Did Brendan O'Brien destroy Pearl Jam's Analog Master tapes?

primussucks

darthvedder said:

Prophets of Rage posted a video on social media recently where they showed the band working with BOB on new music. I laughed when they showed the band circled around a microphone doing hand claps.

Oh great! More over produced pop music. He really should be making lady gaga albums and not rock n roll albums! Im interested to hear the new Mastodon record. Brendon produced that as well. Cant imagine any hand claps on that album but im sure brendon could pull it off.

buck502000

Cheesy organs and piano breaks

primussucks

buck502000 said:

Cheesy organs and piano breaks

Im still bitter about how he destroyed Speed Of Sound on Backspacer. Ed's demo was perfection and Brendon turned it into a cheesy pop song. I often wonder how the Fixer would have turned out with Adam Kasper. I think it would have been a great punk song instead of the cheese that it is. Also brendons idea to turn Sleeping by myself into a country song and put it on Lightning Bolt is a fireable offense!!

Tim Simmons

Why do we assume BOB is responsible for those decisions? Ultimately the buck stops with the band.

Though, to be clear, I don't think any of those songs have egregious issues

Tim Simmons

I mean, really the only thing you can kinda pin on him is the brickwalling on the last LPs. But the band did it themselves on s/t, so its not 100% his fault. I think people like to pin way more of the blame for things they don't like about the past 2 albums on him. Probably a bit unfair TBH.

bootlegger10

Tim Simmons said:

I mean, really the only thing you can kinda pin on him is the brickwalling on the last LPs. But the band did it themselves on s/t, so its not 100% his fault. I think people like to pin way more of the blame for things they don't like about the past 2 albums on him. Probably a bit unfair TBH.

Yeah, PJ wants to go in this direction.

DewieCox

Tim Simmons said:

Why do we assume BOB is responsible for those decisions? Ultimately the buck stops with the band.

Though, to be clear, I don't think any of those songs have egregious issues

Exactly...the band tells him how they want to approach the album. The Fixer demo blows and the changes to the final version were all Ed anyway if I remember right. and the SoS demo is just exactly that, a demo. Finished product isn't great, but that has more to do with the feel of the song than anything else. SBM was a folky song before PJ got ahold of it and Future Days and Sirens are cheesy from the get go.

RoleModelsinBlood31

Funny how at the top of my phone this thread reads "did Brendan o brien destroy Pearl Jam's anal"

PJ_Soul

Thierry Henry said:

Josh Homme or Jack White would be interesting.

AceCool

JV130312 said:

Pono...lol.

Is that still a thing?

Who wants to carry around a yellow Toblerone with wires coming out of it?

2-feign-reluctance

This thread just reminded me to bust out Lightning Bolt & Backspacer! Both fantastic records - Backspacer has aged well for almost 8 yrs old.

Smellyman

primussucks said:

buck502000 said:

Cheesy organs and piano breaks

Im still bitter about how he destroyed Speed Of Sound on Backspacer. Ed's demo was perfection and Brendon turned it into a cheesy pop song. I often wonder how the Fixer would have turned out with Adam Kasper. I think it would have been a great punk song instead of the cheese that it is. Also brendons idea to turn Sleeping by myself into a country song and put it on Lightning Bolt is a fireable offense!!

Brendon isn't a dictator, it turned out that way because PJ like it that way.

rgambs

Smellyman said:

primussucks said:

buck502000 said:

Cheesy organs and piano breaks

Im still bitter about how he destroyed Speed Of Sound on Backspacer. Ed's demo was perfection and Brendon turned it into a cheesy pop song. I often wonder how the Fixer would have turned out with Adam Kasper. I think it would have been a great punk song instead of the cheese that it is. Also brendons idea to turn Sleeping by myself into a country song and put it on Lightning Bolt is a fireable offense!!

Brendon isn't a dictator, it turned out that way because PJ like it that way.

Agreed.

