LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
LIB's solo is especially disappointing on the album. It's such a great, creepy song, but the climax is muted. Much like the album version of Please.
Production - JT/AB sound vs. ATYCLB clean sound
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LIB's solo is especially disappointing on the album. It's such a great, creepy song, but the climax is muted. Much like the album version of Please.
AndrewCowley
Refugee
In the case of AB, which has obvious faults, can someone who knows this stuff say where in the process it was stuffed up? Was the production, mixing or mastering botched? I've never really understood the differences between them. Would be useful to understand this better since it's what this whole thread is about.
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
Tough to say. Based on U2 By U2, it appears that they really struggled with the mixes. The Fly was "...mix(ed) live, mixing on top of the mix". Then Edge had a great struggle with the track listing, doing his best to run through the tapes and make sense of them at the last minute.
Rob33
Rock n' Roll Doggie
and you forgot the "I remember, when we could sleep on stones..." verse in Ultraviolet after that breakdown in the middle...on that verse, Edge's beautiful guitar is buried completely, you almost can't hear it at all, whereas on live performances that part sounds fuckin awesome...yeah, it could've been much better
phillyfan26
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Mixing AND mastering, according to U2 by U2. They had Edge representing them at the mastering, and he was working off five days of no sleep and said he was merely trying to "not fuck it up too much."
They all admitted they ran out of time. You can tell. They even said The Fly was going to be re-recorded but never got the chance to.
They all admitted they ran out of time. You can tell. They even said The Fly was going to be re-recorded but never got the chance to.
phillyfan26
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Achtung Baby would be in my top two of U2 albums if mixed properly. Instead, it's fifth or sixth.
Sleep Over Jack
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I actually like the murky production on Achtung Baby, as it helps generate an atmosphere throughout the album.
AndrewCowley
Refugee
I agree, however +17 years down the track when I listen to it thesedays I'd like to actually hear the instruments properly rather than a wall of mush.
Anyone know to what extent an AB remaster would fix things up? Surely the original guitar parts are all there and just need mixing properly.
Vlad n U 2
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I want another song like The Fly, but with better production
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
Depends on whether or not they still have the original tapes. If so, they could theoretically mix the entire thing all over again. If they don't, all they could do is some basic EQing to shine things up.
Moser
Refugee
I've always felt that the production of U2's albums always fit the theme and mood properly.
U2DMfan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
These opinions on the Achtung production are clouded by 15 years of hearing the material live and 10 years of digital recording, of which some of you grew up with and are certainly more accustomed to.
In 1991, it was a good sounding record.
Of course, I won't argue that the mix is not perfect with hindsight but it was supposed to be muddy to an extent. The atmospherics on the record were intentional. Look at the people associated with producing, mixing and mastering the record. Not exactly the 'B' crew.
Then you have the 21st century U2 disease, which is for the band and those associated to go back and excuse every last bit that doesn't shine with today's 'standard' and revise their own version of events, as to apologize for certain things.
Here's an idea, go back and find me a quote from anyone of the band or any of those who worked on the album prior to 1999 that bitches about the sound of Achtung Baby.
It's going to be hard to find much of that, if any. It seems as time passes and the album does indeed seem more dated, then you have the excuses from the band.
Go back and read Brian Eno's article that he wrote for Rolling Stone in 1991. Did he sound like he was lamenting the butchering of his production by the mixing or mastering etc.?
The truth is, it was a landmark album that really broke their mold at the time but because they went for something that was a punch to the face, the innovation of their own sound, years later it just sounds dated. How does this album sound any worse that Unforgettable Fire? Go ahead and tell me, with some details.
Is there a person on this thread who is over 30 years old, owned Achtung Baby for 15 years and prefers that they go back and remix the thing? I would guess most would prefer the original. That doesn't mean it would sound better than a remastered version, it just means that we appreciate the context of the album on it's own as opposed to comparing it to the ear bleeding audio murder of albums like HTDAAB, where the thing is so loud, you'd have to wonder who could appreciate such a calamity of dynamics as anything released in the last 10 years, even compared to muddy waters of Achtung.
