Dark Matter: Official Album Thread

[Aunt_Claire_Foy]

Niche subset of this Howard Stern post, specifically the Yellow Ledbetter video:

Close-ups of Mike's pedal board. I can identify the MXR flanger, script logo Phase 90, and UniVibe, and Carbon Copy delay (a surprising amount of MXR -- for a guy who could get any hand-built boutique thing in the world, he has a pedal board you could put together at Guitar Center for like $800 plus that big switcher). I also see a Line 6 delay (hard to miss) and a Boss Vibrato. Can't make out what the golden pedal is or the one to the left of that (black with white writing). And obviously a wah though I don't recognize the logo.

I know there used to be a place to talk gear but it seems to have disappeared. Anyone else geek out to this stuff and have insight on the right half of Mike's board?

I was actually quite pleased to the see the carbon copy delay. i thought he had just been utilizing the digital line 6 for so long now. The carbon copy is one of the best/most affordable delay pedals and i absolutely love mine. It seems to be at the top of most players lists for best all around.

I cant pick out what overdrive he is using though.

To my eyes, the beginning of the chain looks like a Mission expression pedal, a barely visible gold pedal (overdrive?) followed by an EHX Stereo Electric Mistress - and then the MXR Flanger, Phase 90, etc.

Mission make (or used to make) a wah but it's purple, so I'm leaning towards it being an expression controller instead, which means Mike could be relying on a digital wah from the switcher/multi-effect.

Mystery gold pedal could be the MXR Custom Badass Modified Overdrive.

Back to the drawing board, it can't be the MXR.

The switch is placed too close to the bottom of the enclosure and, unlike the MXR, there's no text in that spot.

When stone goes over there and hits that, what looks like a mission expression pedal, it certainly sounded like a wah to me......so im confused!

I think that switcher also has effects, so I'm presuming he has it set-up to act like a wah.

His board now stresses me out. Time for a rig rundown!

I was going to say the gold one is the Wampler Tumnus but can't make out the detail design (if any).

[WaitingForBluey]

this should be the cover for the next ten reissue (Andrew's version)

[Revelator]

The guys really sounded fucking great on Stern, almost brought tears to my eyes to see them all finally on the Stern show after all these years. I'm kind of in shock at how good Eddie is sounding; feel like he's concentrating and taking his time WAY more in his delivery. Amazing

[Farmer John]

I’m sure this was answered 100 pages ago, but anyone know who “PO” is? Album dedication.

This was my guess a few pages back (and forgive my phone-posting spelling of "Hawaiian"):

Is “Po” a Hawaiin reference, e.g. Po and 4 Fathers?

https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2023/03/21/ ... e-week-po/

Pō

—Night, darkness, obscurity; the realm of the gods

Someone actually did come up with the answer pages back....i forget though....but its not po and the 4 fathers

I think someone said it's Aubrey "Po" Powell, the graphic designer who did album art for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, etc. Not sure why they dedicated the album to him, though

[Higgs]

This album is seriously pissing me off. It's a good collection of songs, best since at least Avocado imo, but I could see that going back to Yield given some more time. So yeah, a surprisingly good/great album when I really wasn't expecting to get that. But I just can't get past the sound of the thing. It really is like it is coming through wet, soggy cardboard. My ears fatigue so much listening to it.

I was away for work this week and was able to visit with my 23 year old son who now lives back up in Broome, he threw my bluetooth speaker at me one night and told me to put some music on, so, as we are all seeing PJ together in November, I got him to listen to DM. I complained about the production/mixing/sound/whatever to him and his comment was "surely a long time professional act like Pearl Jam would make sure their albums sounded good, wouldn't they?" and I really had no answer for him as I agree with his proposition. I'm just so disappointed in what we actually ended up with.

Bring on the live versions I guess.

[Birds in Hell]

I’m sure this was answered 100 pages ago, but anyone know who “PO” is? Album dedication.

This was my guess a few pages back (and forgive my phone-posting spelling of "Hawaiian"):

Is “Po” a Hawaiin reference, e.g. Po and 4 Fathers?

https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2023/03/21/ ... e-week-po/

Pō

—Night, darkness, obscurity; the realm of the gods

Someone actually did come up with the answer pages back....i forget though....but its not po and the 4 fathers

I think someone said it's Aubrey "Po" Powell, the graphic designer who did album art for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, etc. Not sure why they dedicated the album to him, though

The drawing in the booklet inarguably looks a lot like the object on the cover of Presence, which was designed by Hipgnosis, the design firm Powell co-founded.

