Adore, and the importance of decent headphones.

Last night I listened to Adore in full for the first time in many years and I could hear some interesting things that were never apparent before. I think this is one of the best reasons for purchasing a decent pair of studio monitors or headphones. I was using my mixing headphones: A pair of Audio Technica ATH-M20s. These headphones have great clarity and a really flat response. If you have them cranked to about -12dB - -15dB you can really hear the texture of music quite well and I prefer them to my Grado Labs P60s when listening to music while working.

Some things I noticed:

To Sheila: Towards the end, the muffled strings and electric guitar sounds roll off the main phrases in slow motion. Its amazing. I can hear the EQ cut off at about 200hz and a large metallic hall sound applied to the guitars. It really opens up the song quite a bit. At 4:38 the sostenuto pedal comes off the piano right after some electronic blip that I don't think I have ever heard before.

Ava Adore: There are reverse cymbals integrated into the drum loop on the verse. They are predominantly in the left channel.

Daphne Descends: I don't know if this is true or not, but I can hear the cut and paste of loops during the verses here. The loops cut points are very subtle, but you can hear a difference in the snare and the drum loop in the back ground, plus some sort of ARP blips going on over 2kHz.

Once Upon a Time: See if you can hear the distorted guitar flourishes during the vers. They are swirling around in the right channel. Also there is a bongo type drum following the appregio there too.

Tear: At 1:05, there is a clear EQ difference and possibly a compressor issue with Billys voice. I think the beginning o fthe song must have been tracked at a different time than the rest of the song, or at least the vocals were tracked at 3am and someone got lazy...

Tear has some of the best multitracked drums on the entire album though. The rolloff on the toms with compression really carries the rhythm section throughout.

Annie-Dog: In my opinion this is the best song on the album. The pedal bass tones here really flow with the piano lines. There are little guitar flourishes in the background during the verse breakdowns that bring out the piano too. I love listening to this song with headphones. Its really beautiful.

Blank Page: Another awesome vocal arrangement. This is something I am going to go into deeper in the future. The power of a strong vocal performance coupled with a creative arrangement makes for a stellar song.

I think that its difficult for independent musicians to understand how much time and love goes into creating an album like Adore. Even though it did not get amazing reviews, it stands on its own for what it is and what it represents.  With the advent of home studios and cheaper components and plug ins, there is more possible now than ever was in 1996 for home musicians.

Hopefully, I will be able to explore this more in future posts and with examples of my own music.