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How do you rate 'Stadium Arcadium'?

UNCjigga

UNCjigga

Lifer
I'd say its solid, 8/10 (though unbiased would prolly be 7/10...I just really like RHCP.) Well worth the $19 I spent...especially considering the show tickets I bought for October.

I watched the 'making of' video for Dani California too...I had no idea its the same girl in 'Californication' and 'By the Way', but I kinda wish the video told more of her story (but I do like the 'history of rock music' concept they used too.)

Your thoughts?
 
I love it. But I also love RHCP... I must of had "Snow" on repeat for a good 5 hours the day I got the album 😀 I have my tickets for a show in October too, should be good. Flea and Frusciante are insane live.
 
Very good album I give it 2 thumbsup.

Oh yea, free Kroq concert this saturday. RHCP will be performing also. Streamed live on the internet.
 
5/10.

The songs just all sound the same, and the second CD just plain sucks IMO. I love RHCP, but this just isn't some of their good stuff.
 
Getting my first listen now.

music so far is pretty good, but dissapointed (though not surprised) to find that RHCP still holds the title for the sh!ttiest sounding albums of anyone I'll bother to listen to.

seriously, how hard is it to hire an engineer who knows what he's doing?
 
Originally posted by: Dubb
Getting my first listen now.

music so far is pretty good, but dissapointed (though not surprised) to find that RHCP still holds the title for the sh!ttiest sounding albums of anyone I'll bother to listen to.

seriously, how hard is it to hire an engineer who knows what he's doing?
Click to expand...

I disagree wholeheartedly. I think it sounds awesome and I'm not a big RHCP fan. Honestly, I really like this album.
 
I'm dissapointed and think that they have gone wayyy downhill since Californication.

The problem is that Californication was a perfect cd.

But the music video is great especially the 40's black and white scene.
 
Originally posted by: DainBramaged
Originally posted by: Dubb
Getting my first listen now.

music so far is pretty good, but dissapointed (though not surprised) to find that RHCP still holds the title for the sh!ttiest sounding albums of anyone I'll bother to listen to.

seriously, how hard is it to hire an engineer who knows what he's doing?
Click to expand...

I disagree wholeheartedly. I think it sounds awesome and I'm a big RHCP fan. Honestly, I really like this album.
Click to expand...

The recording is so overblown they should have called it snap-crackle-pop. Mastered-for-radio, let's make it as loud as possible crap.

it's really bad when the levels look like this for over a second or two

even relatively unnoisy parts (that was from slow cheatah) look like that for upwards of 30 seconds at a time. I could fire up wavelab and do a proper analysis of RMS values and take screenshots of all the clipping, but there's no point, it'd just be depressing. it sounds like crap.

I remember the first time I listened to californication. I though I'd somehow damaged my speakers. In a panic I put on a different cd and breathed a sigh of relief.

edit: to be perfectly clear: I like the music, it's the mastering that sucks.
 
Originally posted by: lrad50
I'm dissapointed and think that they have gone wayyy downhill since Californication.

The problem is that Californication was a perfect cd.

But the music video is great especially the 40's black and white scene.
Click to expand...

except for the fact that its mastering was terrible, yes.
 
Originally posted by: CraKaJaX
I love it. But I also love RHCP... I must of had "Snow" on repeat for a good 5 hours the day I got the album 😀 I have my tickets for a show in October too, should be good. Flea and Frusciante are insane live.
Click to expand...
What city? I'm goin to the Atlanta show.

 
Originally posted by: Dubb
Getting my first listen now.

music so far is pretty good, but dissapointed (though not surprised) to find that RHCP still holds the title for the sh!ttiest sounding albums of anyone I'll bother to listen to.

seriously, how hard is it to hire an engineer who knows what he's doing?
Click to expand...
heh, yeah the same guy has mastered the last 3 albums. Which is a shame for the new album, because they went all analog in the recording chain at Frusciante's insistence, even used an analog console and recorded onto 30 ips. Supposedly no Pro Tools anywhere. Then it gets annihilated in mastering, where you master as loud as possible and for the lowest common denominator, which is apparently Fisher Price boom boxes. Yeah, sounds great. :thumbsdown:

Check out this interview with Rick Rubin, that very issue is addressed (starting on page 4). They continue to pick this mastering over others when they A/B different versions. I guess all the others are at volume 10, and this one mastering engineer has a dial that goes to 11 😛 😕

But -- I was stunned to see this -- they recruited Steve Hoffman to do the vinyl for SA and have given him total control over the mastering. He's pretty much the antithesis of hypercompression and loudness and heavyhanded mastering. So, to hardcore fans it might be worth it to get a turntable if you don't have one. Even if you don't, maybe this is a glimmer of hope that things are beginning to change. Oh yeah, it'll be 4 LP's!

