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Musicians Rants Recording

New Dream Theater album sounds like a “do it yourself” project

Ok I have listened to the entire new DT album. I must say I’m not impressed. Don’t get me wrong, the musicians are amazing. That’s not my beef.

The engineering and production on this album stinks. It sounds very mid-rangey (if that’s a word). In my one car stereo all I can hear clearly driving down the streen is snare drum and vocals. Can’t hear the bass, and the guitar & keyboards just blend into each other to form foggy sort of “audio soup.” And it seems like the whole thing is damn near panned center. Mix in some stereo will ya?

The lead guitar parts are way too low. The snare drum is too loud and in fact the whole kit sounds very mid-rangey and thin. The kick drum doesn’t kick. The toms are kind of whimpy. And the whole kit was obviously recorded in a tight space and it is totally lacking “life” or some kind of wideness or ambience.

The vocals sound pretty good.

Did these guys engineer/produce it themselves? That’s just what it sounds like.