Were you listening on a streaming site or YouTube? The master file on Tidal, while still compressed like the rest of their reunion output, sounded pretty damn good to me, for what it is anyway. The YouTube video sounded awful Bruce is 62 after being the airraid siren for decades and survived throat cancer. The fact he sounds like this and is still doing it is enough for me. I sense he will stop before he gets unlistenable.
Amazon.co.uk : iron maiden senjutsu They're on amazon, but stating currently unavailable. Except the silver record set, for 60 pounds I guess there is always the Iron Maiden website?
They are available on Amazon UK but kinda buried away! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B099C4YTKG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_2MD0J0A9SJR8MZZKQNCT
We're never going to get the best sound quality when it comes to Iron Maiden circa 2003-Present. If you are searching for it, the best you are going to get is investing in the Vinyl Release and hope they have someone like Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering cuts Senjutsu and does whatever he can with the Shirley/Harris mixes. If you only care about the music and not the sound, have at whatever medium you desire.
Amazon silver LP currently not available. Crap! Even though I would greatly prefer black, at $16.99 I wouldn't care about silver. You snooze you loose...
What was interesting about "Final Frontier" is that they seemed to drop the harmony-guitars-middle-section that they did in so many of their songs before that album. I had thought it was at least some kind of intentional change to their sound, but I also missed those sections, because even though I might find a song dull, I felt I could still look forward to a Dave Murray solo, an Adrian Smith solo, and that harmony guitar section. If they were going to get rid of a songwriting element they used a lot, why not try to write an album without vi / IV / V?
Haha! Dude, no wonder! We were listening to this stuff, scratching our heads like, "Oh my nuts! What is this is wack ass caterwauling!?" Yes, they are still pushing slammed audio, but I do think slowly that it's dawning on the wise heads (sarcasm) in the music industry that they don't have to slam their music anymore, due to the changing paradigm of streaming platforms, and how people digest music in general. I still don't think the writing is on the wall for physical product yet, and we're probably at least a decade a way or more (maybe like 20 years) before CDs take a true nosedive, but it will be interesting keep track of. For instance the Prince camp have not been dynamically compromising not only legacy recordings, but also new music, as the upcoming release of Welcome 2 America (an unreleased 2011 album), is going to hit the streaming platforms with healthy dynamics, because Bernie Grundman mastered it that way. But Grundman wouldn't be mastering that way if he hadn't had approval from the talking-heads of the industry. It's something that we try to educate clients about all of the time. My studio partner is going out to California in early August to oversee a three-week rehearsal session for a national act who is gearing up for tour. My partner will be preaching the new gospel while there. In this case my objections for "Writing on the Wall" doesn't have anything to do with whatever compression of limiting they used; it's more of mix choices, which make it sound kind of lifeless. That Bruce is singing the way he is, might or might not have anything to do with his voice; it's just the overall sonic pallet that sounds strange to my ears. I saw Maiden in 2019 and Bruce sounded like a 20-year old. It was amazing!
Oh, I would. Without fail, every single time, they have always matched up to the physical release, right on the nose. We're talking pre-released singles, yes, every single time. The dynamics do not change due to MP3 lossy encoding, if that's what you're saying.
Run the test yourself. Take a pre-release single, run it through the DR meter and then run the corresponding lossless track through the meter and watch them be the same DR number. I've been doing this for years, well over a 100+ times, and never once has there been a difference in DR numbers. Period. I'm not saying there might not be an outlier, but I've never seen one out of hundreds of tests.
The DR meter measures the difference in volume between parts of the recording. Lossy compression doesn't change that.
I pre-ordered on iTunes and I can confirm DR8 for TWotW, which is plenty of dynamics for a modern metal release. Whatever issues people are having with the sq I’ll chalk up to how the song was recorded and mixed, not the mastering.
Thats assuredly a good tack. A DR8 in and of itself isn't a bad thing. It's when an album is full of DR5s, DR6s, back to back to back where issues arise. And yes, I was bringing up more of the lackluster sound of the mix. Yet that's just one song in the album. I think it's kind of an odd one as a first single, though. It's interesting to hear Maiden do a bit of southern rock after the Arabesque intro. That's pretty neat.
Ive converted flac to mp3 and DR fell down by one point. mp3 is lossy compression and thus the waveform is altered. The dr is computed using a histogram of the peaks so lossy can give untrue results
Has anyone actually figured out what Belshazzars Feast was all about? The allusion in the lead single was pretty oblique- at best. Seems like much to do about nothing.
The Way Of The Samurai: Uncover the secrets of Iron Maiden’s new album, Senjutsu – the only interview — Kerrang! Bruce discusses that in this interview.
Put my preorder in for the vinyl, I’m really looking forward to this. Listened to Book Of Souls last night, and I actually love it more with each listen. Saw them twice on that tour, could not get enough. Also saw the Legacy Of The Beast Tour, and it was incredible. Maiden can do no wrong in my eyes.
I’m with you! Loved both of those tours. They are a guaranteed purchase for me no matter what, album and concert.
I don’t disagree their mixing choices have been suspect for years. Only reason I ask is going from the video to the Tidal stream was like night and day for me. Video I could barely hear Bruce, Tidal stream he was front and center in the mix.