They absolutely mixed it, but the mastering is what was called into question. I thought they stuck with the mastered version in the end, though there were some leveling issues on BTATS and a couple of other places that got cleaned up in the 2015 remaster.
The vocals sound drier than month-old saltine crackers. There are some sloppy edits, and some of the guitar parts sound out of sync with each other. I’m sure there’s more.
Maybe but to my ears it´s as good as it is.
This is though a production choice rather than an error, which is the point I was making, that we try to distinguish between active production choices that we can disagree with, but succeeds at what it's aiming at, (that one is a fine example of one I disagree with), and actual elements not up to standards, rather than label those kind of choices as amateurish, when they are not (but rather a choice we disagree with), and instead call the actual amateur-ish sounding mistakes
They mixed it but they didn't master it. That was rectified with the 2015 remaster. Or rather master, since it was the first time it was mastered
Hmm, we can also look at it this way: yes, it absolutely succeeds - if the goal is for most post-reunion Maiden albums to sound noticeably less good than they potentially could. That's obviously subjective and only my opinion, even if plenty of fans seem to share it.
My theory's always been that he got what he wanted in sound for BNW, and then that demand for great-sounding records dropped in priority. He was playing in front of huge crowds again, and that seems to have been his number one priority. Having Kevin Shirley remain aboard beyond that gives the illusion they have a top-notch producer...even if the truth is that Kevin's catering more to Steve's whims than to what the best sound for the record is.Funny thing is that Bruce demanded a real producer, as one of the main reasons he left was that Steve had a very dominant role in the production....yet somehow, here we are again!
Not a fan of the 1980s kids’ Casiotone keyboard then?
Yeah, The Book of Souls was a swing and a miss in my opinion. To me, the problem is first and foremost how the drums and the guitars don't marry together at all. The toms are way up in volume - too loud - and the overall drumset sounds rather dark and dry, totally contrasting the guitars in a non-flattering way. Without contrast, you can't fit the elements inside the mix, but on TBoS they end up sounding like they are from two different albums.
) which feels a lot like Metallica's Justice record. This is not a topic about them but the sound in that album as we know is pretty poor, however I feel that Maiden might've feel inclined to go more "street level" with their sound like Metallica was? This guitar sound carries on throughout the 90s and only BNW changes it somehow. It's something that has always bothered me and I feel like the albums suffer tremendously because of it, since I feel albums like No Prayer, Fear, X Factor and even the much maligned Virtual XI have excellent songs that get overlooked, partly because they don't sound like "proper Maiden" (ie 1980-1988).
You. I like you.
This.
