I've cut some parts out of some songs on Tool's newest album, 10,000 Days. I specifically didn't mention that in the title because I didn't want to start some Tool related argument. In fact, I want the band to be completely out of it. Ideally, I'm looking for people who have never listened to Tool in their lives. You don't have to be an audiophile or have awesome equipment. Studio engineers as well as the average Joe listening on $20 headphones are encouraged to try this.

There are four short (like 15 seconds) song samples in FLAC format. You don't have to do much.

http://hushy.flaretech.net/music/tool.zip

1. Download the files and play them back.
2. Is there any audible clipping at any time in the sample? A simple yes/no works, or you can describe it.
3. Please mention what you played it through, i.e. X soundcard to Y headphone or with Z amp or whatever details you feel are relevant.

Other details (what you thought about the song, your mood, the weather, whatever) are irrelevant. Just the clipping and your listening equipment. Thanks!

Oh, and if you're wondering what this whole thing is about, well, it's to find out whether people think these samples have audible clipping or not, nothing more, nothing less

No, there is no clipping. Not a single sample's worth.

EDIT:
Wait, I found a single that might cause clipping upon conversion just crossing zero dB by a hair. Trust me, you won't hear it.

EDIT2:
You may want to adjust your samples as not to violate TOS #9.

oh yeah, crap, I made these for another forum and didn't realize one of them was over the limit. I'll change it in a few minutes (link will be the same).

As a matter of protocol, could you please state what you used for playback?

It's not clipping what you hear, but there's a static-like noise all through the samples.

The guitar is using some distortion fx, but don't think, that the audio files are clipping.

It's my impression that distortion is an intended artistic part of this music. Even in the absence of digital clipping (0 dBFS) the signal looks and sounds heavily compressed and limited, but that's common practice for many musical genres.
You can reduce DAC inter-sample peak distortion by lowering the digital level of the audio (by say 6 dB). If the audio still sounds distorted, it's probably not the fault of your DAC but of the audio itself.
It's impossible to say if this was intended by the musicians/engineers or not, unless by asking them
Don't forget that distortion is unavoidable in (acoustical) music recording. It just depends on what level you find acceptable or desirable. It doesn't have to be a bad thing.

nm, please delete

That's also what I hear. Does anybody know what is causing it?

I have this album, it plays fine on Yamaha CD Player, through my Alpine deck and through my old SB Live! as well as my iPod (though I do use MP3Gain).

You must not be familiar with Tool. This is consistent with all their other CDs. Despite the compression, their mastering is very clean. If your DAC can handle a full-scale signal, this album will not clip. There are very few samples that will decode beyond full-scale on this release.

I just found an interesting article about the recording. The mastering was done by Bob Ludwig, probably the most famous mastering engineer around. At least it's very likely that the best equipment has been used, by very experienced engineers and that the sound is intended like this. Apparently ultimate loudness wasn't the goal, which gives more freedom to the mastering engineer.

Thanks for the article.

Yeah, I've read that article a ton of times, and I started an ongoing debate about it on the Tool forum.

Joe Baressi is a very respected mixing engineer and Bob Ludwig is a very respected mastering engineer. Trouble is, 10,000 Days has much less dynamic range than any of the other albums, and many people complain of clipping, white noise, and static throughout the album.

I was going to refrain from posting where the thread I originally came from because it's a little embarrassing--I'm learning about this as I go. So perhaps my original post and thoughts are a bit off kilter? But they are developing. If anyone wants to read, here's the link. I think I probably overstepped my own boundaries of knowledge in some parts so...don't eat me up for that. I already acknowledge there may be faults (and look at me, over apologizing before you've even read one word...)

Have you looked at the track "Hooker with a Penis" in a wave editor?

Maybe it's my pressing, but it's just as compressed as anything on 10,000 Days.