The phrase "Dark Matter" was obviously thematically very important to Ed, given it was chosen for both the album and lead single title - the album deals almost exclusively with some pretty grim subject matter.

I think dedicating the album to "night, darkness" seems totally appropriate - at best, it could be intended to be a multi-layered reference.

[Clem Halibut]

Niche subset of this Howard Stern post, specifically the Yellow Ledbetter video:

Close-ups of Mike's pedal board. I can identify the MXR flanger, script logo Phase 90, and UniVibe, and Carbon Copy delay (a surprising amount of MXR -- for a guy who could get any hand-built boutique thing in the world, he has a pedal board you could put together at Guitar Center for like $800 plus that big switcher). I also see a Line 6 delay (hard to miss) and a Boss Vibrato. Can't make out what the golden pedal is or the one to the left of that (black with white writing). And obviously a wah though I don't recognize the logo.

I know there used to be a place to talk gear but it seems to have disappeared. Anyone else geek out to this stuff and have insight on the right half of Mike's board?

I was actually quite pleased to the see the carbon copy delay. i thought he had just been utilizing the digital line 6 for so long now. The carbon copy is one of the best/most affordable delay pedals and i absolutely love mine. It seems to be at the top of most players lists for best all around.

I cant pick out what overdrive he is using though.

To my eyes, the beginning of the chain looks like a Mission expression pedal, a barely visible gold pedal (overdrive?) followed by an EHX Stereo Electric Mistress - and then the MXR Flanger, Phase 90, etc.

Mission make (or used to make) a wah but it's purple, so I'm leaning towards it being an expression controller instead, which means Mike could be relying on a digital wah from the switcher/multi-effect.

Mystery gold pedal could be the MXR Custom Badass Modified Overdrive.

Back to the drawing board, it can't be the MXR.

The switch is placed too close to the bottom of the enclosure and, unlike the MXR, there's no text in that spot.

When stone goes over there and hits that, what looks like a mission expression pedal, it certainly sounded like a wah to me......so im confused!

I think that switcher also has effects, so I'm presuming he has it set-up to act like a wah.

His board now stresses me out. Time for a rig rundown!

I was going to say the gold one is the Wampler Tumnus but can't make out the detail design (if any).

Gold one could be JHS Morning Glory

[brisk]

Can someone explain to me why the album wasn't mixed like the Howard Stern show?? Can actually hear drums and instruments so sharp and clear it's insane.

[Birds in Hell]

Niche subset of this Howard Stern post, specifically the Yellow Ledbetter video:

Close-ups of Mike's pedal board. I can identify the MXR flanger, script logo Phase 90, and UniVibe, and Carbon Copy delay (a surprising amount of MXR -- for a guy who could get any hand-built boutique thing in the world, he has a pedal board you could put together at Guitar Center for like $800 plus that big switcher). I also see a Line 6 delay (hard to miss) and a Boss Vibrato. Can't make out what the golden pedal is or the one to the left of that (black with white writing). And obviously a wah though I don't recognize the logo.

I know there used to be a place to talk gear but it seems to have disappeared. Anyone else geek out to this stuff and have insight on the right half of Mike's board?

I was actually quite pleased to the see the carbon copy delay. i thought he had just been utilizing the digital line 6 for so long now. The carbon copy is one of the best/most affordable delay pedals and i absolutely love mine. It seems to be at the top of most players lists for best all around.

I cant pick out what overdrive he is using though.

To my eyes, the beginning of the chain looks like a Mission expression pedal, a barely visible gold pedal (overdrive?) followed by an EHX Stereo Electric Mistress - and then the MXR Flanger, Phase 90, etc.

Mission make (or used to make) a wah but it's purple, so I'm leaning towards it being an expression controller instead, which means Mike could be relying on a digital wah from the switcher/multi-effect.

Mystery gold pedal could be the MXR Custom Badass Modified Overdrive.

Back to the drawing board, it can't be the MXR.

The switch is placed too close to the bottom of the enclosure and, unlike the MXR, there's no text in that spot.

When stone goes over there and hits that, what looks like a mission expression pedal, it certainly sounded like a wah to me......so im confused!

I think that switcher also has effects, so I'm presuming he has it set-up to act like a wah.

His board now stresses me out. Time for a rig rundown!

I was going to say the gold one is the Wampler Tumnus but can't make out the detail design (if any).

Gold one could be JHS Morning Glory

I think you'd be able to see the LED next to the footswitch if it were.

[washing machine]

"we had our own thing" is my favorite line on this album. This will get bottom paged, but before it does I want to thank you all for coming to my TED talk.

