Devin Townsend Megathread

[deathbyguitar]

Shit, this is exactly how the AxeFX came to be, you got my support!

That means a lot, Drew. This concept is consuming me lately and I'm probably going to do some YouTube videos on it it sometime this year.

 

[la szum]

I'll take it a step further - Modern rock and metal shows sound generally terrible, regardless of venue or equipment being used.

I saw this show in Raleigh 2 weeks ago and like basically all touring acts I've seen since 2010 or so, the sound was lousy. Too much lows and low mids drowning out everything. Guitars were buried. Vocals were buried. Mid-sized touring metal bands go direct to FOH 90% of the time so there goes a big chunk of those mids. But I also remember the opposite problem before modelers were popular. When I saw Deftones back in '06, shit was so loud I could barely hear the music. Thats not any better.

Truth! The Hip-Hopificiation of Live Sound Engineering is such a terrible thing for bands with guitars
that are not Hip Hop acts.

 

[la szum]

I'm not there with electronic drums yet. Just saw Geoff Tate do Mindcrime in a killer venue that dumped $1.5mil into their PA a couple years ago, (Parker Playhouse) and his drummer is using the newer V-drums that look like an acoustic kit. Modeling has gotten there with recreating guitar/bass tones, but the dynamics of a human hitting actual drums still has a long way to go. There's a limit the snare/toms/cymbals won't go past no matter how they're being hit and in a hard rock/metal show, especially one where the drums were an integral part of the original, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

This is a pretty good example, these hi-hats sound better in this video then they did in the venue that night. My buddies (both musicians, tbf) and I looked at each other during this intro with the not-good stank face. There's just no dynamic change when the song actually kicks in and that ride cymbal.....eek.

I am an huge fan of the Hybrid approach. Natural Hats and Snares and Cymbals. Triggers for
Toms and Kicks. Best Of Both Worlds.

Kind of like with killer Guitar Rigs.

I don't know why more acts/artists don't use that approach. It mimics the studio vibe without
making the stage completely dead and gives one more control without sacrificing dynamics---
as the snare, hats, and cymbals are where most of the great dynamics and anticipation come from
drumming.

 

[dbagchee]

The show was great. We were on the front balcony rail right behind (and slightly above) the mixing stations. While upfront sound may have been compromised with the mostly silent stage (minus drums), from where we were the sound was awesome. We could hear everything clear, I love these small clubs/theaters.

I'm a Tesseract fan, so I'm going to be biased. I thought they sounded great and put on a great show, if a bit theatrical. Jay Postones is such an amazing drummer to watch - I love all those poly rhythms Dan's vocal control is absurd as well - there are a couple tracks off the latest album that have these crazy transitions from screaming to high pitch clean notes etc and he pulled them off.

Now Devin Townsend. A complete 180. The best word I can use to describe is "joyful". He comes out, with no intro music, no smoke and mirrors - huge grin on his face, waving gleefully to the crowd and then just dropping into devastating heaviness. If Tesseract is an angsty teenager, Devin is the happy go lucky dad that just retired. That band is so good and just have so much fun on stage. So refreshing.