Okay, here's my attempts to 'really grok, man' each entry, and I also include a RMS-loudness figure relative to the original mix.
Original Mix- +0
really hot snare and kick, which I figured I might as well preserve though I did wonder whether they're meant to be crushed back down again. I don't want to get too known for that outside of 'science experiments' so I went for a 'preserve the vibe' approach. It does feel dull and lacking in extreme lows.
NoWo- +12.57
Sounds like a giant PA system! I like the fact that there is low bass, and the guitars are snarling. Everything sounds aggressive and metallic, like it was a metal band that was unnacountably playing real wimpy
THP1- +11.89
Really solid. Has a bit of that 'roaring PA' sound, and I'm feeling more guts from the guitars. The cymbals sound nice and sparkly, and there are some bits where the volume seems to surge, with a lot of size behind the sound.
Matt_G- +11.63
Even more solid, in the sense of sounding hard and kickin'- I could imagine AC/DC putting out this kind of sound pressure. Everything pushes really hard at you right down to the quietest bass interlude. Reminds me of some of Charles Dye's stuff! I like it on the drums, and some guitar sounds just come waaaay out at you this way. You have to watch out for it being too exhausting, that's all. If you combined this with openness in other places so things moved more...
Hans- +10.60
This time, the body of the sound is more open, and the reason it's coming in so hot is peaks alone. The drums are hitting extra hard (similarly to Sunny's master) and large-scale dynamics are starting to appear- I like the low-end kick I'm hearing, and the bass guitar has a nice quality, but most of all I like the grand scale of the production.
Mike Bruce- +9.89
Whoa, aggressive from the first drum fill! This is a much smaller scale, but it's all about raging upper-mids. The guitars and even the bass have a live-gig-like snarl, they sound really loud. The drums are superaggressive, not a lot of swing, not even gut punch, more like a slap in the face or a karate chop across the neck. Works good for really big dynamic walls-o-sound hitting. I stop now, it is frightening me
Luke F- +9.59
Feels like it's trying to be true to the feel of the source. Including the way that the highs aren't getting aggressive. However, the body of the music is definitely fuller- it doesn't sound as sparse and empty. The drums sound like they're hitting the limiting/clipping pretty hard- got that smashing scrunching sound some people are asking for, but the body of the music manages to avoid sounding like it's going 'scrunch' except for some of the biggest climaxes. When things are going scrunch, instead of muddying, there's a distort that comes in that sounds as if things are getting louder, which helps put across the idea of dynamics.
Sunny- +9.36
By God, it DOES sound sunny! There's enough bright added to define everything very clearly, plus the style of 'loud' is not so much a roaring mass of loud, it's relatively open with the peaks getting REALLY hot. Sunny's peaks are among the hottest ones this WUMP- it's lack of compression bringing the overall RMS down. The penalty paid by this, as I've learned myself, is that the peaks take on a distorted quality, but you have an easier time making a really BIG sound this way. I do hear some compression pumping, it's just that the drums and such are SUPER hot.
Ged Leitch- +9.15
I always like Ged's masters, and this is no exception. We favor the same type of treble- extremely bright but not sounding like tinfoil- I think Ged's cymbals sound really good, and I feel some deep bass underlying everything which helps to give it size and a grand scale. I like that choice- to me, this stuff sounds good this way. There's enough loud on the guitars and everything, but some of the more abrasive edges are polished off, some of the dullness is brightened up. Sounds like Cinerama-audio, like you should be watching a really big screen.
Alex Ivory- +8.59
Sounds like it wants to be true to the feel of the source, except the drums are hitting harder and bigger. There's an interesting openness to this, like you could reach into it and touch various sounds. They're not coming out at you, but they're still there and you could reach over and touch 'em. i think this has good definition of the various sounds.
Eric Jenson- +8.26
Whee! Sounds like 'Ghost in The Machine'
You're really cutting it bright, Eric. I like the way the cymbal crashes sound that way, though it's a bit fuzzy. Level-matched this actually sounds louder than most tracks simply because treble is easier to hear. Also, there are bits where I hear snare hitting in conjunction with a 'clang' of guitar jangle, and I like the way that sounds. In some ways this serves the song- I 'believe' it more than I do, say, an 'AC/DC' or 'death metal' master. To me, this treatment screams 'POP UBER ALLES!' with the brightness on it, and the song also seems poppy. I do suspect the band would faint, though, if they signed off on the original over-dull mix.
