[virometal]

The buzz has been building for their latest to the point that I'm starting to count the seconds until Tuesday.

I must add that it's a total bummer that no 5.1 Special Edition is planned.

What's the story in Brainville?

 

[Pangaea]

I'm interested, heard its dark with a Miles Davis 70's fusion sound. Very cool.

 

[Calexico]

First time I've heard about it, I'm pretty excited. I really love The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi has one perfect song (Part 1), and "similar to the style of Joy Division, a Miles Davis group, and John Lennon" sounds very interesting.

 

[Coltrane]

Its fantastic.

 

[DLeeWebb]

I loved the track that I heard on Sirius XMU...

 

[Dublo7]

How compressed will this one be? Anyone want to bet on an average album gain?
I'm going to say... -12.

 

[virometal]

It has scored a very health 3.81 so far over at RYM. That's encouraging since the ratings tend to skew low at first, as early impressions are often premature.

 

[El_Doug]

Pitchfork is offering very favorable words!

I'm really looking forward to this one

 

[SweetAdeline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coltrane /img/forum/go_quote.gif Its fantastic.

So, if I hated the last two, will I like this? I honestly had given up on this band, guess I should give it a shot eh?

 

[Uncle Erik]

I'm planning to buy it, as well. Only the lingeing dread of compression frightens me. I had to buy Yoshimi, Mystics and Soft Bulletin on DVD-A before I could enjoy them. Well, the Yoshimi LP is good, too. But I want something I can rip to the iPod and play in the car.

 

[virometal]

If sound quality is a deal breaker, I would save oneself the money and aggravation. The compression dread raised my curiosity, so I checked out the first track Convinced of the Hex. The sound was typical of a major label pop release: shrill highs, no sense of space, dirty, etc..etc... On the basest level, this sucker is loud! My volume was at a setting reserved for the fewest albums, such as At War With the Mystics for example.

Here is the obligatory Audacity screenshot (sorry it was done in haste):



Not very pretty, and the waveforms of the other songs I checked, were similar, although I didn't listen to them.

--

On the bright side, I dug the song, which is a nice marching number with little sharp guitar stabs, trailed by moody electric piano.

 

[Pangaea]

... that is a shame.

 

[grawk]

I preordered the deluxe edition. If you're expecting anything other than a loud album tho, you probably aren't paying attention to what the flaming lips have always done. Wayne likes the sound of his albums, and makes them that way on purpose.

 

[Davey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by virometal /img/forum/go_quote.gif Not very pretty, and the waveforms of the other songs I checked, were similar, although I didn't listen to them.

I know it sounds crazy, but that's not a bad waveform when compared to a lot of modern stuff. Notice that the digital peaks aren't all at the same level, so at least there doesn't seem to be hard limiting used to squeeze the extra few dB out of the mix. Also that gives a little room for the intersample peaks as well, so there shouldn't be quite as much distortion. But yea, you can still hide a ton of compression in there to get the peak levels down to make more room to boost it up, and the Flaming Lips have never gone for good sound on their records, even though they obviously spend a lot of time with the mix. Guess they just don't care that much about it, but I did like the honesty on their earlier recordings before SB.

 

[grawk]

I'd say it's wrong to say sound quality isnt' the concern, just that absolute sound quality isn't the concern. They try really hard to get specific sound quality features.