I also think there is another factor at play here for some. The aboslute dearth of atmosphere on the latest albums, which probably attracted some of you to U2 in the first place. This is just sheer preference of sound.
Take Philly's gripes, which make some sense and they are those shared by many I'm sure but just let me do my own 'apologizing' for U2.
Zoo Station chorus, two vocal tracks, one beautifully harmonizing and clear and the other is just him just basically talking. You can hear both really well. You can hear the flange of Edge's guitar, which is the atmospehric rising above the mix. The drums sound great, the bass sounds great. But because you can't hear the guitar picked in full it sucks? This doesn't make any sense to me as the whole thing sounds incredibily well put together. Had Edge not picked out that 'riff' on ZooTv, would this opinion be different?
EBTTRT
You have what I call 'digi ears' if you can't hear the riff in this one. Yeah, it's not as loud as say... I dunnoo, ZooTV from Sydney? or any live performance but they didn't have to mix two vocal tracks in the middle during those performances. There are also two guitar tracks at times throughout the verses. You've got to 'free' up space to mix it all together. If you bring that riff up as loud as the digi ears need, you're going to lose something else. Some of us prefer the whole sound, not just the rocky sugar riff. I love that riff myself by the way, just saying.
The reason you won't hear complaints about this (buried tracks) in the 21st century is because everything is fucking loud loud loud. Funny that the griping would be mostly about volume. I'd rather have retained the atmosphere of this song than to push something up so loud as to 'be demanded to be heard' like say, the bassline in COBL! Which is nothing short of atrocious. I have a dozen more examples of this but I'll save them.
UTEOTW
Outro gripes here are nothing more than a direct comparison to the live versions.
Believe it or not, this is the way this song sounded until U2 took the stage to perform it.
This was how it was written. There is one outro voice here. I think it's even Edge. Not random voice noises. Go back and listen, I've heard it eleventy billion times, I don't have to. The gripe here again is the guitar. Edge is not going off like a cock rocker here on the album like he does live (that's not a gripe on my behalf, I love the live version). I just think again, this is case of not understanding the context of the album and the song.
The Fly guitar I've always thought sounded too quiet in parts of the song. To me this is because of the wah Edge is using which pushes the tone of the guitar on the high and low ends, so he loses the 'crunch' in lieu of the effect itself. Again, the solo on all the live versions, is IMO Edge's best solo. Easily. So to listen to the album and compare it to those versions where he is just able to wail, it's not fair to the album version. It could have sounded better, maybe they all could sound better that by itself doesn't mean the production sucked. Zooropa is their best sounding album, period but even it could conceivably be better.
When 2005 (or whatever) U2 is revising their own history, they want the riff as direct as possible and in your face, the way they've done everything this century with as little subtlety as possible and with an ambition to make the thing as accesible as possible. What's more accessible to a big anthem loving arena rock audience than a big rock song with a big fat riff? Vertigo anyone?
Mysterious Ways, hard to argue with this, although I don't like the song enough to care to defend it. I would just say they figured out a way to perform it better. That's not really a production beef. He's not playing the same bit anyways, I don't think. Anyways, fuck this song unless there is a hot chick dancing with Bono.
TTTYAATW-
This was always and still is just an atmpospheric love song. It wasn't meant to be a guitar laden poppy love ballad. When they performed the thing live, how else to carry the melody without the top end of those atmospherics (which could be a synth or an envoloped guitar) than to have Edge just pick something out? Again, just comparing it to the live version here. This wasn't a song meant to have a guitar tab, other than perhaps a chord version.
LIB-do I need to even state it one more time? Live version comparison much?
It's one thing to say "They could have made the album so much better had they mixed it differently" (which is essentially to say, had they composed it differently) it's another thing to say the production sucks, when you really just don't like how they composed it.
They didn't make a version that mirrored the later live versions. This album sounds fine, in fact it sounds great. I wouldn't expect some of you guys to understand that because you are just as biased as I am. It's all good.