[Higgs]

"we had our own thing" is my favorite line on this album. This will get bottom paged, but before it does I want to thank you all for coming to my TED talk.

I enjoy the "Baby Baby" he let's go in React/Respond and also "Arrested the press, no one knows what happened next!" from Dark Matter.

[zeb]

Can someone explain to me why the album wasn't mixed like the Howard Stern show?? Can actually hear drums and instruments so sharp and clear it's insane.

It's a fair question. Watt, Colton and Ghenea would have to answer that for us.

[sweeper]

Can someone explain to me why the album wasn't mixed like the Howard Stern show?? Can actually hear drums and instruments so sharp and clear it's insane.

It's a fair question. Watt, Colton and Ghenea would have to answer that for us.

And Trag.

[ABNorman]

Hard to believe that on spin [x] I'm still not skipping any track on this.

[stip]

i may not have any song below a 4. this may be the only pj album where id say that (due to the vitalogy non-songs)

[Angus]

I'm not ready to give Scared of Fear / React, Respond / Dark Matter / Running 4 stars.
The other 7 songs are 5 stars though.

[wease]

Niche subset of this Howard Stern post, specifically the Yellow Ledbetter video:

Close-ups of Mike's pedal board. I can identify the MXR flanger, script logo Phase 90, and UniVibe, and Carbon Copy delay (a surprising amount of MXR -- for a guy who could get any hand-built boutique thing in the world, he has a pedal board you could put together at Guitar Center for like $800 plus that big switcher). I also see a Line 6 delay (hard to miss) and a Boss Vibrato. Can't make out what the golden pedal is or the one to the left of that (black with white writing). And obviously a wah though I don't recognize the logo.

I know there used to be a place to talk gear but it seems to have disappeared. Anyone else geek out to this stuff and have insight on the right half of Mike's board?

I was actually quite pleased to the see the carbon copy delay. i thought he had just been utilizing the digital line 6 for so long now. The carbon copy is one of the best/most affordable delay pedals and i absolutely love mine. It seems to be at the top of most players lists for best all around.

I cant pick out what overdrive he is using though.

To my eyes, the beginning of the chain looks like a Mission expression pedal, a barely visible gold pedal (overdrive?) followed by an EHX Stereo Electric Mistress - and then the MXR Flanger, Phase 90, etc.

Mission make (or used to make) a wah but it's purple, so I'm leaning towards it being an expression controller instead, which means Mike could be relying on a digital wah from the switcher/multi-effect.

Mystery gold pedal could be the MXR Custom Badass Modified Overdrive.

Back to the drawing board, it can't be the MXR.

The switch is placed too close to the bottom of the enclosure and, unlike the MXR, there's no text in that spot.

When stone goes over there and hits that, what looks like a mission expression pedal, it certainly sounded like a wah to me......so im confused!

I think that switcher also has effects, so I'm presuming he has it set-up to act like a wah.

His board now stresses me out. Time for a rig rundown!

I was going to say the gold one is the Wampler Tumnus but can't make out the detail design (if any).

Gold one could be JHS Morning Glory

I think you'd be able to see the LED next to the footswitch if it were.

Don’t forget the green Tupperware bowl

[Farmer John]

I was going to ask about that tupperware bowl. What's the deal with that?

[Bi_3]

Still not into "Running", "Something Special" (this album's LTRP), or "Got to Give" (In Hiding, but with cheesy lyrics). The rest are great.

[hlniv]

This album is seriously pissing me off. It's a good collection of songs, best since at least Avocado imo, but I could see that going back to Yield given some more time. So yeah, a surprisingly good/great album when I really wasn't expecting to get that. But I just can't get past the sound of the thing. It really is like it is coming through wet, soggy cardboard. My ears fatigue so much listening to it.

I was away for work this week and was able to visit with my 23 year old son who now lives back up in Broome, he threw my bluetooth speaker at me one night and told me to put some music on, so, as we are all seeing PJ together in November, I got him to listen to DM. I complained about the production/mixing/sound/whatever to him and his comment was "surely a long time professional act like Pearl Jam would make sure their albums sounded good, wouldn't they?" and I really had no answer for him as I agree with his proposition. I'm just so disappointed in what we actually ended up with.

Bring on the live versions I guess.

It’s like my heart wants to keep playing the album on repeat over and over, but my brain and ears feel so violated every time I finish the album. My immediate reflection on each listen thru is jumbled, like a fog wall across my listening memory. Nothing stands out in retrospect, because all the great songs are being extruded through mashed potatoes