Here are some ReplayGain album numbers to look from mp3s I created from my own discs:

Undertow: -3.91 dB
Aenima: -7.63 dB
Lateralus: -7.19 dB
10,000 Days: -7.74dB

Can you please explain to me what those Replaygain numbers mean? Hydrogenaudio folk quote those numbers more than Christians quote the bible, but I've searched the forums and googled and I can't get anyone to see what those numbers really mean any more than "they make all of your files an equal volume on playback." What I'm really wondering is, why is that important? Why is it like "OMG -9db, RUN FOR THE HILLS", and why are my MFSL albums so close to +/- 0?

The only thing I'm upset about with 10,000 Days is its lack of dynamic range. And the more I think about it, the more I think it was intended, so I should probably just quit my bitching.

Wings is probably the only song that really deserves any sort of range...and it doesn't get it. When the hard parts hit, there is absolutely no impact. Go to 4:10 in Wings pt 1. Then hear the heavy part come in. There is....well, no impact. You know everything is getting loud because you hear the distorted guitar and the drums and whatever but as far as effective loudness, you know what, there's not much there.

The ONLY (and I mean the one-and-only) reason I don't give up my fight for dynamic range is because of the live version of this song. Every single live version of Wings that I've listened to features a very quiet intro which bursts HARD into the loud part. On crappier miking situations (like that of a videocamera), you hear the quiet part perfectly...and then the loud part comes on suddenly and it gives the mic way more than it can handle (resulting in a blown out mess). I brought this up in the toolnavy thread--if you listen to the CD of Isis, they have zero dynamic range. The quiet clean guitar parts are pushed right up to 0dB, same as the heavy guitar with double bass. But I saw them live and that's EXACTLY the way they played the song (check out "So Did We", from Panopticon...-9.97dB replaygain, whatever that means). I have zero qualms with Isis' lack of dynamic range. It's part of their shtick.

But Tool...that is not them. Their previous albums have had quiet, subdued parts (Lateralus especially, with EBA/The Patient and others) and then the LOUD parts. 10kd is medium and loud. That's it. And I'm not much of a Wings for Marie fan because of it.

And anyway, the point of this thread was just to address the technical side of it--some people hear static or clipping, some don't. I just thought I'd take it to a place that prides itself on objective music listening. I've gotten some good feedback, I hope to get more!

When I said compressed earlier, I was really referring to limiting which in this situation is a specific application of compression. The use of limiting based on compression allows albums to be louder without clipping.

ReplayGain is a method used to make tracks or albums have equal loudness. The numbers indicate the amount of gain required to reach a target volume of 89dB. The smaller the numbers are, the louder the tracks or albums are.

You'll notice that Undertow has the largest ReplayGain figure. This is because heavy limiting wasn't used in the mastering of this title. However, the peak samples do approach full-scale and may even cause the output of your DAC to clip just like samples that approach full-scale from albums mastered with heavy limiting.

I happen to agree with you regarding the relative dynamics of of the track "Wings" compared to earlier work, but your post was about clipping, not about dynamics.

If you look at how the peaks are compressed in "Hooker With a Penis", you'll see that they are closer to clipping than anything in the samples of 10,000 days that you provided.

My point is that I don't buy into the argument that 10,000 days sounds more clipped than previous releases. At least not based on the masterings of these albums that I own.

Yes, me either. That's why I made this thread, I wanted to see what people say. I don't hear the clipping or the static, but some do, and I figured I'd take it up with a group that would focus solely on the audio rather than the music.

I'm also very skeptical of the people on Amazon who reviewed the Japanese 10,000 Days (which costs ~$30) and said that it sounds much better, etc. The same master can't sound any different, even if pressed with different equipment, can it?

And yeah, sorry for the digression. I think 10,000 Days sounds fantastic except for Wings (and just because of the range). But, that is a story for another thread which I will perhaps create here (later).

But it seems no one else has any interest in listening to/discussing the supposed static/clipping?

btw, what do you use to calculate ReplayGain? I don't think it really matters, I just use winamp, select all the tracks from an album, and send to replaygain. The only reason I ask is because I just checked my Ænima and I got -7.76, which is slightly different than yours. I have the USA Volcano reissue (not the original Zoo one, it's lost).

edit: I notice you didn't include Opiate or Salival...I was thinking maybe because they had live tracks? Well I did them too and here are the results, just for kicks.

