Re: STYX Grand Illusion/Pieces of Eight dvd
Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:18 am
Todd ...Im gonna try to attend your clinic in Fredericksburg VA ...
Bringing drummers together since 1999
http://houseofdrumming.com/phpbb3/
Todd Sucherman wrote:Hey Juan,
There are many factors involved to properly answer your question. For one, I suffer with the inability to please myself. I can find fault with myself easily which has always been an issure for me. When I'm pleased, I'm pleased but that comes with a process at times.
Without throwing my bandmates under a bus, they have the tendency to play very "on top." Now this posses a unique issue because I can only pull back so much. It's a fine line to walk every time. I have to go with it to an extent because I find that if I'm stubborn and think, "Hey guys....it's way back HERE," the overall musical effect is that it sounds like the drummer is tired and can't keep up. So not only to I feel like an ass doing that-- I end up sounding like one too, musically speaking.
So I often feel we don't always get the fat quarter note pulse I strive for. With the other live recordings from an aesthetic point, I don't feel we've necessarily captured particularly magical nights. For whatever reason we've always recorded or filmed a single show, as opposed to recording or filming multiple nights and picking the cherry tracks from each show---as most other acts often do. It's true in this case with the new DVD that it was again only one single show filmed, which adds a certain pressure, but I think it's our best representation of what has been captured yet. In essence, it's our defining live work---finally. I can say that I'm happy with it!
Thanks for the question, Juan! I hope that made sense.
Cheers,
Todd
"Hey guys....it's way back HERE," the overall musical effect is that it sounds like the drummer is tired and can't
keep up. So not only to I feel like an ass doing that-- I end up sounding like one too, musically speaking.
Styx: The Grand Illusion/Pieces of Eight Live in Concert is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision and Eagle Rock Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. While much of this live concert looks at least acceptable, there are several troubling artifacts that crop up with fair regularity, including posterizing (especially when the stage is bathed in blue light), banding and rampant mosquito noise, which seems to be mostly due to whatever camera is downstage right and frequently is shooting in the darkeness off to the stage left area. Moiré patterns also appear quite a bit on the projection screen behind the band. All is not bad news, however. Quite a bit of this concert looks quite sharp, with good, robust colors and some excellent fine detail in the close-ups (one kind of funny example: look at the perfectly capped teeth of several of the band members when they're singing).
Styx: The Grand Illusion/Pieces of Eight Live in Concert follows Eagle Rock's standard operating procedure of offering three audio options, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix, an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo mix, and a standard lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. (Why does Eagle Rock always have the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix the third choice on the audio options when you toggle through them?) Fidelity here is excellent, with really nice clarity, especially with regard to some of the retro synth sounds and the still excellent sounding vocals of the band members. The 5.1 mix isn't overly spacious or splayed, but there's nice separation of the instruments nonetheless. Styx doesn't really layer sounds to the hyperbolic levels of some of their seventies prog rock contemporaries, and that helps what is here to shine through with precision and clarity.