Dark Matter (song)

[oneway23]

The DotC thread, to date, only has 149 pages. It is a better song than this one and it isn't even close. We're already at 146 pages for Dark Matter. Gross.

If we welded the off-topic discussion from this thread onto the one for DotC, it would put that one at well over 250.
Just imagine it there, instead

[stip]

Thought/question - would some of the compression/loudness choices in the recording possibly be a reflection of band hearing loss? The worse the state of your ears the more you would need this kind of mastering, right? Or do I have that backwards?

[Strat]

Thought/question - would some of the compression/loudness choices in the recording possibly be a reflection of band hearing loss? The worse the state of your ears the more you would need this kind of mastering, right? Or do I have that backwards?

Possibly but it's most likely the producers (watt) method.

Pearl Jam has always kind of just let the producers they choose do their thing. Does not seem that they have a huge hand in the final production choices. This is clearly watts thing.

[oneway23]

Thought/question - would some of the compression/loudness choices in the recording possibly be a reflection of band hearing loss? The worse the state of your ears the more you would need this kind of mastering, right? Or do I have that backwards?

Good question, stip. Truth be told, that would likely all fall on the shoulders of some combination of the producer, mixing engineer, and/or mastering engineer.
I don't know what kind of situation PJ is in specifically, but, in many cases, the band is really uninterested or not engaged with that end of the process, believe it or not.

It might come down to a conversation between the label and mastering engineer, and, many times, the band wouldn't even factor in.

In certain cases, the engineer may present the band with a few different options, and nine times out of ten, they don't even know what they're hearing or why. Louder, better, good, do that! LOL


When Guns n' Roses "Chinese Democracy" finally came out, I remember Bob Ludwig saying he presented Axl Rose with three finished masters, and he was relieved when Axl insisted on the most dynamic one.

Most bands, however, aren't that lucky. Unless you're a control freak like Corgan, who will breathe over everyone's neck, most musicians honestly couldn't care any less about the fidelity of the finished product.
The mind boggles that anyone would spend months of sweat equity making a record and then check out near the end, but, it happens so often, you wouldn't believe it.

One more thing: when that whole sound quality thing went down in 2008 with Metallica & Death Magnetic, they weren't even in the country when it was being mastered.
I spoke to the mastering engineer and he told me the tapes came in that way. The producer baked all of the peak limiting and audio distortion into the mix because they recorded hot.
Didn't really have much recourse.

In any case, most musicians aren't audiophiles. People like Steven Wilson and Henry Rollins are exceedingly rare exceptions.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Ms Harmless]

the idea that the finished product might also be a surprise to the band (somewatt) possibly lends credence to the "our best work" comments, if part of watt's behind comments like those is relief that the record doesn't sound like shit (in b4 someone here says "but it does!!!!!")

[stip]

Great discussion points all, and really glad to see other people weighing on this with some measure of care.

Trolling behavior aside, these technical choices undercut the relatively strong composition in a couple big ways:

1. It detracts significantly from the core strength of the band, e.g. their ability to deliver a sense of organic power and emotion in their playing.

2. Whether it's characterized as "ear fatigue" or "pain," they both serve to disincentivize repeated listens.

And I'm all for a very "produced" sound, when it's done well. There's just not one thing about this mix/master that I would call flattering or compelling.

This is where you lose me. I can hear the produced critique. It does sound very much like a band recorded a song, rather than a band in a room. But I don't hear how that undercuts the emotion, or even make the song feel less organic (it does feel less 'live, I suppose, but that seems like it's something similar). It still sounds authentic and collaborative to me. I don't hear the songs stripped of emotion in a way that happens sometimes on, say, Lightning Bolt, where I can push past that by filling in some gaps and scuffing some surfaces in my head.

I also just don't physically experience the ear fatigue. But that might be a reflection of my own worsening hearing.

[Jaeti]

Ha, Chinese Democracy makes an appearance. I love that album.

[oneway23]

Great discussion points all, and really glad to see other people weighing on this with some measure of care.

Trolling behavior aside, these technical choices undercut the relatively strong composition in a couple big ways:

1. It detracts significantly from the core strength of the band, e.g. their ability to deliver a sense of organic power and emotion in their playing.

2. Whether it's characterized as "ear fatigue" or "pain," they both serve to disincentivize repeated listens.

And I'm all for a very "produced" sound, when it's done well. There's just not one thing about this mix/master that I would call flattering or compelling.

These are critical points, Trag..

