The drum sound sounds even better than the Accelerated Evolution sound. Just seems more compressed and even tighter IMHO.

I kind of disagree. I think the drum sound in AE is unbeatable, another drum sound will never come close. I enjoy the one on this cd a lot, but the drum sound on AE just seems like the best drum sound ive ever heard.

Synchresta has awesome production. Although I find it kinda weird when the guitars dip in volume during those sub blasts. Especially Hypergeek. Anyone notice that?

That's just part of the mastering process. There's gotta be some headroom left in there somewhere for those big, high-energy waveforms. Those sorts of sounds are usually mixed at such a high level compared to the rest of the channels (for impact) that when the recording goes through the final stages of mastering it gets compressed significantly around those ultra-low-frequency booms so that the recording still sounds loud but fits within conventional headroom requirements and doesn't peak or distort. Because the boom was so much louder in the mix than the guitars and drums at those points, the effect you hear when it is compressed to a consistent level is that the guitars and other elements in the mix have been turned down.

Make sense? I'm home sick today so I'm probably being a little more esoteric than normal...

Alien was far worse for those instrument volume dips than Synchestra. So much so that when you listen to some of the tracks (and I will use "Zen" as an example) on a system without a low frequency extension/sub-woofer the first beats of the chorus feel a little weak (just a little ) because so much of the initial attack of the guitars and drums have been compressed in order to accommodate the boom.

But people want to be able to hear everying loud and consistent on their CD players, so that just does with the territory... *shrug*

I would be very interested in listening to unmastered versions of Synchestra and Alien on a fat PA with plenty of grunt...

Makes perfect sense.

If the album wasn't mastered so loud, it would leave room for those sub blasts though, right? So there would be less dip in the volume during the sub blasts. I wonder why they didn't just do that?

That's correct, and they would be earth shattering over the rest of the cacophony.

They didn't do that because people in broadcast for example are always trying to maintain consistency in volume across all their program material and having one track massively quieter than the other preceeding and following it is inappropriate - do you want to be adjusting the volume of your car stereo or radio for every track that comes on?

It's all compromise... The only situations in which one can really get away with that kind of dynamic range in a mix these days is in cinema and live music.

Synchresta has awesome production. Although I find it kinda weird when the guitars dip in volume during those sub blasts. Especially Hypergeek. Anyone notice that?

It's because your system can't handle the bass. It has nothing to do with the production, and everything to do with your stereo. If you cut the bass from your midrange speakers and direct it towards a subwoofer, you will not have this problem.

Did you notice the same thing happening on "Shitstorm", by chance?

It's because your system can't handle the bass. It has nothing to do with the production, and everything to do with your stereo. If you cut the bass from your midrange speakers and direct it towards a subwoofer, you will not have this problem.

I disagree.

I've listened to the albums through professional monitoring setups where all the program material is bandpassed in accordance with the limitations of the speakers long before signal actually reaches the drivers and I have noticed the same volume dips in the mid to high frequencies upon the bass booms. The drivers are not poling or reaching their maximum excursion - the track is simply mastered the way I described earlier.

It is in fact because you have a poor stereo system and it is also likely because you are listening to an illegal mp3 version, am I right in this assumption?

You are partly right about compression being one of the problems, but you would not notice it if you were listening to the official mastered version on the original CD. Compressing the signal is a nescessary part of all music distribution. When a CD is professionaly mastered they use very expensive compression hardware that allows all the dynamic range to be kept intact. When it is unprofessionally compressed into an mp3 file by a home user they only use cheap software compression. Of course, this software is not capable of the seemless compression a Mastering Engineer would employ when professionally compressing a CD! This is the main drawback of illegal mp3s and the reason you should buy *REAL* mastered CD's so you can hear all the dynamic peaks as they are intended!

The other problem you are probably experiencing is caused by using cheap speakers that cannot reproduce the entire frequency range. When the music puts out lots of low rumble sounds your speakers will try to reproduce these sounds but fail, causing the level of the audio program to decrease. Perhaps you should buy a subwoofer as recommended earlier? I listen on a top-notch audiophile system, with the original mastered CDs, and the guitars never dip in any Devin Townsend or SYL CDs I've listened to.

Turn off your LFE and listen again - I guarantee there will be an SPL drop.

Turn off your LFE and listen again - I guarantee there will be an SPL drop.

I am not using a subwoofer. I have high quality full-range speakers that can recreate the low frequencies without causing the guitars to dip.

When a CD is professionaly mastered they use very expensive compression hardware that allows all the dynamic range to be kept intact.

Yeah this is false. No matter how expensive your compressor is, it's job is to do one thing and one thing only. Squeeze the dynamic range and make it louder. Just because a compressor is more expensive does not mean it's going to keep ALL the dynamic range in tact. Yeah you could use a small compression ratio, but you're still compressing dynamic range no matter what you're doing with the compressor. If you want all your dynamic range in tact, don't use a compressor.

I agree entirely.

Do you seriously believe audio compression software that can be downloaded off the net for free (and that is made for creating low quality mp3 files with) is comparable with a $20k compressor used in a professional studio? Of course not!
It will allow much more dynamics to be preserved in the signal. This is why I buy CDs instead of listening to rubbish mp3 files downloaded off the net. But you can believe whatever lies you want to.

Why on earth are you drawing comparisons between audio compression as a function of dynamic range and data compression as a function of data storage!?

The compression I described earlier has nothing to do with data compression like MPEG-3. Illegal MP3s don't even come into the debate. What the hell are you poffling on about?!

Why on earth are you drawing comparisons between audio compression as a function of dynamic range and data compression as a function of data storage!?

You are an "audiophile"!

Not only that but I'm also a trained audio technician, who the hell are you?

You are, once again, half correct. Data compression is one of the goals of mp3 compressors (to create a smaller amount of data) but the psychoacoustic techniques used are the same you will find if you cared to study audio.

I'm sorry mate, but you're really not making a great deal of sense, and if you care to drop the superior attitude then I'm very open to other ideas and points of view.

I'm sorry if my attitude seems superior. I am merely trying to correct your misinformation. If you can be more polite I will continue to discuss this matter with you.