Breaking Benjamin - Dear Agony
- Thread starter arv_foh
- Start date
got it as part of my late september CD haul... dig tracks 2 and 3 so far... still absorbing all these though. tbh, haven't had the time to listen thoroughly to most of it.
top row, L-R: Buried Inside - "Spoils Of Failure"(Relapse), Rodrigo y Gabriella - "11:11", Hatebreed - s/t" Special Edition(E1), Dethklock - "Dethalbum II" Deluxe Edition, Alice In Chains - "Black Gives Way To Blue" (Staub mix), John Abercrombie Quartet - "Wait Till You See Her"(ECM), The Black Dahlia Murder - "Deflorate" (good job btw, jason & mark)
bottom row, L-R: Saosin - "In Search Of Solid Ground", Paramore - "Brand New Eyes", Breaking Benjamin - "Dear Agony", Nihill - "Krach"(HHR), Lurker Of Chalice - s/t (Southern Lord), Culted - "Below The Thunders Of The Upper Deep" (Relapse), Every Time I Die - "New Junk Aesthetic"
that's about half of the Sept CDs anyway... hey, i don't smoke (anything) and drink very little.. so it's my one addiction, CDs... and i have very eclectic tastes.
made it through more of Dear Agony as i've put this post together.. and i'm digging it pretty well. sure, it's different than Phobia, but it's solid. still, if i had to make a "desert island" choice i wouldn't hesitate in packing Phobia over this one.
What do you think of that Saosin CD? It's decent and catchy for sure, but their last one was just amazing. Great production (although compressed a bit much, but it wasn't anything that ruined it), some incredible choruses, great guitar riffs and melodies, some good heavy parts...and this one was just kind of, simple in comparison.
AudioPhile777
Mathew Cohen
I listened to the whole cd on the way into work today...
Initial thoughts are that more than not, the guitars are not very present in the mix... that bugs me.
and other than that, I didn't hear anything I didn't like... it does sound like they tried to reproduced Phobia's awesomeness, but didn't quite reach it... it took Phobia a while to grow on me, so hopefully this one with too...
Initial thoughts are that more than not, the guitars are not very present in the mix... that bugs me.
and other than that, I didn't hear anything I didn't like... it does sound like they tried to reproduced Phobia's awesomeness, but didn't quite reach it... it took Phobia a while to grow on me, so hopefully this one with too...
SocialNumb
Damn Christians!
Thats because its a Baritone guitar. I saw a thread about 100 posts long once of guitar players just banging their heads together trying to figure out how Chevelle gets their guit sound so fat. Not one had the ear to hear he, also, uses a baritone guitar.
Its almost like cheating to me though. Let the bass be the bass. But then again we are talking about simple 1 finger chords--it can hardly be called guitar playing--its more like a synth pad wide mix.
Not all baritone guitars sound like basses. Mine sure doesn't. A longer scale and thicker strings does not always equal a thick bass-like sound, just check out the Danelectro baritones with the lipstick pickups. Far from "thick" sounding. Chevelle = simple 1 finger barre chords, Breaking Benjamin actually has some movement and interesting riffs and chord shapes going on.
Im strictly talking about the mix. I love Chevelle's tone, even when he is using the baritones, because he hasn't always used them. Ex. he does use a baritone on "The Clincher" and there is plenty of mids. I love that song and the tone. And by the way, that fat tone doesnt come from baritone guitars, it comes from getting a fucking massive bass tone + huge ass guitar strings.
Also, Phobia used mostly baritone guitars. I believe it is much more middy and present than Dear Agony. I was making those comparisons based on Phobia, which I think is still one of the best mixes I've ever heard.
Aaaaaand, Dear Agony isnt exclusive to baritone guitars. There are quite a few songs in either drop C or drop C# played on normal guitars. They recorded with a telecaster and an es-355 among other things.
There is some pretty good guitar work on Dear Agony, far from just 1 finger bar chords. But the mix doesn't really allow the riffing to shine through. It is "synth-like" as someone else had put it.
FWIW, I do like the album.
Sweetnothing
¯\(º_o)/¯
So playing in dropped tunings is not guitar playing anymore...I've lived many years completely fooled
And a baritone guitar sounds as a guitar, it's just the fact the longer scale affects tension and overall tuning, no mid sucking there.
GarethSE
New Metal Member
- Jul 5, 2008
- 7,595
- 1
- 0
- 33
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
jauernis
Member
Really dont care for the production on this album compared to the previous releases. To me his vocals just dont have what phobia had..they dont sit in the mix as well and dont have that depth. Overall just the BB vibe is not there for me. But I will say the low end on this is amazing! But the width and vibe of Phobia etc is not there.
lolzgreg
Cereal Shipping Sneapster
The reason why most of the lead/single note playing sounds like a synth, could be one of two things:
a. The guitar was sampled (aha!)
b. Notes were played one by one, tuned, and pieced together. This I think is the case.
I agree that Phobia's mix is better.
a. The guitar was sampled (aha!)
b. Notes were played one by one, tuned, and pieced together. This I think is the case.
I agree that Phobia's mix is better.
I know this is a year late and buck short, but I just happened upon this forum. THEY AUTO TUNED THE LIVING FUCK of Ben's voice. The bottom line is that the dude simply can't sing live anymore. His voice is shot, probably from too much drinking, smoking(pole andor cigs). A huge example is "Lights Out" 100% of the vocals on this track are autotuned. It almost sounds like Kesha or Lil Wayne or something. The entire record is sick with autotune and punch ins. In some places you can tell that they literally punched in the guitars note by note. Its rather pathetic.
-NIX
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
^^Can't say I've noticed this as much as you have but then again I probably wasn't looking for it. Care to backup your necrothread claims?
Necrothreadz ftl. This thread prompted me to listen to this again for the first time in a while, really don't dig the production. *shrug*
C_F_H_13
Protools Guru
Welcome to how Modern Rock records are made. This is how 99.9% of these types of bands make these albums. Its not pathetic it's precise.
AudioGeekZine
arsehole know-it-all
I tried this today and it didn't sound right at all. have you tried it? I usually tune for each note in a chord but I couldn't make recording each note individually sound right.
Similar threads
