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Emeye
Original Poster
4,138 posts
92 months
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Ignoring any artistic criticism, but is it just me or is the mix a mess? It all sounds a fuzzy mess to me - really hard to listen to, and it's not just me but my dad thought the same too.
I'm not listening to it on any high end kit, just my half decent home CD set-up and also the crappy system in my old Merc (which is going to get an upgrade asap), but obviously I listen to lots of other music on these systems, so I have a reference.
Critically? Well, I took a chance as it was only £8 and I was hoping that it would be as good as the first Darkness Album. I didn't really enjoy the second one they did, and this appears to be on the same level as that one.
I'll try and give it a few more listens, but the mix is really making it difficult!
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Emeye
Original Poster
4,138 posts
92 months
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Has no one else listened to this?
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budgie smuggler
796 posts
28 months
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Dare I ask what its ReplayGain is?
It sounded very clipped on the sample i heard.
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Emeye
Original Poster
4,138 posts
92 months
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budgie smuggler said: Dare I ask what its ReplayGain is?
It sounded very clipped on the sample i heard. Well, I was listening to it from CD.....
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Fantuzzi
1,430 posts
15 months
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Bro got it, sounds fine to us, both pretty fairly well versed in music and production, dodgy CD perhaps.
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bennyboysvuk
2,003 posts
117 months
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I've only given it one listen and I didn't notice any clipping kind of sound especially. Though now you mention it I think you have a point. In comparison with an Alter Bridge album I've been listening to recently the sound levels are similar, but the Alter Bridge album doesn't seem to have those maxed out levels kind of sounds that the Darkness album has.
Musically, I don't think One Way Ticket To Hell And Back was nearly as good as Permission To Land. That first album was full of fantastic riffs and solos and just gelled.
As for the new one, I'll have to listen more to decide.
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BigMacDaddy
318 posts
50 months
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It's a grower I reckon - definitely gets catchier with a few listens.
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Emeye
Original Poster
4,138 posts
92 months
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I'm going to dig the first album out and give it a listen - that could be harder than it sounds! Most of my CDs are in a box somewhere crammed in my loft room, where they have been for over 2 years since I moved! 
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Dovile
21 posts
9 months
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i thought it was alright. not as good as first one (which i started listening to again a few weeks ago). i haven't listened to their second one.
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Funk
13,084 posts
78 months
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From a production perspective it does sound like a victim of the 'loudness' wars; there's clear compression and the drums especially sound horrible and the higher frequencies sound like they're almost missing completely (cymbals are lost in the mix) and it has no real bottom end to speak of. Look at the difference in the spectral analysis between this and a randomly-selected Alter Bridge track (as they were mentioned earlier): [Click for large versions]   The intensity of the colour shows how hard the levels are being pushed and the height of the bars on the graph show the frequency range. The Darkness' track is being pushed much harder and for some reason seems to have no frequencies above 20kHz. The Alter Bridge track has greater dynamic range and punch, with much greater clarity. That said, it's not the best-produced 'rock' album I've heard. Compare with Poets Of The Fall's 'Temple of Thought' which sounds absolutely fantastic:  Whoever mixed The Darkness smashed the granny out of the gain.
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Emeye
Original Poster
4,138 posts
92 months
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Glad it's not just me! Listening to it in my mates car and he thought it sounded tinny.
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Funk
13,084 posts
78 months
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I would say it sounds all 'middy' - there's no real treble or bass in the sound imo. I actually found it unpleasant to listen to from a sound perspective, almost headache-inducing.
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Emeye
Original Poster
4,138 posts
92 months
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Yep, it's just all mushed up.
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Funk
13,084 posts
78 months
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A couple of the later tracks were OK, suspect they may have been mixed and produced by someone else. Would be interesting to know if that's the case. Heh, here we go - this explains the rubbish sound: Wiki Entry said: Recording
The majority of the album was recorded at guitarist Dan Hawkins' home, Leeders Farm, in Norfolk.
Discussing the album in comparison to the band's previous two studio albums, Permission to Land (2003) and One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005), drummer Ed Graham noted, "I think that we all feel that the second Darkness album is a bit over produced and maybe lost its way in places, a bit. I think we wanted to return to the form we were in; we wanted to make something that was more like Permission to Land than the second album." My bold. Not recorded in a proper studio and they felt the last one was 'over-produced'. Well that's where the quality went out the window then. Just to compare with what a 'quality' recording looks like, here's a spectral of Dire Straits' 'Money For Nothing' taken from a vinyl rip with 24-bit 96kHz resolution:  Predictably, it sounds phenomenal.
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Funk
13,084 posts
78 months
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This thread caused me to do some thinking about bad remasters I've heard and wanted to show how something can be taken and made to sound worse under the pretence of being made to sound 'better'. Below are two more versions of 'Money For Nothing'. The top one is from the 1985 CD, ripped to FLAC in 16bit/44kHz - nothing flashy. The bottom one is the same song from the 'Sultans of Swing - Best of Dire Straits' which was released in 1998. Again, this is 16/44. Both tracks have the same peak volume (the maximum 'loudness' that can be encoded into the track) but look at the difference between them - the quieter sounds have been boosted, lowering the overall dynamic range and making the song seem initially 'louder' and superficially more 'punchy' on the 'Best of' version. However, on switching directly between the two tracks (muting one, then the other) and adjusting the volume to suit shows that the earlier original recording is by far the more superior.  Beware the 'remastering' hype - it often has a detrimental effect!
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KevSeymour
646 posts
42 months
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I only downloaded it this morning (£3.99 on Amazon), and have only listened to it once on my iMac but i didn't notice anything awful. Will give it a proper listen in the car later though, hopefully i don't hear the roughness because that would somewhat ruin the album for me.
...just like St Anger, some good songs on there but the piss poor recording means i only listen to it very occasionally.
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Emeye
Original Poster
4,138 posts
92 months
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Funk, I know exactly what you are saying. I've always found remastered albums appear to be trying too hard and slightly artificial sounding. I have never been a believer in high-end audiophile kit, but half decent value for money gear, yet even with my modest setups you can really hear the difference. When I had a decent vinyl setup, the CD just didn't compare and I found myself listening to music I wouldn't usually be interested just to enjoy the quality of the production!
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Conian
7,528 posts
70 months
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I got my copy couple of days ago and my first thought was that I'd been sent some kind of crappy pirate version
the audio is terrible
this is not a reflection of the songs, but i swear ive got c90 tapes which are copies of a copy that are better audio than this.
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WhoseGeneration
4,090 posts
76 months
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Just been given it and now on first listen, so report later.
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bennyboysvuk
2,003 posts
117 months
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Funk said: Beware the 'remastering' hype - it often has a detrimental effect! Quite right. I've been trying to find an unmolested copy of Tubular Bells, but all I can dig up so far is remastered rubbish.
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