Red Mosquito

DDWJMUVW wrote:I'd really love a breakdown of what about the production is too off putting to some here.

Do you not like the effects used (a little bit of fuzz, trem, drum machine )?

Do you think it's difficult to discern instruments from each other? What about the drums is so awful? Btw, you want an awful drum intro and poor choice of guitar tone/overdrive? Grievance. Studio version is absolutely butchered. Letterman version is far superior.

I think DM sounds just fine. It's got a glossy feel to it but so what? I'll take that over the way 1/2 the catalogue was produced any day. PJ has written so many wonderful tracks that underwhelmed on the record due to poor effect/tone/mix of instruments. I think DM gets it right in terms of HEARING all the parts clearly and concisely. I enjoy that, as I did on earthling.

coptheriotact wrote:Just realized I won’t be getting “you are” this tour, it’s been upgraded

Strat wrote:Adding effects to an instrument isn't the problem nor is it the only thing about production choices.

96583UP wrote:

Strat wrote:Adding effects to an instrument isn't the problem nor is it the only thing about production choices.

i def don't think it's a problem

i just hope they execute it well live

if they can, will be a great experience

hearing the 'Arc' , 'Push me, Pull me', and 'You Are' live have all been enjoyable experiences for me ... i thought there were aspects to the live performance that were good / better than the recording

DOTC however was a disappointment

but hopefully they can make the effects on Dark Matter translate live

I remember when I first learned about compression. I learned about Ratio, Threshold, Attack, Release. I understood in my head what the compressor did, but I had no idea what it sounded like or why anyone would use it.

EQ is easy to comprehend. You use it to boost and cut frequencies. More treble. Less bass. Nice.

But compression? It's just not intuitive.

If you feel that way, too, you're not alone. But I'll tell you that compression can become one of your favorite tools, and I'll give you an easy strategy to help you get there faster, but first.

Here's an analogy for helping you understand what compression does. It comes from the land of electric guitars (but don't worry, you don't need to be a guitar player to understand).

I'm a guitar player, and I love the YouTube channel That Pedal Show. Mick (British) and Dan (Australian) talk about all things related to playing electric guitar. Since I'm American, some of their phrases are new to me. And there's one in particular that blew me away.

When they're reviewing a drive pedal or an amplifier, when the signal starts to overdrive (get crunchy), oftentimes they'll say that it's "compressing." They use terms like drive, crunch, and compress interchangeably.

I LOVE that, because it gives us a clue as to what a compressor does.

If I take one of my guitars and plug it into a cranked Marshall amp. What do I get?

More volume, sure, but what happens to the guitar tone itself. It has more sustain. It has a more consistent volume, and it has less dynamic range.

That last one is the biggest piece. When I play through a clean amp, there's a huge amount of headroom. The volume difference between playing softly playing aggressively is huge. When there's a good amount of drive, however, there's not as big of a volume difference between my quiet playing and my aggressive playing.

The signal has been compressed. The quiet bits (including noise) are louder. The louder bits are quieter.

Guitar amps also add distortion. Most compressors don't do that, so the analogy isn't perfect, but it gives you a good idea of why compression is so great.

When I sing into a compressor, it feels like playing a guitar through a cranked amp, because I know if I sing louder, the compressor will "push back," and the result will be a vocal that has a nice, controlled volume.

That's the benefit of compression. It allows you to control dynamic sources, to squish them down to a more manageable volume.

But don't forget about this...

As you add compression to a signal, it's super important that you pay attention to the "Makeup Gain" knob. (Sometimes it's just called "Output.") Since compression starts by turning things down, it's normal to need to turn them back up to "make up" for the loss in volume. The problem is that people tend to turn it up too much.

If you click the bypass button on your compressor, the track volume changes drastically, that's a problem. You need the before and after signals to match. That way you can tell if the changes you're making are helping or hurting the mix.

Otherwise, human nature being what it is, we'll think the louder version sounds better, when in actuality it's just louder.

This is true for almost all plugins. Make sure you don't drastically change the level. You've already worked hard to get a good level balance in your tracks. Use compression to enhance those tracks, but don't let it add craploads of volume, throwing off the whole balance.

