in one version).

-Marc.

That's funny because I never bothered looking at how the Ultimate tracklist is, but when I made my playlist I have it in that same spot because it was the only place I felt it could be placed, since I also wanted all the songs.

Refresh my memory, but is there any noticeable difference between the tracks on the Ultimate Version and the tracks on TBOL and Forevermore? In other words, can one just recreate the running order on the Ultimate Version from individual tracks from the other two?

Not exactly, you'd have to do a bit of splicing between the versions. Check out my post above that shows how the Ultimate Mix takes parts of Forevermore and TBOL to make new versions of the "Overture" and "The Greatest Story Never Ends". There are also new segues between some songs, such as "The Sun Comes Up Today" coming in at the fade-out of "The World We Used To Know". And as mentioned just above, the TBOL version of "Love Made A Way (Prelude)" is used between TSCUT and "Owl Howl". And the final track features the timpani extended ending from TBOL but uses the bulk of the song from Forevermore.

I haven't gone through all 3 versions enough to pick out any other differences, especially with regards to mix and arrangements, but as far as I can tell, most of the music/songs come from Forevermore, except "Reaching For The Sky", "Take Now My Soul", "Love Made A Way (Prelude)", and "Can You Feel It", which are, for the most part, lifted straight from TBOL.

-Marc.

Ah, that sounds different enough that you wouldn't want to just make your own then. Don't see this really being something I'd want, but I can understand the gripe about it only being available on BluRay which isn't how most people listen to music. Of course, on the flip side, artists have to find some way to monetize their product, and I don't necessarily begrudge the guys for trying a bunch of ways to stretch the profitability of the release.

Even though we have an Ultimate version. There are still things I prefer from both The Breath Of Life and Forevermore that MP most likely didn't capture on his version. Like I would put both of the chorus lyrics to Swing High, Swing Low and Take Now My Soul. That's the main one I really would like different though, without hearing The Ultimate Version.

I actually like how we can, if we want, choose to make an alternate version with the songs we like from both versions. It's fun. Where I do have a concern is when they play it live, not for me, but for those that do only prefer TBOL or Forevermore versions, and then they play the other version rather the one you enjoy. And it'll be funny to see the people sing the wrong lyrics, when they play the other version instead. It'd be hard to tell live unless you are really paying attention. 

[kirksnosehair]

I've been trying to think of another band who has done something like this with the multiple versions of the "same" album and I'm coming up empty.


Has this ever been done like this before?