Rush 'Vapor Trails' Review (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gillespie]

'Harsh' is the word that springs to my mind too. In fact this is the only Rush album I can remember purposefully not 'soak listening' to (repeated plays at home, in the car to 'soak' in, so to speak). I don't like the sound of it and the direction of the music is not one I like either (I love Counterparts but though TFE was a bit too much).

I've been playing a stack of Rush this week in my car - an MP3 compilation covering every album. There's probably 60 tracks there. The different qualities of production is quite staggering. The best of the modern albums is still Counterparts, which has a power and depth that I rarely hear on CDs anymore. The crisp and gutsy sound of Geddy' Fender Jazz on that album is startling.

 

[Brian Perry]

I am as big a Rush fan as there is, and I find their latest offering virtually unlistenable. The recording quality is horrendous.

 

[Paul.S]

Jeff Ulmer et al.:
"D'oh!" I've amended my post above, which I did from memory yesterday at work with no liner notes in front of me. I've now checked the CDs at home and My Favorite Headache was also mixed at Metalworks. This segues to . . .

Jeff, thanks very much for all of your contributions to this thread. I briefly looked at the Metalworks Website and it is indeed an impressively-equipped facility. With two SSL desks and a Neve room (probably equipped with George Massenburg's venerable GML compressor/limiter), there's no damn excuse for a record to sound the way Vapor Trails does.
While I agree with you that the album's mastering is the source of the "overs," the overs are not the only sound quality issue with Vapor Trails. It's the overall mix quality and level that's bothering me the most, to the point of impeding my ability to enjoy the music.
Now that I have had a chance to go back and look at liner notes, here's what fundamentally leads me back to faulting the way way that this album was recorded and mixed: both My Favorite Headache and VT were mixed and mastered by the same engineers at the same facilities. David Leonard mixed MFH and VT at Metalworks (with assistant/2nd engineer Joel Kazmi, whose resume is highlighted at the Metalworks site) and Howie Weinberg mastered MFH and VT at Masterdisk. But these two records sound very different. This to me means that the general, overall sound (and mix) quality issues (not the more specific issue of overs) can be traced back to the way the albums were recorded (and mixed), not necessarily mastered.
For instance, I have long taken issue with producer Peter Collins' and his engineer James "Jimbo" Barton's use of too high a compression threshold on the master mix of his projects (instead of applying compression to individual tracks/instruments), including Power Windows and Hold Your Fire. He apparently changed his style/approach later because it is less of an issue on Queensryche's Empire, which he produced (except "Silent Lucidity") and I think Barton engineered (again, I'm typing this up from memory and will double check the CD at home tonight; it is going to be very interesting to see who re-mixes Empire for its July 30 DVD-Audio bow and hear what they do). All that good mastering does when the mastering engineer is handed a problematic master tape is reveal more starkly how poor the original recording engineering was. This is why the remasters of Power Windows and Hold Your Fire can only improve so much on the fundamental issue I have with the sound quality of those records. This is the reason I didn't buy the MoFi Ultradisc of The End Of the Innocence: MoFi's wonderful Gain System mastering is going to allow me hear original tracking engineer Shelley Yakus' poor use of compressor/limiters on the opening drum tracks of "I Will Not Go Quietly" all the better. It will not do anything about issues further upstream from the mastering process.
So the depressing truth as I see it is that, even if this album were to be remastered--a process that usually involves going back to the hopefully original two-track master but hardly ever the multitrack master--that may only solve the overs issue. Only going back to the multitrack master and remixing the record will solve the more vexing issues I have with the sound quality of this album. And not unlike that whole messy issue of the LFE level on the DTS Jurassic Park that spawned multiple HTF threads spanning dozen of pages wherein to my knowledge neither Spielberg nor sound designer Gary Rydstrom ever commented on the matter, I'm sure we'll all be left here debating/discussing/gnashing our teeth with no comment on the matter from any of the principals involved.
The only hope is a possible DVD-Audio release, but I surmise/glean/extrapolate from Ged's comments on Rockline that the band is only interested in multichannel for live, not studio, projects. It's tough to believe he feels that way given that I'm sure he's heard that stunning Metallica DVD-A. Metallica has done so much pioneering stuff with DVD-V and DVD-A that I wish Rush had done . . . but that's another thread.
Is this "How It Is"?
Paul

 

[ScottH]

Is this "How It Is"?

Yep...and apparently "How it's going to be..." :frowning: