Hey I'm with you man, I play session guitar so I understand where you're coming from.

I'm just saying with a band that has the resources available to them like Tool does, I doubt it would have been pressed to disc unless they wanted it to be.

Yeah it does baffle me.. but like its said Joe does have wierd noises on a few of the albums he did the sound for..

I listened to Jambi on my headphones and could definitely hear a staticy sound at about 24 seconds in or so (time may be off, I do know it was in the beginning of the song though). I have absolutely no clue why it's there. I think the main thing that bothers me with this album is just that at times, the songs don't sound loud enough.

I've also noticed these things. I was sincerely hoping that it was just digital distortion caused by the download, but I guess it isn't. I haven't listened to my pressed copy yet, actually going to do that now. I don't notice so much on my PC or my home stereo, but on my car audio system which is pretty beefed up, I hear it. Does it detract from the 'space' of the music? Yes.. does it make it unlistenable? Not at all.. it is kind of distracting though. As an artist myself, if my recording came out like this I'd be very upset. I can't imagine musicians at such a professional level as Tool would let this slide if they noticed it. Speaking from experience though, you listen to these things over and over and over during production, and little mistakes slip through.. these though, are glaring errors. Maybe it's not such a good idea for Tool to produce their own records.. but I have to admit the 'odd' mix is pretty good.. it almost forces you to listen very closely for what you want to hear.. good ideas, they just need a pro producer doing the final check throughs.

I think this may be a classic case of looking way too hard for flaws. I even went back and listened to the various parts you guys are complaining about and can't find them.

So if my shitty WalMart speakers sound good, and your expensive headphones sound bad...maybe you should reconsider how you listen to stuff.

...just in case anybody missed it...

I assume the same also applies to car stereos... make sure you're turning the gain down though, not the volume. There's a difference!

What? What kind of dumbass logic is that?

"Guys, just listen to the music on shitty speakers. Something that lacks clarity, that way you can just ignore that you bought a cd with terrible production."

I wonder if the band would ever admit they (or Baressi) fucked up on this.

Or, perhaps Tool recorded this album with some kind of alien hyper modern equipment and we simply cannot hear it properly cause um, well we are no aliens, are we :)

The only other logical thing I can come up with is that there's just a batch of bad discs. We won't know what it is until some official word comes out on it.

IF official word comes out...

I think eventually kabir might ask, or people will annoy blair enough.

Does Kabir agree with you on the clippings and staticy sounds, etc. ?

No, what I'm saying is that I could see him asking if there are enough people here wondering why their cd has noise all over it.

At least I would hope someone would ask. That's all.

oh, okay.

Yea like I was thinking, maybe it's just a batch of disks that have this problem and not all of them?

I do find it hard to believe they wouldn't notice this. It's extremely obvious when you use any sort of a quality speaker/headphone.

the melvins spent 95% of their career working with much lower talent than tool have available to them these days.

Hello all,
I wanted to really get inside 10,000 days this weekend and I decided to listen to it on my headphones and let myself be carried far, far away :)

But then I came to the horrifying conclusion that there's a very nasty distortion on my copy of 10,000 days that I hadn't perceived when listening on a regular stereo. Of course, I immediately tried eliminating every possible cause for this (different cd player, different headphones, etc.), but to no avail.
Today, I went back to the record store where I bought my copy and listened to another copy the guy in the store had, and it had the same distortion.

It is not one one track, it's on the entire album. It's very clear in Vicarious, right when the drums kick in, and in general when things get loud.

But now, of course, my question is how I will get my hands on a proper copy. Cause I won't believe the bullshit the storeowner tried to sell me "if it's on both discs, it's probably in the recording itself". I mean COME ON!! A shitload of people with WAY better ears than mine have heard this material before it was printed so there's no way they didn't notice it.

So is it a bunch of copies here in the Netherlands? If I were to order a copy from the other side of the world, would it be ok? How do these thing come to pass anyway? Is it a faulty pressing, or is it a worn-out mold or something? (I'm just guessing here, I have no idea how these things work)

Thank you for reading, your thoughts are very welcome.

Matthijs.