1. I agree, wholeheartedly with the first point that the finished song betrays the idea that they were "eye to eye" in a room, jamming it out. I still believe, however, that the songs themselves, at least from a compositional standpoint, will greatly benefit from this approach. I know it won't mean squat if it's a tough listen, but, I'm hopeful the dolby release will provide a better experience.

2. Speaking for myself, for the most egregious "offenders" with regard to low dynamic range recordings, I find that I need a mental break every 15 to 20 minutes. Having the "lowest lows" and "highest highs" at the same level is not healthy.

One last thing before I bore you fuckers to death...REALLY important here (I see your post above, stip) to distinguish between creative production choices when recording/mixing and the overall production of the album.
I see a lot of conflating of that issue. I'm cool with whatever the band wants to do from a creative standpoint when it comes to how they track (recording the actual parts), how they mic their gear, what creative choices they make on effects when mixing, etc....Those are CREATIVE options.

When I talk about production issues, my bug bear is more with the actual mechanics of how the finished product is produced...Did the mixing engineer leave headroom for dynamics, or was every level pegging "in the red" as you're tracking the band? Do you have a compressor pumping away on every track and then also have the master compressor bus output on the mixing desk maxed out?

If so, you're already screwed. No matter how badass your record is, if the levels are maxed out, the top of your waveforms WILL be shaved down, and it will have a negative audio penalty. There's no way around it. There's pretty much not a damn thing the mastering engineer can do if they get a fully mixed record like this, like I mentioned in my Metallica example before. That's WTF happened to Avocado, y'all. Shit was a funeral in my apartment that day.

[Ms Harmless]

I love that we're at "you must be losing your hearing" now

[dad]

I'm with ruddo in that I can't believe we're pushing 150 pages to this thread when there are far better songs with....5 or 6 pages a piece.

yikes.

[Ms Harmless]

"There's pretty much not a damn thing the mastering engineer can do if they get a fully mixed record like this."

I think that's a good summation of the issue, which distils what the problems are and eliminates what the problems aren't

[oneway23]

I love that we're at "you must be losing your hearing" now

Most musicians are, by and large, generally deaf creatures. I love Neil Young, but, I do donuts around my apartment and stab my eardrums with pencils whenever I hear him talk about audio.
Neil, you've been deaf since '74...don't lecture anyone about fidelity...stick to the twiddly-twiddly and strum und drang.

He did make a damn fine audio player, though!

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Kevin Davis]

I'm with ruddo in that I can't believe we're pushing 150 pages to this thread when there are far better songs with....5 or 6 pages a piece.

yikes.

I think it makes perfect sense that a song with some discernible strengths and discernible weaknesses, that stirs up some internal conflict in listeners as they grapple with how to reconcile what they like about the song with what they don't, which then goes up against other people doing the same thing, would lead to more dialogue than a song where there is a clearer consensus on quality.

I think "Dance" was probably the closest I've ever come to experiencing "consensus" in the PJ community in almost 30 years of being a fan (at least in regards to a newly released song). Pretty much everyone agreed it was great. Reactions to this song have been much more varied, which has generated more discussion. This doesn't seem surprising at all to me.

[Val]

I'm with ruddo in that I can't believe we're pushing 150 pages to this thread when there are far better songs with....5 or 6 pages a piece.

yikes.

I think it makes perfect sense that a song with some discernible strengths and discernible weaknesses, that stirs up some internal conflict in listeners as they grapple with how to reconcile what they like about the song with what they don't, which then goes up against other people doing the same thing, would lead to more dialogue than a song where there is a clearer consensus on quality.

I think "Dance" was probably the closest I've ever come to experiencing "consensus" in the PJ community in almost 30 years of being a fan (at least in regards to a newly released song). Pretty much everyone agreed it was great. Reactions to this song have been much more varied, which has generated more discussion. This doesn't seem surprising at all to me.

What’s surprising to me is I would presume that DOTC to be the more polarizing song.
I guess that’s why we aren’t supposed to presume.

[digster]

This goes for Gigaton in general, but there was some crazy shit going on in the world at large in the weeks after they dropped DOTC that might have deflated interest in Pearl Jam, or all music for that matter.

[Kevin Davis]

Great discussion points all, and really glad to see other people weighing on this with some measure of care.

Trolling behavior aside, these technical choices undercut the relatively strong composition in a couple big ways:

1. It detracts significantly from the core strength of the band, e.g. their ability to deliver a sense of organic power and emotion in their playing.