 
9/10. Listen to it a few more times and I think you will find that it will grow on you a lot. That said, why did you spend $19 when you can get it on amazon for less than $12? 😕
 
Originally posted by: SludgeFactory
Originally posted by: Dubb
Getting my first listen now.

music so far is pretty good, but dissapointed (though not surprised) to find that RHCP still holds the title for the sh!ttiest sounding albums of anyone I'll bother to listen to.

seriously, how hard is it to hire an engineer who knows what he's doing?
Click to expand...
heh, yeah the same guy has mastered the last 3 albums. Which is a shame for the new album, because they went all analog in the recording chain at Frusciante's insistence, even used an analog console and recorded onto 30 ips. Supposedly no Pro Tools anywhere. Then it gets annihilated in mastering, where you master as loud as possible and for the lowest common denominator, which is apparently Fisher Price boom boxes. Yeah, sounds great. :thumbsdown:

Check out this interview with Rick Rubin, that very issue is addressed (starting on page 4). They continue to pick this mastering over others when they A/B different versions. I guess all the others are at volume 10, and this one mastering engineer has a dial that goes to 11 😛 😕

But -- I was stunned to see this -- they recruited Steve Hoffman to do the vinyl for SA and have given him total control over the mastering. He's pretty much the antithesis of hypercompression and loudness and heavyhanded mastering. So, to hardcore fans it might be worth it to get a turntable if you don't have one. Even if you don't, maybe this is a glimmer of hope that things are beginning to change. Oh yeah, it'll be 4 LP's!
Click to expand...

There's an interesting thing about audio mastering, that even rubin didn't touch on...WHY people like the compressed to ****** version over the more dynamic one.

there was a study I read (I can probably dig it up), where in a/b listening tests of the same recording, people almost universally picked the one that was mastered to 1/10 of a DB higher RMS average. That is a mind-bendingly small difference. when the people were asked which one was louder, they couldn't say. but the louder one sounded "better". it's bizzare. more or less, slightly louder = more present and attention grabbing and therefore better. and that little oddity of human hearing is what makes a/b comparisons of stereo equipment more voodo than anything (can you imagine the difficulty of level-matching two different amps to that level of precision? using the volume knob?).

but it's also led to this compression arms race...gotta be louder than anyone else on the radio...that's what'll get consumer's attention and sell records.

That's good news on the vinyl, but I don't have the cash or the space for a proper turntable setup. I wish they'd start releasing "HQ audio" editions of cds, and get some apple marketing behind it -hell, if they made good sound trendy, that'd be a pretty good weapon against piracy...

 
Originally posted by: Dubb
Originally posted by: SludgeFactory
Originally posted by: Dubb
Getting my first listen now.

music so far is pretty good, but dissapointed (though not surprised) to find that RHCP still holds the title for the sh!ttiest sounding albums of anyone I'll bother to listen to.

seriously, how hard is it to hire an engineer who knows what he's doing?
Click to expand...
heh, yeah the same guy has mastered the last 3 albums. Which is a shame for the new album, because they went all analog in the recording chain at Frusciante's insistence, even used an analog console and recorded onto 30 ips. Supposedly no Pro Tools anywhere. Then it gets annihilated in mastering, where you master as loud as possible and for the lowest common denominator, which is apparently Fisher Price boom boxes. Yeah, sounds great. :thumbsdown:

Check out this interview with Rick Rubin, that very issue is addressed (starting on page 4). They continue to pick this mastering over others when they A/B different versions. I guess all the others are at volume 10, and this one mastering engineer has a dial that goes to 11 😛 😕

But -- I was stunned to see this -- they recruited Steve Hoffman to do the vinyl for SA and have given him total control over the mastering. He's pretty much the antithesis of hypercompression and loudness and heavyhanded mastering. So, to hardcore fans it might be worth it to get a turntable if you don't have one. Even if you don't, maybe this is a glimmer of hope that things are beginning to change. Oh yeah, it'll be 4 LP's!
Click to expand...

There's an interesting thing about audio mastering, that even rubin didn't touch on...WHY people like the compressed to ****** version over the more dynamic one.

there was a study I read (I can probably dig it up), where in a/b listening tests of the same recording, people almost universally picked the one that was mastered to 1/10 of a DB higher RMS average. That is a mind-bendingly small difference. when the people were asked which one was louder, they couldn't say. but the louder one sounded "better". it's bizzare. more or less, slightly louder = more present and attention grabbing and therefore better. and that little oddity of human hearing is what makes a/b comparisons of stereo equipment more voodo than anything (can you imagine the difficulty of level-matching two different amps to that level of precision? using the volume knob?).

but it's also led to this compression arms race...gotta be louder than anyone else on the radio...that's what'll get consumer's attention and sell records.

That's good news on the vinyl, but I don't have the cash or the space for a proper turntable setup. I wish they'd start releasing "HQ audio" editions of cds, and get some apple marketing behind it -hell, if they made good sound trendy, that'd be a pretty good weapon against piracy...
Click to expand...
I'm with you guys completely (most people don't seem to care). I seek out MFSL versions of the albums I love... because I realize that the mastering is the most important part of the sound, and that analog recording is the best. The CD isn't the problem; CDs can sound great, it's just that you have to master them properly and not brickwall everything.

