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Author Topic: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread  (Read 519695 times)

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Offline Hanz Gruber

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1610 on: February 03, 2016, 01:12:01 PM »
Quote from: Tomislav95 on February 03, 2016, 12:30:16 PM
Quote from: Another_Won on February 03, 2016, 12:25:30 PM
Quote from: DT_12_Octavarium on February 03, 2016, 11:33:14 AM
I put this album on during lunch today. The entire cafeteria, save for a couple of people, hated it.  :metal
I think this applies here:  https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=44345.0

I believe we've discussed how to properly introduce someone to DT.  These poor people will never be open to listening to DT again :lol
NUGGETZ :P

Yep...a 2 hour rock opera is always the worst way to start when introducing Dream Theater to new people
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Offline thosava

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1611 on: February 03, 2016, 01:30:12 PM »
I have to say i'm very happy about getting a lot of brass sections with TA. I have alsways liked brass sections in music very much, and we get a lot of them here :tup It adds a nice flavor that isn't present in most rock music.
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Offline TheGreatPretender

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1612 on: February 03, 2016, 01:35:49 PM »
Quote from: thosava on February 03, 2016, 01:30:12 PM
I have to say i'm very happy about getting a lot of brass sections with TA. I have alsways liked brass sections in music very much, and we get a lot of them here :tup It adds a nice flavor that isn't present in most rock music.

Actually, listening to this album, with such a balanced mix of rock and symphonic instruments, makes me wish more films added rock instruments to their scores. Lord of the Rings battles would've been so much more intense with some drums and distorted guitars.
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Offline thosava

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1613 on: February 03, 2016, 01:37:20 PM »
I love rock music, but i wouldn't go that far :lol LOTR score is very close to perfect as it is!
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Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1614 on: February 03, 2016, 01:37:43 PM »
Quote from: Kotowboy on February 03, 2016, 12:53:00 PM
And MP fapping at the chamber door.
*shudders*
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Offline TheGreatPretender

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1615 on: February 03, 2016, 01:39:46 PM »
Quote from: thosava on February 03, 2016, 01:37:20 PM
I love rock music, but i wouldn't go that far :lol LOTR score is very close to perfect as it is!

Well, okay then, I'm not familiar enough with LOTR scores specifically, it was just an example. But in general, I don't think film scores need to restrain themselves to only using classical instruments, even when they're taking place in medieval or medieval-like fantasy settings.
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Offline thosava

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1616 on: February 03, 2016, 01:41:56 PM »
Quote from: TheGreatPretender on February 03, 2016, 01:39:46 PM
Quote from: thosava on February 03, 2016, 01:37:20 PM
I love rock music, but i wouldn't go that far :lol LOTR score is very close to perfect as it is!

Well, okay then, I'm not familiar enough with LOTR scores specifically, it was just an example. But in general, I don't think film scores need to restrain themselves to only using classical instruments, even when they're taking place in medieval or medieval-like fantasy settings.

Yeah i think a lot of them would benefit from some rock/metal.
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Offline Kotowboy

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1617 on: February 03, 2016, 01:47:41 PM »
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Offline rumborak

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1618 on: February 03, 2016, 02:04:25 PM »
I do wonder, but obviously we will never know, how aware MP is of DT's stuff. I mean, if I can judge him somewhat reasonably, he would die to be involved in a project like TA.
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Offline Kotowboy

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1619 on: February 03, 2016, 02:06:50 PM »
Isn't every Translatlantic album a 2 hour double concept album anyway ? :lol

TA / TA :neverusethis:
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Offline rumborak

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1620 on: February 03, 2016, 02:07:33 PM »
FUGGETZ!!
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Offline mikemangioy

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1621 on: February 03, 2016, 02:17:27 PM »
Okay this album suddenly started to click. The first half of Act 2 is basically flawless.
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Online Mladen

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1622 on: February 03, 2016, 02:26:14 PM »
Quote from: mikemangioy on February 03, 2016, 01:08:40 PM
Oh god the bagpipe moment in The X Aspect is absolutely thrilling... it really shows how Arhys comes to such a dark place after the offer...
Yep, I adore this reprise.  :heart In fact, that entire track is glorious, from the piano intro to the verses themselves, especially the one that begins with "Evangeline, I swore to you..."
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Offline mike099

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1623 on: February 03, 2016, 02:28:16 PM »
Quote from: DT_12_Octavarium on February 03, 2016, 11:33:14 AM
I put this album on during lunch today. The entire cafeteria, save for a couple of people, hated it.  :metal

I immediately thought of a commercial on TV in an office lunchroom featuring the band performing the song 'the final countdown'

I probably would get sent home.
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Offline Peter Mc

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1624 on: February 03, 2016, 02:34:22 PM »
Yeah, I struggled a bit with Act 2 at first, probably just because I'd already got through 80 min worth of music but I now love it, it may even be slightly shading it for me.

