Exclusive new Interview

[Pound of Obscure]

QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 2 2012, 05:50 PM)

Listening to CA is like listening to wet elephant farts.

Nailed it.

 

The sound quality is indefensible.

[vital signz]

If you listen to it carefully what you hear is:

 

Geddy sounds clear and better than he has in ages. His bass notes are clean, the amp he is using is phenomenal.

 

Geddy's voice is amazing on this record. Much better than VT or S&A.

 

Neil sounds amazing. Incredible.

 

 

Now comes the problem:

Alex is a wall of sound. He has been this way since Hughes and Kettner became his go to amplifier. I think there is just too much distortion and thickness to his sound to mix well with the other stuff going on. Add to that that on many of the songs he has three different channels going--right center and left, with leslie speakers added in three songs, then the thinning out of the solos with high midrange mixed in, and what is there is this wall of thick sound.

 

Just my opinion, but I think with the digital processing and the approach he is using it makes for an album that is hard to engineer.

[friendlyvoice]

QUOTE (goose @ Jul 2 2012, 09:14 PM)

QUOTE (Gedneil Alpeart @ Jul 2 2012, 06:45 PM) QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 2 2012, 05:50 PM) QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ Jul 2 2012, 12:13 PM) QUOTE (metaldad @ Jul 2 2012, 09:06 AM) QUOTE (GeminiRising79 @ Jul 2 2012, 09:56 AM) I'm confident that more than a few people on this board could do a significantly better job than the last three productions.   It's unreal how many production issues they've had with their recent albums/live DVD's.... Yeah, these ass clowns have absolutely no freakin' clue...Geddy, Neil, Alex, Nick, and this Gardner guy who's been mastering records professionally for almost fifty years...idiots. Really...what a bunch of morons. Listening to CA is like listening to wet elephant farts.   I was so pissed that CA didn't live up to my exacting standards...so vexed that CA couldn't cut the mustard when I ran it through a series of audio tests that would probably make Geddy, Neil, & Alex piss themselves with feelings of inadequacy...that I boxed up my copy of CA, along with every piece of Rush music I own, and sent it to the Anthem offices with an enclosed note telling them to go screw themselves...that they're dead to me now. I told them I was going to find a band whose audio quality would consistently live up to my concept of perfection.   I no longer care about trivial things like music and lyrics. I must have the Nth degree of technical perfection in all things I see and hear. In fact, I think I can only achieve this by forming my own band. And the level of absolute technical perfection I will achieve will be so stupendous that only dolphins will be able to actually hear the music. I sense a subtle undertone of sarcasm in the post. You are correct, sir.   Just finally had enough of all the arrogant "people on this board could've done a better job" BS.   I know there are some musicians and audio experts on TRF, and I respect their opinions. But I also think there are some technogeeks who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. (something we used to say in radio about the knob twiddlers who thought they knew better than the station engineers how the station should sound because they had an equalizer on their quadraphonic Blaupunkt...we had at least one at every station I worked at)   The easy availability of audio software and other gadgets in recent years has just made 'em worse. It's spawned a bunch of arrogant, self-appointed critics of all things audiovisual. They show up on message boards like this and in review sections of sites like Amazon, pontificating on their perceptions of perfection. (I'm absolutely all about alliteration) And all this hyper-analysis kills the enjoyment that supposed to come with new music. It's almost like these people can't find the joy in anything...they feel the need to pick everything apart on technical merits alone and leave the bones to bleach in the sun.   Get over yourselves, people. Please. There's more to music than waveforms and db's and over-saturation.

[Two0neOneTwo]

QUOTE (vital signz @ Jul 3 2012, 09:44 AM)

If you listen to it carefully what you hear is: Geddy sounds clear and better than he has in ages. His bass notes are clean, the amp he is using is phenomenal. Geddy's voice is amazing on this record. Much better than VT or S&A. Neil sounds amazing. Incredible. Now comes the problem: Alex is a wall of sound. He has been this way since Hughes and Kettner became his go to amplifier. I think there is just too much distortion and thickness to his sound to mix well with the other stuff going on. Add to that that on many of the songs he has three different channels going--right center and left, with leslie speakers added in three songs, then the thinning out of the solos with high midrange mixed in, and what is there is this wall of thick sound. Just my opinion, but I think with the digital processing and the approach he is using it makes for an album that is hard to engineer.

Yea I happen to agree with you here.

 

Alex's sound throughout the entire album is really a huge contributing factor in the ear splitting/headache that ensues after a while.

 

If we could hear a track with just Ged and Neil with Alex muted, i bet it gets much better.