In 1991, it was a good sounding record.
Of course, I won't argue that the mix is not perfect with hindsight but it was supposed to be muddy to an extent. The atmospherics on the record were intentional. Look at the people associated with producing, mixing and mastering the record. Not exactly the 'B' crew.
Then you have the 21st century U2 disease, which is for the band and those associated to go back and excuse every last bit that doesn't shine with today's 'standard' and revise their own version of events, as to apologize for certain things.
Here's an idea, go back and find me a quote from anyone of the band or any of those who worked on the album prior to 1999 that bitches about the sound of Achtung Baby.
It's going to be hard to find much of that, if any. It seems as time passes and the album does indeed seem more dated, then you have the excuses from the band.
Go back and read Brian Eno's article that he wrote for Rolling Stone in 1991. Did he sound like he was lamenting the butchering of his production by the mixing or mastering etc.?
The truth is, it was a landmark album that really broke their mold at the time but because they went for something that was a punch to the face, the innovation of their own sound, years later it just sounds dated. How does this album sound any worse that Unforgettable Fire? Go ahead and tell me, with some details.
Is there a person on this thread who is over 30 years old, owned Achtung Baby for 15 years and prefers that they go back and remix the thing? I would guess most would prefer the original. That doesn't mean it would sound better than a remastered version, it just means that we appreciate the context of the album on it's own as opposed to comparing it to the ear bleeding audio murder of albums like HTDAAB, where the thing is so loud, you'd have to wonder who could appreciate such a calamity of dynamics as anything released in the last 10 years, even compared to muddy waters of Achtung.
I also think there is another factor at play here for some. The aboslute dearth of atmosphere on the latest albums, which probably attracted some of you to U2 in the first place. This is just sheer preference of sound.
Take Philly's gripes, which make some sense and they are those shared by many I'm sure but just let me do my own 'apologizing' for U2.
Zoo Station chorus, two vocal tracks, one beautifully harmonizing and clear and the other is just him just basically talking. You can hear both really well. You can hear the flange of Edge's guitar, which is the atmospehric rising above the mix. The drums sound great, the bass sounds great. But because you can't hear the guitar picked in full it sucks? This doesn't make any sense to me as the whole thing sounds incredibily well put together. Had Edge not picked out that 'riff' on ZooTv, would this opinion be different?
EBTTRT
You have what I call 'digi ears' if you can't hear the riff in this one. Yeah, it's not as loud as say... I dunnoo, ZooTV from Sydney? or any live performance but they didn't have to mix two vocal tracks in the middle during those performances. There are also two guitar tracks at times throughout the verses. You've got to 'free' up space to mix it all together. If you bring that riff up as loud as the digi ears need, you're going to lose something else. Some of us prefer the whole sound, not just the rocky sugar riff. I love that riff myself by the way, just saying.
The reason you won't hear complaints about this (buried tracks) in the 21st century is because everything is fucking loud loud loud. Funny that the griping would be mostly about volume. I'd rather have retained the atmosphere of this song than to push something up so loud as to 'be demanded to be heard' like say, the bassline in COBL! Which is nothing short of atrocious. I have a dozen more examples of this but I'll save them.
UTEOTW
Outro gripes here are nothing more than a direct comparison to the live versions.
Believe it or not, this is the way this song sounded until U2 took the stage to perform it.
This was how it was written. There is one outro voice here. I think it's even Edge. Not random voice noises. Go back and listen, I've heard it eleventy billion times, I don't have to. The gripe here again is the guitar. Edge is not going off like a cock rocker here on the album like he does live (that's not a gripe on my behalf, I love the live version). I just think again, this is case of not understanding the context of the album and the song.
The Fly guitar I've always thought sounded too quiet in parts of the song. To me this is because of the wah Edge is using which pushes the tone of the guitar on the high and low ends, so he loses the 'crunch' in lieu of the effect itself. Again, the solo on all the live versions, is IMO Edge's best solo. Easily. So to listen to the album and compare it to those versions where he is just able to wail, it's not fair to the album version. It could have sounded better, maybe they all could sound better that by itself doesn't mean the production sucked. Zooropa is their best sounding album, period but even it could conceivably be better.
