Saishu

OH MAN I LOVE FAIRY TIMES MOMERY!!!

I haven’t listened to the original mix of Uroboros in years, and I’m doing that right now. I can say that what Tue Madsen seemed to concentrate on was pushing Kyo more to the front, but he also removed a lot of the low end of everything else. He kind of nerfed Toshiya’s bass tone, and the hard planning of Kaoru’s and Die’s guitars seems to be less prominent. In the end he somehow managed to make a cleaner mix that sounds messier. Props for bringing out that extra percussion in Ware, Yami Tote though?
 
But fuck that  snare sound in the original mix of Red Soil. Sounds like Shinya is smacking tin foil. 

I haven’t listened to the original mix of Uroboros in years, and I’m doing that right now. I can say that what Tue Madsen seemed to concentrate on was pushing Kyo more to the front, but he also removed a lot of the low end of everything else. He kind of nerfed Toshiya’s bass tone, and the hard planning of Kaoru’s and Die’s guitars seems to be less prominent. In the end he somehow managed to make a cleaner mix that sounds messier. Props for bringing out that extra percussion in Ware, Yami Tote though?
 
But fuck that  snare sound in the original mix of Red Soil. Sounds like Shinya is smacking tin foil. 

I haven’t listened to the original mix of Uroboros in years, and I’m doing that right now. I can say that what Tue Madsen seemed to concentrate on was pushing Kyo more to the front, but he also removed a lot of the low end of everything else. He kind of nerfed Toshiya’s bass tone, and the hard planning of Kaoru’s and Die’s guitars seems to be less prominent. In the end he somehow managed to make a cleaner mix that sounds messier. Props for bringing out that extra percussion in Ware, Yami Tote though?
 
But fuck that  snare sound in the original mix of Red Soil. Sounds like Shinya is smacking tin foil. 

I sometimes wish the rest of the band would get a little improvisational. Kyo is doing whatever the fuck he wants while the other guys are practically jukeboxes. Die seems to the only one that would add extra color here and there. Sometimes Toshiya would throw in a different bass run, but for the most part they played the songs straight. Can these guys jam once in a while?

I sometimes wish the rest of the band would get a little improvisational. Kyo is doing whatever the fuck he wants while the other guys are practically jukeboxes. Die seems to the only one that would add extra color here and there. Sometimes Toshiya would throw in a different bass run, but for the most part they played the songs straight. Can these guys jam once in a while?

I sometimes wish the rest of the band would get a little improvisational. Kyo is doing whatever the fuck he wants while the other guys are practically jukeboxes. Die seems to the only one that would add extra color here and there. Sometimes Toshiya would throw in a different bass run, but for the most part they played the songs straight. Can these guys jam once in a while?

All I understood was “kono akaunto” lol

OH MAN I LOVE FAIRY TIMES MOMERY!!!

No way this kusoman feels anything 

OH MAN I LOVE FAIRY TIMES MOMERY!!!

I’ve said this. I wish DEG would delve deeper into a more progressive/post-rock sound and ditch the BOOGA BOOGA FOOCHA stuff. Things have gotten a bit stale in that department. 
 
But, you know, Kaoru. 

Time to prepare the memes

Genius. Spending too much time on the internet insulates everyone in their own world. 

Genius. Spending too much time on the internet insulates everyone in their own world. 

Genius. Spending too much time on the internet insulates everyone in their own world. 

Lol, you can hear mouse clicks in the beginning of the sample. 

The beginning with the clean guitar tones is fine aside from Shinya’s MIDI sounding drums. Once the distorted guitars kick in its all downhill. It becomes an indistinguishable mess. Toshiya is barely there. His bass tone is fighting the guitars for the same frequency and ends up getting lost. No dynamics, it’s all just way too loud. 
 
Listened to Ningen and Utafumi today actually. They both sound even worse after a couple days of listening to CHEDOARA. 

Asian bootleg Tony Iommi

I like that Sho uses harsh vocals for the appropriate lyrics. I mean the “I want to flush your goddamn torn up tiny pieces down the toilet” part is the perfect line for the way he delivers it. 

Sadly, it is not an hypothesis. I just casually  saw this picture posted on an audio-engineering Facebook page, and it comes in very handy:
 

 
As Saishu said, Shinya is playing the drums, but the hits are triggered. This can be done in real time or during the pre-mixing stage.  Also, keep in mind that most drum takes are edited before the mixing process: this means replacing bad hits with good hits, fixing playing problems or joining different takes (it's like copy-paste, but with audio). No matter how tight you are, some editing is going to happen. With triggering/sampling and editing, you get really tight and almost perfect takes, something that's really common in modern mainstream rock/metal music (hell, even the guitars are heavy edited...).
 
