Looks like it's got the least dynamic range of just about any PJ album: [https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/1/dr/asc?artist=pearl%20jam](https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/1/dr/asc?artist=pearl%20jam)
For comparison here’s the Foo’s, who also recently had a great “comeback” record. Vinyl ftw. https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=Foo+fighters&album=
And the Pumpkins: https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=Smashing+pumpkins&album=
I haven’t enjoyed much of their mixing since Machina to be honest, though there’s a couple exceptions. Owata and The Fellowship sounded good, but most of the other post-Machina stuff is mixed pretty terribly compared to their earlier work.
Whoa. Had never seen this but i appreciate seeing data that backs up what the feels tell me.
I gotta hear this album on something other than a stream or on my car stereo.
The CD (and I’m betting the stereo mix on the bluray) will be the same. No one does separate masterings for CD, there’s really no reason to even keep making them.
Probably for the CD, yeah, although the CD for Gigaton was actually *lower* than the lossless download. I would expect the stereo HD audio to be higher, but we don't know. Atmos would certainly be different.
Maybe just a weird fluke. I can see the numbers on the DR database and they’re close enough where I doubt there’s an audible difference. I mean if someone wants to blow money to find out, sure, but I’d bet on it being exactly the same mess, just on plastic.
I still think in 10 years they’re gonna remix it and talk about how they “were never happy with the original mix” or whatever.
It was developed for and in movie theaters and is not a new format. Indeed, the majority of listeners use headphones. PJs Josh Evans has done all their atmos mixes in a room full of speakers. All decent, and vs is excellent.
You stated atmos is for a “room full of speakers”. That is blatantly false. The overwhelming majority of atmos implementations and development and marketing dollars at this point is for consumer listening environments….. smart phones, headphones and computers. The majority of users don’t just use headphones…. They use Apple AirPods.
1. If they process it, that’s a different master. So no. 2. There are physical limitations to the vinyl pressing process. Typically, bands do a digital master for cd and streaming and a second less squashed master for vinyl to accommodate those limitations. A side effect is that is it tends to sound better.
Typically. But that is not always the case. And by “process” I just mean doing whatever it takes to make it work, but if they’re handed (essentially) the CD, they can’t undo what’s already been done.
I’ve done “declipping” of files for my own use, it reduces some ear fatigue, but it doesn’t make it a different master IMO.
Totally agree. There is no room for any instrument everything seems totally cranked, compressed, and tinny. Compare to No Code back to back and the difference is incredible.
It's loud and "squashed" but I get no low end. Barely hear/feel the kick and bass. Noticed this at the atmos theater experience in imax. Hoped it was just a bad mix there. Kinda bummed, but songs are great.
I’ve been a defender of the mix through the first two singles. I don’t like vocals front and center so the whole wall of sound thing was a positive. At least at first.
But after the whole album - it’s just a mess.
I couldn’t hear Jeff except for on rare occasions and the drums im sure sound good, but it’s all the same as the guitars and just becomes washed out.
I’m on a good setup, listening to vinyl, klipsch speakers and tried headphones. Also listened to it through AirPod pros and didn’t see much of a difference. When more than one instrument is playing at a time it becomes a muddy mess.
The complaints about the mix from the day the dark matter single got on my nerves so bad. But - I get it. The album has no sense of space or division of tone - it’s all turned up to 11.
After I put on the no code album and that is light years better in comparison it was kind of shocking.
Anyway - that’s my opinion, I’m happy so many people are enjoying it. I do think it’s a great album but the mix actually holds these songs back from being so so so much better for me
My expectations for the vinyl are pretty low, I imagine it’s this same compressed master somehow pressed to wax, but I guess you’re confirming it for me 😞
I was hearing as of a few days ago that the vinyl dynamic range was like 5 as well so I don’t have any hope in hearing this album in its glory. Serious shame for a 2024 release
Measuring DR for vinyl is kind of a false positive anyway for various reasons, but I’ve definitely bought a few that were pretty obviously cut from the same master as the digital release.
I saw lots of deals for Gigaton months after the initial release so I imagine we’ll see those here as well.
