Some seriously popping and crackling at the end of 10,000 Days too... very annoying.

And this is on a set of midrange Logitech PC speakers... granted they're good PC speakers, but hardly Audiophile quality.

I try to ignore it in headphones. What's weird is that you'd think the Pot would be one of the most energetic songs on the album... and it's not so bad, until the bits with real intense toms. It must be the drums that are doing it...


The worst culprit I've ever come across is The Darkness' first album, Permission to Land- almost all the tracks had this sort of static/distortion. Musta squeezed all the volume out of it they could. :p

The distortion is printed on the source material and has nothing to do with the audio exceeding the limitations of the DA-converters in your playback equipment. Turning down the highs and lows won't resolve anything - I know, I've tried.

The album could have sounded just as fat without this annoying distortion. I've heard fatter albums without this kind of distortion. Of course, pushing the compressors/maximizers will produce audible artifacts, but it won't sound like digital clipping unless you saturate their inputs (on digital units). The answer lies elsewhere.

If you people who are seriously having problems with this are interested in getting some answers from THE SOURCE..i.e., Joe Baressi...

consider posting your concerns at GEARSLUTZ

Either in the Hi-End Forum where this discussion happened where Joe posted a few comments:

Tool and Joe Barresi using high end gear on new record

Or in the 'So Much Gear, So Little Time" forum where Joe posted a comment in this thread:

New Tool Single

Start a new thread..maybe 'New Tool Album: concerns with audio quality'

I believe with enough discussion Mr. Barresi will make an appearance and address your concerns.

But

BUT

your going to have to be absolutely explicit in your descriptions of what exactly you find troubling...tracks...times...etc., etc.

I wish you the best of luck. I would start a thread myself there with a link to this thread but I'm quite certain Mr. Barresi isn't going to care to register with T.D.N. to address your concerns. He is however already a member of Gearslutz and posts every so often.

Peace

P.S. I do agree the audio quality has been compromised in relation to Bottrill's work. I do believe though that this is an alternatively chosen purposeful aesthetic that the band decided to run with...coupled with the post-production mastering "Loudness War" that is currently going on in audio today.

Seriously guyz REGISTER and post a thread asking about this.

WTF? Please tell me I am not reading this right- are you saying that Tool intentionally made a bad record just to test us? You're joking right? I mean, I'd hate to think there were fans as into this band as I am that are this willfully ignorant and full of shiat. So, I'll give you this one- I'm just misreading what you said, right?

Personally, 10,000 Days is turning into my favorite Tool CD. For those who don't think it is, that's cool. But the moment anyone comes at me with this elitist attitude like only they know what is Tool's best work, my naked white ass will be available for you to kiss till the end of time.

repeat of post above...threads have been merged

got it

Done.

I checked out this Gearslutz site and looked at what Evil Joe had said about the QOTSA record a year ago, and there's an interesting post there (by Joe himself, for clearness' sake):

ah clipping..............an artform these days. sometimes it comes from mastering in the attempt to make things as loud as a deaf A&R man can handle, sometimes it comes from mixing....levels way hot on tape or god forbid +12 in tools, and it distorts the input of the mixing desk. sometimes its the sheer amout of tracks all piling on one another to destroy the stereo bus, sometimes its the digital distortion no one seems to hear while they are recording, being amplified by lots of compression and eq later, sometimes its the shitting duplication at the pressing plant. there are so many things in the path. I don't know what happens. All I can say on a personal level is that any distortion I hear (unless its intentional) I try to get rid of. Sometimes its a result of my excess levels and compression, and I cant control it. sometimes its a matter of sacrificing punch by lowering all levels to just under the point of breakup and making up for it elsewhere. getting things louder than everything else while still being clean and clear is something i have not yet mastered. And what happens after i approve the mastering and turn it in is a mystery to me.

Interesting. I posted a thread on Gearslutz asking about the distortion on 10K Days. Hope someone with some insight on the recording will stop by and clarify things.

I didn't really read this whole thread, but I thought I'd throw this out there. I have a program called MP3Gain. It takes mp3s and gauges there actual volume. Then you can make them louder or quiter. But, if you're changing their volume you can tell it not to clip the track. So, if the track at, say, 98 dbs and it clips it will quite it down until it doesn't clip. So, I'm guessing if you wanted to you could get the program, rip 10,000 Days (as 320 kbps if you were worried about sound quality) and then use MP3Gain on it to lose the clipping. If you want to better understand how the program works (oh, yeah, and it's free) they have a pretty technical explaination on their site. http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

PunkyTheDog, this only applies if the clipping is caused by exceeding the limitations of your playback equipment. The "clipping" on 10K Days is embedded in the recording itself, so changing the gain won't help (I've tried in Pro Tools).

Yeah, you can't make a program think up the bits that have been chopped off elsewhere.

No, no, leave them be....they're insulting me in Hollandish....or is that Dutch?