When 2005 (or whatever) U2 is revising their own history, they want the riff as direct as possible and in your face, the way they've done everything this century with as little subtlety as possible and with an ambition to make the thing as accesible as possible. What's more accessible to a big anthem loving arena rock audience than a big rock song with a big fat riff? Vertigo anyone?
Mysterious Ways, hard to argue with this, although I don't like the song enough to care to defend it. I would just say they figured out a way to perform it better. That's not really a production beef. He's not playing the same bit anyways, I don't think. Anyways, fuck this song unless there is a hot chick dancing with Bono.
TTTYAATW-
This was always and still is just an atmpospheric love song. It wasn't meant to be a guitar laden poppy love ballad. When they performed the thing live, how else to carry the melody without the top end of those atmospherics (which could be a synth or an envoloped guitar) than to have Edge just pick something out? Again, just comparing it to the live version here. This wasn't a song meant to have a guitar tab, other than perhaps a chord version.
LIB-do I need to even state it one more time? Live version comparison much?
It's one thing to say "They could have made the album so much better had they mixed it differently" (which is essentially to say, had they composed it differently) it's another thing to say the production sucks, when you really just don't like how they composed it.
They didn't make a version that mirrored the later live versions. This album sounds fine, in fact it sounds great. I wouldn't expect some of you guys to understand that because you are just as biased as I am. It's all good.
Salome
you are what you is
I agree about 100%
the album pretty much sounds the way it should have
I still believe that if it hadn't been for the live versions/ZOOTV Achtung Baby would not as easily be considered a classic
that being said, I don't think the live versions would work as album tracks
Salome
you are what you is
when you read U2 by U2 it seems that they don't really like 99% of their own recorded work
david
ONE love, blood, life
i bet the 180gram vinyl reissue of achtung baby sounds lightyears better than the cd.
It's not entirely feasible to compare the sound on U2's older records to the sound on U2's newer records. Audio engineering has changed a lot over the past thirty years or so. For one thing, digital recording technology is used almost exclusively. The days of analogue recording are long gone. Digital recording gives a brighter, clearer sound, but it also takes away a lot of the character. I shudder to think what an album like Dark Side Of The Moon would have sounded like if it was recorded in a modern studio.
Another thing you've got to take into consideration is the "loudness" war. I don't want to spend too much time discussing it, so I'll just direct you to a Wikipedia link: Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. One of the major reasons why AB sounds "real" in comparison to, say, anything on HTDAAB, is that the dynamic range of the recording hasn't been choked. If you have access to any recording software - Audacity is a good one that you can download for free - simply compare the waveforms on older U2 songs to the waveforms on newer U2 songs. Vertigo is a solid block of ugly sound. In God's Country, in comparison, has a great deal of dynamic breathing room.
Vertigo:
In God's Country:
In order to hear an album engineered ala JT or AB, we would have to invent a time machine. Digital! Louder! It's the way of the future.
Edit:
The state of modern audio engineering is not the fault of Eno or Lanois. It's just the way it is.Blame the music industry.
Thanks for explaining. I think I've read that article before. I think U2 is a big enough band to put its foot down and say they want a form of mastering that allows for subtlety. However, again, the composition of "A Man and a Woman" or "Wild Honey" is much simpler than "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World"; even "Running to Stand Still" has some very soft guitar in the background; these quieter touches and complexity just wasn't attempted for the post-millennial work; the whole point was directness and obviousness -- "songs whose entirety you could make out from another room," I think Eno said of the ATYCLB sessions.
I don't see why U2 can't avoid the loudness wars thing. If people make mp3s, it will compress the music anyway. If it makes the album sound better, they should just do it.
However, I'd add that the loudest parts of the Joshua Tree aren't as loud as the loudest ones for ATYCLB, so remasters are right to increase the volume, just not to compress the range.