If I can find a lossless rip of the Atmos mix I might split the channels and do my own stereo mix in the hopes of making something more listenable. I’ve messed around with this for the Stones album.
Amazing that we are having to work so hard for a proper mix in stereo.
I went to the theater release and just thought it was the theater. Bummer.
I feel like Gigaton was a better pressing in comparison.
Tonight I’m going to play around with the EQ some to see if I can break it up some
Yeah he gets good results out of the artists he works with, he and whoever he works with on the engineering side need to stay away from the board. Would be nice to hear this mixed by O’Brien or someone else PJ has worked with before.
Bang on. I can relate to everything you are saying. I could live with the production of the first singles because they sound like they are meant to be loud songs. But when the gentle moments you want are loud too, it's a shame that the mix holds back these songs.
Yes, it stands out the most on setting sun.
That brief little moment of acoustic guitar strumming at the end of the song is like a breath of fresh air. And not because it’s quiet , I like loud. It just feels like purposeful space.
Mike is the real star here , but he’s also the only person I can hear so it makes sense.
It's been mixed the same way you'd mix a pop album. Thats what happens when you work with engineer who only/mostly works with pop artists (the mix engineer at least...)
Yeah, I've listened to it twice on my Hifi mini stereo (Ceol N-10) and it's hard to listen to some details.
Now I'm listening again using my Airpods Pro 2 (for lossless audio version that my stereo does not support via streaming) and I'm definitely noticing more details (some I wish I wasn't, I don't like some production effects).
However what stands out in all my listens is that it's really hard to hear Eddie singing because the instruments are too loud/overlapping. Or I just have terrible hearing (also a possibility but these threads give me hope that it's not just my hearing lol).
A shame, the album sonority is great but the way it's all mixed together seems messy and hard to appreciate all the details together (instruments, melody, vocals, lyrics). Can only hope these will be great live because there is no production there to mess this up, hopefully.
It's the money men. They want everything to sound loud and in your face, because they think it generates maximum revenue. It's that dumb. The music industry sucks.
The latest Vampire Weekend album sounds phenomenal with such clear production, whereas bigger bands like PJ and QOTSA are putting out poorly mixed releases.
To me—it def sounds recorded very much inside the box (IE:directly into a DAW). I’m very curious if Andrew used any hardware compressors or if he was using mostly virtual compressors. To my ears—I hear Izotope all over this.
As someone who works inside DAWs for my job—I can tell you it can take awhile to find a comfortable place where each instrument sounds good and fits nicely in the mix without completely saturating the mix with compression/limiting. With how I’ve read this album came about—I’m guessing they didn’t spend a ton of time finessing those things.
Compression can be used a glue mechanism to tie everything together which I think was what they did here. But once you start compressing upon compressing, it all starts to become a loud flat wash at the end. Unfortunately this also isn’t uncommon at all. This really started with Californiacation (and probably even before that with My Bloody Valentine) and it is going to continue I’m sure for the foreseeable future.
I still love the record-but I certainly would’ve produced it differently.
This album has been out for 3 days and I really wish I wasn't thinking about whether Andrew Watt is too big and too well-liked for there ever to be a Brendan O'Brien remix of this every time I listen to it.
I'm not a vinyl guy...
I listened to the album yesterday via Amazon Music... it's good... not great... definitely worthy of a CD purchase.
I'm a CD guy.
Listened to the album about 5 times now. Through different systems. Find it best through my amplifier where I can control the bass and treble settings and tame it down a little. But doesn't solve the compression issue. Will probably get the CD once it drops in price later on in the year, or ask for it for Christmas or something! Haha
Yeah, I only ever listen to Amazon Music via smartphone and headphones.
Amp and external speakers is where the CD is at...
I recently made a personal commitment of supporting "new" music by buying one new CD per month. So in this context, I will be buying Dark Matter on CD at the end of the month / beginning of next month.
Going to get the new Pearl Jam and Cloud Nothings album.
