Tool

[gerbil]

The cymbal crashes and their decay sounds improved. Maynard's voice as well. Especially in parts when he subtly whisper sings under his main vocal track. Nerding out. Gonna have to check my lame ass to bed.

Since I am poor, what album would you recommend to purchase first from HDTracks?


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[Leviathant]

I'm hoping someone does a nice breakdown of the differences between the HD tracks and the original releases. I feel loathe to drop another $20 per album.

[botley]

I'm hoping someone does a nice breakdown of the differences between the HD tracks and the original releases. I feel loathe to drop another $20 per album.

Based on early reports, the difference is negligible between 10,000 Days in CD format & on hi-res. I'm curious about Opiate, because there always seemed to be a bad-sounding ringing on the CD (even the deluxe reissue) that I'd associate with a poor transfer to digital.

[fillow]

https://www.last.fm/charts

Already, 11 *edit, 10* of the current top 20 tracks on last.fm are Tool songs lol.

and 7 of those are in the top 10 even

>> Lost Keys (Blame Hofman)
FFFUUUUUUUU~

Typos ahoy!

[pulse]

I've yet to digest 10K Days. Undertow and Opiate do sound better to me though. If I had to guess, the original 10K Days CD was from Gateway's original 24 bit master transfer in 2006, which is going to be a negligible discernable listening experience from what you've heard on CD in most cases. Opiate and Undertow on the otherhand would be more recent transfers / mastering because the source transfers in 1991 and 1993 most likely were NOT 96 / 24. lol...

Did anyone get the re-releaae of Opiate and check the liner notes? I do not own the re-release to check where it was mastered.

[gerbil]

I've yet to digest 10K Days. Undertow and Opiate do sound better to me though. If I had to guess, the original 10K Days CD was from Gateway's original 24 bit master transfer in 2006, which is going to be a negligible discernable listening experience from what you've heard on CD in most cases. Opiate and Undertow on the otherhand would be more recent transfers / mastering because the source transfers in 1991 and 1993 most likely were NOT 96 / 24. lol...

Did anyone get the re-releaae of Opiate and check the liner notes? I do not own the re-release to check where it was mastered.

The Apple Music versions of “Sober” and “Sweat” seemed a little punchier on my car speakers this morning. I haven’t had a chance to break out any headphones or anything. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, a better transfer, or maybe just more volume compression. I haven’t loaded up a waveform or anything.


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[botley]

They've definitely added more compression to Opiate, I just listened on Tidal HiFi through my Yamaha monitors and you can hear some extra 'crunchiness' on the cymbals that sounds like an artifact of hard limiting. That early-90s DAT ringing seems to be gone, but at the expense of some dynamic range. Ehhh, I'm probably not going to re-buy these, unless the vinyl mastering has more room to breathe. I don't see any mastering engineer names credited.

[pulse]

The Apple Music versions of “Sober” and “Sweat” seemed a little punchier on my car speakers this morning. I haven’t had a chance to break out any headphones or anything. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, a better transfer, or maybe just more volume compression. I haven’t loaded up a waveform or anything.


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I was in a coma when you asked about purchasing the 96/24 files from hdtracks or any hires store. Honestly, I do not recommend it unless you have superior audio equipment for the listening experience. Spotify and Apple Music is fine.

Though I got the 96/24 versions of the albums, it was the Spotify 320k oggvorbis streaming source I was raving over last night. I presume much, but it seems reasonable that all the digital streaming sources are downsampled and dithered from these same 24 bit masters transfers.

I will get to experience the 24 bit albums this weekend for a critical listen.

[halo eighteen]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VZWWD93

Some asshole out there is selling a short instrumental song called "Tool" under the band name Fear Inoculum with vaguely Tool-esque cover art on Amazon.

[botley]

I was in a coma when you asked about purchasing the 96/24 files from hdtracks or any hires store. Honestly, I do not recommend it unless you have superior audio equipment for the listening experience. Spotify and Apple Music is fine.

