Listened to this the other night with headphones on...holy crap! I could not believe it. How the guitar notes go back and forth between the left and right, then speed up and slow down...I cannot imagine how that is done when mastering the album...pretty complex (though I'm sure there's just a preset to control that simplifies the whole process).

Anyway, gain a better appreciation for this song late at night with the headphones!

i kinda have this theory about 10,000 days (the entire package) - and it might go hand-in-hand with all of the other albums as well(?):

if the main visual concept we get out of the 10,000 days album has us looking through stereoscopic lenses to get a 3-d image ...then the audio has us hearing through headphones (stereophonic) to get a 3-d image.

after taking this idea to "merkaba", i just can't deny the possibility (and now it's a MAJOR part of the tool experience for me); that song is a drug. if you haven't wrapped your head around "merkaba" yet ...give it a chance, something is definitely spinning (read up on activating your merkaba, and check it out for yourself). that sound - where we're rotating our tetrahedrons and aligning frequencies (just one example of tool's many audio visuals btw) - it's actually EVERYWHERE throughout their music. a few examples, decide for yourself:

spinning tetrahedrons?
0:00 - 8:17 merkaba (esp. at 5:10)
6:40 - 7:12 lateralus
7:21 - 8:19 lateralus
7:35 - 8:23 reflection
1:33 - 2:53 triad
3:47 - 4:08 vicarious
4:09 - 5:14 jambi
0:00 - 4:53 wings
6:24 - 8:20 10k days
10:55 - 11:13 10k days
3:45 - 4:11 the pot
7:17 - 8:38 rosetta
6:24 - 6:44 right in two
0:00 - 2:22 viginti tres

a lot of these may not exist as anything beyond guitar/bass solos, and i haven't even gone into what the drums are capable of, but i encourage everyone to exercise their imaginations. try to apply some visuals to the audio, especially when something is panning back and forth and sweeping around your head. this is good stuff, and tool is amazing.

I'm pretty sure Adam used a "Pan" effect, it has a stereo output, and you control how fast the sound goes from left to right, right there on the pedal...

My little brother was the first to mention it, he looks at me, barely fifteen, and goes "I get shapes in my head when i listen to tool." Years pass, and i just now really get it. I was lucky enough to hear it (this masterpiece, this 10,000 days, fuck the kids who don't get it, that's what they are, fucking kids, infants, balls of cells twirling in womb juice) the first time on headphones, and ever since, i fucking swear to God i can go back to that bar, the table facing the big glass window, the girl with the funny hobble/walk bounding by said window, the section of my novel i was working on ( i was editing), the temperature, how the barometric pressure felt, light volumes; it's the most visual, tangible, tactile memory i've ever had. It's fucking nuts. One minute i'm stuck in Canadian winter, the next it's May, May 21(?) 2006, and i'm alone at a table waiting for my girlfriend, typing.
And there is a sadness i don't fully comprehend, underr the euphoria. I don't like to imagine what it is. (You're going hooooooooome.)

Shit bannanas, i even remember where i take off the headphones and think: goddam, this is some good shit.

Anyone else?

i'm a sound engineer, and i can safely tell you that's exactly the type of technique he would've used. an unusual technique the way he does it, but excellent nonetheless.

it sounds amazing when you listen to it with headphones... especially at the beginning of the song, when maynard sings 'you, you, you...' so many times before the 'you believed' part starts... because when you listen to it on speakers, you don't really notice that unless it's very very loud.... beautiful... my favorite song definitely... a masterpiece... and you can just hear how much heart they've put into this song... and there's just this special atmosphere when they play it live, your hair stands on end, really... i could go on forever... ;))

Couldn't agree more. You definitely owe it to yourself to listen with headphones. I saw it in a totally new light after doing that.

Now, when I listen to Tool with headphones on should I be listening to the CD or are the MP3s good to? And has anyone heard Lateralus in HD? It sounds F'ing incredible.

I thought HD was just for visuals not audio. I need to get my ass to Best buy. ha gotta hear that.

Yeah, I put it into my computer and it sounded awesome. Windows media player can play it in HD. When I heard it the sound was dense. It is awesome.

I should say a lot denser than on a regular stereo.