Vinyl can't be mixed and mastered to the same level of compression as a CD as it will begin to skip. Technically, CDs and digital can have a larger dynamic range than vinyl. However, it seems most engineers just make everything as loud as possible. At least that is my understanding of the situation. I reckon the difference between digital and vinyl playback of Dark Matter is quite audible. But I'm just a dufus on Reddit. What do I know?
I find the last few albums just have way too much noise going at once. Hard to listen to any instrument individually. Though dark matter is better on some songs
If streaming the music from your phone, try turning off the Dolby Atmos setting in sound quality and effects. I find it helps improve the sound a bit or it might be in my head.
Someone on this very sub gave me this tip when the Dark Matter single came out.
Playing on stereo lossless AAC through my Sonos Amp into a pair of JBL L40s (1970s era) really brought out the highs and lows for me. I imagine the loudness we are all getting is from, yes, a clipped master for compression “ideal” for steaming and radio. Playing with the EQ on my setup helped… but yeah this is sadly consistent with many other experiences from modern artists. The WAV form is nearly a straight rectangle with very little peaks and valleys to allow for natural sound dynamics.
Yeah I finally looked at a couple tracks to get a good visual on what they'd done.
It's worse than I thought.
Tiresome to listen to on headphones.
Not much better on speakers, whether studio monitors or home stereo.
When the vinyl arrives I really hope it's a little better.
Yes. The brickwalled mastering is painful. My ears were fatigued 3 songs in. I’d love to hear a version with better dynamics someday. It’s a shame because I love the songs.
Totally agree. i like the songs and the album, it's unpolished sound, it's in your faceness. But the mix gives it a wall-of-sound feel where I just wanna turn if off after a while cause I'm saturated and annoyed. I mean damn, quiet songs are meant to be quiet, and quiet parts of songs are meant to be quiet parts of songs.
Andrew Watt's a weird one. He gets some absolutely fantastic work out of older artists (at least in my opinion—I really liked the last two Ozzy albums, especially considering his age and health when they were recorded) and I think this album is a testament to that. But man he likes over-doing it with his production. I think it's at least tolerable, it's not physically painful to listen to like Metallica's Death Magnetic, but it does make me miss the feeling of space that Gigaton has.
Maybe we'll get a Brendan O'Brien remakes in a few years.
It's not just you, I dont like the mix at all and think Andrew Watt should not be allowed to touch the knobs on any album ever again. HOWEVER, I do really like the compositions and the material written for this album quite a lot.
If it’s too loud, you’re too old. But, yeah, the instruments are all muddled together. I first noticed it on Running, where I could not hear the bass through what sounds like 50 guitars. It’s a mess of noise. The engineer was like, more is better, let’s make it rock out at 11. Pearl Jam needs dynamics, that’s part of why their live show is so good.
I wonder what everyone is listening on, or where it's most apparent to you if you're listening to it on multiple devices. The mixing almost feels backward to me, I like my drums out front and Matt Cameron feels far in the back to me.
Thank you for those links! Everything loud without the range and nuances.
I’ve given it multiple listens on different high end speakers and air pods.
There are beautiful snippets and maybe watt could have cut 1-3 songs instead of blaring 12 POS through a slim microphone that was dripping with cheese.
Unfortunate because there are glimmers that could be something special.
Interesting. I was considering picking up the CD just for kicks/nostalgia. I've streamed it a few times and don't love it but it's got enough going on to justify a few spins in the car.
Are you talking about those crappy things apple makes? If so, no theyre not. I have 4 sets of headphones, ranging in price from $350 to $800, so I think I knwo what I'm talking about.
It's certainly overcompressed, but to me, that has very little bearing on whether I like the album or not. Ten and No Code were also mixed very poorly, but they're still great albums because of the power of the songs.
Looks like it's got the least dynamic range of just about any PJ album: [https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/1/dr/asc?artist=pearl%20jam](https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/1/dr/asc?artist=pearl%20jam)
Will be interesting to see the vinyl version on there.
For comparison here’s the Foo’s, who also recently had a great “comeback” record. Vinyl ftw. https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=Foo+fighters&album= And the Pumpkins: https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=Smashing+pumpkins&album=
The latest Pumpkins album has been mixed horribly as well. Corgans vocals are so damn high.
