Tool's Vicarious.

  • Thread starter Thread starter tarnationsauce2
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tarnationsauce2

tarnationsauce2

Welcome to the jungle.
I got an mp3 of this song and as always I love Tool's musicianship. :D
Some things about the way this song was produced were interesting to me.
1st thing, it was mastered quite hot. About -10dB average.... more hot than any song, on any other record of theirs. But that might be because of the MP3 I have, if someone has altered it (i.e. Nero's volume maximizer/normalizer bullcrap etc...).

The drums were tracked interestingly. The toms are in stereo. But everything else in mono! Even the overhead(s). Except there is a tad bit of stereo verb on the snare.

There are voices of an English, or Australian man talking about a murder/suicide I think. You have to invert a side, and mono mix the audio to really get to hear it. Also a bit of EQ helps, but the guitar really overlaps the frequencies for the voice.
I did a quick isolation if you want to hear it:


AEnema and Lateralus are very well produced, I hope Tool's new album carries on the tradition. (yes, I hear it's leaked... but I'm waiting... I'll be seeing them live on may 2nd in Seattle ;))

For those of you that have heard the song, lets hear what you think... about the song itself, or about the production/mastering/etc. Or maybe you can play it backwards at 2x speed to get a recipe for Maynard's Magic s'mores?!?
 
Its sound reminds me of the title track from AEnima. Very politcal and angry. The boys behind every Tool album are amazingly talented Aduiophiles. Each track is a treat for the ears. Will be first in line May 2nd for the album.
 
tarnationsauce2 said:
There are voices of an English, or Australian man talking about a murder/suicide I think.
Click to expand...

I think it's a news report about the war.
 
djhead said:
The boys behind every Tool album are amazingly talented Aduiophiles.
Click to expand...

Hey now, be careful. There was a female engineer on one of their albums.
;)
 
The drum overheads are in stereo, just not panned out as hard as most rock songs. If you look at some studio pics from previous records, Danny's overheads are placed very close to eachother right above the kit. By the sound of the way it was mixed, the far ends of the stereo field were saved for guitar and vocal returns.

I also dig how Maynard's vocals are set back more in the mix, he feels much more connected to the rest of the band overt he super loud vocals of most rock songs, where it sounds like the band was 50 feet back.

It also sounds like they had a few extra cymbal mics in there too.

I'm pretty sure the album was tracked to tape (almost postive). You can really hear the tape compression in the drums and bass guitar.
 
On a side note, I think the editing on Maynards vocals is amazing. Someone obviously took the time to ensure the breaths were still in there, and the processing is very tasty and easy on the ears.

I also kind of like how they didn't use much of a DeEsser.
 
TuoKaerf said:
Someone obviously took the time to ensure the breaths were still in there
Click to expand...

hahah, i love that one. I can just see the session now.
"Okay, sounds good guys. Rest of the band take a break. Maynard we need you to go back in and we're gonna overdub some breaths."
;)
 
bennychico11 said:
hahah, i love that one. I can just see the session now.
"Okay, sounds good guys. Rest of the band take a break. Maynard we need you to go back in and we're gonna overdub some breaths."
;)
Click to expand...

Heh.

I can only imagine the nightmare of compiling those vocal takes from tape (if they didn't dump them into Pro Tools or whatever). I bet some poor assistant is missing 2 fingers and has a nasty infection.
 
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