DT in the studio again!

[theseoafs]

    YES MANGINI ALL OVER ME

[JayOctavarium]

[DebraKadabra]

Oh HELL yes.

[cramx3]

Blame DT not coming up with updates for the derailing of this thread

Oh boy I wonder what DT are up to right now.

    

So glad I stumbled into this thread today

[Orbert]

We need a NSFW warning on that shit or something.  People see that, they wonder WTF kind of sites I visit these days.

[Cedar redaC]

New interview on the Homepage...

When people hear the drumming on this album, they’re gonna be pretty freaked out. Mangini is an animal.

  

That's what we like to hear.

[Orbert]

[DebraKadabra]

 

[Onno]

I feel really tempted now to change my avatar back to my very first avatar on this forum, which was...



In honour of MM 

[King Postwhore]

Amen Bob!

[DebraKadabra]

I feel really tempted now to change my avatar back to my very first avatar on this forum, which was...



In honour of MM 

Do it!

[Implode]

Clockwork Angels isn't exactly muddy, but it does have that dense, compressed sound that seems to be so popular these days.  You can hear most of the instruments well enough, but it still feels like there's no room for anything to breathe.

It really hit me how blah it sounded when I realized that the soft parts and the loud parts were exactly the same volume. It lacks dynamics.

[Orbert]

Yep.  A victim of the volume wars.

[TAC]

New interview on the Homepage...

When people hear the drumming on this album, they’re gonna be pretty freaked out. Mangini is an animal.

  

Here's the link:
https://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/news/dream-theater-john-jordan-20130129/?cmpid=20130129/dream-theater/facebook/news-link/john-jordan&utm_source=roadrunner&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=dream-theater-john-jordan-01292013

[Groundhog]

It's cool that they have Richard Chycki with them, but ultimately it doesn't really matter who they get to engineer, mix and master if they don't drop the loudness trend. It can sound better, but it won't sound great if the new album is as compressed as the previous ones. Andy Wallace has made some great sounding records, but it didn't help that much on ADTOE. It is not about the know how. It is about the attitude. And the decision about the final loudness levels might not be solely up to the band either. The label may have their say in that too. Though with DT I doubt that.

From what I've heard from Richard Chycki and Jens Bogren (EoP, Static Impulse, Watershed, Ghost Reveries, Night is the new day, Deconstruction), most of them are better than the competition. I like how good those guys can make a loud/compressed album sound. But those albums are still limited in sound quality because of the lack of dynamic range. Deconstruction for example sounds quite bad IMO.

If they had Steven Wilson on board then I'd be more optimistic about the sound quality. He has quite a good track record with dynamic albums.

Also just happened to come across this video and it has some comments from known producers about loudness war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qUcgg2vMX_s

[Kotowboy]

I thought Death Magnetic was the turning point. No album has come close to sounding that bad since then that i've heard.

The Blackening was also pretty horrendous and World Painted Blood but since then I think albums are slowly getting more dynamic.

I love how Uno! & Tre! sound. They're not metal albums but they're really clear and not clippy unlike 21st Century Breakdown which distorted like buggery in the really loud parts - most notably on East Jesus Nowhere in the " Beautiful People " muted section.

[PetFish]

That's an interesting Youtube clip.

What I don't understand is how a band like Dream Theater with the ears and training and skills they have and making the music they make can allow the Loudness War to determine how their music is finally released.  Also, many of the listeners of this type of music are musicians and audiophiles and aren't stupid yet we're given sonic-ly dumbed-down remedial-listening recordings.

Nobody listens to Miley Cyrus or Nickelback for the amazing soundscapes and musical nuances, so no big deal.  But any music that is similar in scope to what Dream Theater does should absolutely never be loud just cuz that's what pop stars do.

RoadRunner didn't sign DT to make them zillions of dollars on the pop chart so why can't DT give the finger to the Loudness War and do what's right for the music they make?  It's like the elephant in the room, everyone knows about it but nobody does anything about it, like lip-syncing.

[TL]

With ADTOE (which was less compressed than BC&SL, which was less compressed than SC), I think it was less giving in to the loudness war, and more just not really thinking of that when going into the mixing/mastering process.
That said, it is a bit frustrating that a band like DT don't place more importance on dynamic mixing and mastering.

With Clockwork Angels, Geddy straight up said in an interview that they 'compromised' on the sound quality, which is frustrating, because there's no way a band like Rush would need to compromise on something like that, and they seem very aware of the dangers of overcompression post-Vapor Trails.