ChrisJ- +7.60
Sucks
Something did cause the image to shift, too. What the heck made it do that? This was all DIY, so it's not like an electrical contact slipped. I have mastered the incorporation of virtual analog _defects_
Cerberus- +7.36
Soul brother! Another master where the dynamic feel is trying to be very exactly like the original. +7 db while still doing that is not shabby. I like the subtle bit of light cast on the cymbals- they really don't change in mix position at all but they sound a bit more real to me. The drums feel a bit more real too, same with the lead vocal- I think you've got something going on here where the sounds seem convincing to me. I don't know exactly why, but it seems very listenable. The big dynamic bursts don't seem to be hitting with the same force as some of the others, even with the available dynamic range, but something about it is convincing.
Trillium Sound- +7.18
Another treble fan I see
as sunny as Sunny. I like the way the low bass really kicks, you've reshaped the kick drum into something quite different but it sounds real poppy. It feels like everything is revolving around the drums which are very fast and sharp. If I was the drummer I'd kinda dig this even if it wasn't my sound, because of how radio-friendly it appears to be. The drums are NOT going to be flattened by radio optimods
UnderTow- +6.81
A high treble fan! I feel all this heat and prreeezzzzennnzzzz coming off the hi-hat, like it is being psychically beamed into my forehead. There's a bit of that with other sounds too, though it's not happening with the vocal as much as I'd expect- I think you're boosting too high to do that with the vocal, it sounds not much more present than the source. That said, there's a lot of separation on everything thanks to the treble move. Oh hey, and the bass guitar has some of the psychic pprrezzenzzz happening too? Enough that I'm actually enjoying the way it works with the drums and guitars, which isn't always the case. You got the bass to do something I like
ATOR- +6.77
Suddenly all is roto-toms. Don't laugh, I OWN roto-toms
This is all about impact, especially upper-mid impact. I'd like to hear Primus sounding like this. In fact Primus does sound kind of like this, except the bass guitar is hiding because its tone started out awful, and in Primus the bass beats up on everything. Interesting how you got the bass to hide and still be there though- the annoying parts that make it obvious are subdued, and just the musical force remains. I did a bunch of stuff like this around 2000-2001. I was trying to hype up the musical force at all costs. Warmth and fullness are still good, though
Patrik T- +6.68, wav does not have data block
One of the most normal entries. The highs are definitely up quite a bit, but it sounds like a cymbal there instead of a frequency range. I also think I'm feeling more bass, and the bass guitar feels less skronky and harsh. Definitely more bass on the kick drum, a lot more, it becomes one of the biggest elements similarly to Trillium but voiced TOTALLY differently. This one is trying to be audiophile, no question about it. I do wonder the way it grabs on, though- I've been criticised for this- it seems to sort of throb and rather than being driven by the musical ideas, it's a sound picture pumping and sparkling away and things like vocal outbursts simply don't come out to grab you. It's smoothed. There's very little offensive here, but I can ignore the lead vocal awful easily. He's not grabbing my attention, he's too smooth. Compare with mine about the extent to which the guy sounds like he's getting your attention. There is a cost, the guy's overtones are more potentially annoying, but he has to feel like a person is there.
Pingu- +6.17
Wow, what an imaginative approach. It feels like this one has been hollowed out a bit and then the energy bursts have been sharpened and focused. It's like the whole mix is revolving on diamond spikes, and this extends even to the sustained sounds- some of it is subdued, but stuff keeps coming out as if it was shafts of light gleaming at you. A vocal part, a cymbal. This is also one of the better ways to put across those big dynamic hits- feels big and the weird hollowness makes it like the dynamic hit is extra-defined and focused, and it's hitting fullrange, kicking in the bass as well as it is hitting with a high frequency transient. Every time the song shifts gears I REALLY HEAR it, it really whacks me. Somehow Pingu has put an unnaturally large scale onto the track, so huge you can't hear the actual instruments very much. The sum is WAY greater than the parts, and the parts are so reduced that every time you try to listen for them you get distracted by the sum. I don't care if you don't like this, Pingu- even if it is not correct, it's extremely cool and weird. Do about 2/3 less of it and damn you'd have something going on
what did you DO? You said transient designer? I could believe that. I wonder if I could do this sort of thing, only a lot more subtly. And of course some music wouldn't want it, but I really liked the effect on this song because they were trying so heroically to make big dramatic gear-changes, and not getting that far with it. You screwed up the tone of the song completely and made it weird but this is obviously what they were trying to do with the scale of it all...
This was a lot of fun. I think I've heard this song enough for the moment
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