Opiate: -6.89
Salival: -9.39

The problem is (if you can call it a problem) that

1) a track with a heavily compressed dynamic range doesn't necessarily feature clipping too.

BUT

2) because some players cannot handle peaks at or near 0dB all that well, there may be clipping at output from 'intersample overs' when playing tracks that spend lots of time near 0 dB. This is a player problem, not a disc problem.

The last publishedd 'survey' of common CD players showed that lots of them couldn't handle 'overs'...but that was some years ago. I wonder how today's DVD players (there are relatively few CD players left on the market) handle them?

^ Is that the cause of the static that I'm hearing?

No, from what I see (and hear) when looking at the waveforms in Audition, it's just a distorted recording, dude. My own flac files of the 10,000 Years look and sound exactly like this too. It sound distorted even when peaks are well below 0 dB and aren't at all flat-topped (e.g., first few seconds of Jambi). That's what they were aiming for. That guitar is distorted as hell..typical guitar sound for 'x-metal' (where X = nu, prog, goth, death, and various other subgenres of metal). It's what makes modern metal so boring to me after awhile.

That's what I hear as well, especially in the 5 minute range of Vicarious. Sounds like guitar distortion.

But I have the opposite opinion, I love extreme distortion. Adam Jones' sound on this album is fantastic, to my ears...

same here... they have a very unique sound at the guitar !!

er..*unique*?

Some people like it, some don't. But even so, that's the way it sounds. Debating preferences is thoroughly useless

Agreed, but do you think that guitar sound is *unique* to Tool?

Not many people use the same equipment, so yes, absolutely.

Are you familiar with Diezel?
http://www.diezelamplification.com/html/diezel.htm

IIRC, Adam Jones has also used Marshall bass amps to get his unique (if not signature) sound.

Getting off-topic, but another player that comes to mind who had a truly unique guitar tone is Ty Tabor of King's X.

The thing is, there are many ways to get distortion. Many of which do not at all sound the same. If you aren't an afficionado of this, you may not notice.

BTW, Distorted guitar does not mean a distorted recording. Again, the mastering of Tool albums is very clean. Parts that are distorted (including vocals) are intentional, trust me on this.

Yep, I'm gonna go with greynol here and say there definitely is. Not just the fact that there is distortion, but the type of distortion.

so let me backup my unique statement above: yes I do think, that they have a very specific sound at the guitar.
This is probably a combination of guitar, amplifier and studio recording techniques.

But let's not go into a long discussion on this.

Well, of course, Tool's guitar sound will never be mistaken for Jimi Hendrix', even though they both use distortion. And I'm sure if one drills into it enough, small variations in that machine-gun guitar sound loom large. But with some 30 years of listening to popular music behind me (much of it the loud+artsy kind), at the level of interest their music evokes in me, I just don't find Tool all that unique, soundwise. I think perhaps I hear too much where they 'came from'. To each his own, though, and I'm glad a band like Tool can garner such a large and devoted fanbase in this decadent age.




Well, you won't catch me disagreeing with that. Intentional distortion predates Tool by some decades...I dimly recall a song called '21st Century Schizoid Man' that had a bit of vocal distortion on it back in 1969. ;>

That is a hefty claim, one which I would appreciate you backing up. Not because I'm trying to be a jerk, but because I'm interested. Tool is my favorite band because of the way they blend prog elements (garnering comparisons to Floyd, KC, etc) and metal (a la Meshuggah, perhaps) with an unmatched vocal and lyrical style and content. I am in love with bands like Primus, Kyuss, Pink Floyd, Decapitated, and Nine Inch Nails, just to name a few. Tool, to me, captures the greatest elements of all of those bands (funk, stoner rock, prog epics, metal, industrial sound/lyrical brilliance, respectively) and somehow manages to push them all together and still find their own unique sound. Oh, and their live show is absolutely fantastic.