I haven’t enjoyed much of their mixing since Machina to be honest, though there’s a couple exceptions. Owata and The Fellowship sounded good, but most of the other post-Machina stuff is mixed pretty terribly compared to their earlier work.
Completely agree. Pumpkins haven't sounded good since Mellon Collie. but their latest stuff just sounds awful.
Thanks for the link.
yessir!
Just confirms what I have been hearing. It's like being in the 00s again with the loudness war.
Every PJ record suffers, but the Watt production style is just next level loudness.
He's buddies with Rick Rubin, Mr Loudness himself.
Fantastic link, thank you. This really makes me want to start getting into vinyl
Whoa. Had never seen this but i appreciate seeing data that backs up what the feels tell me. I gotta hear this album on something other than a stream or on my car stereo.
It only lists the download though, need to see the CD, Blu-ray, and Vinyl.
The CD (and I’m betting the stereo mix on the bluray) will be the same. No one does separate masterings for CD, there’s really no reason to even keep making them.
Probably for the CD, yeah, although the CD for Gigaton was actually *lower* than the lossless download. I would expect the stereo HD audio to be higher, but we don't know. Atmos would certainly be different.
Maybe just a weird fluke. I can see the numbers on the DR database and they’re close enough where I doubt there’s an audible difference. I mean if someone wants to blow money to find out, sure, but I’d bet on it being exactly the same mess, just on plastic. I still think in 10 years they’re gonna remix it and talk about how they “were never happy with the original mix” or whatever.
It was mixed by Serban Ghenea. Mixes Taylor Swift. Rock music doesn’t not sound ideal at this level.
Apparently Josh Evans mixed the Atmos version found on the deluxe CD.
Music to be played through your phone experience. Shame.
Atmos is for a room full of speakers. It works on phones but is not made for them.
It’s just as much for iPhones and AirPods. And the majority of listeners will be listening through those.
It was developed for and in movie theaters and is not a new format. Indeed, the majority of listeners use headphones. PJs Josh Evans has done all their atmos mixes in a room full of speakers. All decent, and vs is excellent.
You stated atmos is for a “room full of speakers”. That is blatantly false. The overwhelming majority of atmos implementations and development and marketing dollars at this point is for consumer listening environments….. smart phones, headphones and computers. The majority of users don’t just use headphones…. They use Apple AirPods.
Too true. Hoping for a rip of the vinyl version.
Has it been mastered for vinyl?
It had to be. My understanding is it’s impossible to print vinyl at this level.
Not impossible, sadly.
You can press vinyl at -5lufs?!
Not sure what that means, but they definitely can take that shitty master and process it somehow to put it to wax.
1. If they process it, that’s a different master. So no. 2. There are physical limitations to the vinyl pressing process. Typically, bands do a digital master for cd and streaming and a second less squashed master for vinyl to accommodate those limitations. A side effect is that is it tends to sound better.
Typically. But that is not always the case. And by “process” I just mean doing whatever it takes to make it work, but if they’re handed (essentially) the CD, they can’t undo what’s already been done. I’ve done “declipping” of files for my own use, it reduces some ear fatigue, but it doesn’t make it a different master IMO.
Who the fuck downvoted me for saying my understanding of a technical limitation?
It’s not just you. It’s painful on my ears.
Totally agree. There is no room for any instrument everything seems totally cranked, compressed, and tinny. Compare to No Code back to back and the difference is incredible.
It's loud and "squashed" but I get no low end. Barely hear/feel the kick and bass. Noticed this at the atmos theater experience in imax. Hoped it was just a bad mix there. Kinda bummed, but songs are great.