The best thing you can do in order to notice this is to listen to the song and just focus on one of the drums and try and notice how many different types of hits are there. I'd suggest to focus on the kick drum, which is arguably the most triggered drum ever. You'll notice that it always sound the same, thanks to triggering, editing and, of course, compression: the dynamics are (almost) dead.
 
This whole trend of using samples instead of real drums in rock/metal started in the mid 90s with producers such as Andy Sneap. For this kind of producers, the natural drum sound isn't enough to cut through the mix, specially with the mid-boosted guitars that became a norm in that era within the metal genre (especially on extreme metal). Thanks to this, 90% of modern rock/metal has triggered drums. Just check out any mainstream metal record from the mid 00s and you'll notice this. Since the end of the 90s, most metal producers started adopting this technique, and it became a norm in the industry (sucks to use that word to refer to something we all love, but sadly, music is a biggest industry). Add the 'loudness war' to the equation, and you have an stereotypical mainstream metal mix as a result. Of course, taste is everything: I sometimes enjoy it, because it makes everything sound clystar clear and perfect; sometimes, I want to hear something more natural. It really depends on the genre (for example, a Neurosis record with this kind of clean and sterile vision wouldn't feel right). To me, blending is the ideal, but it is very hard to achieve, especially on modern metal.
 
Back to Dir en grey, just look at what happened to 'Uroboros' (the original version): that's maybe the realest drum sound on a Dir en grey album to date, with either really tight playing and/or an amazing drum editing. For me, it is great and really makes the band and the album stand out from its contemporaries. For others, it's simply unhearable, and that seemed to be the opinion of the band, or anyone who manages/produces the band (record label maybe?). Thus, we have that remix/remaster edition of the album where every drum hit is replaced with mechanical and sterile samples. And don't get me started on the reamped guitars...
 
I agree: the Korn-like bass sound wasn't my cup of tea, but this new sound clashes with the bass-heavy guitars and makes it almost unhearable. Would love for the instrument to distinguish themselves from each other.
 
If comparing it to 'The Marrow of a Bone', yes, it is an improvement. The thing is that if you want the bass to have more presence, you need to adjust the EQ of the guitars in order to let it shine. This means enhancing the mids! Enhancing the highs/trebles clashes with the cymbals; enhancing the bass clashes with the bass drum, the toms and the bass guitar. In this mix, they scooped the mids and highs/trebles and boosted the bass, so it is natural that the bass guitar and the guitars' frequencies clashes, especially when using downtuned 7-string guitars.
 
The single version of 'Hageshisa...' has the best distorted rhythm guitar sound that the band has ever had, at least on their 'extreme metal' era. It just sounds really big and 'meaty'. Compare it to the sound the same song has on 'Dum Spiro Spero'.
 
That's an interesting theory! Dir en grey became a tight band during the end of the' Dum Spiro Spero' era. Shinya was, without a doubt, the most virtuous and tight member of them all. Toshiya followed closely; Die and Kaoru were really sloppy, and Kyo... Well, just watch the 'Uroboros -With the Proof...-' DVD (although in studio he was great!). The remix/remaster has triggered drums, reamped guitars and a clear sound that makes everything sound really plastic (which means getting rid of everything that is or sounds like a mistake -with the modern metal production we talked about before used as the standard-). I think they tried to match the quality of 'Dum Spiro Spero' and then failed at it. 
 
Regarding Tue Madsen, he's not one of my favourite producers: he's one of the many that jumped on the same wagon as Andy Sneap, but maybe a little more versatile. I'm thinking of nice sounding albums like Extol's 'The Blueprint Dives, The Haunted's 'Unseen' (I KNOW! But I really like this album...) and Meshuggah's 'The Violent Sleep of Reason' (especially this one, which was supposedly recored in a true analog way -I have my doubts...-). The only thing I cannot always tolerate is how mid-centric most of his albums sound, lacking some extra bass frequencies punch. This makes a lot of his recordings sound really thin. Thankfully, 'Dum Spiro Spero' sounds quite good, but the 'Uroboros' remix/remaster, suffers from that problem.
 
I stick to my theory: the band, being self-produced, may be to blame. However, I prefer them having a total control of the creative process and badly mixed albums than little to none control of their art and with masterfuly mixed records.
 
 
I totally agree!!! Shinya is a mystery to me. As fragile and graceful as he looks, sometimes it looks like he's hitting the drums like a bull! I really like how the band sounds live since the 'Dum Spiro Spero At Nippon Budokan' show. On that show and on 'Arche At Nippon Budokan', Shinya's drums sound great (a perfect blend between the real drum sound and the samples that are triggered live), and the hard panning of Kaoru and Die's guitars leave a lot of space for the bass guitar to shine (it is also a nice touch for us fans: you can really tell who is playing each part of the song).
 
