Obligatory Big Wreck / Thornley Thread

[Chris]

[Chris]

Good lord this dude's voice.

[Jeff]

He's brilliant, at everything except producing.

[Budda]

They need a live album just so we dont get the crushed version of the songs. Apparently his playing routine to stay competent is wild (and posted).

[Chris]

It's so crazy that someone who's so talented would let his whole catalog be brickwalled to shit like that

[RevDrucifer]

I’m guessing Ian has just blown his fucking ears out at this point. That last album, .....but for the sun, was too much. I listened to it once and shut it off halfway in, tried again about 3 months ago and it’s too much. I really think they bounced the instrumental tracks with everything on in the master bus, then put the vocals on in another session and re-applied the master bus chain. The music is just fucking demolished, but the vocals aren’t nearly as bad.

Dude really is something else and is the complete package of a frontman- amazing songwriter, amazing singer and amazing guitar player.

I spent a good year and a half analyzing his vocal technique and what I came to realize, like most other singers I love, he doesn’t get nearly as loud as it sounds like he is. Notice his mouth is always ON the mic until he starts belting. Such outstanding control over vocal fry and dynamics. He’s gotten annoyed with the Cornell comparison’s over the years and I totally understand that. Back in the day, everyone thought I was trying to sound like Sully from Godsmack, but my two biggest influences then were Layne Staley and Phil Anselmo and I imagine the same thing is goin’ on with Thornley/Cornell, they’re both huge Robert Plant fans and they use the same technique areas to focus their high notes from (which is the same place the dude from A7X sings from but sounds super fucking nasally when he does it)

[Chris]

I’m guessing Ian has just blown his fucking ears out at this point. That last album, .....but for the sun, was too much. I listened to it once and shut it off halfway in, tried again about 3 months ago and it’s too much. I really think they bounced the instrumental tracks with everything on in the master bus, then put the vocals on in another session and re-applied the master bus chain. The music is just fucking demolished, but the vocals aren’t nearly as bad.

I had the exact same experience with it. It's why I love all these live videos - they're fantastic renditions of songs that I really like but can't listen to on the actual albums.

[Jeff]

I thought they decided to not release the last album because everything clipped and was too overly compressed?

[RevDrucifer]

I had the exact same experience with it. It's why I love all these live videos - they're fantastic renditions of songs that I really like but can't listen to on the actual albums.

Hell yeah! These videos were easily the best thing to happen in their career since “The Oaf”. These videos pop up on TGP all the time and nearly every time at least one person replies, “Holy sh*t!! I’ve never heard these guys before! This guy is insane!”.

They’re so fucking good live and when they’ve got 3 guitarist up there (RIP Brian) they cover the majority of layers on the albums, if one band needs a live album, it’s these guys. It’s crazy that it’s just the mastering of the albums, all the rest of the tones on it are fucking PERFECT. He’s spoken about taking forever on the “Ghosts” solo tone, getting the mics set up right....I don’t know where the disconnect comes in from that engineer point of getting stellar tones to completely fucking destroying them in the mastering process. Or maybe they work with someone who grew up on analog gear and is treating digital gear the same way, getting nasty results instead of what you’d get by slamming the inputs on an old NEVE or SSL.

I just can’t imagine spending all that time in the studio getting tones then getting it back from mastering and going “Oh Fuck yeah!!! This sounds GREAT!!!” I just don’t get it.

[Chris]

I'm guessing that perhaps Ian's car is an old Trans Am GTA or something like that, complete with Alpine deck with the detachable faceplate that flips around. All those incredibly loud 90's car stereos we installed that had fuck all zero fidelity but enough volume to hear from the goddamn moon.

"Sounds great in my car, ship it!"

[RevDrucifer]

Oh shit, this came out this week and I didn’t even know.....

And uh....well....I haven’t heard it yet, but there’s a buddy of Ian’s on this that has the BW FB group going apeshit and not in a good way. It’s going to draw some fans to BW and this isn’t the first Kroeger outing with Ian by a long shot, They were working together nonstop in the 2000’s.

[RevDrucifer]

I'm guessing that perhaps Ian's car is an old Trans Am GTA or something like that, complete with Alpine deck with the detachable faceplate that flips around. All those incredibly loud 90's car stereos we installed that had fuck all zero fidelity but enough volume to hear from the goddamn moon.

"Sounds great in my car, ship it!"

Hahahahahahahhaha dude....that Alpine deck, oh my God. I had two buddy’s in 2000 that had those and it was their pride and joy.

I have to assume Ian’s driving something more current though. Unless he gets all his gear for free, the dude’s got some coin. Kind of like I was saying above about him and Kroeger in the 00’s, he was doing a bunch of songwriting back then for a bunch of people, I know he’s got some credits on a Nickelback album or two, which surely hasn’t hurt his piggy bank.

[Jeff]

I'm guessing that perhaps Ian's car is an old Trans Am GTA or something like that, complete with Alpine deck with the detachable faceplate that flips around. All those incredibly loud 90's car stereos we installed that had fuck all zero fidelity but enough volume to hear from the goddamn moon.

"Sounds great in my car, ship it!"

yes.

Ian should have Steven Wilson mix his stuff, since that’s the only thing Wilson is good at these days.

[jacksonplayer]

It is weird that the instruments are so well-recorded and yet the mastering is so terrible.

It seems like the brickwalling thing has started to recede, at least based on the new music I've heard lately. Mastering engineers seem to be finding a nice middle ground where the master still sounds good while being 'loud'.

[Lyle]

I fucking love Big Wreck and Ian Thornley. He's a ridiculous singer and a fucking mindblowing guitarist.

Also, this is the shit.

[Flexkill]

I fucking love Big Wreck and Ian Thornley. He's a ridiculous singer and a fucking mindblowing guitarist.

Also, this is the shit.

Holy shit! He lives!!!!

[Lyle]

Holy shit! He lives!!!!

[Lyle]

Also, Ian singing Led Zeppelin is fucking incredible.

[RevDrucifer]

It is weird that the instruments are so well-recorded and yet the mastering is so terrible.

It seems like the brickwalling thing has started to recede, at least based on the new music I've heard lately. Mastering engineers seem to be finding a nice middle ground where the master still sounds good while being 'loud'.

Funnily enough, I’ve often heard YouTube has been the great equalizer in this, supposedly because of the way it compresses audio, it basically made it pointless to brickwall. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but it’s definitely been coming down a bit.

Then again, I ran the new Gojira album through Soundflower and straight into Logic so I could use a song as a reference track and while that album sounds GREAT, the waveform was one giant block with a couple dips in it here and there. I was very surprised to see it slammed so hard because it certainly doesn’t sound like that’s the case. I’m also wondering if the signal from iTunes is coming in too hot. It looks like Death Magnetic, but doesn’t sound like it’s brickwalled at all.

[Drew]

I’m guessing Ian has just blown his fucking ears out at this point. That last album, .....but for the sun, was too much. I listened to it once and shut it off halfway in, tried again about 3 months ago and it’s too much. I really think they bounced the instrumental tracks with everything on in the master bus, then put the vocals on in another session and re-applied the master bus chain. The music is just fucking demolished, but the vocals aren’t nearly as bad.

If I had to bet, without listening, youre not far off the mark - more likely, they bussed all the instruments, all the vocals, and then sidechained the instrumental bus with the vocal track, which when done subtly can be effective, but I suspect was not done at ALL subtly.