[millahh]

I think you overestimate how much control the artist has...Rush has intimated that they had no say in, and were displeased with, the degree of compression/"loudness" on CA.  They basically said it was out of their control.
(this was in response to PetFish)

[theanalogkid7]

I think you overestimate how much control the artist has...Rush has intimated that they had no say in, and were displeased with, the degree of compression/"loudness" on CA.  They basically said it was out of their control.
(this was in response to PetFish)

I hope at least they could specify who they want to master their albums.  The mastering engineer on the last two albums has been someone named Brian "Big Bass" Gardner.  Honestly, if you're a MASTERING ENGINEER and your nickname is BIG BASS then you're doing your job wrong (or right I guess, since that's what the industry wants now).

[tartarus250]

Why can they not release several versions for playing on differing equipment ?

[BlobVanDam]

Why can they not release several versions for playing on differing equipment ?

Because it would cost them more money to create separate masters of the album.

[darkshade]

Back to Dream Theater........

I feel like now he’s just Mike Mangini unleashed.

 

[ResultsMayVary]

I hope MM doesn't get to the point where he pulls a Petrucci and people die from the fact he was unleashed.

[tartarus250]

Why can they not release several versions for playing on differing equipment ?

Because it would cost them more money to create separate masters of the album.

i am sure it would be worth it in the long run I would gladly pay a bit more for a fuller sounding album to play on my good sterio :-)

[BlobVanDam]

Why can they not release several versions for playing on differing equipment ?

Because it would cost them more money to create separate masters of the album.

i am sure it would be worth it in the long run I would gladly pay a bit more for a fuller sounding album to play on my good sterio :-)

Oh I would too, but audiophiles etc are a tiny minority, so it probably wouldn't be financially viable to them, at least not enough for them to care to do it.

[King Postwhore]

We live in the ear bud generation.  Audiophiles nuts are such a small minority these days.  I'm with you though.

[Kotowboy]

I use decent in-ear headphones for my music when i'm out and about simply for convenience.

Indoors I use my speakers.

Fortunately I was bought up by a guy who made his own speakers and always had top of the range systems.

The worst offenders are people who listen to music using their mobile SPEAKERS :/

[Cedar redaC]

Earbuds for the Gym

Nicer Over-ear headphones or my Laptop's built in JBL speakers at home

Car Speakers for the road

Cell phone speakers are ridiculous, but they can work in a pinch. If I'm snowboarding, I've had a enjoyable time just turning on some music and putting my phone in my jacket's chest pocket.

[Kotowboy]

The only time I ever use the iPhone speaker is when i'm in the shower and wanna listen to music whilst i'm in there...

I put it on the shelf and position it to get the least amount of treble as possible


The shelf is outside the shower I might add

[me7]

We live in the ear bud generation.  Audiophiles nuts are such a small minority these days.  I'm with you though.

Don't underestimate good in-ears. I even prefer lying in my bed with my in-ears over sitting in front of my speakers.

[Groundhog]

Why can they not release several versions for playing on differing equipment ?

Because it would cost them more money to create separate masters of the album.

But would it really? I mean from what I've gathered mastering engineers usually make couple of versions for the band to choose in the first place. Bob Ludwig for example had 3 versions for Axel Rose to choose for Chinese Democracy. Isn't that part of the service? Or am I totally lost here?

We live in the ear bud generation.  Audiophiles nuts are such a small minority these days.  I'm with you though.

Don't underestimate good in-ears. I even prefer lying in my bed with my in-ears over sitting in front of my speakers.

To put it simply: crappy sounding album + crappy in-ears = crappy sound. Good sounding album + crappy in-ears = better sound than the first combination. It's just a myth that overcompressed loud albums sound better on cheap in-ears.

[King Postwhore]

We live in the ear bud generation.  Audiophiles nuts are such a small minority these days.  I'm with you though.

Don't underestimate good in-ears. I even prefer lying in my bed with my in-ears over sitting in front of my speakers.

I'm just using that earphones don't allow the airieness (no such word but it works) of listening to a stereo.  I have noise canceling earphones that I love but we know compression is made for I-pods and cars these days.  And lets be honest.  That's 85% of how I listen to music these days.

[Kotowboy]

When i'm at home - i either listen to music on my decent studio monitors or my decent studio headphones if it's late...

Out and about I don't really give a crap about quality since it's primarily for entertainment whilst i'm on a walk.

But I hate the iPod earbuds and always get a good pair from HMV that aren't very expensive but give you loads of bass and they have those cushion-y things on

Plus I import CDs into my iTunes as 320kbps as well.

[TL]

With the mastering on Clockwork Angels, I don't really buy that the band had little to no say. Considering their audience, and the point they're at in their careers, their label forcing them to have a more compressed mix just doesn't seem like something that would happen. More likely, whoever they were working with suggested mixing it the way they did (or mixed it that way and presented it to them), and they went along with it.

It was released by Roadrunner. This is the same label that released Storm Corrosion. They seem to let bands and artists on their label do their own thing their own way for the most part.