I just live in fear of being picked on for my THRICE takes when I love THRICE more than any living person. I do think it's a positive that we can debate such nuance as many bands lack nuance. Because THRICE has had so many phases of their career, there's always something interesting to discuss/compare/debate.
Don’t feel persecuted. I think the majority in here are completely aware of the cyclical nature of most of these conversations. I mean, I think we’re already due for another run of ranking lists.
They were incredible in London tonight, it was cool to see The Grey live. Also, seeing it live again confirms for me that The Long Defeat is an absolute top tier Thrice song. And I forgot that The Artist In The Ambulance existed somehow, so that was a nice surprise to open the encore!
I had no problems with the mixing on TAITA until I heard Riley and Teppei voice their complaints, which now I can't "un-hear." But I will always love the vocal production and huge harmonies of that album. That's the only album (aside from maybe Water) where Dustin really indulged in 3-part harmonies. In fact, a notable lack of harmonies is one of the few gripes I have with Beggars.
Just went through it and yeah, I get the hype. Not sure why this band is finally clicking with me so much but I'm pleased about it.
@Mike J I want an in-depth analysis about the version of Stare at the Sun featured in the 2003 video game SSX 3.
That SSX3 version, I'm honestly not sure it's even real because it sounds like someone trying to do Thrice karaoke but not Dustin.
I'm a mix engineer. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The goal has nothing to do with realism unless that's the bands goal. It clearly wasn't Thrice's goal for TAITA, they had two extremely raw albums previously but had a much larger reach on artist so they took advantage and used their budget for a big expensive sounding album. The goal of the mix is first and foremost to sound good. The second is to capture the bands specific vision for the sound. Not sure how that wasn't achieved tenfold
Every mixer is going to define the objective a bit differently. That's just what I was told by someone who's mixed a half-dozen platinum albums. (My tone isn't intended to be ostentatious.) Everyone has their approach that works for them, and the goals of the artist they're mixing. But, I appreciate your perspective and am not saying you're wrong. Of course, 'sounding good' is priority, but my buddy stated that you don't want to sound too slick that it comes at the expense of the live performance, either. In other words, you don't want a mix that the band can't achieve live to some degree. To that point, my old manager preferred to discover bands in the live setting because he knew that if they sounded good in that environment, they'd sound even better on record. He also avoided listening to demos as much as possible. Does everybody work his way? Certainly not.
that's a bad mix philosophy imo. its not 1960, it's okay to use studio tools to enhance albums. a good band will be able to translate things live, whether or not they sound exactly the same as the record doesnt matter. honestly i prefer bands that dont sound exactly the same live as they do on record. i own your records, if i wanted to hear the recorded versions of your songs id stay home and listen to them. im coming to see you live to get a fresh experience of songs i already know. i just do not understand mix engineers who want studio mixes to sound the same as they would live. go be a front of house engineer or something.
thats not to say the mixes should be so sterile and processed there's no energy or life to it. but to say a mix is bad because it's not how the songs would sound in a live setting is so far off the mark of what makes a mix good its laughable.
Funny when we did our record, Nathan Hussey literally said “don’t worry about replicating anything live bc you’ll never be able to do it anyway, do what’s best for the Record and what sounds best”
Christian from the hotelier did a great piece on this when they announced goodness on tumblr in 2016, will try to find it.