General Music Chat

I'm not a really big fan of hard rock however; Volbeat new album Seal The Deal & Let's Boogie is a master piece of blended sound and masterful mixing. That album will be a new bench mark in modern sound. Like in the 70's you know who you have on your play list within the first 5 seconds of the song. Its not how great you are as a musician, its about your band putting a "stamp on the Sound"

RG

You nailed it with Volbeat. Never been a huge fan but time passes and they truly have perfected their sound where you can't miss. New album is pretty darn good.

Talbot

I wanna talk music!

So I guess I'll be the dissenting voice. It may be a dismal admission, but I had never heard of Volbeat. So I pulled them up on the web and listened to a couple of tunes--and couldn't really tell the diff between them. I get they are popular--else Vevo wouldn't be handling their vids--and they've obviously put in the work, but... I immediately remembered something Robert Christgau (not that he is any sage) said about Journey: "plodding space bulls#*t."

I know, I know--this sort of music is big w/ the younger set, and maybe I'm just too damn old to appreciate it (I wonder what Bird, Brubeck, Mingus, Fagen, et. al. would say about this?). Or maybe ol' Dad & Sister Elena did one helluva job on me--dunno. I'm just not feelin' it.

But I bet it goes over really well in Tampa...

DP and Jook. Its not the music/genra I'm talking about but the process of "Creating a distinct mix"
The timber on this music is way beyond the crap being produced today. Give it another listen and don't listen to the style of music but the masterful "Perceptual of Audio Quality" or Ambient atmospheric unobtrusive quality.

I could list a couple of albums from the past however that's a different time frame and different unique sounds.

Present topic - Volbeat.

Your take?? Of course we can talk about the Melvins or whatever too.

I've never heard a note of it. Been remixing stuff on Audacity for 4 hours this morning. Taking two similar songs from my SoundCloud feed and making them into one horrible song!

It's just awful!

Yeah, I understood the intent of your post, RG. The mix. BTW- that's a good subject to discuss (more interesting to me than metal music).

Ya think the industry is getting away from the Tchad Blake approach that has been SO dominant in the last 20 years?? This is the approach I have been using but I find it a bit mundane the more I hear it. It's time for audio to go into a different direction.

I wonder if 64-byte technology has something to do w/ this??
Can you post a hyperlink to a prime example of what you're getting @ here??
I listened to there stuff from 2010. Nothing special there. Just a bunch of unison playing.
Bass mixed low and almost non-existent.

The 1979 recording process of the Rickie Lee Jones album was truly artistic in sound.
This is the new Volbeat However, you need the full uncompressed cd to hear the quality.......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv11vZj4Z0g

It is true 64 bit tech has a lot to do with the sound. Just as with albums is took many years to master the process of making the wax master. I am sorry to say that every sound engineer still has not figured out the eq settings for master cd sound. The 64 bit equipment "still today" is not performing the analog to digital conversion correctly.

and lets not forget the digital back to analog conversion is pathetic at best.

Listening to the first one now. It's like Hollywood producers asked central casting to make an amalgam of all the bad nu-metal from the past 2 decades and make the most tepid, non threatening metal pablum possible. The mix sucks too. Sorry.

To contrast, here's the new Melvins tune with 3 bass players and almost no guitar added. Let it fly against the wall. See what sticks. Tchad Blake to the max, jook.

https://youtu.be/DCuB1yAZkKI

Listening to the first one now. It's like Hollywood producers asked central casting to make an amalgam of all the bad nu-metal from the past 2 decades and make the most tepid, non threatening metal pablum possible. The mix sucks too. Sorry.

To contrast, here's the new Melvins tune with 3 bass players and almost no guitar added. Let it fly against the wall. See what sticks. Tchad Blake to the max, jook.

https://youtu.be/DCuB1yAZkKI

Squashed over compressed wall of sound with no ambient character.

as much as it pains me to have to agree with RG (and on TWO matters no less) when he's right, he's right.

though i threw up a little in the back of my throat from the Vol-whatevers music (damn, that is some dumbed down $hit) ....the sound quality of that mix is outstanding. even on youtube. i think a good part of it is due to the fairly wide stereo spread. done well (i.e. not OVERDONE)....stereo spread is quite a large factor in how we perceive a mix.

and i also have to agree that the Melvins tune sounds waaaay overcompressed for my tastes.

and no, DP...i don't think Bird, Brubeck, Fagan, et al would be too pleased w that music (or most of today's swill either for that matter)!