Comments on: Navigator – Bad Children

By: Campfires & Battlefields

Campfires & Battlefields — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:03:07 +0000

Oh, and Bad Children has now been released on cassette with a secret non-lo-fi version on the b-side, so that would seem to indicate that the lo-fi production was deliberate.

By: Campfires & Battlefields

Campfires & Battlefields — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:48:10 +0000

Well, it took me about 6 months, but I finally got around to downloading this. Fuck. Ing. Brill. Iant. !

As for the recording, I notice that the Magic Goats Music site has other recordings by Braden McKenna, including a really really good one called Weighted Pines (15 songs and the longest one is 1:58). The sound quality on those is much better (or clearer?) than the Navigator record, so it seems that he knows how to record properly, but just chose to record the Navigator record differently. Either way, gotta like the results.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:34:09 +0000

WOOO! Someone was listening at least!

By: voldermania

voldermania — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:27:08 +0000

I really like this! (2nd song is lovely, yes!)
I can make out 80% of the lyrics. If only it were always so easy.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:14:09 +0000

I’m not sure how intentional it is, but obviously I couldn’t tell you.

The crackle is so harsh that I couldn’t put anything but the quietest song on the podcast because everything else distorted the second I imported it into Audacity.

Looking at the waveforms, this is a normal song, with all the peaks and valleys and quieter and louder bits clearly visible in the waveform:

And this is one of the Navigator ones which is just one great big maxed-out wall of noise:

Now, as far as I am aware that could have come about due to the mastering – in which case, yes, they have overdone it a little – or it could have come about due to constantly and massively peaking the recording channels when they actually took down the songs – i.e. recording too loud a noise into a channel or a mic not set to the right gain to handle it.

If it’s the latter, then either they did it on purpose and again, I think they’ve overdone it somewhat, or they did it by accident, in which case their equipment is awful, or they don’t know how to use it.

Personally, I think it’s probably on purpose because it’s all so consistent across all the tracks, and I can’t imagine anyone peaking anything so much and so constantly.

People with more audio knowledge than me might be able to add more information than that, but that’s my inexpert take on it.

And yes, I think this is excellent, and I am rather surprised there has been so little love. Come on people, clean your ears out!

By: nic

nic — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:58:42 +0000

What?! No love for this album?

I was real taken with Work is Done (I think?) on the last podcast and I’m loving the songs on the rest of the album.

But, I just can’t see myself listening to it as much as I’d like to: maybe it’s the crappy laptop I’m listening on, but it really just sounds like I’ve blown a set of cheap car speakers… Discordance I can handle, but the crackling is perhaps an artistic statement too far for my tastes.

Feeling old, pass me my hearing aid…