Though I got the 96/24 versions of the albums, it was the Spotify 320k oggvorbis streaming source I was raving over last night. I presume much, but it seems reasonable that all the digital streaming sources are downsampled and dithered from these same 24 bit masters transfers.

I will get to experience the 24 bit albums this weekend for a critical listen.

You don't need dither to go from 24 bit -> lossy. Just downsample to the target sample rate and most encoders will do the work at 32bit floating point. That's the premise behind "Mastered for iTunes", at least; it skips the 16-bit step entirely, and uses all the headroom available in the source file so there aren't peaks over 0dBFS in the decoding stage.

I've done a brief comparison between the Aenima CD and the new 24bit/96kHz version which I got 'from a friend'. They seem very, very similar, with some additional limiting on the new version (not a lot, less than a dB of difference). There is information on the musical tracks (not the 'segues') above the audible range, however, which means it's from an analogue source. It would be quite difficult to tell the difference from the CD if they were level-matched, my guess is they just ran the album master tape to digital but used a slightly-smarter limiter and A/D converter this time.

[fortheloveofgod]

It maybe because I haven't listened to Undertow in years, but this is the first time I heard Rollins count down before his lines in the "Bottom" and also the low intro to "Crawl Away"

[pulse]

If anything, this relistening and analyzing the albums is getting me hooked back on Tool again. Compared to how much I used to listen to their albums, I really drifted away from the CD collection in general. More specifically, I just haven't even occasionally listened to Tool in a number of years. Listening again and being reminded just how fucking brilliant and important these albums are regardless of how insane the fan base can be at times.

[gerbil]

You don't need dither to go from 24 bit -> lossy. Just downsample to the target sample rate and most encoders will do the work at 32bit floating point. That's the premise behind "Mastered for iTunes", at least; it skips the 16-bit step entirely, and uses all the headroom available in the source file so there aren't peaks over 0dBFS in the decoding stage.

I've done a brief comparison between the Aenima CD and the new 24bit/96kHz version which I got 'from a friend'. They seem very, very similar, with some additional limiting on the new version (not a lot, less than a dB of difference). There is information on the musical tracks (not the 'segues') above the audible range, however, which means it's from an analogue source. It would be quite difficult to tell the difference from the CD if they were level-matched, my guess is they just ran the album master tape to digital but used a slightly-smarter limiter and A/D converter this time.

You’ve got some nice friends.

In all seriousness, though, thanks for the analysis. I was wondering if this would be half assed or whole assed and it sounds like they used their whole asses and made proper digital versions of the songs.


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[brotha52]

[botley]

LOL... I listened very carefully to all the tail ends of the songs on Opiate again, and where before there used to be a bit of 'whine' just where the digital converter's ringing would poke through above the noise floor, now on the 2019 version instead you can hear tape bleed-through from the adjecent few seconds (this sometimes happens if magnetic tapes are stored for a very long time on tightly-wound reels where the loud, more heavily magnetized parts of the tape can 'smudge' the quieter parts on either side). For example, as the cymbals are dying away after "Part of Me" you can hear Maynard's voice very faintly repeating the final phrase. Right at the end of "Sweat" you can hear the first bass note of "Hush" super-quietly, before it actually kicks in. Remastering from analogue is fun!

[sinspots]

https://loudwire.com/tool-itunes-top-10-albums-songs/

[Toadflax]

TOOL: New album August 30th.
US: Okay but it's July where the fuck is it?
TOOL: New information some time on Monday.
US: Okay but it's 1pm on Monday where the fuck is it?

TOOL: Thank you for your patience. After years of not being on streaming services, we have finally decid-
US: Okay but where the fuck is Salival?

[Graz]

Opiate & Undertow remasters sound way better than the cd’s.

[ltrandazzo]

Can confirm that Aenima sounds great and that you need to make sure you listen to it with great headphones.