[rushgoober]

QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 3 2012, 08:38 AM)

QUOTE (goose @ Jul 2 2012, 09:14 PM) QUOTE (Gedneil Alpeart @ Jul 2 2012, 06:45 PM) QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 2 2012, 05:50 PM) QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ Jul 2 2012, 12:13 PM) QUOTE (metaldad @ Jul 2 2012, 09:06 AM) QUOTE (GeminiRising79 @ Jul 2 2012, 09:56 AM) I'm confident that more than a few people on this board could do a significantly better job than the last three productions.   It's unreal how many production issues they've had with their recent albums/live DVD's.... Yeah, these ass clowns have absolutely no freakin' clue...Geddy, Neil, Alex, Nick, and this Gardner guy who's been mastering records professionally for almost fifty years...idiots. Really...what a bunch of morons. Listening to CA is like listening to wet elephant farts.   I was so pissed that CA didn't live up to my exacting standards...so vexed that CA couldn't cut the mustard when I ran it through a series of audio tests that would probably make Geddy, Neil, & Alex piss themselves with feelings of inadequacy...that I boxed up my copy of CA, along with every piece of Rush music I own, and sent it to the Anthem offices with an enclosed note telling them to go screw themselves...that they're dead to me now. I told them I was going to find a band whose audio quality would consistently live up to my concept of perfection.   I no longer care about trivial things like music and lyrics. I must have the Nth degree of technical perfection in all things I see and hear. In fact, I think I can only achieve this by forming my own band. And the level of absolute technical perfection I will achieve will be so stupendous that only dolphins will be able to actually hear the music. I sense a subtle undertone of sarcasm in the post. You are correct, sir.   Just finally had enough of all the arrogant "people on this board could've done a better job" BS.   I know there are some musicians and audio experts on TRF, and I respect their opinions. But I also think there are some technogeeks who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. (something we used to say in radio about the knob twiddlers who thought they knew better than the station engineers how the station should sound because they had an equalizer on their quadraphonic Blaupunkt...we had at least one at every station I worked at)   The easy availability of audio software and other gadgets in recent years has just made 'em worse. It's spawned a bunch of arrogant, self-appointed critics of all things audiovisual. They show up on message boards like this and in review sections of sites like Amazon, pontificating on their perceptions of perfection. (I'm absolutely all about alliteration) And all this hyper-analysis kills the enjoyment that supposed to come with new music. It's almost like these people can't find the joy in anything...they feel the need to pick everything apart on technical merits alone and leave the bones to bleach in the sun.   Get over yourselves, people. Please. There's more to music than waveforms and db's and over-saturation.   I don't require that albums sound like Moving Pictures or 70's Steely Dan, I just require that they don't sound like VT.   Obviously CA is somewhere between those two extremes, probably closer to the good side.   I don't know what else to say other than this is a great album and the sound quality is not interfering with my enjoyment of the album AT ALL. It's light years from the sonic problems of VT, and it's far more than just good enough in sound. It sounds great to me. I don't get the need to complain about it not being the best thing ever sonically.

[canadianice]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Jul 3 2012, 01:10 PM)

QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 3 2012, 08:38 AM) QUOTE (goose @ Jul 2 2012, 09:14 PM) QUOTE (Gedneil Alpeart @ Jul 2 2012, 06:45 PM) QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 2 2012, 05:50 PM) QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ Jul 2 2012, 12:13 PM) QUOTE (metaldad @ Jul 2 2012, 09:06 AM) QUOTE (GeminiRising79 @ Jul 2 2012, 09:56 AM) I'm confident that more than a few people on this board could do a significantly better job than the last three productions.   It's unreal how many production issues they've had with their recent albums/live DVD's.... Yeah, these ass clowns have absolutely no freakin' clue...Geddy, Neil, Alex, Nick, and this Gardner guy who's been mastering records professionally for almost fifty years...idiots. Really...what a bunch of morons. Listening to CA is like listening to wet elephant farts.   I was so pissed that CA didn't live up to my exacting standards...so vexed that CA couldn't cut the mustard when I ran it through a series of audio tests that would probably make Geddy, Neil, & Alex piss themselves with feelings of inadequacy...that I boxed up my copy of CA, along with every piece of Rush music I own, and sent it to the Anthem offices with an enclosed note telling them to go screw themselves...that they're dead to me now. I told them I was going to find a band whose audio quality would consistently live up to my concept of perfection.   I no longer care about trivial things like music and lyrics. I must have the Nth degree of technical perfection in all things I see and hear. In fact, I think I can only achieve this by forming my own band. And the level of absolute technical perfection I will achieve will be so stupendous that only dolphins will be able to actually hear the music. I sense a subtle undertone of sarcasm in the post. You are correct, sir.   Just finally had enough of all the arrogant "people on this board could've done a better job" BS.   I know there are some musicians and audio experts on TRF, and I respect their opinions. But I also think there are some technogeeks who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. (something we used to say in radio about the knob twiddlers who thought they knew better than the station engineers how the station should sound because they had an equalizer on their quadraphonic Blaupunkt...we had at least one at every station I worked at)   The easy availability of audio software and other gadgets in recent years has just made 'em worse. It's spawned a bunch of arrogant, self-appointed critics of all things audiovisual. They show up on message boards like this and in review sections of sites like Amazon, pontificating on their perceptions of perfection. (I'm absolutely all about alliteration) And all this hyper-analysis kills the enjoyment that supposed to come with new music. It's almost like these people can't find the joy in anything...they feel the need to pick everything apart on technical merits alone and leave the bones to bleach in the sun.   Get over yourselves, people. Please. There's more to music than waveforms and db's and over-saturation.   I don't require that albums sound like Moving Pictures or 70's Steely Dan, I just require that they don't sound like VT.   Obviously CA is somewhere between those two extremes, probably closer to the good side.   I don't know what else to say other than this is a great album and the sound quality is not interfering with my enjoyment of the album AT ALL. It's light years from the sonic problems of VT, and it's far more than just good enough in sound. It sounds great to me. I don't get the need to complain about it not being the best thing ever sonically. Because that's what Wannabe audio engineers do

