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Satriani Shapeshifting


gorch

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Advertised in my Qobuz account, it got some streaming time. The album appears to be a great rocker. I like it very much over the many last albums that had less to no improvements. He pumped up a lot of energy recently though. Concert in our area was supposed to be yesterday. Had been cancelled for the known reason of course.

Anyone too listened already?

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Just finished.  I really enjoyed some of it as I always do with Satch.  Personally, I find it curious I can listen to hours of instrumental jazz and never grow bored, but I find I tire of instrumental rock after a bit.  Satch's stuff keeps me interested far longer than most anyone else though.

Lots of very different stuff on this one and his chops continue to amaze, but musically. 

Thanks for the alert!

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I played it when I went for run today.  The more I listened to it the more I liked it and I used to be Satch mad until about ‘93.  
 

There are some lovely groves and he allowed the music to breathe.  My frustration with virtuoso guitarists sometimes is that they saturate every gap in the music.  

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On 4/16/2020 at 10:13 AM, velorush said:

Just finished.  I really enjoyed some of it as I always do with Satch.  Personally, I find it curious I can listen to hours of instrumental jazz and never grow bored, but I find I tire of instrumental rock after a bit.  Satch's stuff keeps me interested far longer than most anyone else though.

Lots of very different stuff on this one and his chops continue to amaze, but musically. 

Thanks for the alert!

I think at least some of it is psychoacoustics.  Instrumental jazz breathes a lot dynamically, whereas rock just kind of slams at the same dB even when it is "quiet," at least for the last 25 years or so.   I ended up getting into talk radio - any talk radio really; I listened to anything from evangelists to Sean Hannity to Air America - back in college because rock music would lull me to sleep on long car rides.  Something with irregular dynamics seemed to keep me awake. 

Of course, that's just part of the overall picture, but I think it's definitely one of the prominent colors. 

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I remember a report years ago that said one should not listen to music at night in bed because of the ups and downs of the dynamics that would keep someone awake.  That was around the time CDs came on the scene, so the report would not have taken into consideration that CDs are mastered to have the levels maxed out and compressed to eliminate any real dynamics. 

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7 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

I remember a report years ago that said one should not listen to music at night in bed because of the ups and downs of the dynamics that would keep someone awake.  That was around the time CDs came on the scene, so the report would not have taken into consideration that CDs are mastered to have the levels maxed out and compressed to eliminate any real dynamics. 

Before this thread hijack, I’ll say Satriani is why I l play guitar.  I gave guitar a second try after hearing “The Forgotten Pt. 2” back in 1992.  I knew I had to try and learn to make something like that.  Never have, but I love Satch to this day. 

They don’t have to be.  They have a wider dynamic range than vinyl (96 dB vs 80 dB).  There were a couple of times when I used to do work at Quad Nashville where we’d listen to unmastered digital recordings of symphonic music through the Boxers in Studio A, and it was amazing.  
 

For better or worse though, there’s no physical penalty to slamming digital, unlike analog, where a hot signal actually damages the recording medium.  It’s above 0 dB or not, and by the late 90s, all that dynamic range, at least as far as rock music, was sacrificed in the quest to make things loud on radio AND sound the same on CD as it would sound after getting crushed by radio, who smashed the shit out of things themselves when broadcasting, the idea being the louder your station was, the more people would stop on your station while flipping through the dial. 
 

Now most everything is mixed  and mastered to end up an Mp3 played through earbuds.  Ironically, the better a stereo you have, the more awful it will sound because it was never designed to sound good through good equipment anyway.  You can hear all the attenuation, particularly in the higher frequencies.  A few bands make the questionable business decision but cool artistic decision to have a completely separate mastering for vinyl release, but that’s rare, particularly with recording budgets these days. Those of course sound better because they are mastered to sound good through a good stereo.

The best CDs got were the remasters back around 92/93.  That’s a whole different story, but if one were looking to buy used CD versions of classic albums, those are the ones to look for. 

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On 4/16/2020 at 11:13 AM, velorush said:

Personally, I find it curious I can listen to hours of instrumental jazz and never grow bored, but I find I tire of instrumental rock after a bit.  

 

I was going to post this, I feel the same way. I did hear most of this Satch record, and downloaded the title track.

I do like a bunch of Andy Timmons stuff. But most shred instrumental rock stuff bores me.

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13 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

I remember a report years ago that said one should not listen to music at night in bed because of the ups and downs of the dynamics that would keep someone awake.  

 

I listen to podcasts when trying to fall asleep because I pay too much attention to music.

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17 minutes ago, Brooks said:

 But most shred instrumental rock stuff bores me.

I'm moving in that direction as well. And yet, I still write a fair amount of instrumental rock and I don't have a fraction of the chops that Satch does.

I do not always get creative But when I do .. god i suck at ...

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