I feel like on the 'FROM DEPRESSION TO...' shows they have become one of the best live bands in the world. They are getting tighter each day, have amazing setlist, are talented musicians, have good songs with clever structures and progressive elements and also are a really interesting band to watch perform. And most importantly, they sound REALLY good. To be honest, nowadays I prefer to watch the live shows than to listen to the albums.
 
 
 

From an audio engineering point of view (mixing/mastering process), there's a lot of things that I don't like:
 
-Drums have a lot of problems. The triggering is becoming more and more mechanic with every release. Just check out how the snare sample behaves whenever there are some snare rolls or fills happening. That's a really serious issue that almost every mid-tier triggering software can solve (even with Drumagog you can get a better and more natural snare sound). Beyond that, I really like the snare sample, much better than the one used in 'ARHCE'.  Bass drum is OK: I'm not a big fan of the 'typewriter ' sound, but it works on this song. Toms are the worst of all: they sound mechanic and 'out of the mix'. When triggering, and if going for a 'natural sound', one should always try and get the full samples of a whole kit. On this single, it feels like it doesn't belong to the same drum kit as the rest of the samples. Maybe the engineer was using samples of a kit that didn't have rototoms and ended up using that sample. Anyway, it sounds really out of place. Also, cymbals have no presence whatsoever: they sound really weak and I have the sad feeling that they are also sampling them! 
 
-Bass is barely hearable. Really weird: they dropped entirely the Korn-esque sound they had on the last previous albums in favour of a more regular sound. You can hear it "pop" during the choruses, but it sounds really bad. This is a real mistery: I wasn't a big fan of how loud and mid-fueled it was on previous albums, but at least you could hear Toshiya's amazing and clever bass playing. Here it is non existant.
 
-Guitars sound horrible. I mean, not as horrible as the mid-scooped guitars in 'The Marrow of a Bone', but they still lack energy and presence. It's like they scooped mids and highs/trebles and boosted the shit out of the bass frequencies with a multi-band compressor. That way, it clashes with the poor bass sound and causes the whole mix to bloate. The cleans in the intro, on the other hand, sound really good. Too bad the dynamics are horrendous...
 
-Vocals sound good; my only complain would be the wide-panned vocal scream in the section after the second chorus. They clash with the guitars and overpower the rest of the mix. It sounds really unbalanced.
 
-Dynamics are TRASHED. Chorus has no dynamic impact, only emotional one (which is good but not enough). The song sounds very linear: just check out how the intro creates anticipation for the main riff but ends having no impact. The lack of DR destroys the build-ups. I would love a good WAV-rip of the song to measure the dynamic range, just to confirm my suspicions.
 
-Overall, it sounds 'over-processed' and over-compressed, a problem that was already present on 'ARCHE'. The thing is, somehow, here everything sounds sterile and opaque. I'm no mastering expert, so I cannot really say if this is an issue that could be solved with just a better mastering. Mastering can do wonders (for example, I once worked on a record that had really poor toms that where miraculously enhanced with mastering), but I think 'Ningen...' is a real mess. I really feel the song should be remixed from scratch.
 
From a music production point of view, there's just a couple of small things I do not enjoy; keep in mind this are more personal:
 
-The transition from the verse to the first chorus does not work. It does not have flow and feels really forced. On the other hand, the transition from the verse into the second chorus is flawless.
 
-The vocal layering on the second bridge sounds really bad. Same thing happens with the vocal layering on the section after the second chorus. I applaud the audicity to innovate, but I think the mixing does not favor it. It sounds badly recorded and the metrics feel wrong. 
 
 
Don't get me wrong: I really like the song and I am very excited for the new album, but I feel like the band could do so much better in terms of production and engineering. I hope there's a lot of variety in the thirteen songs, just like on Arche; I also hope the final product has a superb production and not an average/mediocre one. 
 
 

The beginning with the clean guitar tones is fine aside from Shinya’s MIDI sounding drums. Once the distorted guitars kick in its all downhill. It becomes an indistinguishable mess. Toshiya is barely there. His bass tone is fighting the guitars for the same frequency and ends up getting lost. No dynamics, it’s all just way too loud. 
 
Listened to Ningen and Utafumi today actually. They both sound even worse after a couple days of listening to CHEDOARA. 

DEG almost always gives nonsense for bonus material. If it’s not a song remixed with burps and farts then it’s Kyo’s studio tracks pasted over music not played by the band. 
 
At least Arche gave us And Zero and Tefu Tefu. 

Tell that to Tool, haha.