Interesting, some of the speculation on Devin's techniques. I live in Vancouver and know Devin as a customer at the music store I work at and from the scene here. Hell, I introduced him to the usage of Logic. I can verify that most of what's been posted is pretty accurate. But if you hear something outrageous, don't be 100% sure to believe it first time around. I'll ask him about the sandbox isolation cab, but that sounds out-of-character, though I'm not saying it's bogus, either.
Anyway, Greenhouse studios, as it was famously known here in town, has been defunct for a little while, it's rooms split up and rented to separate parties (sadly, an increasingly prominent practice here in Van.) The bit about Armoury for drums is pretty much true. An unsung talent should be mentioned here (Shaun Thingvold, who is a longtime Hevy Devy affiliate); Shaun used to work at the Armoury and it's still his favorite room in town. Not to mention it's a killer live room (sadly, it's been put up for sale recently by Bruce Fairburn, the owner). It gets amazing drum tones every time and has been used on a ton of records as a result.
Without getting too specific, I can say that I've heard Devin has been using a room a bit North of Vancouver (not going to mention what town) that's he's been renting from local legend and producer GGGarth Richardson where he's been doing a lot of work in addition to his own home studio.
I'd mostly, though like to point out that I know a few people who worked on As The Palaces Burn and yes, admittedly it's not as sonically polished as Sacrament or Wrath and would largely agree with the general consensus, but as outsiders, please bear in mind that LOG weren't famous or huge sellers then and had a limited budget, not to mention a limited amount of studio saavy at the time. These are skilled people in their own right and any one of us could be caught in the same situation: a rock and a hard place. A relentlessly anal band with somewhat suspect raw tracks going into the editing and mixing phase with a very limited budget. It does a disservice to these people to simply dismiss the mix or any other element as "poor" without bearing in mind the circumstances or the budget. I'm not trying to badmouth anyone, just pointing out it would be easy for Andy Sneap himself to post a less-than-classic metal record at this juncture simply because of a limited budget/time frame that he took on because he loved the band and their music and for us to whine about it. In short: Unless you were there, you don't get a say in how things "could've been better," unless you want the rest of us criticizing your works for a band that basically handed you fifty bucks and a case of beer as payment for a ten song album.