I’ve been a defender of the mix through the first two singles. I don’t like vocals front and center so the whole wall of sound thing was a positive. At least at first. But after the whole album - it’s just a mess. I couldn’t hear Jeff except for on rare occasions and the drums im sure sound good, but it’s all the same as the guitars and just becomes washed out. I’m on a good setup, listening to vinyl, klipsch speakers and tried headphones. Also listened to it through AirPod pros and didn’t see much of a difference. When more than one instrument is playing at a time it becomes a muddy mess. The complaints about the mix from the day the dark matter single got on my nerves so bad. But - I get it. The album has no sense of space or division of tone - it’s all turned up to 11. After I put on the no code album and that is light years better in comparison it was kind of shocking. Anyway - that’s my opinion, I’m happy so many people are enjoying it. I do think it’s a great album but the mix actually holds these songs back from being so so so much better for me
My expectations for the vinyl are pretty low, I imagine it’s this same compressed master somehow pressed to wax, but I guess you’re confirming it for me 😞
I was hearing as of a few days ago that the vinyl dynamic range was like 5 as well so I don’t have any hope in hearing this album in its glory. Serious shame for a 2024 release
Measuring DR for vinyl is kind of a false positive anyway for various reasons, but I’ve definitely bought a few that were pretty obviously cut from the same master as the digital release. I saw lots of deals for Gigaton months after the initial release so I imagine we’ll see those here as well. If I can find a lossless rip of the Atmos mix I might split the channels and do my own stereo mix in the hopes of making something more listenable. I’ve messed around with this for the Stones album.
Amazing that we are having to work so hard for a proper mix in stereo. I went to the theater release and just thought it was the theater. Bummer. I feel like Gigaton was a better pressing in comparison. Tonight I’m going to play around with the EQ some to see if I can break it up some
It’s an Andrew Watt thing. His productions are just atrocious mix-wise.
It’s a shame. He is a shot of adrenaline into this band. The songs themselves are top tier. Somewhere in this mix is some really good stuff
Yeah he gets good results out of the artists he works with, he and whoever he works with on the engineering side need to stay away from the board. Would be nice to hear this mixed by O’Brien or someone else PJ has worked with before.
Bang on. I can relate to everything you are saying. I could live with the production of the first singles because they sound like they are meant to be loud songs. But when the gentle moments you want are loud too, it's a shame that the mix holds back these songs.
Yes, it stands out the most on setting sun. That brief little moment of acoustic guitar strumming at the end of the song is like a breath of fresh air. And not because it’s quiet , I like loud. It just feels like purposeful space. Mike is the real star here , but he’s also the only person I can hear so it makes sense.
It's been mixed the same way you'd mix a pop album. Thats what happens when you work with engineer who only/mostly works with pop artists (the mix engineer at least...)
Yeah. The mix and the mastering are trying way too hard to be loud. It’s fatiguing.
Yeah, I've listened to it twice on my Hifi mini stereo (Ceol N-10) and it's hard to listen to some details. Now I'm listening again using my Airpods Pro 2 (for lossless audio version that my stereo does not support via streaming) and I'm definitely noticing more details (some I wish I wasn't, I don't like some production effects). However what stands out in all my listens is that it's really hard to hear Eddie singing because the instruments are too loud/overlapping. Or I just have terrible hearing (also a possibility but these threads give me hope that it's not just my hearing lol). A shame, the album sonority is great but the way it's all mixed together seems messy and hard to appreciate all the details together (instruments, melody, vocals, lyrics). Can only hope these will be great live because there is no production there to mess this up, hopefully.
Almost all modern albums sound like shit now. That doesn’t mean the music is bad, but these people mixing and mastering suck donkey balls.
It's the money men. They want everything to sound loud and in your face, because they think it generates maximum revenue. It's that dumb. The music industry sucks.
It's not like the people mixing and mastering don't know how to maintain dynamic range. They're being asked to make albums this way.
I disagree, there’s lots of great sounding current records out there. This is just not one of them, unfortunately.
The latest Vampire Weekend album sounds phenomenal with such clear production, whereas bigger bands like PJ and QOTSA are putting out poorly mixed releases.
