TheAlterBridgeNation.com

Hmm...am i alone in that I like the All I Was production a loooot better than Cauterize? I have one particular little thing that drives me INSANE. In the bridge of Cauterize (especially from 2:33 or so through 2:40) I can't get around hearing this messy fuzz...best way to describe it. I notice it every time and it causes me to not want to listen to the song often haha. But i absolutely love the actual song. I just think certain parts like that are muffled (and maybe a few other sections on the album that I feel aren't coming through like I would prefer....I want the power of these great songs to have more breathing room, ya know) and the instruments become obscured to my ears. Does that make sense? Anybody feel me? I feel like it's too compressed and All I Was didn't really have any issues like that in my view. LOVE the album though

Elvis is terrible, plain and simple.
The only records he didn't butcher were Fortress and Slash's World on Fire.
The drum and heavy guitar tones on Cauterize just suck. When the band is playing super fast, it's a sonic mess for the ears.
It's really time to hire someone new, but that won't happen.

I think both albums have their flaws. I prefer Cauterize's sound. All I Was sounded so.. energyless.

chtimixeur wrote:Elvis is terrible, plain and simple.
The only records he didn't butcher were Fortress and Slash's World on Fire.
The drum and heavy guitar tones on Cauterize just suck. When the band is playing super fast, it's a sonic mess for the ears.
It's really time to hire someone new, but that won't happen.

I agree with this, although I wouldn't go as far to call Elvis terrible as I thought World on Fire sounded brilliant. It's been a while since I listened to Cauterize but the drums sound bad, the bass drum is probably the loudest instrument on the album, whilst you can barely hear the cymbals.

I thought ABIII and All I Was sounded terrible, then Elvis redeemed himself with Fortress and World on Fire.

Thanks for the input guys. And i personally can't say I have a bad opinion of Elvis outside of this album...the three Elvis Alter Bridge albums sound wonderful to my ears

I agree about the Cauterize bridge. It sounds amazing live, but on the record it doesn't sound nearly as good. But that is my only gripe about the production on this record. Everything else to me sounds damn good. But I do agree that the production of World On Fire sounded amazing. I want Elvis to record on tape more and see what happens.

I can't listen to more than a few "All I was" songs at a time because the production gets on my nerves.
Everything is compressed and turned up and all of the guitars just sound like a muddy mess. The drums sound at times like Garrett is playing a wood table instead of a drum kit. That's not a knock on the drummer, I think he's awesome (all IMHO). Lets not forget all of the weird sound effects on vocals. Yea, I want to hear Mark and Myles sound like robots, that's cool (not). I was blaming Elvis but I have come to believe that all of this must be coming from what Mark wants. It's a shame, because in the old Creed records you could hear all the instruments clearly with dynamic range and nice separation. I could just listen to Brian's old great bass lines all day long, but you can hardly hear the bass distinctly now days.

The beginning of the Cauterize song sums up everything I hate about Elvis. Mushy guitar tone, insane level of compression, and in the end, a tiny sounding band.
I want metal to sound HUGE, warm and cripsy, and Elvis doesn't know how to do this.
He did a slightly better job on the Trivium record (the guitar tones aren't as bad), but he has a tendency to put the drums way too high in the mix. I woudn't be surprised if he replaced most of them with samples (a lot of producers do that nowadays)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_replacement
IMO, this takes the life away from any recording.

I think I actually prefer Cauterize's production over AIW. I agree that the drums are a bit too high in the mix, but I do feel that, on a whole, the production on Cauterize gives the songs a more dynamic sound. I don't necessarily like the more muffled, filtered guitar sound used in some spots (intro to "Another Heart" for instance) but it does add more emphasis to the parts that surround them. I think the first Tremonti record was more consistent, but the production never really wowed me on any of the songs.

A lot of people have been bashing Elvis for his work on the heavier songs, but "Arm Yourself," in many ways the heaviest song on the record, was actually one of my favorites production-wise.

My main gripe is that sometimes Mark's voice seems a little too low in the mix. In particular the verses of the title track have always bugged me for this reason. Aside from that though, I thought things sounded good. I don't really know what's bothering people about the "Cauterize" bridge.

Flying Monkeys is one of the heaviest songs on the album and it doesn't sound heavy at all. And I thought AB3 was fine?

For what it's worth, I think Elvis is actually doing a decent job on the more mellow songs (e.g. Dark Trip, Providence). IMO, he just can't produce fast and heavy metal.

Sunrunner1 wrote: I don't necessarily like the more muffled, filtered guitar sound used in some spots (intro to "Another Heart" for instance) but it does add more emphasis to the parts that surround them.