2. Whether it's characterized as "ear fatigue" or "pain," they both serve to disincentivize repeated listens.

And I'm all for a very "produced" sound, when it's done well. There's just not one thing about this mix/master that I would call flattering or compelling.

This is where you lose me. I can hear the produced critique. It does sound very much like a band recorded a song, rather than a band in a room. But I don't hear how that undercuts the emotion, or even make the song feel less organic (it does feel less 'live, I suppose, but that seems like it's something similar). It still sounds authentic and collaborative to me. I don't hear the songs stripped of emotion in a way that happens sometimes on, say, Lightning Bolt, where I can push past that by filling in some gaps and scuffing some surfaces in my head.

I think this is truer for singers than it is for instrumentalists. It’s really difficult for any kind of production to completely stamp the humanity out of a singer’s voice — even in songs like “Sample and Hold” by Neil Young and “Kid A” by Radiohead, where the voices are essentially manipulated to sound like robots, the human emotion comes through clear as day (these are much different production choices than what is happening on “Dark Matter,” but the same premise is true — it’s hard for production to truly dehumanize a voice).

Musical instruments aren’t as resilient. One note from Eddie Vedder’s voice has a lot more inherent, discernible uniqueness in it than one snare hit from Matt Cameron, despite the fact that Matt very much has a style of his own. But when you start applying layers of artifice to a drum track, the loss of individuality comes quicker than it does with a voice. Keith Richards has one of the most identifiable guitar tones in rock music, and there are parts on the new Stones record where that individuality is really, really sanded down; he sounds like could be anyone on some of those songs. So yeah, “Dark Matter” definitely sounds like a band of humans; I would not hear it and assume it was a singer singing over machines. But does it sound like uniquely like these five musicians? I think you could argue that it doesn’t necessarily — it definitely sounds like Eddie and some other people, and I guess you could argue that on some level you can hear “five guys in a room.” I’m just not sure I hear these five guys in a room. In my opinion, that’s a loss.

[stip]

This goes for Gigaton in general, but there was some crazy shit going on in the world at large in the weeks after they dropped DOTC that might have deflated interest in Pearl Jam, or all music for that matter.

Name 2 things!

[Strat]

Great discussion points all, and really glad to see other people weighing on this with some measure of care.

Trolling behavior aside, these technical choices undercut the relatively strong composition in a couple big ways:

1. It detracts significantly from the core strength of the band, e.g. their ability to deliver a sense of organic power and emotion in their playing.

2. Whether it's characterized as "ear fatigue" or "pain," they both serve to disincentivize repeated listens.

And I'm all for a very "produced" sound, when it's done well. There's just not one thing about this mix/master that I would call flattering or compelling.

This is where you lose me. I can hear the produced critique. It does sound very much like a band recorded a song, rather than a band in a room. But I don't hear how that undercuts the emotion, or even make the song feel less organic (it does feel less 'live, I suppose, but that seems like it's something similar). It still sounds authentic and collaborative to me. I don't hear the songs stripped of emotion in a way that happens sometimes on, say, Lightning Bolt, where I can push past that by filling in some gaps and scuffing some surfaces in my head.

I think this is truer for singers than it is for instrumentalists. It’s really difficult for any kind of production to completely stamp the humanity out of a singer’s voice — even in songs like “Sample and Hold” by Neil Young and “Kid A” by Radiohead, where the voices are essentially manipulated to sound like robots, the human emotion comes through clear as day (these are much different production choices than what is happening on “Dark Matter,” but the same premise is true — it’s hard for production to truly dehumanize a voice).

Musical instruments aren’t as resilient. One note from Eddie Vedder’s voice has a lot more inherent, discernible uniqueness in it than one snare hit from Matt Cameron, despite the fact that Matt very much has a style of his own. But when you start applying layers of artifice to a drum track, the loss of individuality comes quicker than it does with a voice. Keith Richards has one of the most identifiable guitar tones in rock music, and there are parts on the new Stones record where that individuality is really, really sanded down; he sounds like could be anyone on some of those songs. So yeah, “Dark Matter” definitely sounds like a band of humans; I would not hear it and assume it was a singer singing over machines. But does it sound like uniquely like these five musicians? I think you could argue that it doesn’t necessarily — it definitely sounds like Eddie and some other people, and I guess you could argue that on some level you can hear “five guys in a room.” I’m just not sure I hear these five guys in a room. In my opinion, that’s a loss.

What sucks is, the actual take of the song sounds like the band really really playing off eachother and grooving together. Its just the production strips enough of that way for the finished product.