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

LOL... I listened very carefully to all the tail ends of the songs on Opiate again, and where before there used to be a bit of 'whine' just where the digital converter's ringing would poke through above the noise floor, now on the 2019 version instead you can hear tape bleed-through from the adjecent few seconds (this sometimes happens if magnetic tapes are stored for a very long time on tightly-wound reels where the loud, more heavily magnetized parts of the tape can 'smudge' the quieter parts on either side). For example, as the cymbals are dying away after "Part of Me" you can hear Maynard's voice very faintly repeating the final phrase. Right at the end of "Sweat" you can hear the first bass note of "Hush" super-quietly, before it actually kicks in. Remastering from analogue is fun!

That is actually very interesting. Your post just made me go read more about this whole process lol.

[Erneuert]

[gerbil]

I’m so psyched for an 80 minute, 7 song album. I fuckin love me some Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick” and “A Passion Play.” Just put it in my veins.


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[botley]

"Descending", in a way, is the most out-there piece they have ever done, just in terms of sheer musical dexterity. No ominous noise-y interludes to build the tension, just a floor-shaking synth warm-up before flat-out playing their asses off for 11+ minutes. It's really their answer piece to King Crimson's and Led Zeppelin's mature epics, where the cross-picking guitar figures over interlocking polyrhythms go up into the stratosphere before erupting in flames during Adam's climactic slide solo, then the triumphant Phoenix wings appear on the screen above Danny before his massive gong-hit, which is timed just as the laser show starts while they vamp for the final ending (Sorry, I'll settle down and stop watching this live video repeatedly)...

I'm really excited to hear the studio version and the Joe Baressi all-analogue delay pedal technique they use on it. Capturing something that epic live in the studio must have been so intense.

[BenAkenobi]

Can confirm that Aenima sounds great and that you need to make sure you listen to it with great headphones.

Still muffled in loud passages. Maybe it's for the better so people can rest assured their original cds are as good as it gets.

[BenAkenobi]

LOL... I listened very carefully to all the tail ends of the songs on Opiate again, and where before there used to be a bit of 'whine' just where the digital converter's ringing would poke through above the noise floor, now on the 2019 version instead you can hear tape bleed-through from the adjecent few seconds (this sometimes happens if magnetic tapes are stored for a very long time on tightly-wound reels where the loud, more heavily magnetized parts of the tape can 'smudge' the quieter parts on either side). For example, as the cymbals are dying away after "Part of Me" you can hear Maynard's voice very faintly repeating the final phrase. Right at the end of "Sweat" you can hear the first bass note of "Hush" super-quietly, before it actually kicks in. Remastering from analogue is fun!

What about the "pre-echo" in The Pot? the very quiet vocals "who are you to..." It's not tape effect on record made in 2006, is it?

[pulse]

What about the "pre-echo" in The Pot? the very quiet vocals "who are you to..." It's not tape effect on record made in 2006, is it?

Tool have tracked and mixed every recording on 2-inch magnetic tape, including 10k Days and the new album. That doesn't mean they don't use some digital effects during recording, but who knows how particular or archaic by choice they are about sticking strictly with analogue production of sounds in the recording studio. Once the mix is done, of course, Bob Ludwig handles everything digital and mastering.

[Exocet]

the only thing i still like from this band is Undertow, an unusual metal record with weird production from 1993. that oddly became a multi million seller. it still sounds great, unsettling i like how weird it sounds.

i like a few tracks here and there from their later records, but im not really into metal, i dont really understand why so many NIN fans like them, they sound NOTHING alike

they are good live though.

[theimage13]

i dont really understand why so many NIN fans like them, they sound NOTHING alike

I don't get why so many people like beer AND pizza, they taste nothing alike

[botley]

What about the "pre-echo" in The Pot? the very quiet vocals "who are you to..." It's not tape effect on record made in 2006, is it?

That's not the same phenomenon; they certainly may have used analogue tape, but "The Pot" deploys an intentional effect applied in post-production, whereas the pre-echo on the new Opiate is an artifact of how the tape was stored for so many years.

[ltrandazzo]

Still muffled in loud passages. Maybe it's for the better so people can rest assured their original cds are as good as it gets.

I mean, I've always thought it's supposed to sound a little dirty so we likely have different standards for the word "great."