Also love that a couple of other people are loving "change" in the line 'Now I can be a voice for change' in the title track. Thought I was the only weirdo who was into that. I think it's just something totally unexpected as that melody had been used so many times already but that one word was sung differently to any other point on the album. It's actually one of my favourite things on the whole album as crazy as that is. Simple things that please simple minds, I suppose.
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Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1625 on: February 03, 2016, 02:35:13 PM »
Quote from: rumborak on February 03, 2016, 02:04:25 PM
I mean, if I can judge him somewhat reasonably, he would die to be involved in a project like TA.
Yes, but I would imagine that "be involved" for him would not mean allowing JP to come up with the entire story himself and letting JP & JR write all of the music.
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Quote from: BlobVanDam on December 11, 2014, 09:19:46 PM
Hef is right on all things. Except for when I disagree with him. In which case he's probably still right.

Offline dparrott

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1626 on: February 03, 2016, 02:41:53 PM »
Just extracted some songs from the CD to wav, it's not brickwalled but still heavily clipped.   :-\
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Offline rumborak

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1627 on: February 03, 2016, 02:42:11 PM »
That is true indeed. It's hard to predict what his influence would have been, but IMO a second pair of eyes on the plot could have been beneficial.
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Offline rab7

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1628 on: February 03, 2016, 02:49:14 PM »
Quote from: dparrott on February 03, 2016, 02:41:53 PM
Just extracted some songs from the CD to wav, it's not brickwalled but still heavily clipped.   :-\

Wouldn't extracting to FLAC or ALAC be even better? Why settle for wav? I'm not exactly an audiophile so I'm not criticizing you, I'm just curious.
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Offline thosava

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1629 on: February 03, 2016, 02:56:05 PM »
Quote from: rab7 on February 03, 2016, 02:49:14 PM
Quote from: dparrott on February 03, 2016, 02:41:53 PM
Just extracted some songs from the CD to wav, it's not brickwalled but still heavily clipped.   :-\

Wouldn't extracting to FLAC or ALAC be even better? Why settle for wav? I'm not exactly an audiophile so I'm not criticizing you, I'm just curious.

Wav is the "best" format there is. It's all the information ripped directly from the CD. There is some debate whether or not Wav is better than other lossless formats, as lossless means absolutely no loss of information. FLAC is compressed, yet lossless. It uses the predictablility of waves to get rid of some unnescesary information. So FLAC and Wav should sound exactley the same, but i have heard some people claim that Wav is better (FLAC coverted back to Wav would be just as good as well).
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Offline rumborak

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1630 on: February 03, 2016, 03:03:12 PM »
People claiming that FLAC is better than WAV drives home the point for me that most of this stuff is confirmation bias.
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Offline thosava

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1631 on: February 03, 2016, 03:06:17 PM »
Quote from: rumborak on February 03, 2016, 03:03:12 PM
People claiming that FLAC is better than WAV drives home the point for me that most of this stuff is confirmation bias.

It's usually the other way around, as Wav contains more (useless) information than FLAC. I'd say that it doesn't matter what lossless format you use, but i would never go back to a lossy format as storage space isn't an issue anymore.
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Offline noxon

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1632 on: February 03, 2016, 03:14:15 PM »
The cool thing about lossless compression to uncompressed comparison is that it's REALLY easy to compare. And here's the thing. It's identical. The bits are 100% identical, after you uncompress the lossless one. Anyone stating otherwise do not know how lossless compression works and what the requirement for it to be called lossless is. The predictability of audio they're talking about is how you can encode certain stuff with a shorter string. It's kinda like we all know that when you type SFAM, you really mean "Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory", we've just used a term to "compress" it, because we save time and space to do so. Digital audio is similar - when there's a lot of repeating patterns in the digital bits, you can say "oh, this is pattern 001001011010100010010010101010110100101101001001010100010, and let's call that Y". Saved a lot of space there!

