CriedWhenBrucieLeft
Meme Only Account
bornless1 said:
I've seen that posted. Even if you're being harsh, it's hardly the album that springs to mind when you mention filler songs.
Overrated/Underrated Songs
- Thread starter Mosh
- Start date
I've seen that posted. Even if you're being harsh, it's hardly the album that springs to mind when you mention filler songs.
bornless1
Messiah Supreme. True Leader of Men.
[quote author=Zare
The sound is horrible. It's one of their worst produced albums. There are some fantastic songs there (the ones that got live attention in last 8 years), but it's full of fillers and tracks of dubious origin and quality.
Wow that is all opinion there. I think the sound is outstanding {Dance of Death} and the songs are all top rate...my opinion. I'm no music producer and perhaps you are hearing something I'm not, but I have always thought the quality is as good or better than that of the other reunion albums. And the songs themselves are better than any other reunion list. Nothing at all dubious about them. Beauty is in the EAR of the beholder I guess!
The sound is horrible. It's one of their worst produced albums. There are some fantastic songs there (the ones that got live attention in last 8 years), but it's full of fillers and tracks of dubious origin and quality.
Wow that is all opinion there. I think the sound is outstanding {Dance of Death} and the songs are all top rate...my opinion. I'm no music producer and perhaps you are hearing something I'm not, but I have always thought the quality is as good or better than that of the other reunion albums. And the songs themselves are better than any other reunion list. Nothing at all dubious about them. Beauty is in the EAR of the beholder I guess!
It definitely sounds the worst out of all the reunion albums. I find it interesting in the Death on the Road doc, how the Caveman talks about how a big time producer or something listened to it and said it was all wrong, fixed it, and gave it back to Kevin who gave it to Steve who rejected it. I would love to hear that version.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
bornless1 said:
To put things in perspective: It sounds good. It's not a garage band demo. It's a professional product. The debut album - Now that's crap.
However: I do agree with Zare that compared to most of Maiden's albums Dance of Death is lacking (excluding Iron Maiden, No Prayer and Virtual XI - Those are rather terrible). The compression is audible (check New Frontier and how the volume drops slightly for a split second when the chords strike!! And electric guitars are already pretty damn compressed by the nature of their and the amps construction. This is a production tool that brings the volume down on i.e the entire mix or if elected as such, on a single instrument etc when the volume exceeds a given threshold. This to control the volume, make the entire mix "louder" and/or to create a "sound"). I happen to like compression but it's a bit too much when the rest of the production is pretty lacking (in comparison!!). The guitar sound is in rather poor and not very pleasant to listen to. The drums sound okay to me too but better on most other Maiden albums.
The bass guitar is alright (but not great or anything) as is the production of the vocals but nothing great or outstanding (again, in comparison). Now, I blame Steve. Kevin Shirley can make great sounding records - If Steve would stop meddling, blatantly assuming that it's Steve that pointed the production into this direction. BNW for example is a stellar production (some people find it too compressed and it's true that it is pretty compressed - I like it though).
As I guessed then. Steve's fault.Mosh™ said:
IMO Dance Of Death and The Final Frontier have the worst sound of all Maiden albums.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
The Final Frontier worse than Virtual XI and Iron Maiden?Night Prowler said:
Boy, do I disagree.
It's astounding how crappy Iron Maiden sounds if you compare it to British Steel (original version. Not Remastered. Dude ruined the guitar sound! The Remastered is still lightyears ahead of Iron Maiden) which is from the same year.
That being said, some things could be better on The Final Frontier (the vocals are a bit sharp - Audio wise, not pitch), but it's still a pretty solid modern Metal album- To me.
Iron Maiden albums with best sound quality are IMO Brave New World and A Matter Of Life & Death.
Donner
Ancient Mariner
Night Prowler said:
I hate the drum sound on BNW. The sound like booming bongos. The guitars have no bite whatsoever, and the 3 Amigos are scarcely noticed unless it's a solo section.
It's the brightest sounding of the newer albums, but really the only thing I like about it is the vocal layers and the vocal production. I much prefer AMOLAD and TFF. Both in production AND songwriting.
My opinion is completely opposite 
Donner
Ancient Mariner
Yax said:I disagree on so many levels (save for that it's brightly sounding and the vocal production is great).
That's cool. I've been revisiting the reunion era albums in reverse chronological order quite intensely as of late, and it's reaffirmed my dislike of most of BNW's songs and sounds. I like it, don't love it. Was the same back in 2000 and if anything is even more obvious now that we've had 3 far superior albums that followed.
D
Deleted member 7164
Guest
BNW is their best production since '80s and hasn't been topped by three latest efforts. Drum sound is immense. It's reinforced by samplers.
D
Deleted member 7164
Guest
Yes, but it's the first and possibly the only one for Maiden (since we don't have a direct proof for later ones).
Keep in mind that whole kit, including the cymbals, was triggered. AFAIK the primary reason for triggering snares is loss of attack on natural recording. Most metal drummers do trigger bass drums because most metal drummers use double bass drums or double bass pedals. With former you have tuning problems and with latter you have airflow / pressure problems. I'm sure that you know all this, my point would be that Maiden didn't use that technique to get around recording issues, but to reinforce the whole drum sound spectrum.
...and what would I do to get one copy of those MIDI tracks!
Keep in mind that whole kit, including the cymbals, was triggered. AFAIK the primary reason for triggering snares is loss of attack on natural recording. Most metal drummers do trigger bass drums because most metal drummers use double bass drums or double bass pedals. With former you have tuning problems and with latter you have airflow / pressure problems. I'm sure that you know all this, my point would be that Maiden didn't use that technique to get around recording issues, but to reinforce the whole drum sound spectrum.
...and what would I do to get one copy of those MIDI tracks!
Yax
Ancient Mariner
I'm not so sure about the cymbals. Individually miked (and with a touch of reverb to even out the harshness)? For sure. Overhead and room mikes (pretty low in the mix) have all lows and low mids stripped. I mean, the kit sounds pretty separated and the cymbals are accentuated. But not sure the cymbals are due to triggering. I believe that triggering the cymbals would be too much of a hassle to little use - Also drum sampling was compared to present quite underdeveloped at that time, so you settled with simpler sampling (snare, kick and possibly toms). I could be wrong of course, but I don't think the cymbals are triggered.Zare said:
Also. About the reason for triggering snares, yes. True (but also just because mixing two different sound sources playing the same thing can get you fatter results, kind of like a twin axe attack playing the same thing).
Also, part of the reason why people sample nowadays (not talking about high profile bands/producers/engineers), when the technology is easily attainable, is pure laziness. Last time I recorded drums (May last semester) I was too lazy to take the time to get a decent sound out of the snare. I just put a top mic on and triggered.
Laziness.
And as you said, the drum sound is just reinforced by samples.
CriedWhenBrucieLeft
Meme Only Account
Looking through the commentary (still!), I'd say quite a few tracks from BNW are overrated; namely the title track, BNW; Ghost of the Navigator; Dream of Mirrors; & Blood Brothers. Blood Brothers is a bit of a FotD for me --yes, it's good live. But, sorry, it just isn't that good. There are dozens of songs (even, I'd admit, from TXF or VXI) that if they'd really been road tested live would be as good, if not better, than BB. I'm genuinely surprised to see it in people's top 10-20, for example.