I've gotten tons of recommendations about bands that are like Tool, better than Tool, or whatever, and I still can't find any. Every band I've been shown is not even close to what I'm looking for. What other band is spinning 10 or 15 (or more) minute prog metal masterpieces that are intricate, complex, simple, heavy, soft, and melodic all in the same song? Even just going off lyrical content, it's hard to find any band that has even one or two songs that are so deeply poetic in their language about relationships, love, hate, spirituality and the occult as Tool weaves into almost every single one of their songs. And unlike other bands, Tool actually manages not to sound cheesy, whether about love ballads or alien encounters.

...or did you just mean the blob of sound coming out of your speakers? If that's what you're talking about, then please, spare me. I don't need (or want) another "all modern bands sound the same" garbage from anyone.

I should not be one to tell you that there's no need to get defensive because my saying so makes me a hypocrite, but I take it krabapple's x-metal comment offended you?

I adore Tool, but everyone's entitled to their opinion. Thirty years of passionate listening to music is nothing to challenge. In not too long of time I'll have that many myself, and speaking for myself, I have a very hard time getting into the new age of metal; it sounds all too much the same and frankly from most of what I've heard, I find it as uninspired, boring and without merit when it comes to virtuous guitar playing. If I was in my teens or early 20s I'd probably feel differenly about this.

Wait wait, you're missing the point just a bit. So let me clarify a few things.

I disagree strongly with your "if I were in my teens or early 20s.." comment. I'm in that age group and I agree strongly with your point about uninspired and boring metal. Modern music (especially metal) is mostly garbage. Nu-metal is horrible, especially American metal. Garbage like Superjoint Ritual and Lamb of God makes me sick. It takes digging to find something interesting, and I think that Tool is one of those bands that once found, stick with you because of their brilliance. I don't know if you've seen Tool in 2006 yet, but Isis opened for them, and I'm glad they did because I think they are fantastic, finally a modern metal band that has interesting and epic music.

Furthermore, I understand how hard it is to get into modern metal. It's hard for me too, and I'm still young and actually into the music of this time! Most metal coming out these days is absolutely atrocious, and I've heard a lot of bands. Like I said, I agree with you, most of it is uninspired, boring, and without merit.

I wasn't trying to make a "if you don't like Tool, get out of here, I don't want to talk to you" type of statement. Most definitely not! It's totally okay for someone not to like Tool, I don't have a problem with that. I respect anyone's opinion. But when you make a claim, stating in a factual way, that you don't like Tool because they are not unique, that implies that you've actually listened to them and made this conjecture. I listen to Tool extensively and I have completely opposite thoughts. However, I may have just misinterpreted that statement, so I'll hold off. So it's not that I was offended, it's just that I was a bit startled. Saying that you don't like Tool because they aren't unique is a little bit different than saying, for example, that you don't like Britney Spears because her music isn't unique

PS. If anyone wants a recommendation for superb metal of the modern era, let me know. I have a few excellent examples. I'm passionate about my metal

I disagree with that statement. Korn was for sure in the 90's an innovative band with excellent songs.

Korn is the exception, not the rule. And even in the last couple of years, they've changed radically. Same with System of a Down. I used to be heavily into Korn and System of a Down but they are very disappointing lately.

Good American metal is Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Slayer, for example, who have all released good albums even lately. I was very disappointed with Korn since Issues (which wasn't bad, but it went downhill from there) and SOAD has only one crappy album so let's hope they bounce back. Crappy American metal bands are starting to go towards metalcore (like Trivium, Atreyu) which is a sad perversion of metal. At least Europe knows what's up with metal still. In fact, your country, TomGroove (Germany) is home to one of the best modern death metal bands, Necrophagist

You need to reread what I wrote up there, carefully, especially the middle phrase.



You need to sort out what the 'facts' are in these claims, and what are opinions. Better yet, since you seem to have no problems dismissing large swaths of music, but have gotten your back up at a hint that someone doesn't thrill to the uniqueness of Tool, I suggest you step back and remember 'to each his own'.

saw System of a down a year ago, which I would rate upper midfield. Didn't like their latest releases too much. So let me check out Necrophagist, never heard of them thx....

Okay, so it is just "the sound" you were talking about. Which I still disagree with. I'll never mistake Tool's sound for any other band.