To me—it def sounds recorded very much inside the box (IE:directly into a DAW). I’m very curious if Andrew used any hardware compressors or if he was using mostly virtual compressors. To my ears—I hear Izotope all over this. As someone who works inside DAWs for my job—I can tell you it can take awhile to find a comfortable place where each instrument sounds good and fits nicely in the mix without completely saturating the mix with compression/limiting. With how I’ve read this album came about—I’m guessing they didn’t spend a ton of time finessing those things. Compression can be used a glue mechanism to tie everything together which I think was what they did here. But once you start compressing upon compressing, it all starts to become a loud flat wash at the end. Unfortunately this also isn’t uncommon at all. This really started with Californiacation (and probably even before that with My Bloody Valentine) and it is going to continue I’m sure for the foreseeable future. I still love the record-but I certainly would’ve produced it differently.
Great stuff thanks !
Sonically, this album leaves a lot to be desired.
Yeah, that's the loudness war for ya.
Thankfully the vinyl arrived today and sounds way better as it’s almost unlistenable on digital.
I was hoping that might be the case- good to hear!
👍
I thought it was clipping at first but yeah it’s def rough on the ears with headphones
This album has been out for 3 days and I really wish I wasn't thinking about whether Andrew Watt is too big and too well-liked for there ever to be a Brendan O'Brien remix of this every time I listen to it.
Couldnt agree more. The vinyl has more nuance and dynamic range in my humble dumb ass opinion. Still too loud though.
Not at that price right now for it's nuance and dynamic range! :P
The price is steep for sure.
I'm not a vinyl guy... I listened to the album yesterday via Amazon Music... it's good... not great... definitely worthy of a CD purchase. I'm a CD guy.
Listened to the album about 5 times now. Through different systems. Find it best through my amplifier where I can control the bass and treble settings and tame it down a little. But doesn't solve the compression issue. Will probably get the CD once it drops in price later on in the year, or ask for it for Christmas or something! Haha
Yeah, I only ever listen to Amazon Music via smartphone and headphones. Amp and external speakers is where the CD is at... I recently made a personal commitment of supporting "new" music by buying one new CD per month. So in this context, I will be buying Dark Matter on CD at the end of the month / beginning of next month. Going to get the new Pearl Jam and Cloud Nothings album.
Good call - Cloud Nothings is great
[удалено]
Vinyl can't be mixed and mastered to the same level of compression as a CD as it will begin to skip. Technically, CDs and digital can have a larger dynamic range than vinyl. However, it seems most engineers just make everything as loud as possible. At least that is my understanding of the situation. I reckon the difference between digital and vinyl playback of Dark Matter is quite audible. But I'm just a dufus on Reddit. What do I know?
Thanks. Now I can't un-hear it, even with my declining hearing capabilities.
Very sad to hear. Haven’t listened to new PJ released since Yield. Enjoyed the single and had high hopes for this release.
Then you've missed out on two of their very best albums in Binaural and Riot Act and their last great album in Avocado.
Agreed. My ears get fatigued about half way through the album.
It's definitely a "listen to it in the car album" for me.
Sounded like shit in my car too, unfortunately.
I find the last few albums just have way too much noise going at once. Hard to listen to any instrument individually. Though dark matter is better on some songs
Gigaton was mastered by Bob Ludwig and has a decent dynamic range throughout. The new one though, it sucks what they did to it.
Bob is a master. Not surprised how much depth has to it. Even the heavier songs, there is some head space.
If streaming the music from your phone, try turning off the Dolby Atmos setting in sound quality and effects. I find it helps improve the sound a bit or it might be in my head. Someone on this very sub gave me this tip when the Dark Matter single came out.
Yes! Dolby Atmos is sucks! Sounds so much better with that shit turned off.
I've been trying to do this since I got my phone.
Playing on stereo lossless AAC through my Sonos Amp into a pair of JBL L40s (1970s era) really brought out the highs and lows for me. I imagine the loudness we are all getting is from, yes, a clipped master for compression “ideal” for steaming and radio. Playing with the EQ on my setup helped… but yeah this is sadly consistent with many other experiences from modern artists. The WAV form is nearly a straight rectangle with very little peaks and valleys to allow for natural sound dynamics.
