BLIND GUARDIAN Last Two albums Production

[DREAMASTER]

In the last weeks I have been listening to these albums again and I have to say I still don't like Charlie job on BG albums. The man does everything, produces, records, mixes and mastering. Hell at least I know that to be a mastering engineer is very hard and only very few can do a very good job and for what I listen in these two albums, Charlie job in this field is not that very good. About the mixing job, hell most of the times, the drum toms sound almost like the bass drum or the guitars sound in the last album, which was much talked about, and this make very hard to listen to the albums.


What do you folks think of the ATITM and ATEOT production wise (mixing and mastering) ?

[LeBard]

I felt that ATEOT was a step in the right decisions. Maybe it has more to do with the songs than the production though, but I felt that album sounded way more clear than ATITM, and ANATO. The guitars had more "oomph" to them and wasn't so freakishly layered, same with the vocals, but that decision probably lies more with Hansi (and André) rather than the production itself. Everything just "pops out" more sound wise on ATEOT in my opinion.

Still, I use vague terms because I can't really put a finger on what I'm getting at. For the record I don't have a problem at all with ATEOT:s production. I found the drums lacking on ATITM, afraid that with the loss of Thomen Stauch would mean that drums would be as high priority as the bass (read: not a priority at all), but I like the drum-sound on ATEOT so... *shrugs*

The vuvuzelas however...

[Orodaran]

That it sounds acceptably nice to me, and that I'm happy to be a complete ignorant of all these audiophiles things

[bestpike]

That it sounds acceptably nice to me, and that I'm happy to be a complete ignorant of all these audiophiles things

Same here, no problem whatsoever with the last 3 albums, except the Curse My Name beep, which doesn't even make any sense. Also the fact that no one realized (mainly Charlie) that Hansi sung Legacy like Lejacy in War of the Thrones. Anyway, ye Charlie Bauerfiend seems to me very good except those two little things.

[Orodaran]

Yeah, I'm mistified too about how nobody spots and corrects pronunciation errors. I still remember a "gentle kange" rather than "change" from Matos, or Blaze Bayley saying something like "chave you" rather than "save you" (in The Angel and the Gambler ), and the list can still go on. One supposes these should be the very first things one notices after a take....

[Twister]

I agree with you. Especially, the drum sounds are terrible.
Anyway, ATEOT is a little better than ATITM, Charlie did a good job enough to mix well new stuff such as violin and other orchestral stuff - jeez, remember the sound of the pipers in Carry the Blessed Home? They seemed electronic music...

[Dentarthurdent]

And we don't even want to start on the Boltendahlian lanuage Grave Digger sing in...

I remember an interview for TSWoT, where they said that they tried to keep a natural sound for all instruments on that album. I think that did them a ton of good.

[brazilian_bard]

It was very clear for my ears that ATITM and ATEOT drums and guitars were more acoustic, "live" tone. And I liked it.
Just one of many changes there...

[ErHaO]

I think the production of ATitM is really bad. It sounds overdone and artificial. B

ut I really do not understand what is wrong with AtEoT. I think it is the best BG album productionwise. By far. You can hear all the instruments clearly with a good stereoset, without anything sounding forced, (too)artificial or just bland. Yeah, you have this loudness thing and offcourse the strange sound artifacts in some songs, but it was the first BG album in which the production was not a barrier for me to like it.

The only other album in which I really like the sound is NiME. But that one was not perfect by any means either (I had a hard time noticing some of the melodies and things going on in the background sometimes). Nevertheless, I absolutely love every song BG made up until now. But good mixing always compliments good songwriting. So I'll be happy to hear some remixed BG songs on Memories. And, after scrolling trough it's topic, I think I'm not alone.

[DREAMASTER]

Well, you can hear all the instruments, yes, but unless you never heard a live drum kit sound out of a concert enviroment, you won't know what I mean. The toms and the bass drum should sound completly diferent and one should hear clearly the diference between them and in these two last albums that doesn't happens in most of the songs ( I noticed that this problem after Thomas departure). Maybe I shall find a video to make my arguments a bit clear to you folks

About the guitars, well like some one said i ATITM sound very artificial (and even Hansi voice sounded that too but that I think was a creative choice and not Charlie fault) and in ATEOT sound a too compressed and sometime you can hear the distortion in the limits.

The rest of the production on ATEOT sound very good to me (WOT sounds great).

[residentour]

Well for metal genre almost every band compresses as hell and clips all the drums' dynamics, even every spikes for the waveform are gone. That loudness level is too high to listen sometimes.
But Blind Guardian was never pushing that far (even at remasters). Waveform for Ateot is the best I have seen for last years. It sees a flat brickwalled form for only 3-4 short parts
when choir and Hansi are singinging out loud. The orchestral one has no flat which is almost ideal. It is hard to get that result form a song has : a big orchestra + a loud choir + drums + bass + lots of layered guitars and a lead singer like Hansi .

WOT with Vocals :



A flat form for a short time

WOT orchestral :



Great result, an ideal waveform for a metal album.

[DREAMASTER]

Here is a pic of the names of the pieces of a drum kit.




Now here is a video where you can the sound of the bass drum amd the sound of the toms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEVHBHKqBfQ

Starts at 1:00 mins

Now compare to the drum sound in BG last two albuns.

[residentour]

You are right the drums are overcompressed. Toms sound bassy and bass drum is hard to hear at very low end freq.


Example : A voice in The Dark

Time :

[0:52 - 1:01] Those are bass Drum + Snare + Cymbal
[1:01 - 1:03 ] 3 different Toms sequential
[1:03 - .... ] Tom + Bass drum same time

[DREAMASTER]

Tanx for the help


My english is not very good so it's hard to convey what I mean.

Plus I heard some sample of the Best Of, and it seems that is a creative/choice/taste from Charlie to make the drums sound like these, either the re-recordings or the re-mixed old song.

I'm going to post here a video where a guy play almost the same thing in the drums but with diferent mixing and you see how the drum sounds very diferent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSqGXAaE_cU

[bestpike]

If I say I can hear any serious difference between those drum samples I'd be lying. Maybe because he plays different things each time, but also might be that I don't have the ear. Who knows.