Van Halen’s ‘A Different Kind of Truth' At 10: A Track-by-Track Guide

[ZahZoo]

Yup. It’s why studios are hanging onto their old analog Neve mixing consoles. They are very forgiving and you don’t get the brittle sound you get from a digital console. A Neve can make up for the engineer’s sin where a digital console can bite your ass.

I actually run ADKOT through a very good multichannel EQ and through a McIntosh tube amplifier to bring some color and depth into it.

I work with a Midas Pro2c digital console currently and it's got some of the best clean sound available that's as close to many of the high end analog consoles I've worked on. You can get great sound and excellent mixing capabilities out of digital with the right gear.

There's very little you can do to improve ADKOT with an EQ and great system... the problem isn't tone or warmth... it's the way it's mixed into a packed wall of compressed sound with literally no frequency space unfilled.

As I've said before... the best description of how the final mix of ADKOT is... they stuffed a size 12 woman into pair of size 5 skinny jeans. Fits so tight, it can't breath!!

[Fairwrning]

That's definitely a drawback for ADKOT: be it either playing it through speakers or through headphones, when you crank it up it distorts to shit. It does have a dry digital sound even at lower volumes. Contrast that with the Fair Warning album, where you can crank that fucker right up and everything is still clear in the mix.

My last car stereo I installed, Mean Street was the sound check...

[Fairwrning]

Tattoo grows on you..its got a good groove to it live and great licks from ed imo

[Vinnie Velvet]

Upwards of $700?

Jesus.

Thank god I purchased the vinyl when it came out in 2012. Its a great package. Double red vinyl.

[Vinnie Velvet]

About 30 years later, I looked her up on facebook. She put on (more than) a bit of weight. Sad. Made me wistful, because she had the greatest tasting pussy. That teen twat circa 1980s, back when many girls even in their mid to late teens hadn't had ten million dicks in them already.

Haha oh to be young again.

[Kristy]

Thank god I purchased the vinyl when it came out in 2012. Its a great package. Double red vinyl.

You hipster, you.

[Seshmeister]

My last car stereo I installed, Mean Street was the sound check...

For years and years my go to for any new stereo was Skyscraper.

[Seshmeister]

Thank god I purchased the vinyl when it came out in 2012. Its a great package. Double red vinyl.

I was almost about to say that, I seem to remember quite a few people here at the time saying they had bought the vinyl. Maybe ELVIS will be able to get a new trailer the way the prices are going.

[wolfsbane]

Maybe I'm wrong.

This was a carefully assembled swan song for Van Halen. Assembled by Dave.

1. Tattoo. Same formula as Jump. Meant to be a straight pop-rock single.

2. She's The Woman - solid classic VH song.

3. You And Your Blues - song for Sammy.

4. China Town - love this.

5. Blood And Fire - a nod to the Gene Simmons/KISS start to VH's career.

6. Bullethead - Sixth track. Get it? Bullet/six-shooter?

7. As Is - great stuff.

8. Honeybabysweetiedoll - a very Dave song.

9. The Trouble With Never - an answer to Alex's statement that VH will never have Dave as the lead singer again.

10. Outta Space - dedicated to Wolfgang.

11. Stay Frosty - dedicated to Dave.

12. Big River - Dedicated to Eddie. "listen to a beerglass, that river belongs to me"

13. Beats Workin' - Dedicated to Alex.

I might be wrong. But that is how I see it.

I love this album

[Seshmeister]

I'm pretty sure you are wrong but I agree it's a great album.

The 2 criticisms that people make of this album are pretty dumb

1) It stole from previous demos.
This is fucking stupid because

a) You can't steal from yourself
b) They reworked them a lot
c) They did the exact same thing throughout the first 6 albums,
d) ADKOT is much longer than the usual VH album and so has more original material on it than maybe all of them apart from VH1? That may be shit but it's not miles off.

and

2) Michael Antony isn't on it.
Ok yes but there is no conceivable way the album could have happened without Wolfgang so it is what it is. It's also arguable that Wolf brought some stuff on a number of tracks that MA would never have especially judging by the mediocre dirge of Chickenfoot*



*PMSL literally just had to google to remind myself of the name of Chickenfoot...

[Seshmeister]

That's definitely a drawback for ADKOT: be it either playing it through speakers or through headphones, when you crank it up it distorts to shit. It does have a dry digital sound even at lower volumes. Contrast that with the Fair Warning album, where you can crank that fucker right up and everything is still clear in the mix.

I've done two albums and mixes in the last 8 years so spent around maybe 100 hours recording in professional studios and I feel like i know far less about this than I did in the late 80s/90s doing demos.

Mixes used to be good or not good, Now it has to be compressed to fuck or it sounds stupidly quiet, it has to work on your headphones and an iPhone speaker and a TV and a good stereo. I don't understand it to the point of not even knowing what is good or shit - it's weird and unsettling.

All of that is an engineering/mixing issue though, John Shanks has to be given big credit as a producer for bringing out great performances by everyone and it not falling to bits in petty shit.

[ZahZoo]

I think a good mix can be done digitally without it being compressed to fuck... Most of the music I listen to wasn't remixed to today's standards and sounds perfectly fine through headphones, car stereos and an actual stereo with real speakers.

Nothing sounds great through earbuds, an iPhone, or stock TV with tiny speakers... why shoot for that as your standard output device.

[Seshmeister]

As I said, I dunno but they all do it.

Part of it I think is something to do with volume whereby there was some sort of arms race over the years that has made everything have to have all the frequencies maxed out.

Someone reading this must know...

[Never was]

I work with a Midas Pro2c digital console currently and it's got some of the best clean sound available that's as close to many of the high end analog consoles I've worked on. You can get great sound and excellent mixing capabilities out of digital with the right gear.

There's very little you can do to improve ADKOT with an EQ and great system... the problem isn't tone or warmth... it's the way it's mixed into a packed wall of compressed sound with literally no frequency space unfilled.

As I've said before... the best description of how the final mix of ADKOT is... they stuffed a size 12 woman into pair of size 5 skinny jeans. Fits so tight, it can't breath!!

Great way to describe it. They re-mixed after Henson at 5150 and when all was said and done the thing was way too compressed. It needed space desperately to let each part shine. The final brickhouse sound betrayed the material a lot as it was better than the end album sounded

[Silexxx]

Vinyl Rip on Youtube. It's not as compressed as cd / digital version.

Full album playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...hdAtMEQNa8zWu-