It has been noticed before. A thought I had is that if the eq is messed with at all, it peaks on that frequency. I dunno, but yeah, it isnt the first time someone has said that it peaked. It seems to work fine for me unless I try to boost a certain frequency. I dont think you got a defect copy, I think they are all like that.

mine sounds fine. don't know what to tell you, sorry.

When I put almost any CD loud the sound quality becomes distorted, and this happens with with "modern" or newer albums that I have. Let's face it, while digital may have it's advantages, when it comes to the quality of the song itself it lacks compared to the real, "organicness" of older technology. Digital helps condense it all so you can fit it, and not to say the sound is bad by any means, just not as rich or full. I still need to get a good pair of headphones to hear this album with though, my pair of Sennheiser's got stolen about a month ago:(

Damn, that fucking sucks man! It's REALLY ANNOYING me!
I had made sure to keep my eq flat, though, and even cutting some frequencies but I kept hearing it...


Fuck man, that seriously pisses me off. I can't not hear it, you know.... Fuck.

I've been noticing it a lot on vicarious and now that you pointed it out, I'm starting to hear it throughout the album. This sucks...

I haven't noticed this at all. Even after reading this.

Yep. It's all over. Still waiting for official word.

it's done on purpose. don't ask me why.

Like that's ever going to happen...

It's something that really needs to be addressed.

I can here a problem at 1:59, 2:57, and 3:38 in Rosetta Stoned. Can anyone else here this?

Maybe if you ripped the CD to your computer and used a program like sound forge to apply a noise gate it would help.

I can't hear anything.

Uhm, no. That wouldn't get rid of the distortion and it would make the album sound like shit.

I actually returned my cd once already and the same thing happened. oh well I only notice it when I have headphones on.

First time I put in the CD, I listened to it through my Grado RS-1 headphones, Vicarious came on and it sounded distorted, I thought, thats strange, reached for the volume on the headphone amp, turned it down a little and it was still there. I continued to listen and it sounded like the boys from Rice Crispies was playing along in the first part of Jambi. So, I took those headphones off and grabbed my Sennheisers and listened again. Still there but a little more subdued. I asked if I could borrow my friends 10,000 Days and listen, again the same thing.

I remember Blair saying that the guys while in the recording studio listened to this recording through headphones a thousand times, he said something to the effect, that Tool band members are so anal, that if they even hear anything not right with a recording they will do anything to fix it. He said "How many times have I heard these guys say this with this album and past albums alike, spare no expense in making this recording perfect." Also, I dont think this could have gotten past Ludwig or anybody else who does mastering professionally. The only explanation would be it had to be intentional. Nowhere in the last two Tool albums do I hear anything like this.

Anyways, I have moved it to my car where I hear it less and I can enjoy the album more.

I hope somehow in the near future it could be fixed, I would be more than happy to buy another 10,000 Days at a later date.

yeah, I've been saying this all along. It's almost as though the band is trying to gauge who can really tell good music and who is just blindly following. Again, I'm talking to the people who call 10,000 days Tool's best work. It's insulting to the band.

Then the question remains.....WHY?!?!?! Why would they ruin their own work in this manner? I mean, if I try listening to this on my headphones now, I'm repulsed! If they did this intentional, they are officially assholes.

I've spent countless hours with my headphones, exploring the sonic depths of Tool's previous albums and now this. It's agonising! When you listen to it on a regular stereo you kinda half-hear these details and occulted stuff, and you say to yourself "ah man, tonight I'm gonna dive INTO these tracks!" And I am therefore very, VERY disappointed....

Fuck.

i've heard it as well...man i'm sure ludwig was pissed while having to master a bunch of distortion. louder into the mix..

wtf- i hear a perfect recording, i cant hear any distortion or what any of you guys have, can someone tell me where there is distortion?

I hear the distortion your talking about but I dont believe it is there by mistake. To me, being a professional mixer, they sliced the top end off of all the audio and created some kind of forced processing that amplifies all the instruments and vocals into about the 2k hz range. This would be the obvious point where all the sounds would overlap very easily.

If you try to pick out Maynards vocals in Vicarious they sound very distorted, but try to imagine his vocals attached to the guitars and drums as a singular rhythm. Then it makes sense as to why the over mastering has been done in this way. I agree that not everyone may like it but its Tool man, they like things a little different.