Incubus Make Yourself Question

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PostGrungeJunky

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I'm not sure this if this has been discussed before or not.

Is it me or does this album sound like I have cotton balls wedged in my ears when I'm listening to it?
 
it does sound like some potheads got ahold of it and were allowed to be creative. not just sonic wise but musically also
 
well, i'm referring to the recording. somethings wrong with the EQ-ing cuz the guitars are uncomfortable to listen to sometimes like they cut the treble.
 
all I know about this band is that I lost any and all interest in them after crew chiefing a stage they played at a festival a couple of years back.

We had a total of 10 double 18 bins to cover the lot the stage was at. That was more than enough for a 5k capacity lot. Incubus wouldn't dream of it though. They called their truck which was a couple of states north of here to bring down their subs to add to the existing. If the truck didn't make it by stage call, they were gonna cancel.

The truck showed and we set up four quad EVX bins.....per side.....run at max. The low end was ungodly and untasteful.

Combine that with prima donna attitudes and a band whose DJ sampled most of the cool stuff you here as far as guitar wails and percussion coupled with a listen to the pre-Otari signal for the singer (horrid)....I lost any respect for that band that night.

They like alot of bass and really nothing else. A group of kids who had a couple of hooks adn that's about it.
 
I think Incubus's Science was amazing. Still one of my favorite albums years and years later.

But man, pretty much everything after sucks, minus a few songs here and there.
 
PostGrungeJunky said:
well, i'm referring to the recording. somethings wrong with the EQ-ing cuz the guitars are uncomfortable to listen to sometimes like they cut the treble.
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thats what I'm talking about. when i played it on my speakers...i thought something was wrong with my speakers.....i wonder if bands do this to get out of their contracts or something....i think the band's been eating mexican food cause only refried beans can produce the kind of shit thats been comming out of their ass.
 
ok ok i can see the general consensus of the grudge against the their music!

i'm talking about the sound quality on the actual CD release. since it's a major label commercial release that went uber platinum, why does the finished product sound bad? is it an artisitic choice? bad mastering? bad mixing? what? i just want to know how this was released in its condition? kinda like chili peppers' californication. cuz i swear at first i thought it was ear wax build up or something
 
I remember reading an article on Mike Eizinzgniersngfger (however the fuck you spell it--the guitarist) and some of the absolutely bizarre effect stuff he uses. Sour Pickle distortion or somesuch...old Fender Jazzmasters... Anyway, he certainly seems to enjoy throwing lots of wacko vintage gear into his mix despite the fact that this is supposed to be "a neo-modern sounding band." I can't remember what all he uses, but Guitar One had an article about it a couple months ago if you're interested.

I'll have to go back and listen to the album again. It's strange how this website has turned my ear into something else again, and I'm noticing things I never would have even thought of before. ("compression? what the hell is that?!?")

Go figure: I'm a lead guitarist that finally learned how to tell when something sounds like shit. Hmmm...
 
i'm a rhythm guitarist and yeah this site has made me listen to my sound alot...havent changed much though....however it did take me a while to know that i dont have to be the guitar and bass...i had a ton of low end in my sound and now i've backed off some but not enough to be 80s hair metal thankgod
 
Mike uses all kinds of crazy stuff now, but on make yourself it's just a PRS through a mesa boogie. I think for some tracks he may have used a semi-hollowbody PRS because you could see him using one all the time live in those days. I too think SCIENCE was a great album. They were so good back then, and although I haven't cared for anything they've released since, I'm a little shocked at the reaction on this bbs. I think people here just have some kind of general dislike for any top-40 new-rock type bands, but I think Incubus is quite a bit different than your average alt-rock top 40 crap. They've been playing together and releasing music since the early 90s, they are all very accomplished musicians, and they have gone through quite a few massive changes in their musical style since then. Although I am not much of a fan of their new album, I have to say that mike's guitar tone on it really blew me away. It's one of those albums that when I heard it I had to go and find out how they recorded the guitar because it sounded so unusual and so good. His guitar tone on Make yourself never stood out as anything special to me, but I never thought it sounded bad. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
 
Purge said:
I remember reading an article on Mike Eizinzgniersngfger (however the fuck you spell it--the guitarist) and some of the absolutely bizarre effect stuff he uses. Sour Pickle distortion or somesuch...
Click to expand...

Hey, that's Swollen Pickle by WayHuge Electronics...thats a wicked pedal. Nine Inch Nails also uses this pedal...and me, if i could ever find one...damn bastards with your frickin "collector items"...

Mike's also a fan of the DOD Gonkulator/Modulator...just try finding one of those...and if you do tell me where the hell you found it!
 
The Californication album was a well made album. Really well made actually. It had a minimalists aproach to the sound which made evrything sound really real rather than being enhanced too fu*k as normally in these days. I agree that most of Incubuss albums dont have a great overall sound. The guitars are too far from the mix in alot of the songs, which i think is alot to do with brandon boid wanting to be the focus of the group, by boosting his vocals. Hes a great singer and has a great style. Incubus are a great band with so much talent. I mean mike the guitarist is just so inivitive and styley. and the drumer is spot on with his beats. The old bass player was great and the new one is pretty good too. I agree that some of their songs arent great, but they have done really well for themselves with the many albums they have released.
 
PostGrungeJunky said:
I'm not sure this if this has been discussed before or not.

Is it me or does this album sound like I have cotton balls wedged in my ears when I'm listening to it?
Click to expand...

You know what, I just got my new hafler amplifier today so I've been doing a lot of referencing of cds to get a feel for it, and recalling this thread I decided to give the old "make yourself"a spin. Well, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! My god this cd sounds horrible, especially through the new amp and JBL speakers. All day I've been listening to stuff and thinking how great my new system sounds. Then I put on this cd. It was so bad that I thought something was broken. It's funny that I never noticed it when I was listening to it on my car stereo in high school. Must have been a bad mastering job. You can really hear all the overcompression. Never noticed all of this stuff before. Too bad for incubus, but I must say that the Hafler is awesome!!!!
 
ecktronic said:
The Californication album was a well made album. Really well made actually. It had a minimalists aproach to the sound which made evrything sound really real rather than being enhanced too fu*k as normally in these days....
Click to expand...

Are you joking? I must say that I LOVE Californication, and I think it is very well mixed and recorded, but it is processed to hell. The album has even acquired a reputation in audiophile circles for being one of the most distorted, overcompressed POS ever to come out of a mastering studio. It's so bad that I have friends that won't even listen to it because it's compressed so terribly. Have you ever actually listened to it on a hifi system? It's enough to make someone nauseous.
 
Purge said:
I remember reading an article on Mike Eizinzgniersngfger (however the fuck you spell it--the guitarist) and some of the absolutely bizarre effect stuff he uses. Sour Pickle distortion or somesuch...old Fender Jazzmasters... Anyway, he certainly seems to enjoy throwing lots of wacko vintage gear into his mix despite the fact that this is supposed to be "a neo-modern sounding band." I can't remember what all he uses, but Guitar One had an article about it a couple months ago if you're interested....
Click to expand...

Like noiseportrait said, all of that is on the new album. I think it was Brendan O'brien who got Mike try all of that stuff. I read that he even got Mike to use a dobro. I know that the older albums are almost strictly PRS Archtops through 2 Mesa combos, one set dirty, the other set mostly clean. I read that for "Stellar" he used a strat, and he actually had to borrow one from the engineer. He didn't even own a Fender.
 
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