Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: July 02 2008, 01:14 |
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| Quote (Sir Mustapha @ July 02 2008, 03:50) | | As for being alone, I guess I'm just one of the few to invade a congratulatory thread to spill my negative criticism over it, and that's why I keep my sense of humour activated during these times. Maybe it's a bit obscure, but some people would consider that a quality, so who knows! |
I don't think there's anything wrong with negative criticism as part of a discussion, but I think when it becomes a rant, it becomes a dangerous thing, even when there's humour behind it...it's easy to mistake for unnecessary negativity, and may end up attracting more in return, which I think we've had rather too much of lately.
I don't really see the thread as congratulatory either...there's been at least a scattering of negative remarks about aspects of the album as well. It's been balanced, which is how it should be. It would be nice to see more careful, sensitive placement and less spilling...
Now...to the album...I have to say, I can't quite get my head round the volume increase/over-compression thing. Compression by its very nature flattens out dynamic range, as does clipping, which is what happens when things go into the red (drive something hard up against the limit and it can't go any higher...you do get an increase in harmonics though, which can lead to the sound being perceived as louder). I'd say that over-compression is rather a subjective term - when is something too compressed? When it's offensive to listen to...now granted we could talk theory and go into what effect different levels of compression and use of dynamic range are going to have on the listener, and from that draw a conclusion as to what might and what might not be a good idea, but there's still that question of what the intent was. Talking in general terms about things being over-compressed as if there's a point beyond which no recording should ever go would be, to my way of seeing things at least, rather like trying to argue that there's a point where there's too much black in a painting...all that said, if we assume that something is over-compressed when there's precious little dynamic range left, then you can't have an increase in volume. I haven't actually looked at the sound levels for Outcast, neither have I listened to it for a while, but I remember it as being a fairly conservative increase in volume, accompanied by a general thickening of the mix as more instruments come in. I don't find that too objectionable; I would do if he'd done something which, say, caused pumping, or a really obvious and sudden drop in level of all the rest of the mix as the new parts enter (which unless it was used to brilliant creative effect, would most likely be something that could be taken as a sign of too heavy handed mix compression). It certainly doesn't clip at any point (though of course there are plenty of distorted guitars there, which are basically clipping...but I mean to say the mix doesn't seem to be attempting to do the impossible and go beyond 0dbfs).
I would say that the heightening of intensity at that point is probably intended to have the effect of building up a feeling of increasing anguish and disorientation (if we take the guitars as being voices, we could say they're all shouting at once, and as the layers build, they become more overwhelming), leading up to ' the mighty fall' (its working title), which then heightens feeling of a brief moment of calm at the beginning of Serpent Dream. It's certainly not the first time that effect has been used in music, but I can't say I ever felt it was unnecessary in that context. I think it needs to do something at that point, and building up to a crescendo is a valid way of approaching it. I suppose it could be debated whether it's too much of a crescendo. I'm thinking of Elgar's Enigma variations here and the way he plays with climaxes during the course of the variations, which I've always found particularly well handled...I think his use of mini-climaxes is more sparing, and in the case of Nimrod, which feels like it's about to finish on a huge crashing chord, very deliberately dies back down instead, leaving the full climax to the very last chord of the final variation, which he further emphasises by introducing the full might of the pipe organ, rather like the way Mike uses the bells in Far Above the Clouds. I think what draws me to make the comparison above all is the way that with the Enigma variations, Elgar is presenting a set of small pieces put alongside each other in a way that forms a unified whole, rather like the tracks in Tubular Bells III.
A few little things that might be of interest. The concert programme mentions that Outcast "came from Mike's reflections on the way Ibizan life forces you to experience emotional highs and lows," the demons being the lows, I'd suppose.
I could swear that I remember Mike saying that the sounds at the end of Far Above the Clouds were supposed to represent his return to English village life, but I can't seem to find where he says that. What I have been able to find, though, is a small explanation in the Mojo Magazine 10 favourite tracks article:
"After the very last bell, it's like cracking an egg and out come all these millions of birds, and some church bells. To me, church bells sound like jazz, because they're all slightly out of time. So I made a little jazz rhythm from a church bell sample. So, after everything, it's ultimately a positive ending. It's a bit like a death and then a rebirth. You don't know what's going to happen but it feels like a new beginning." Hmm...birds flying out an egg...that sounds familiar. A new beginning indeed - heaven's open, fly right in!
I wouldn't personally want to put too much importance on the Christian aspect of the church bells - he's always claimed to not follow any particular religion, as far as I'm aware, though he mentioned in the BBC Heaven and Earth programme that he likes places of worship in general (he actually does use the word church, but adds 'it doesn't matter what religion' ) because of the feeling of calm there, so I think the sounds at the end can certainly be taken to represent peace and calm.
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