Also, Radiohead allows for lots of subtlety still, so can U2. They just have to be willing.
If the band is so worried about radio play, they can adjust itunes mp3s and radio samplers for DJs accordingly. Don't give your fans a lesser product, boys!
I'm a terrible judge of this sort of thing. However, I've heard others complain about AB production. Something about the drums and percussion. Sounds okay to me, though.
Okay, I absolutely love the guitar sound on those songs. It's so wonderfully subtle. I love that it's not overly pronounced. This is my kinda production! Sorry, fellow 4400er. (Still haven't watched the finale! I'm saving it!)
I'm sure you're right about Crumbs. However, I'm wary of taking live versions as the essence of how the song is supposed to be. I often don't like U2's live versions because they simplify things too much; the melodies become more obvious and often more formulaic, ie the ending for "With or Without You" or the operatic Popmart version of "One". Edge's guitar work on "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" and "Love Is Blindness" aren't nearly as beautiful or challenging as on the album. Even the synths sounds crappy live, based on my DVDs.
I don't know. Maybe you folks are right about certain things with regard to Achtung Baby, but I wonder if it's the very things I love about the sound, which make the songs much more subtle on the album than live.
I had it on cassette tape when it came out...
That's how I got into all of U2! We really needed the CD version of Joshua Tree by the time I bought it; there were all kinds of rubbed out parts and sound drops from the overused tape by big brother bought in 1987. Even Achtung Baby was on tape -- a nice clear cassette in Canada; I hear Americans sometimes have to suffer with white tapes. Eck!
I have the entire catalogue up to Achtung Baby in my desk drawer in my parents' home. "Under a Blood Red Sky" still has the "Send in the Clowns" excerpt.
When did this come out? I didn't know they remastered it?
Oh yeah; I had to buy 2 copies on cassette because they wore out and then bought the CD 10 years later and then the best of CD and then the ipod set.....
I gave them plenty of money on that one....
oh wait....I did the same with all the other ones.....
shart1780
Rock n' Roll Doggie
JT/AB easily. They seem to have more life to them.
I'd love to hear production like Radiohead's In Rainbows.
I'd love to hear production like Radiohead's In Rainbows.
cseggleton
War Child
I think Bono said a few years back that Windows in the Sky marked the end of a certain style. He also said the same thing at the end of Rattle and Hum. We have to go away and dream it all up again. I think these guys are savy enough to know when something has run it's course. HTDAAB and ATYCLB were a clear attempt to remain relevant/popular. I am hoping for a sound that reminds me of no other U2 album. R.I.P. old U2.
Vlad n U 2
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david
ONE love, blood, life
I'm not sure, but I just purchased it on ebay for 29 dollars and will be getting in the mail this week.
So far the remasters are JT, first three albums and we're waiting for UABRS/Red rocks DVD.
Bean Skidds
The Fly
JT/AB production by far. U2's older material had actual dynamics and room to breathe. Listening to U2's 2 most recent albums is torture to my ears in comparison. Everything is cranked up to 11 and theres no dynamic range left (as already illustrated). I sincerely hope that one day properly mastered CDs of ATYCLB and Bomb are released. The versions we're currently stuck with are sonic earbleeders. I can barely stand to listen to them at medium volume.
Also Bono is way too high in the mix for my taste on recent albums. I dont know why they have him mixed so high. His voice is much more suited to being mixed a little lower, and in a more atmospheric style like on AB. I really dont enjoy the loud dry vocals that tend to be on their recent stuff.
Also Bono is way too high in the mix for my taste on recent albums. I dont know why they have him mixed so high. His voice is much more suited to being mixed a little lower, and in a more atmospheric style like on AB. I really dont enjoy the loud dry vocals that tend to be on their recent stuff.
Oh, I know. I meant this reissue of Achtung Baby on vinyl. Thanks, though. Even if I don't own a record player, I'd buy the vinyl of Achtung Baby if I saw it in great condition. The images of the CD liner notes are so small. That's the one really unfortunate thing about the mass move from vinyl to CD -- no nice big artwork.
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