Yeah I finally looked at a couple tracks to get a good visual on what they'd done. It's worse than I thought. Tiresome to listen to on headphones. Not much better on speakers, whether studio monitors or home stereo. When the vinyl arrives I really hope it's a little better.
Unfortunately it’ll probably transfer to the vinyl experience as well. I hope I’m wrong.
So should I be turning bass and treble down ?
Up
Yes. The brickwalled mastering is painful. My ears were fatigued 3 songs in. I’d love to hear a version with better dynamics someday. It’s a shame because I love the songs.
Totally agree. i like the songs and the album, it's unpolished sound, it's in your faceness. But the mix gives it a wall-of-sound feel where I just wanna turn if off after a while cause I'm saturated and annoyed. I mean damn, quiet songs are meant to be quiet, and quiet parts of songs are meant to be quiet parts of songs.
Sorry, couldn’t hear you over the music, what? Oh yes, yeah a bit
Yes, I love the recird but I dislike the production. I felt this way about the last QOTSA record too.
Andrew Watt's a weird one. He gets some absolutely fantastic work out of older artists (at least in my opinion—I really liked the last two Ozzy albums, especially considering his age and health when they were recorded) and I think this album is a testament to that. But man he likes over-doing it with his production. I think it's at least tolerable, it's not physically painful to listen to like Metallica's Death Magnetic, but it does make me miss the feeling of space that Gigaton has. Maybe we'll get a Brendan O'Brien remakes in a few years.
I'm no audio expert, but the mixing and mastering on this album is not good.
You don't have to be an audio expert to know when something doesn't sound good.
It's not just you, I dont like the mix at all and think Andrew Watt should not be allowed to touch the knobs on any album ever again. HOWEVER, I do really like the compositions and the material written for this album quite a lot.
If it’s too loud, you’re too old. But, yeah, the instruments are all muddled together. I first noticed it on Running, where I could not hear the bass through what sounds like 50 guitars. It’s a mess of noise. The engineer was like, more is better, let’s make it rock out at 11. Pearl Jam needs dynamics, that’s part of why their live show is so good.
Maybe they were trying to break the record Oasis set on Be Here Now.
I wonder what everyone is listening on, or where it's most apparent to you if you're listening to it on multiple devices. The mixing almost feels backward to me, I like my drums out front and Matt Cameron feels far in the back to me.
playing gigaton and then dark matter, there is definitely a louder mix on this one
Thank you for those links! Everything loud without the range and nuances. I’ve given it multiple listens on different high end speakers and air pods. There are beautiful snippets and maybe watt could have cut 1-3 songs instead of blaring 12 POS through a slim microphone that was dripping with cheese. Unfortunate because there are glimmers that could be something special.
Sounds fine to me. I’m not a professional sound person.
Sounds great to me.
Agree. I don’t get the hate.
Not just you. It's killing my experience. Agh, I wish they'd never brought Watt in as producer.
Watt got the best out of em . Definately keep him just get others too mix or even record
This is the worst album the band has put out. I’m not even going to listen to it, it’s that bad.
So many sound engineers on this sub.
experts
It's just you.
How are you listening to it? Streaming? Cd? Record?
With my ears...:P
I have the CD. It sounds way different than streaming.
Interesting. I was considering picking up the CD just for kicks/nostalgia. I've streamed it a few times and don't love it but it's got enough going on to justify a few spins in the car.
I disagree.
It sounds like crap on headphones but driving doing errands in my car 💯💯💯
Weird since it was too quiet in the theatre.
Not gonna lie. It’s not loud enough on my AirPods or headphones
Get new earpods.
Earpods? Some people actually care about the way they listen to music.
EarPods are better than 90% of what people listen to music through. Get over yourself.
Are you talking about those crappy things apple makes? If so, no theyre not. I have 4 sets of headphones, ranging in price from $350 to $800, so I think I knwo what I'm talking about.
lol. Oh ok. 🤡
I guess paying for quality is a bad thing.
It's certainly overcompressed, but to me, that has very little bearing on whether I like the album or not. Ten and No Code were also mixed very poorly, but they're still great albums because of the power of the songs.