With regards to clipping:


I don't really see it when i open it in audacity and look at the waveform with clipping on.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1633 on: February 03, 2016, 03:14:19 PM »
Even with lossy formats, the reality is that scientists sat down and figured out what people *do* hear, and what they don't. So, when people tell me they gear the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a WAV, what they tell me is "I have supernatural hearing". That's why I am extremely sceptical.
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Offline noxon

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1634 on: February 03, 2016, 03:19:05 PM »
Oh yeah, I did my master's degree on digital music libraries - and I absolutely agree with that statement.
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Offline Kotowboy

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1635 on: February 03, 2016, 03:37:09 PM »
Are you saying nobody can hear the difference between a 320 kbps MP3 and a CD ?
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Offline noxon

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1636 on: February 03, 2016, 03:57:03 PM »
Most organized listening tests I've seen on A/B'ing 320 vs lossless have averaged out to "statistically insignificant" results. It pretty much averages out to 50/50 in picking the right file - even with just one tester!

Is that to say some people can't hear the difference? No, some people probably has some super-sensitive hearing that can identify that something is "off" in the high range frequencies for instance, but for 95% of us it's all placebo. Expensive placebo, if you buy into the whole audiophile shenanigans ;)
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Online Mladen

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1637 on: February 03, 2016, 04:04:38 PM »
The moment I know I truly became the master of an album is the moment it touches me emotionally on a strong level. I shed a tear at 1:23 of the closing track, the verse where Arhys addresses his brother from the other side, such a touching part of the story. Now I know I can leave the album alone for a few days.  ;D
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Offline dparrott

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1638 on: February 03, 2016, 04:07:41 PM »
Wrong choice of words.  I didn't mean "clipped" as in 0dB, I should have said "squared off"? 
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The very soul of what was once real music is now lost in a digital quagmire of emotionless sonic madness.

Offline thosava

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1639 on: February 03, 2016, 04:11:59 PM »
Is there a mandolin playing at 2:20 in Dystopian Overture as well? Sounds like it.
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Offline Kotowboy

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1640 on: February 03, 2016, 04:33:34 PM »
Have I said this already ?

I think that The Astonishing is really special. Plus it sounds like it carries on where Octavarium leaves off.

It fits in after that album and would have carried on that run of amazing albums from Scenes - Octavarium.

I like to listen to music in the shower and i've been putting on The Astonishing and I want to listen to the whole thing. :)
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Online SwedishGoose

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1641 on: February 03, 2016, 04:36:41 PM »
That IS a long shower.... hope you don't pay for the water  ::)
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Offline Progmetty

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1642 on: February 03, 2016, 04:40:32 PM »
Quote from: Mladen on February 03, 2016, 04:04:38 PM
The moment I know I truly became the master of an album is the moment it touches me emotionally on a strong level. I shed a tear at 1:23 of the closing track, the verse where Arhys addresses his brother from the other side, such a touching part of the story. Now I know I can leave the album alone for a few days.  ;D

I did get emotionally invested in this album as well, it varies a which song it happens but "And Arhys’ fight for hope cost him his very life" gets me every time, such a powerful moment.
Also "Finally I can reveal, how music makes me feel" got me earlier today.
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Offline Kotowboy

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1643 on: February 03, 2016, 04:45:41 PM »
Quote from: SwedishGoose on February 03, 2016, 04:36:41 PM
That IS a long shower.... hope you don't pay for the water  ::)

Hehe. I only get through like 2 or 3 songs.
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Offline Gromit1710

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Re: *Official* The Astonishing discussion thread
« Reply #1644 on: February 03, 2016, 04:48:53 PM »
Quote from: Mladen on February 03, 2016, 04:04:38 PM
The moment I know I truly became the master of an album is the moment it touches me emotionally on a strong level. I shed a tear at 1:23 of the closing track, the verse where Arhys addresses his brother from the other side, such a touching part of the story. Now I know I can leave the album alone for a few days.  ;D
Had this on A Better Life @ 3:44 on my first listen through.

"Evangeline..."

But it was "Our New World" that sank the whole album in for me finally.
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