Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

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MuffinMcFluffin
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by MuffinMcFluffin »

I don't know how to upload them and avoid copyright strikes at the same time.

One thing that sucks is Mark's vocals are not tied to the center channel. One thing to even out the balance slightly was to lower the FL & FR channels while bumping the others, and it drowns out Mark's voice significantly in a song like Words Darker Than Their Wings. I don't have the luxury of using as many layers as they got to in studio.

I'll ready some sort of sample for you soon enough though.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by MrsPog »

MuffinMcFluffin wrote:
MrsPog wrote:[Call me old fashioned, naïve or plain uneducated but why should we (the customer) need to have some high-end music sound system to hear a decent sound? Didn't have sound bars or 5.1 when I was growing up but you could crank up the cassette playing in your car stereo and hear the component parts of a song. Over production has killed music for me.
Welsh Steve has enjoyed his first listen - fair play Steve. Back to basics :)
You shouldn't have to, but when it is mastered that way that is how it is intended to be heard. That's how it was "heard" when mixed in post-production.

If I spend time color-grading a film and you decide to play it on a black-and-white television, and state that you couldn't tell blue-eyed Joe from brown-eyed Jim because they were twins, that is not a problem set by the people who made the film intending for it to be watched on a color set.

That being said, they do have a 2.0 mix and I haven't heard it yet... but I wouldn't bother listening to the 5.1 mix on a 2.0 set. I would then just choose the 2.0 option. The 5.1 is intended for somebody with five channels and a subwoofer. Now, did they do it perfectly? Not even close; the low-frequency effects are absent and the sound itself is not the clearest, but the separation is there and it helps much more than the CD version, that much I can say. I even ripped them to my computer and can make better sounding 2.0 versions than the CD one if you want to hear a sample.

But yeah man, they mix it with a certain intent and that is something for you to follow. We can't hark on them for something like that unless you have the system to do it with. You can however hark on their 2.0 setup, so if you hear that and it's not up to snuff then you have a valid point. I would however excuse them slightly because of how much instrumentation is going on. There is just too much data at too many clashing frequencies; sometimes it will simply just sound like noise and two channels just might not be enough for it.

Anyway, those are my two cents.
Makes perfect sense...

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by AngusWolfe »

I think I'm beginning to prefer Myles' new vocal melody for Brand New Start ("Cast your sorrows to the wind") more than the Blackbird version. I can't say why, it's just been in my head all day.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by anguyen92 »

^^ The thing is that Myles had always sung that particular line that way when they play Brand New Start in the post-AB III era. I don't know if I prefer it that way compared to the Live From Amsterdam version.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Troops4Tremonti »

MrsPog wrote:
MuffinMcFluffin wrote:
MrsPog wrote:[Call me old fashioned, naïve or plain uneducated but why should we (the customer) need to have some high-end music sound system to hear a decent sound? Didn't have sound bars or 5.1 when I was growing up but you could crank up the cassette playing in your car stereo and hear the component parts of a song. Over production has killed music for me.
Welsh Steve has enjoyed his first listen - fair play Steve. Back to basics :)
You shouldn't have to, but when it is mastered that way that is how it is intended to be heard. That's how it was "heard" when mixed in post-production.

If I spend time color-grading a film and you decide to play it on a black-and-white television, and state that you couldn't tell blue-eyed Joe from brown-eyed Jim because they were twins, that is not a problem set by the people who made the film intending for it to be watched on a color set.

That being said, they do have a 2.0 mix and I haven't heard it yet... but I wouldn't bother listening to the 5.1 mix on a 2.0 set. I would then just choose the 2.0 option. The 5.1 is intended for somebody with five channels and a subwoofer. Now, did they do it perfectly? Not even close; the low-frequency effects are absent and the sound itself is not the clearest, but the separation is there and it helps much more than the CD version, that much I can say. I even ripped them to my computer and can make better sounding 2.0 versions than the CD one if you want to hear a sample.

But yeah man, they mix it with a certain intent and that is something for you to follow. We can't hark on them for something like that unless you have the system to do it with. You can however hark on their 2.0 setup, so if you hear that and it's not up to snuff then you have a valid point. I would however excuse them slightly because of how much instrumentation is going on. There is just too much data at too many clashing frequencies; sometimes it will simply just sound like noise and two channels just might not be enough for it.