You need a system.

Fun fact. That tip I just shared with you? That's a system. It's a way of using compression that makes sure you get good results without harming the mix.

The entire mixing process can be boiled down into a simple, repeatable system.

Most people don't have a mixing process. Their mix sessions are chaotic. They randomly twist knobs, hoping for the best, rarely getting good results.

Strat wrote:This song, and watts production, in general is like.....

Having your head shoved into a toilet and youre just trying to survive for 3.5 minutes instead of being let loose in a forest to discover all these beautiful sounds and sights and smells.....

Theres little breathing room and its exhausting after awhile. Its suffocating.

I think the song fucking rules and im not a total pussy like trag, so i can deal with it but i totally get his issues with it. It feels suffocating. That doesnt mean he doesnt like the tremolo effect on the guitar (which very well could jsut be a pedal utilized on their board).

Its the entire package and the way its presented as a whole. Trag knows better but my assumption is its so fucking heavily compressed and volumes are cranked across the board that its just a bit too much. Its an onslaught which is exciting at first....

RockPusher wrote:Kevin, where were you on the "Avocado would be a substantially better album if its production didn't sound like shit" spectrum?

stip wrote:

Strat wrote:This song, and watts production, in general is like.....

Having your head shoved into a toilet and youre just trying to survive for 3.5 minutes instead of being let loose in a forest to discover all these beautiful sounds and sights and smells.....

Theres little breathing room and its exhausting after awhile. Its suffocating.

I think the song fucking rules and im not a total pussy like trag, so i can deal with it but i totally get his issues with it. It feels suffocating. That doesnt mean he doesnt like the tremolo effect on the guitar (which very well could jsut be a pedal utilized on their board).

Its the entire package and the way its presented as a whole. Trag knows better but my assumption is its so fucking heavily compressed and volumes are cranked across the board that its just a bit too much. Its an onslaught which is exciting at first....

With the caveat that this may persist into songs where it’s not a great choice, that experience fits well with Dark Matter. Similar to how the abrasiveness of ST works well for the initial run of songs but then does the rest of the record a disservice

Kevin Davis wrote:

RockPusher wrote:Kevin, where were you on the "Avocado would be a substantially better album if its production didn't sound like shit" spectrum?

As for the record itself, I think it’s a pretty good baseline capture by Adam Kasper — it sounds pretty live, raw, not a lot of artifice in the sound, good definition of instruments. It’s just mastered too aggressively. That said, it’s the live versions that I go back to more often than not. That tour was just awesome.

tragabigzanda wrote:Thank you Strat.

The compression IS oppressive, but the EQ and drum samples/frequency triggers are what bother me more, in a purely audible, “this hurts my ears and is unpleasant to listen to” sort of way.

Really sad that this bad has spent 30+ years cultivating all sorts of cultural capital, and here we are on the verge of AI takeover of all creative outlets and they pick this moment to sound not like a band but a commercial. THIS should be the time they make a record with T-Bone Burnett, or at least Alan Moulder, but instead the go with the team whose entire career is built on making moderately talented singers hit global sales milestones by use of machines.

Yeah, there are some good moments of human interplay in the song, but if it hurts my ears to listen to it, and doesn’t sound anything like any live band in any room I’ve ever heard before, then why make that choice?

Pearl Jam sucks right now. That doesn’t mean they’ll suck forever. But in this moment they are putting dogshit on the shelf.

Strat wrote:This song, and watts production, in general is like.....

Having your head shoved into a toilet and youre just trying to survive for 3.5 minutes instead of being let loose in a forest to discover all these beautiful sounds and sights and smells.....

Theres little breathing room and its exhausting after awhile. Its suffocating.

I think the song fucking rules and im not a total pussy like trag, so i can deal with it but i totally get his issues with it. It feels suffocating. That doesnt mean he doesnt like the tremolo effect on the guitar (which very well could jsut be a pedal utilized on their board).

Its the entire package and the way its presented as a whole. Trag knows better but my assumption is its so fucking heavily compressed and volumes are cranked across the board that its just a bit too much. Its an onslaught which is exciting at first....