When I first heard this song it reminded me of a hemispheric synchronization. By using headphones, Hemi-sync uses pulses of sound to create in both brain hemispheres electrical wave forms. If its not used with headphones then its not going to work. It allows both hemispheres of the brain to come together as one. Hemi-sync is used for meditative purposes. Here is one example of a hemi-sync technique (use with headphones) http://zhenergy.com/meditation.swf. In the song I noticed that it speeds up and slows down. I think they meant to imitate hemi sync with the guitars.

Late at night, when I'm alone and I listen to this track blasting on my headphones, I fucking feel like I LIVE the song man...The brillance of this song is beyond words. I must have listened to it a good 160+ times.

In this song and about all the others when i listen to say the drums w/HEADPHONES or my daddys Bose Surround System, and follow them for a minute, my mind usaully (i dont know how to explan this feeling) flips around and i loose whatever for a second . its kinda like the feeling of dosing off but not falling asleep!!!!!!!
TOOL amazes me everytime i listen to them and if i try, when i listen to a whole cd, I always notice a new sound complex of layer or an undescribable in the music or voice...THIS IS SOUL MUSIC.

OFF THE SUBJECT.....I feel bad, as do others, for all the real fans that have been having their live experiences ruined by what id call in most cases main stream music fans.

I MUST THANK YOU FOR THE POST MY FELLOW

i've always thought the guitar effect was to create a "halo" above the listener's head while maynard addresses "you..." in the lyrics

Yes, the hemisync is pretty crazy, makes you have really vivid dreams too. About 6 months after using hemisync, i also began having really lucid dreams...anywho, everyone should try the hemisync

it's probably one of those special pedals he had his crew build for him. A panner connected to an LFO foot pedal. Toe up/low LFO/slow panning, Toe down/high LFO/fast panning. But isn't there also a rotary/tremelo in there too? Or is that just an illusion that the hard panning creates?


Also, speaking of the guitarwork in wings, he plays a descending arpeggio realllllllllly fast. Adam has low technique- hasn't he said he's a much better artist than guitarist- and as emotional and well executed as his playing is, he's not a "technical" guitarist. So, I find it realllly hard to believe he can play that fast. Is it another effect? An automated time compression-expansion thing in Pro Tools? Or did he decide to build some nasty fuckin chops, and this is the only riff he uses them on?

lol how do you use hemisync?

"with my feet upon the ground i move myself between the sounds..."

yeah. i just came across something yesterday that i never really entertained in such depth before while listening to tool (which is a shame as it probably happens everywhere - especially within 10,000 days)... but check out "the pot" with headphones. the bass's 'dimensionality' keeps dropping (that's probably the best way for me to describe it). the riff starts out near the 12th fret on the high-d string, then blasts into the riff right after maynard sings "you must've been...", landing on an open low-d. but once i allowed myself to connect to the form that justin plays (harmonograph), i found out that his instrument was more or less dropping and easying my concentration of his instrument into lower, and lower realms, expanding inward - which i suppose develops a foundation for even more to play above (guitar effects, maynard's whispers, binaural subtleties, etc) ...it's just more to connect to. then, the guitar does the same thing ...all the while leading up to the polyrhythmic break after "weep in shades of indigo, shed without a reason..."

"feel the rhythm, feel connected"

iamthema!, thread destroyer.

They do a similar thing with "The Patient". When it comes to mastering their albums, they have definely been progressing album by album!

I listened to this one night with headphones while falling asleep. I couldn't move... and didn't want to.

good thread.

i was actually looking for a band called "with headphones" LOL

yeah I always under appreciated this track until I rocked it on some studio monitors whilst shrooming

sounds like a great idea (whilst trapped by the confining, collapsing walls, as they breathe death into your lungs, undulating in form against yours as you struggle for the circulated air, wading the river of blood coming out from under your coffee table)... i mean, if i were to be held up inside. it -is- winter...

play the (hd)cd, get the vinyl, or download a flac.
ignore the smoke. sit in darkness.
forget you know a thing.
forget you know yourself.*
fall to it. then appreciate it.
no middle man required, friend.

* (which is what "shrooms" do - wink!)

anyone got shrooms? i've got cash!

Hey! Look who showed up again.

Level 9 - Obstreperous

Studio monitors + mushrooms are even better ;)

oops, I forgot I already mentioned this a few days ago, sorry.