Frusciante just went up a notch in my book if he really asked for everything to be analog.
 
SludgeFactory: Also kudos to you for liking AiC... they have lots of great-sounding stuff, even if the levels aren't really there (Sap, JoF) I don't mind cranking it up.
 
Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
SludgeFactory: Also kudos to you for liking AiC... they have lots of great-sounding stuff, even if the levels aren't really there (Sap, JoF) I don't mind cranking it up.
Click to expand...
yeah, 10 years after the fact, AIC is still the most interesting of the major Seattle bands to me :thumbsup:

Dubb, yeah, unfortunately the loud first impression seems to win people over. Never mind that a recording with good dynamic range, when cranked to the same dB level, will blow away overcompressed garbage. Meanwhile we're all stuck with something that's so fatiguing to listen to, you subconciously can't stand to listen to it intensely for long periods of time.

I came to the realization several years ago that listening fatigue was influencing what new music I was listening to, it ended up being more sedate music and more indie rock that didn't happen to be mastered with the knob set on 11. It has nothing to do with the volume, it's all about mastering compression. Sure, there are new releases where I really like the music in spite of the compression, but I don't find myself going back and repeatedly listening to them, which is incredibly frustrating. I have to believe at least some people have slowed their CD buying for this reason (why buy a crappy sounding CD when you can get an equally crappy sounding MP3), and it's led in part to some people feeling that modern music is more disposable than it's ever been, even if they can't exactly pinpoint why they feel that way. In the MP3 era, one of the few selling points the RIAA had for CD's, superior sonic quality, was essentially flushed down the toilet.

Engineers within the industry have even said that someone should have set guidelines and limits on redbook audio in the early 80's, like they were forced to do way back with vinyl due to the technical limitations of the medium. It's so utterly stupid and asinine that it came to this, and this style of mastering will continue right along with direct digital downloads as the CD fades away.

Eh, this is a soapbox issue for me. 😱 It's been rehashed on the internet to death at this point, and the message will never cross over outside of the lunatic fringe. I don't consider myself an audiophile and have next to nothing invested in audio equipment at the moment, I just love to listen to music and play a bit of guitar for fun.
 
Originally posted by: Dubb
That's good news on the vinyl, but I don't have the cash or the space for a proper turntable setup. I wish they'd start releasing "HQ audio" editions of cds, and get some apple marketing behind it -hell, if they made good sound trendy, that'd be a pretty good weapon against piracy...
Click to expand...
I would love a change in mindset too. Unfortunately I don't think the odds of that happening are very good.

Here are a couple more articles I found related to John Frusciante's recording philosophies:

Frusciante's approach to recording

article about Stadium Arcadium recording/mixing engineer
 
Originally posted by: SludgeFactory
Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
SludgeFactory: Also kudos to you for liking AiC... they have lots of great-sounding stuff, even if the levels aren't really there (Sap, JoF) I don't mind cranking it up.
Click to expand...
yeah, 10 years after the fact, AIC is still the most interesting of the major Seattle bands to me :thumbsup:

Dubb, yeah, unfortunately the loud first impression seems to win people over. Never mind that a recording with good dynamic range, when cranked to the same dB level, will blow away overcompressed garbage. Meanwhile we're all stuck with something that's so fatiguing to listen to, you subconciously can't stand to listen to it intensely for long periods of time.

I came to the realization several years ago that listening fatigue was influencing what new music I was listening to, it ended up being more sedate music and more indie rock that didn't happen to be mastered with the knob set on 11. It has nothing to do with the volume, it's all about mastering compression. Sure, there are new releases where I really like the music in spite of the compression, but I don't find myself going back and repeatedly listening to them, which is incredibly frustrating. I have to believe at least some people have slowed their CD buying for this reason (why buy a crappy sounding CD when you can get an equally crappy sounding MP3), and it's led in part to some people feeling that modern music is more disposable than it's ever been, even if they can't exactly pinpoint why they feel that way. In the MP3 era, one of the few selling points the RIAA had for CD's, superior sonic quality, was essentially flushed down the toilet.

Engineers within the industry have even said that someone should have set guidelines and limits on redbook audio in the early 80's, like they were forced to do way back with vinyl due to the technical limitations of the medium. It's so utterly stupid and asinine that it came to this, and this style of mastering will continue right along with direct digital downloads as the CD fades away.

Eh, this is a soapbox issue for me. 😱 It's been rehashed on the internet to death at this point, and the message will never cross over outside of the lunatic fringe. I don't consider myself an audiophile and have next to nothing invested in audio equipment at the moment, I just love to listen to music and play a bit of guitar for fun.
Click to expand...

Dude, I feel you.

This is pretty much one of the main reasons I listen to classic rock...and mostly older music in general. I find a lot of the 90s music to be good though, but this compression issue has screwed up a lot of albums lately IMO.

 
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