deux.
bierdeman called off today, so i raided his desk to inject some variety without having any committment - aka try before you buy.
kanye west college dropout - i liked this more than i thought i would. some of the beats were pretty cool and i dug most of the piano samples. i related to quite a few tracks on the record, which - again - was not exactly what i was expecting. the college thing hit kinda hard. altho his take on higher education is a bit one-sided, he counters with some good points. "jesus walks" was pretty awesome. i have a penchant for epic tracks with heavy hooks. i did have a few problems with the record, via pitch. some of of BGVs were so pitchy i couldn't believe this was done at a major studio and they let it slide. then there is the whole autotune-as-vocoder debacle. i am so allergic to AT, it is not even funny. or maybe it is, seeing as my whole body shudders when i hear it on auto-mode like that. i think hell is where you have to tune vocals all day by hand in graphical mode, only to have satan tell you to redo the entire song in auto. and everytime you finish the song, it just starts over from scratch. THE SAME DAMN SONG. FOR ETERNITY. but i digress. other than that, my main beef were some of the stock sounds and lack of impact. nothing too bad. nothing too great, tho, either. i'd give it a b -.
green day american idiot - holy l2 on the mastering, vlado (the impaler of my eardrums). this thing is a fucking brickwall. thru and thru it is a great pop record. not PUNK. the whole production was top-notch; very slick and expensive and totally cohesive from every angle. CLA's mixes are the most carved i think i have heard (with spike stent pulling a close second). super-compact with no lower mids (400-800) in anything. gtrs were pretty loud at times, totally burying the LVOX on a few songs. i dug the whole p90 thing on the record, tho. GREAT dirty gtr tones. the tommy of the 2000s. total rock opera and i actually think they pulled it off. but it was pricey, i can tell you that. i'm probably going to have to pick this one up as a mix reference; i am sure at some point some kid will ask to get a sound "like that one guitar off of american idiot ...". now if only he could pay his part as tight as Billie ...
johnny cash american iv - i only got about halfway thru this one, due to time constraints. man, this sucker is louder than the green day record! lovely u64 ACGTR tones, shimmery and harmonic and huge. definitely some neve on this record. johnny sounds frail but good; lots of fairchild. this record was tearing me up on almost every song. except personal jesus. the vibe was cool on the basics, but cash's lead sounded like he was just running thru it, as if the copyist just handed him the sheet of lyrics for the first time and he was just going over it. not the take i would've picked FTW, but i can't blame johnny for that. i blame rick. i kinda hate his production aesthetic; the whole super dry, really tight, really bright thing. there's always an edge in the upper freqs on his records that just doesn't sit right with me. the best thing rick rubin ever did was give brendan o'brien the gig for blood sugar sex magik. iono ... anyway, i think i need to get a u64 now. what's another few grand more of credit card hell? le sigh ...
kanye west college dropout - i liked this more than i thought i would. some of the beats were pretty cool and i dug most of the piano samples. i related to quite a few tracks on the record, which - again - was not exactly what i was expecting. the college thing hit kinda hard. altho his take on higher education is a bit one-sided, he counters with some good points. "jesus walks" was pretty awesome. i have a penchant for epic tracks with heavy hooks. i did have a few problems with the record, via pitch. some of of BGVs were so pitchy i couldn't believe this was done at a major studio and they let it slide. then there is the whole autotune-as-vocoder debacle. i am so allergic to AT, it is not even funny. or maybe it is, seeing as my whole body shudders when i hear it on auto-mode like that. i think hell is where you have to tune vocals all day by hand in graphical mode, only to have satan tell you to redo the entire song in auto. and everytime you finish the song, it just starts over from scratch. THE SAME DAMN SONG. FOR ETERNITY. but i digress. other than that, my main beef were some of the stock sounds and lack of impact. nothing too bad. nothing too great, tho, either. i'd give it a b -.
green day american idiot - holy l2 on the mastering, vlado (the impaler of my eardrums). this thing is a fucking brickwall. thru and thru it is a great pop record. not PUNK. the whole production was top-notch; very slick and expensive and totally cohesive from every angle. CLA's mixes are the most carved i think i have heard (with spike stent pulling a close second). super-compact with no lower mids (400-800) in anything. gtrs were pretty loud at times, totally burying the LVOX on a few songs. i dug the whole p90 thing on the record, tho. GREAT dirty gtr tones. the tommy of the 2000s. total rock opera and i actually think they pulled it off. but it was pricey, i can tell you that. i'm probably going to have to pick this one up as a mix reference; i am sure at some point some kid will ask to get a sound "like that one guitar off of american idiot ...". now if only he could pay his part as tight as Billie ...
johnny cash american iv - i only got about halfway thru this one, due to time constraints. man, this sucker is louder than the green day record! lovely u64 ACGTR tones, shimmery and harmonic and huge. definitely some neve on this record. johnny sounds frail but good; lots of fairchild. this record was tearing me up on almost every song. except personal jesus. the vibe was cool on the basics, but cash's lead sounded like he was just running thru it, as if the copyist just handed him the sheet of lyrics for the first time and he was just going over it. not the take i would've picked FTW, but i can't blame johnny for that. i blame rick. i kinda hate his production aesthetic; the whole super dry, really tight, really bright thing. there's always an edge in the upper freqs on his records that just doesn't sit right with me. the best thing rick rubin ever did was give brendan o'brien the gig for blood sugar sex magik. iono ... anyway, i think i need to get a u64 now. what's another few grand more of credit card hell? le sigh ...