tragabigzanda wrote:Re: Your first comment about the dynamics of No Code -- I've never looked at a wav form, but I'd say there's a very broad dynamic range on that record. Both Sometimes and Off He Goes are very quiet songs followed by blasts of jarring rock. You'd have a tough time talking with a few friends over Sometimes and Off He Goes and still hear the music; those songs demand your attention if you actually wish to hear anything. But of course you could have a conversation over Hail, Hail and Habit, without having to reach for your volume dial. This is a good indication of a record with broad dynamic range: the quiet songs require you to listen, or turn up the volume if there's too much ambient noise in your listening environment; while the loud songs hit you with a force precisely because they stand in contrast to the quieter parts of the album. It's something that's obviously been lost with the last couple releases, and when combined with Matt's playing style and the pushing of Ed's vox to the front of the mix, any sense of subtlety has been completely lost. A song like Come Back or Yellow Moon
should be quieter, should demand that you pay attention, but of course they don't; they come out your speakers at roughly the same volume as the loud songs.
Re: your comment about Jack's drums -- It's difficult to gauge, because No Code really plays like a hodgepodge of different recording techniques and environments. But listen to Hail, Hail and Brain of J, two loud rockers with a similar pallet, and his drums sound very similar to me. There's a slight difference in the sound of his kick and snare, but not much -- Both are fairly dry and up-front. I'd say the actual instruments have maybe changed, and I think there's a bit more room sound to the snare in Brain of J (and possibly it's a different room, at that).
The main difference I hear between those two songs is the volume of the guitars. They are really massive in Hail, Hail, and I wonder if that's what makes the drums sound further away to you? Whereas in Brain of J, I think they are dialed down a small amount to let the drums, and the sense of space
around the drums, take a bit more precedent.
Another thing I really love on those two records is this sort of mid-range fuzziness. There are all sorts of non-scientific terms for the characteristics a particular piece of audio gear may lend to a track, and then there's a lot of science and peeking-under-the-hood that gets done in an attempt to explain those characteristics.
Based on articles I've read about Southern Tracks (where No Code and Yield were mixed), we can assume both albums were mixed on an SSL console. This has a reputation as being very "surgical," meaning that the EQ is so smooth that the engineer can dial all the tracks in to
just the right part of the EQ realm. Yet that's not what I'm hearing -- as I said, I hear this mid-range fuzziness. That sort of sound is sometimes called a "Neve haze," or similar, because it's commonly heard on Neve equipment; other pieces that impart a similar characteristic are Pultecs and Fairchilds. In a nutshell, as a particular realm of EQ starts to get crowded by multiple tracks, you begin to hear a slight buildup of harmonic distortion that many listeners find very pleasing. You can't really get that sound on an SSL, because the EQ circuitry is too clean.
So assuming both albums were mixed on the surgical SSL, I'd wager a lot of the tracks were recorded with Neve mic pres, and/or there is some Neve, Fairchild, or Pultec gear used while mixing in addition to the SSL EQs. A blog post briefly mentions BOB using a Pultec somewhere on Yield:
http://www.swimmingpoolqs.com/jeff-cald ... m-facilit/
Neve equipment is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as Pultec or Fairchild stuff, which can often fetch $30K-$60K for ONE SINGLE CHANNEL of equipment, so you typically see those two used on one track everywhere on an album. They impart such a desirable quality that mix engineers will often find something that is really flattered by the equipment, then make that sound a lynchpin of an album's overall vibe. I wish I could pick out where those units are used on those records (if I had to guess, I'd say the vox and bass). One really great intro to the Fairchild sound is Thurston Moore's vox on the Rather Ripped album. Once I heard that sound, and knew that's what he used, I could never un-hear it.
It's a huge contrast to the last few records which, apart from the lack of dynamic range, sound like they were tracked and mixed on very "fast" gear, like an API or similar. This equipment has very short, clean circuitry, and you never hear any harmonic distortion. It's a characteristic that is sorely lacking on Backspace and Lightning Bolt (while S/T is too squashed, I do think it has some nice harmonic distortion). Compared to No Code and Yield, those records sound downright clinical in their execution -- the playing, recording, mixing, and mastering leaves nothing to the imagination, no little corners to revisit on headphones to hear something new over time.
I'll stop here and let one of the other audio guys chime in.
