Devil's Slingshot

[Nippie]

I recently bought the Devil's Slingshot album which was released by Mascot records in the Netherlands. What happened to the cymbals. It sounds like they were 'gated'. The songs are great though!!

[frank]

I think the overal sound of the album is not very good. Like it was a rushed job or something. Same goes for the writing. I don't care much for those songs.

But there's a lot of cool grooves and licks and solo's on the album which makes it pretty cool.
Track #7 has a really sick groove.

[moonbabies]

I agree..the mixing is kinda terrible,Virgil drums sound terrible..not the worst but terrible and I much prefer Simon Phillips's mixing skills!! funny, some of songs sounds abit like Tony's music for watever reason but yeah its still worth getting it!!!

[Nippie]

Well, the overall drumsound could be better, but that is not so frustrating. When you listen to real old productions in general, the drumsound is not that good, but in this production the cymbals sounds like he chokes them after every strike. :-)

[facevisible]

open up your mind to new sounds or other sounds that you may hear, do not be so stereotyped-listeners!

[frank]

That's just nonsense. This is not only a matter of taste, it is also got to do with certain standards and expectations that come with them.

I'm not even going to explain any further. Just... no.

[facevisible]

That's just nonsense. This is not only a matter of taste, it is also got to do with certain standards and expectations that come with them.

I'm not even going to explain any further. Just... no.

Sure, you are entitled to your own tastes, but there are other sounds available and in my opinion we, drummers, should be open minded to other new sounds that can be produced. Devil slingshot is devil slingshot, not virgildonati band (with its own sound)!
We all know that we can recognize, thanks to their own sound, one or another drummer.
i.e simons philipps has a very noticeable sounds, or yngwie malmsteen has on guitar a very spécific sound maybe its a sort of identity card although they can change if they want and maybe that's what happened for virgil with devil slingshot, sounds was changed a little bit. and I guess if you listen to him as a session drummer he will have a different sound.

Frank, there is no nonsense in being open to different sounds. you can like or dislike them. Musician progress by listening to new sounds, new drummers, new song, and so on I think. Learning new ideas new grooves new combinations hand-foot and so on.

good day!

[Nippie]

I don't think in this case 'gating cymbals' is a matter of taste. :-)
However I ;think this happened during mastering. I had a similar problem with a recording of a band in the past.

I sure think that sound is a matter of taste. Every music style has a certain drumsound.I like to recognize the drummer's playing and not his sound,if you know what I mean.

[Matthias]

Well: naturally sounding is ALWAYS good, too weird is mostly bad. IMO.
The rest may be a matter of taste, but of course BAD mixes exist!!

[facevisible]

I personally think that Virgil would not have allowed anyone to "bad mix" his work neither Tony or Billy.

All three have been in music for too long a time to count and work with the greatest.( Do you think they would have let someone bad mix their work ;-)

Probably it happened to some of us that depending on the moment we can hear a piece of music in one or another manner and the day after we notice other things in the music we did not hear the day before, or we hear them differently, and if you were tired when you listened to the CD you might have "badly heard" the sound. Or maybe Virgil got another sound from the cymbal depending on how you hit it with the stick!

And if you know Virgil, and unless I make a mistake his set of cymbals are Sabian "saturation" or a name like this. He explains it in a DVD that these cymbals were tailor-made according to his taste, and not available for anyone else, maybe it is his sound without the use of any EQ on mixing who knows?

And of course we can recognise a drummer by what we hear independently from the mix i.e the late Jeff Porcaro played on a Michaël Mac Donald CD (no looking back). Nice shuffles anyone would recognise :-)

[facevisible]

Being curious I just checked on the CD who mixed and the guy is Steve Scanlon.

You should just check on how many CD did he work on and you may have some surprise when you scroll down the list. here is the link (http://www.stevescanlon.net/releases.html)

[Nippie]

That is why I said that it probably went wrong with the mastering....

[frank]

open up your mind to new sounds or other sounds that you may hear, do not be so stereotyped-listeners!

I keep saying that this is nonsense.

Just because I - or anyone else - don't/doesn't like the sound of this CD doesn't mean that we're stereotyped-listeners. Like I said earlier, it's about taste. I don't like it.

Lars Ulrich tried something different for Saint Anger and nobody liked it. He even makes fun of it himself these days.

The point is, whatever anybody who was involved with Clinophobia may have thought, the sound is not so great and a lot of people will agree with me. So, does that mean that we're missing the point of these great musicians? Or are they missing the point in what the fans are looking for?

BTW Steve Scanlon also did most of the mixing for Planet X - Quantum and did a good job as far as I can tell. And searching the internet for the guy who mixed an album that I don't like is just beyond me... I don't like the sound? Fine, oh well I'll just give it a few less spins.

[facevisible]

I got it Frank you do not like it and it doesn't mean anything else than that.
So do you like the last metallica sound?
BTW i love the sound he has in "...and justice for all"!

[frank]

Alright man. :)

The last Metallica.. I've heard some of it. Doesn't seem to be all that great to me.

I've read alot about this album on forums. "Metallica is back!" "The sound sucks, volume war blabla"... I don't know what to think of it, really.

The songs themselves don't do anything for me. Then again, I never was a real Metallica fan. I dig a few songs, mostly from the Black album. "One" is great.

So really, I can't form an honest opinion on Metallica or their new album for that matter. My mind is blurred by online opinions and I'm not familiar enough with their material to state any true opinion on it.

So ... I ... I just don't know.

One more thing: Lars' playing seems to have been decreasing. Not to say that he's a bad drummer. He would probably kick my a$s any given day, but the stuff he plays on "One" was incredible, especially at that time. But - even despite the time frame - I'm kinda missing the "wow"-factor in his playing these days.


Wow this is an empty post. :p


So what do you think about it? :)

[facevisible]

Alright man. :)

The last Metallica.. I've heard some of it. Doesn't seem to be all that great to me.

I've read alot about this album on forums. "Metallica is back!" "The sound sucks, volume war blabla"... I don't know what to think of it, really.

The songs themselves don't do anything for me. Then again, I never was a real Metallica fan. I dig a few songs, mostly from the Black album. "One" is great.

So really, I can't form an honest opinion on Metallica or their new album for that matter. My mind is blurred by online opinions and I'm not familiar enough with their material to state any true opinion on it.

So ... I ... I just don't know.

One more thing: Lars' playing seems to have been decreasing. Not to say that he's a bad drummer. He would probably kick my a$s any given day, but the stuff he plays on "One" was incredible, especially at that time. But - even despite the time frame - I'm kinda missing the "wow"-factor in his playing these days.


Wow this is an empty post. :p


So what do you think about it? :)

It's all right with me! You speak with no detours!
Myself I also heard some bits of it and sure to me too I wasn't impress as much as when I heard "ride the lightning" for example. but I am not a teenager anymore :-))))
Yes they are a great band and good players too. maybe they are the only ones I can listen to in this style coz I was i them when they release "kill'em all" funny, at that time I was also listening to Tony Mc Alpine "Maximum security" and an english prog band called pendragon "the jewel". if you have the opportunity to listen to it...
Well fine Frank I have to go and work now.

up to next time :-)

[Steves Music]

The album have it's weaknesses but I appreciated their "experiments" to some extent. Music is all about that, discovering new sounds and genre, and it can take many forms.

I say, keep up the good work guys, maybe someday you will be a legend ;-)

Cheers to all.