I'm not dismissing anything. I'm trying to get you to prove your point about dismissing a band. And since there is no way to prove a negative (i.e., "Tool does not have a unique sound"), you'd have to go out of your way to find some band that has a similar guitar sound to prove it positively. No matter how much experience you have with music, you're still talking out of your ass. You talk about Tool not having a unique sound. But what claims do you have to back that up? Just because you've been listening to music longer than I have means that you are allowed to make erroneous, unsubstantiated claims? What if I said, "I'm sure if one drills into it enough, small variations in the song structure, but I just can't find The Beatles very unique at all, soundwise."

This thread is a violation of TOS#8.


I want to see an ABX test. Right now.

"to the best of their ability"

As for my share in this violation, I'm not going to plonk down well over $10,000 on guitars and amps in order to show that Adam Jones's tone is different than Jimi Hendrix's.

I am more than happy to refain from this type of discussion in the future, however.

No, it's the part about *the level of interest their music evokes in me* that you should have paid more attention to.




<shrug>

Jeez, imagine if I had just said, "I think Tool sucks'...you'd have a fit. Of course I don't have to *prove* a blessed thing to you, fanboy. Every band can be called 'unique' if you focus narrowly enough. I prefer to use the term for bands that are 'unique' in bigger ways...like radically changing the face of pop music (as the Beatles did with George Martin, but Tool surely does not). I hear where Tool 'came from' and unlike the Beatles, they don't sound different or groundbreaking *enough* to rate the accolade 'unique' *to me*. Nd guess what, if you were way into 20th-C avant-garde 'classical' music in the 60's even the Beatles weren't *all that*; you could tell where they were getting their stuff from. It's all about perspective. With any luck you'll develop some.

ok, between which bands ? or better which guitars



not sure, that you do develop it.... so I do listen to music nearly 40 years, does that qualify me, to distinct better, whether a band is setting a special style. may be yes, may be not. So what are for you unique bands in this century ?

Am I too late to add that I don't believe there's any clipping or audible "distortion" on the overall mix of the tracks hushypushy posted.

Obviously the guitar has its sound (distorted etc), and there is some dynamic range compression and limiting on the overall mix, but neither adds distortion in the typical sense of the word.

(Strictly speaking, any non-linear change to the waveform counts as "distortion", but that's not a very helpful definition when trying to decide whether dynamic range compression is working or not because by definition it always distorts the waveform!)

(my definition of limiting: very fast acting dynamic range compression on the peaks only)


If the dynamic range that may have been present has been reduced by all this, then it's been reduced without introducing actual distortion.

Unlike my (least) favourite example...

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=26691

Cheers,
David.

We're only 6 years into this century..let's give it some more time.

What are you doing man?? STAYING ON TOPIC??

Thanks much, your response is appreciated. By the way, interesting other thread by the way. Kind of makes me sad actually, hearing about poorly mastered music left and right.

ok, let's talk in 4 years....

Neither do I. When I said it was a 'distorted recording' I meant 'a recording of distortion'. I see how that could have been misconstrued, though I thought it would be clear based on what else I wrote in that post (e..g, noting the lack of clipping).

Recorded distortion has a long and honored history in rock.

(Posting my reply in here, rather than the toolnavy thread because frankly I like here better.)

Personally, and I'm speaking from the experience of someone who doesn't understand what the difference between different types of distortions are, but I can't really here a distortion sound, as such. I do hear an increased hiss (no doubt due to either the tape that the album was recorded onto or the digital transfer of such to ProTools)and I can also hear the results of things that are usually, possibly unfairly, atributed to distortion. Generally what I'm referring to here is a flattening out of the dynamic range. While it is not as bad as, for example, Vicarious played on the Radio, the build from 10,000 Days is nothing compared to the build in the Patient. There just aren't many quiet moments on this album; Intentino adn the beginning of Right in Two, tracsk that are supposed to start soft, seem too soft to me, and this may accomodate for why I feel that hte loud parts just aren't loud enough. I'm guessing that this is a result of overcompression rather than distortion, as such, but the compression is something I find far more offensive than distortion. Clipping I can make believe isn't there, but you can't pretend something is quieter than it is. What i find more distrubing is that when you turn up the volume on tracks such as the beginning of Wings for Marie, the volume does not boost like you would expect it to for a track that begins with so little noise. Instead it acts like a track that is much louder and peaks out much too soon for my taste. Part of me wonders if this is a result of the analogue tape source material having a considerably higher noise floor and thus eliminating most of the headroom. The result, though, is not all that horrible except for the drums, which get really muddled together in my opinion, although that might be more a problem of them just being mixed too loewr in the track or, my personal favorit alternative, the guitar is too loud. It's funny--I went in here ready to complain about, in particular, the tom triplets at the beginning of Jambi--it's difficult to tell exactly which toms are played--and the hihats on the Rosetta Stoned sample. But listening to them now they sound much clearer than I remember. That's probably because I'm listening on much better equipment now.