RVM1978

Digital audio is almost like digital video. It works off of a similar principle. In digital video, the more pixels you have of the source image, the better it will look. In audio, the more samples you have of the source, the better it will sound. Unfortunately we may never know how Pearl Jam's albums were actually recorded. Were they analog or digital? I would hope since they've always been a big supporter of vinyl that they are using a true analog master to press vinyl with. In digital you should want to have the resolution they recorded and/or mastered in. Most of the time that is greater than CD resolution. I was a supporter of the Pono service when it started on KickStarter and I am still a continued supporter of Pono. I've had my player now for close to two and half years and my digital music collection (all CD rips to FLAC and 24 bit high res audio FLAC) has never sounded better. Sure, the player isn't wireless, but I can plug it in to my car stereo. I can't take vinyl in my car. All of the Pearl Jam albums I have in 24 bit audio (Ten, Vs., Vitalogy, Yield, and Lightning Bolt) all sound dramatically better than their CD versions. I keep hoping that they will offer their full studio discography in 24 bit since they do offer a vast majority of their new bootlegs in that format too.

Tim Simmons

I'm assuming all the PJ albums through Yield were recorded analog. Not certain about Binaural and Riot Act. s/t through LB are certainly digital.

KV4053

RVM1978 said:

Digital audio is almost like digital video. It works off of a similar principle. In digital video, the more pixels you have of the source image, the better it will look. In audio, the more samples you have of the source, the better it will sound. Unfortunately we may never know how Pearl Jam's albums were actually recorded. Were they analog or digital? I would hope since they've always been a big supporter of vinyl that they are using a true analog master to press vinyl with. In digital you should want to have the resolution they recorded and/or mastered in. Most of the time that is greater than CD resolution. I was a supporter of the Pono service when it started on KickStarter and I am still a continued supporter of Pono. I've had my player now for close to two and half years and my digital music collection (all CD rips to FLAC and 24 bit high res audio FLAC) has never sounded better. Sure, the player isn't wireless, but I can plug it in to my car stereo. I can't take vinyl in my car. All of the Pearl Jam albums I have in 24 bit audio (Ten, Vs., Vitalogy, Yield, and Lightning Bolt) all sound dramatically better than their CD versions. I keep hoping that they will offer their full studio discography in 24 bit since they do offer a vast majority of their new bootlegs in that format too.

This.

buck502000

AceCool said:

JV130312 said:

Pono...lol.

Is that still a thing?

Who wants to carry around a yellow Toblerone with wires coming out of it?

Anyone have a Pono they hate?

RVM1978

buck502000 said:

AceCool said:

JV130312 said:

Pono...lol.

Is that still a thing?

Who wants to carry around a yellow Toblerone with wires coming out of it?

Anyone have a Pono they hate?

Mine's silver (a My Morning Jacket LE version) and I'm listening to The Clash's "Combat Rock" in just CD resolution and it is great! The funny part is I actually kinda wish I had a yellow one. Just because it looks so different.

Kev - Coat and Keys

RVM1978 said:

buck502000 said:

AceCool said:

JV130312 said:

Pono...lol.

Is that still a thing?

Who wants to carry around a yellow Toblerone with wires coming out of it?

Anyone have a Pono they hate?

Mine's silver (a My Morning Jacket LE version) and I'm listening to The Clash's "Combat Rock" in just CD resolution and it is great! The funny part is I actually kinda wish I had a yellow one. Just because it looks so different.

Yeah I totally agree - I have a silver PJ one (119 was always my favourite number) and think I'm missing out on the full Pono experience not having a yellow one. But the dang thing keeps on rocking and sounding great so am yet to need a replacement.

BK5403

1. Pono is dead, but i still have mine and it is still awesome. It's good in the car and hooked up to my home stereo or Grado headphones, but can't compete with an iphone for convenience. 

2. I somewhat disagree with the above poster re: PJ's 24/96 high res, particularly with Ten. They dynamically crushed the HDTracks version; it's a worse mastering. High res only gives the music an opportunity to sound better. But it won't make a bad master sound better than a well mastered CD. 

3. Brendan O'Brien helped this band in the early years and Vs., Vitalogy, and No Code are actually great sounding records. But starting with No Code he started getting sucked into the Loudness Wars and making it painful to listen to PJ loud. Though No Code does still sound good the records start to drop off from there. I love Yield and Binaural musically, but that's where he started leading them down the wrong path from a sonic perspective. I have no inside info, but it feels like he then started to gain a larger influence on the construction of their music. He totally lost me with some of the stuff from Lightning Bolt where i suspect Eddie may have been autotuned for the first time that i noticed (especially on Sirens) ... and then his appearance playing extremely cheesy keys at Wrigley '13. He's been an incredibly important member of the band, but I think they need fresh blood.