Anyway, those are my two cents.
Makes perfect sense...
I think we all understand the process and mentality behind the mixing.

The problem is with the mastering. Unless I'm mistaken, mastering is when you prepare the audio for a certain medium (analog, digital, blueray, dvd, etc.). When the only semi-good sounding master can be heard on only 5.1, then you have a problem - and it's a little different than a "color to b/w" comparison considering that probably 90% of people own a color tv (I'm sure you weren't being literal, but it's still a far-fetched comparison).

If I had to guess, I'd say that maybe 10-15% actually own and use 5 channels, which makes the mastering of this outright stupid. It's as if they just did a blanket master across all mediums and didn't master for each individual medium - which would be straight up lazy and irresponsible - especially since people are giving you their money.

Stop apologizing for the band, people. Start holding them responsible. Look at what happened with that new A7X song - fans let the band know it was a crap mix or master (I can't remember which) and the band agreed and changed it.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by MuffinMcFluffin »

Well, one thing is for sure...
Troops4Tremonti wrote:Stop apologizing for the band, people.
I am certainly not doing this.
Last edited by MuffinMcFluffin on Mon Oct 01, 2018 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by anguyen92 »

I'm not doing that as well. If I think it's a good product, then it's a good product to me and I wouldn't change it one bit, and this DVD is a good product to me. Sure, there are flaws and whatever, but I didn't notice or care about it at all and it's really not anything worth me exerting energy or getting fussy over.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Troops4Tremonti »

anguyen92 wrote:I'm not doing that as well. If I think it's a good product, then it's a good product to me and I wouldn't change it one bit, and this DVD is a good product to me. Sure, there are flaws and whatever, but I didn't notice or care about it at all and it's really not anything worth me exerting energy or getting fussy over.
Well, your hearing is either really good or really bad. Either way, I wish I had your ears. :lol

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by anguyen92 »

Oh, I know my hearing's pretty bad, which is probably how I can tolerate some of the more panned albums that was produced by Elvis (AB III, The Last Hero).

I can understand people's frustrations, though, when if they think this is something that can be easily be fixed before the final product is released, then it should have been done in the first place. For me, it's not worth exerting frustration on (there's a lot of other stuff in life for me to express my frustrations).

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by MuffinMcFluffin »

anguyen92 wrote:I'm not doing that as well. If I think it's a good product, then it's a good product to me and I wouldn't change it one bit, and this DVD is a good product to me. Sure, there are flaws and whatever, but I didn't notice or care about it at all and it's really not anything worth me exerting energy or getting fussy over.
Sorry man, I should clarify... I'm not apologizing for the band. Yes, I wish items were corrected. Most every post of mine in here has to do with exactly that. I don't even want to hear the Blu-ray again unless add a new track onto disc that has audio adjustments provided, otherwise I'll mostly just be listening to edited MP3's in my car or something.

There are problems with this disc no matter which way you stir it, but the 5.1 separates and balances all layers pretty well except the bass. The sound in general isn't quite great, though. Just listening to the acoustics of Watch Over You versus when they did it on the Amsterdam disc is just no comparison, where Amsterdam is a significantly better sound.

And I'm not exerting any more frustration than I'm doing something about it. I just don't think it should require this much energy for me to produce a good-sounding playback on my computer or in my car.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Troops4Tremonti »

MuffinMcFluffin wrote:
anguyen92 wrote:I'm not doing that as well. If I think it's a good product, then it's a good product to me and I wouldn't change it one bit, and this DVD is a good product to me. Sure, there are flaws and whatever, but I didn't notice or care about it at all and it's really not anything worth me exerting energy or getting fussy over.
Sorry man, I should clarify... I'm not apologizing for the band. Yes, I wish items were corrected. Most every post of mine in here has to do with exactly that. I don't even want to hear the Blu-ray again unless add a new track onto disc that has audio adjustments provided, otherwise I'll mostly just be listening to edited MP3's in my car or something.

There are problems with this disc no matter which way you stir it, but the 5.1 separates and balances all layers pretty well except the bass. The sound in general isn't quite great, though. Just listening to the acoustics of Watch Over You versus when they did it on the Amsterdam disc is just no comparison, where Amsterdam is a significantly better sound.