I had some things to say about 10,000 days over on the Cakewalk Sonar (digital audio recording software) forum. Here's my first post in the thread. My username is tarsier over there as well, and I have a lot to say on the topic.

My summary:
-10,000 days has a higher RMS level than the previous 2 Tool albums--replaygain numbers don't give the real picture here.

-I don't mind "hypercompression" on music, I think it's a legitimate aesthetic choice

-There is crackling in many parts of the album, which I don't believe (yes, in my opinion) is intentional. In other words, I don't believe the crackling is Tool's aesthetic choice. It's not just on the guitar parts, it's also on the drums, and it sometimes isn't there. (I outline a telling section on that other thread) Thus, I don't think it's part of the "sound" that they were going for.

-I think the crackling does make the album sound bad. Very bad, in those sections that have it.

-I don't think the hypercompression or hissing noise make the album sound bad. I do think those "distortions" are part of the album's "sound."

-The Japanese import sounds just as bad as the American version

-There exists a 24/96 master which might not suffer the crackling, and I hope it gets released. I suspect the record company took the 24/96 master, and then further compressed the album when creating the 16/44.1 CD duplication master. But that's pure speculation.

-I'm tired of people blaming record labels for this problem by saying that the recording and mastering engineers are only doing what they're told. The engineers are the ones who push the buttons and turn the knobs, so they are just as much to blame.

Hopefully, if enough of us keep complaining, a better sounding version of the album will be released--if such a thing exists. But we've been complaining about albums like this for years, and still sound keeps getting worse. Nonetheless, we should keep trying to improve the situation.

tarsier,

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss replaygain levels as an indicator of how loud an album is. It does a very good job showing that the peak limiting isn't any more prevalent on 10,000 Days than with previous albums. If you don't believe me, load "Hooker With a Penis" into your wave editor and have a look at it.

...but I'm digressing. The topic of this thread (as I understand it) is specifically about clipping; it isn't about compression and other things deemed as "distortion".

Feel free to upload a sample which you believe is clipping.

It could be that your player has a difficult time with samples at or near full-scale, in which case I suggest you try making an attenuated copy.

How about this...

Compress mp3 files after extraction and compressed via EAC...


Original uncompressed wav...


Mike

I listened to your Vicarious sample times.



I listened on a Technics SL-P170 --> Denon DRA-35V --> Sennheiser HD555. I hear no clipping in any of those.

-In the 3:26 section, I hear no clipping, but I do hear white noise. The same white noise I hear at the end of 10,000 Days and beginning of The Pot. That has always appeared to me like analog noise, I could be wrong.
-In your 5:32 section, you say the crackling goes away when the vocals come in. It doesn't. And it sounds to me like heavily palm muted/hard picked guitar distortion which continues even underneath the vocals.

As Greynol pointed out, maybe whatever you're playing on is having a hard time with these samples. I'm sure you have the common sense to not listen from a lossy source, yes?

I was strictly interested in clipping. It's plain that the album is heavily compressed and limited, that's no surprise to anyone. There are spots of white noise in the quiet parts.

flinchlock: You're not showing much. Replaygain says most of my ogg files peak above 1.0. Hence why it's called lossy compression. Analyze the uncompressed wave and you might be surprised.