They are all stoned off their heads all of the time....let them say what they have to. Soon they will inhale another cone and forget what was pissing them off....

Yes, this is how the rest of the world views Holland.

I'm suddenly very glad that I've spent the last 10 or so years trashing my ears because I can't hear any of these problems. Dulled senses own!

Nicely done Zabulon. It'll be interesting to see what results. Looking forward to deeper understanding.

Best, chris

I noticed some distracting noises too. Like some distorted digital noise that comes along with the guitar feedback. It's only bothering when you pay attention to it.

The sound going back and forth on Wings isn't an error though. It moves from left to right. If you are experiencing this as drops in volume, then you must be listening on mono equipment...

Tinnitus does have certain advantages ;)

Yeah, there's something about the engineering that makes the album sound kind of, how shall I put it, muted. Bottril had kinda the same effect, but I had gotten used to taht. Now comes Baressi, and it'll take another 3 albums to get used to that guy. Good thing is: Tool makes a new album every year! so we won't have to wait long...

MUAHAHAHA!

they wanted a natural jamming, crazy, noisey sound.
they even said that most of their songs came from jam sessions.
it's not supposed to be a "clean" flawless album.

where is winamp equalizer? i think i know but i want to be sure.
thanks.

EDIT: my posts are contradictory HA ! HA ! on my comp it's a little noisey but my stereo is fine...

^
^
^
What was that? I couldn't hear you!.

Nice job Zabulon getting a discussion started where we might get Mr. Baressi to weigh in on what's up with this situation.

Distortion on new Tool album

Any of you that care to weigh in on this discussion (it certainly could help)?

REGISTER

Distortion on new Tool album

Any of you that care to weigh in on this discussion (it certainly could help)?

REGISTER

Yes, my hope is that mr. Barresi himself will enlighten us with some of his personal insight on the matter :)

His idea of 'insight' may just end up being our kick in the teeth

lol

I have heard about this noise problem before.... Listened for it and I HEAR NOTHING. My CD sounds PERFECT, CRYSTAL CLEAR! I think the production is even BETTER than Lateralus! Maybe buy a new copy off Amazon... Maybe the batches that were sent to the stores in your town are defective... (????)

Perhaps, but I'm seeing lots of other people from different countries complaining about this issue too...

Maybe there are multiple bad batches?

I'm not gonna' bash the album anymore, because I've beat it to a pulp... I'll just say that I'm listening to it through my $200 noise canceling MDR-NC50 Sony's and I can hear it. Crappy. Oh well.

Well, I guess Tool has intended for the mix to be more gritty/earthy in an effort to reflect on undertow and opiate. But as for white noise I only really notice it at the start of "Wings" in between the gong beats...a sort of mild wooshing which reminds me of "(-) ions" off of aenima. Im just happy I can hear Tool no matter which level of clarity there is. That said though I was slightly disappointed that they didnt make it a HDCD.

the album sounds great.
any "white noise" or WHATEVER you audio snobs are hearing is intentional and there purposefully.

Adapt to it and enjoy the music.

I have no problems listening to the album and enjoying the music. I'm just curious about the origin of this, as many people are curious about other stuff in Tool's music.

Anyway back on topic:

When are we going to hear offical word on this?

This isn't a thread to rip on the songwriting. This is a discussion of the obviously flawed production.

I said nothing about songwriting. When one says "album" he or she is likely talking about the package as a whole. Production and all.

Enough bullshit flaming.

Yes less bullshit, more explination. What do we have to do to get a response to this? I doubt any interviewer is gonna have the balls to bring it up...

"One thing I noticed after listening to 10,000 days is that it more or less sounds like flacid dick. Any particular reason for this?"

I doubt it was done on purpose. Elevate shared a thread with me where Joe was trying to defend his work on the record and he sounded like a complete amateur, avoiding responsibility. He knew it was there. I can still enjoy the record though. It's just... harder.

I just can't wrap my brain around how Tool.. a band so anal about their music.. would let this slide.

That was my main problem. I mean, yeah, supposedly this album is supposed to be more "raw"... But nothing excuses static. One of the reasons I like Tool is because, as a rule, they're not a very "raw" band... If I wanted raw, I could listen to the Offspring.

Lateralus = Heavily produced.
Aenima = A little less produced.
Lateralus > 10,000 Days + Undertow + Opiate
Lateralus >= Aenima

With that reasoning... More production > Less production... To some extent.

I guess it's a good thing that I don't know crap about production or mixing or anything like that. I fear that if I did, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the album. Personally, I prefer the "grandness" sound of Lateralus. Everything just seemed so epic in its sound. For example, "The Patient" is like a whisper in the beginning and then it explodes to this huge full sound. Same applies to "Parabol" and "Parabola". I love 10K days and that's the end of that. I think it would've been interesting to hear the album if it had the same production as Lateralus did.