And I'm not exerting any more frustration than I'm doing something about it. I just don't think it should require this much energy for me to produce a good-sounding playback on my computer or in my car.
I'm sure you have done some variation of this already - but I'd love some sort of how-to guide on getting better audio tracks for my phone/car as I'm sure others would as well. You may just save Alter Bridge lol

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by MuffinMcFluffin »

Troops4Tremonti wrote:I'm sure you have done some variation of this already - but I'd love some sort of how-to guide on getting better audio tracks for my phone/car as I'm sure others would as well. You may just save Alter Bridge lol
Somebody else has, but I found some of the low end to be too distorted in some aspects (over-amplifying the audio) and would like to tinker more with it.

In order to do it though, you need the Blu-ray disc and a way to rip the Blu-ray audio to your HDD. Then you also need audio editing software like Audacity (free) and know how to navigate around that. If you already have those things then that'll get you started; if not, I'm not sure you'll be able to do it but I could always find a way to personally share files with you and gather your input. We can start debating what items to alter for the best sound thereafter.

I put the whole project on pause momentarily, but I'll probably start it up again next weekend or if others want to give it a go with me.
Last edited by MuffinMcFluffin on Mon Oct 01, 2018 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Ubik »

anguyen92 wrote:Oh, I know my hearing's pretty bad, which is probably how I can tolerate some of the more panned albums that was produced by Elvis (AB III, The Last Hero).

I can understand people's frustrations, though, when if they think this is something that can be easily be fixed before the final product is released, then it should have been done in the first place. For me, it's not worth exerting frustration on (there's a lot of other stuff in life for me to express my frustrations).
I'm with you, I love my shit ears.
For all of the hope that it brings...

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by riemslag1 »

So what’s happening here ?
Is this thread really turning out to be one that tells us how bad this dvd/cd is ?
They must have bought another version than I did, as I watched this several times now and enjoy it more and more..................hope for them these people are able to enjoy other beautiful things in live more and not searching and digging for all negative aspects. This and the O2 production were so much better than TLH ! In my view it should be impossible to love failures My Champion and bash RAH, but of course that’s personal. I’m just so surprised people team up here to talk this to the bottom. It’s just not true ! Potential buyers : go on buying this, as it is a true landmark in the carreer of a great great band ! Just don’t get persuaded not to buy it beceause of what negativity you read here in the hart of their own fanbase !

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by MuffinMcFluffin »

riemslag1 wrote:So what’s happening here ?
Is this thread really turning out to be one that tells us how bad this dvd/cd is ?
They must have bought another version than I did, as I watched this several times now and enjoy it more and more..................hope for them these people are able to enjoy other beautiful things in live more and not searching and digging for all negative aspects. This and the O2 production were so much better than TLH ! In my view it should be impossible to love failures My Champion and bash RAH, but of course that’s personal. I’m just so surprised people team up here to talk this to the bottom. It’s just not true ! Potential buyers : go on buying this, as it is a true landmark in the carreer of a great great band ! Just don’t get persuaded not to buy it beceause of what negativity you read here in the hart of their own fanbase !
Dude.

1) Hypocrite, much? Insert TLH in for what you're telling people not to say about RAH and we have your opinion.

2) I'm seeing a lot of positive comments in this thread (including ones right above your post... bad timing there), and literally the only drawbacks mentioned are a select few regarding a portion of the mixing.

3) There's a difference between speaking about the mixing of the low end of a BD, addressing it, and bitching/moaning that this concert sucks. No one here is saying the latter, not at all. This is a stellar concert and the disc has some great production value.

4) No one, and I mean no one is saying not to buy this disc. Furthermore, no one here regrets their purchase. I am absolutely pleased with my purchase. I'm just going to try and maximize what I can out of it because I have the tools to do so.

5) Use the enter button, my man. Paragraphs please, and thanks.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by riemslag1 »

I hope for you you will succeed in trying to optimize the sound to your personal liking

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Troops4Tremonti »

riemslag1 wrote:I hope for you you will succeed in trying to optimize the sound to your personal liking
I'm glad you succeeded in looking past the horrible mastering of RAH.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by riemslag1 »

Sorry to disappoint you there ! As far as I did not make it clear yet : I like it as it was produced

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Troops4Tremonti »

riemslag1 wrote:Sorry to disappoint you there ! As far as I did not make it clear yet : I like it as it was produced
Apology accepted - give me your ear drums and we'll call it even.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by riemslag1 »

Sending over my very old hifi-set might turn out to be too expensive

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