I think that sounds fits the intro to Another Heart just perfectly. I love it, because it has that very trashy and moody feel to it.
This doesn't mean that I like everything Elvis does. In my opinion all AB and Tremonti records since AB III are a litte too overproduced. Especially AB III, Fortress not that much. It's like I really dig the riffs and the melodies but after a few songs the sound seems so over the top for my ears that it gets close to become annoying. I don't know an appropriate word for it, maybe the sound is too "bright".

Finaldecision wrote:It's like I really dig the riffs and the melodies but after a few songs the sound seems so over the top for my ears that it gets close to become annoying. I don't know an appropriate word for it, maybe the sound is too "bright".

I think you're referring to "ear fatigue", which is a big problem in today's music for two reasons:

1) The insane amount of compression used when mastering songs (like we always talk about with AB records lately), and 2) The fact that no one seems to understand the value of silence anymore. It never ceases to amaze me how many synths / ambient noises / etc continue to find their way into today's music, so that your ears never get a damn break and all of the impact is lost because the song is just constantly "going".

^^ Hmmm, that's a pretty fair point. So in essence, songs should try to give a little bit of a breather to its listeners without it being boring? I don't know how else to go about this question.

This reminds me of wrestling where there is something called the "McDonalization of wrestling" where you throw in moves after moves, endlessly, and make spots that fans can enjoy that does not make any sense to the story of the match (basically, spotfests). However, as a result, wrestlers and matches start to lose its distinction meaning that will be more wrestlers with same moves resulting in same kind of matches which makes watching it boring in due time.

I heard about this topic through Japanese wrestling star, Hiroshi Tanahashi (whom some people here may have heard of as I've been citing him as a reference in the ongoing "is metal/rock dying" topics) and he makes a solid point regarding this McDonalization topic that can once again be related to music.

http://yottsumepuroresu.blogspot.ca/201 ... t-his.html

Has music, nowadays, fallen in this path with its constant need to be louder for the sake of being loud and thus lose its chance to be distinct from everything else?

anguyen92 wrote:^^ Hmmm, that's a pretty fair point. So in essence, songs should try to give a little bit of a breather to its listeners without it being boring? I don't know how else to go about this question.

This reminds me of wrestling where there is something called the "McDonalization of wrestling" where you throw in moves after moves, endlessly, and make spots that fans can enjoy that does not make any sense to the story of the match (basically, spotfests). However, as a result, wrestlers and matches start to lose its distinction meaning that will be more wrestlers with same moves resulting in same kind of matches which makes watching it boring in due time.

I heard about this topic through Japanese wrestling star, Hiroshi Tanahashi (whom some people here may have heard of as I've been citing him as a reference in the ongoing "is metal/rock dying" topics) and he makes a solid point regarding this McDonalization topic that can once again be related to music.

http://yottsumepuroresu.blogspot.ca/201 ... t-his.html

Has music, nowadays, fallen in this path with its constant need to be louder for the sake of being loud and thus lose its chance to be distinct from everything else?

That's exactly what I'm talking about. You need the silence, the breather, in order for the big parts to seem important and meaningful again. It's like the lightsaber duels in the Star Wars prequels. They're flashy, fast, and well-choreographed, but there's no emotional importance behind them. There's hardly ever a moment where they separate and give each other a hard stare while the audience contemplates the implications of the duel. It all just goes along with the general "instant gratification" culture we have today, at least in the US. Nobody has any patience to see things through for a greater payoff.

So Elvis is George Lucas in this analogy?

Timotheus wrote:So Elvis is George Lucas in this analogy?

Wow, I literally could have said just that and saved myself so much typing. You're so right.

I also thought he did a hell of a job on the Trivium record. It has a much better sound than Cauterize. I do like the songs where there is space (Dark Trip, Providence). Maybe he needs to do a better job of stepping in and telling Mark that we need a break here, or a stop there. I feel like that's why Mark and Myles work so well together. Mark has some great ideas. But without Myles they are kind of a metallic mess at times.

Mark should hire Jason Suecof on the next Tremonti record.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Suecof

That dude gets great guitar tones, he knows his metal, he's enthusiastic about his work, and he's based in Florida.
He worked with Trivium and God Forbid on what I consider to be their best albums (Constitution of Treason is such a beast of an album). He's a very talented producer and guitar player. Just sayin'...

Gosh Cauterize (the song) just sounds horrible to my ears. The rest of the album's production i don't particularly like, but i can listen and enjoy without being frustrated. But the guitars on Cauterize are just so dang blurry and the bridge (again) is what kills me. I love the song musically but man it's lacking what it needs...i can't listen to it without thinking "the f is this, Elvis?"