Either Manny was stoned the entire time while he was mixing ..or the blame is to be put on a combination of poor quality sound coming from LP (Rick Rubin mentions this during the making of one of the songs) overuse of compression by Manny, which didn't give Brian Gardner much room for improvement, leading to Brian compressing the hell out of it for his wages; he's hitting 70-80 now if that means anything. The most likely thing is probably lack of communication between Manny and Brian as i've said before, and I know LP use an unpopular pair of monitors that was suggested by Rick Rubin, maybe it's his fault too?
I'm listening to I'LL BE GONE right now and the mixing is atrocious. There seems to be a ton of clipping in the track, Chester's vocals sometimes distort at heavy parts and I swear I hear a high pitched hum in the chorus and bridge. How the hell did the mix on this album ever get past the band? There are some really good songs that are practically fucked cause of the mixing.
Indeed. A wall of guitars drowning out vocals is a not-unregular occurance throughout "Living Things". Makes me quite thankful we were given acappella tracks ...
I agree. Those drums sound terrible. The solos would never reach Master Of Puppets in a million years.
I only just prefer it's mixing to Living Things, at least we actually have a sense of space in the mixing there due to the minimalism, doesn't sound like it was recorded in a thick cardboard box.
"Not as bad as DM" is far from a ringing endorsement. Oh and common denominator between DM & LT? -> Rick Rubin.
List of things that most people have never heard in I'LL BE GONE: - acoustic guitar (comes in early verse and before acoustic guitar 2) - acoustic guitar 2 (comes in before chorus and during chorus) - zoom sound before intro and chorus (kind of like LOST IN THE ECHO) - strings (there are strings in places that people just can't even hear - almost completely inaudible) - dozens of layers of little synths
It most definitely has to do with Rubin, this "style" of production has been a mainstay in his work for a long time now. He likes it. It's a damn shame, they made Metallica sound weak, which, if you've been to their gigs is a feat. Powerful, cutting guitars, Trujillo's bass tone is godly and Lars has a fucking great sounding kit. The solos were lacking for a different reason though, and that was Kirk wanting to largely improvise them rather than compose them like he did in the 80's & 90's. It's just a couple of different decisions away from being a legendary album, IMO.
Mike needs to realise that although jamming as much as he can into a song makes him look good, it removes space that could be used to make a smaller amount of instruments sound better.
One of the first things I noticed about LT. I was so pumped for the dude from Arcade Fire's strings... and then... this wall of guitars and I can't hear fucking anything.
Makes this interview seem really pointless, all over a 4 second appearance in the song. http://www.nme.com/news/linkin-park/63399
I've heard the strings in the song, but only if you're paying close attention and wearing a good set of head / ear phones. Personally, I think the really bad victims of this mixing are LITE, LGM, and IBG.
And IMR because of the high pitched synth and the second backing vocals of Chester in the "one by one" part.
Exactly. People were hyping so much about the strings but if you don't have a good ear (or bad headphones), you won't be able to hear them at all. And if you do, they're hardly noticable. The mixing alone makes ATS so much better for me. It's a shame when you feel like an album could've been better if it weren't for the mixing. I hope, if they go for Manny again next time, that the dude steps his game up. If not, please, get someone who knows how to work with your music, LP. IMO, get Vlado Meller back.
A couple of reasons. Other bands who have done it found it very taxing on the members with that responsibility. Teppei from Thrice is an example and it's not like they have 40 tracks on a song. LP ProTools sessions can get HUGE. Another reason, mixing and mastering are really two completely different processes. Do I think they could mix it on their own? Yes, it would just take longer. I do think the mix on Living Things is kind of shit. I say this and not "the mastering is shit" because I believe we got Burn It Down before it was sent to mastering and it was already super squashed to hell. It's tough when you have a "popular" mixing or mastering engineer because they will always do it how they or the label wants it done. Take a look at MTM, it has tons of headroom compared to Meteora and even ATS. Deadmau5 mixes and masters his own stuff but I'm not sure many artists have the time and the gear to truly master their own stuff. Sometimes you have to step away from your own process, think of the songs as "done" and hand them off. In this case though I think the result was not good. IMO you just can't compare mixing The Rising Tied, which didn't sound like a huge amount of tracks on each song, and mixing something like... Lost in the Echo or When They Come For Me.
Linkin Park are known for taking 3-4 years between releases and they're multi-millionaires.. I think both of those issues will be small problems for them.