[Pound of Obscure]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Jul 3 2012, 01:10 PM)

QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 3 2012, 08:38 AM) QUOTE (goose @ Jul 2 2012, 09:14 PM) QUOTE (Gedneil Alpeart @ Jul 2 2012, 06:45 PM) QUOTE (friendlyvoice @ Jul 2 2012, 05:50 PM) QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ Jul 2 2012, 12:13 PM) QUOTE (metaldad @ Jul 2 2012, 09:06 AM) QUOTE (GeminiRising79 @ Jul 2 2012, 09:56 AM) I'm confident that more than a few people on this board could do a significantly better job than the last three productions.   It's unreal how many production issues they've had with their recent albums/live DVD's.... Yeah, these ass clowns have absolutely no freakin' clue...Geddy, Neil, Alex, Nick, and this Gardner guy who's been mastering records professionally for almost fifty years...idiots. Really...what a bunch of morons. Listening to CA is like listening to wet elephant farts.   I was so pissed that CA didn't live up to my exacting standards...so vexed that CA couldn't cut the mustard when I ran it through a series of audio tests that would probably make Geddy, Neil, & Alex piss themselves with feelings of inadequacy...that I boxed up my copy of CA, along with every piece of Rush music I own, and sent it to the Anthem offices with an enclosed note telling them to go screw themselves...that they're dead to me now. I told them I was going to find a band whose audio quality would consistently live up to my concept of perfection.   I no longer care about trivial things like music and lyrics. I must have the Nth degree of technical perfection in all things I see and hear. In fact, I think I can only achieve this by forming my own band. And the level of absolute technical perfection I will achieve will be so stupendous that only dolphins will be able to actually hear the music. I sense a subtle undertone of sarcasm in the post. You are correct, sir.   Just finally had enough of all the arrogant "people on this board could've done a better job" BS.   I know there are some musicians and audio experts on TRF, and I respect their opinions. But I also think there are some technogeeks who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. (something we used to say in radio about the knob twiddlers who thought they knew better than the station engineers how the station should sound because they had an equalizer on their quadraphonic Blaupunkt...we had at least one at every station I worked at)   The easy availability of audio software and other gadgets in recent years has just made 'em worse. It's spawned a bunch of arrogant, self-appointed critics of all things audiovisual. They show up on message boards like this and in review sections of sites like Amazon, pontificating on their perceptions of perfection. (I'm absolutely all about alliteration) And all this hyper-analysis kills the enjoyment that supposed to come with new music. It's almost like these people can't find the joy in anything...they feel the need to pick everything apart on technical merits alone and leave the bones to bleach in the sun.   Get over yourselves, people. Please. There's more to music than waveforms and db's and over-saturation.   I don't require that albums sound like Moving Pictures or 70's Steely Dan, I just require that they don't sound like VT.   Obviously CA is somewhere between those two extremes, probably closer to the good side.   I don't know what else to say other than this is a great album and the sound quality is not interfering with my enjoyment of the album AT ALL. It's light years from the sonic problems of VT, and it's far more than just good enough in sound. It sounds great to me. I don't get the need to complain about it not being the best thing ever sonically. The only difference between VT and CA is that CA has no clipping and is not as deafeningly loud. Otherwise very similar. CA is a half step better. And honestly the clipping on VT was the part that was ignorable. Is that a word? At least I could hear everything Neil played. It hurt my ears, but I could hear it. Neil just disappears from the mix at times on CA. Its a fuzzy, muddy mess, just like VT. Not quite as bad, but close.

[GeminiRising79]

QUOTE (Gompers @ Jul 3 2012, 09:24 AM)

QUOTE (GeminiRising79 @ Jul 3 2012, 10:23 AM) QUOTE (shail @ Jul 3 2012, 08:31 AM) pointless interview. he said nothing. politically correct answers. just bull shit crap coming out of his mind. softball answers and questions. album has no dynamics. Most of the interview you can see Geddy thinking to himself: "Come on, stupid. Think of something funny to say. Damn it." Wow, you two should get a room and enjoy each other. Clicky here

[treeduck]

If I were the mastering engineer I'd be hiding in Brazil somewhere with Paul Northfield, Howie Weinberg, Chris Stringer, David Leonard and Joel Kazmi.