On another forum I frequent, I read an interesting comment about the production of Deconstruction being "thin" and "overcompressed" because of Jens Bogren whose work the poster hates. I had checked the dynamic range of Deconstruction, and for such dense and layered music, it seemed great. Ghost has more range admittedly, but it's a totally different album.

What do you think of the mix and production on both albums?

By the way, here is the link to the topic in question in case anyone is interested:

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/prog ... music.html

Cheers!

There is a lot going on in Decon and first listen or two maybe it can sound that way, but I'm beginning to hear all the different parts now- I totally missed the orchestration first listen through and didn't catch a lot of the choir, I think even with the best production in the entire world it would seem that way- it's probably not humanly possible to compute all the different parts for the first few listens. The poster probably didn't give it much of a chance and was biased like you said.

i've only heard MP3s thus far (looking to change that once my CM Distro preorder arrives), so the following comments may be significantly clouded by that: i find the guitars are often lost under the weight of the orchestra and vocal tracks, and the relatively squashed compression during the loud sections tend to push the drums further back in the mix as well. with that said, the dynamic range on the record is enormous compared to pre-DTP Devy mastering jobs (Terria being an exception there), and i find it an enjoyable listen regardless.

i'm not a fan of Bogren's surround sound mixing, but i'm only familiar with his Opeth work there, and methinks a lot of the decisions i dislike on that front weren't his at all anyway. i don't see how the record sounds "thin," that's for sure.

too thin? seriously? if anything, the mix is too thick. there's so much stuff going on that the guitar, orchestra, and choir end up competing with each other in a lot of parts, but i don't think it ever gets out of hand. i'm only listening to the 192k leak, too, so i'm sure it will sound even better in CD quality. not sure what that guy's beef is.

The mp3 rip I heard didn't sound too great but the CD sounds fine to me. There is so much going on on this album that it's pretty much impossible for the mix to sound "thin". I think there are places where the instruments could have been more defined but with the amount of stuff going on that's easier said than done. I doubt there is any mix engineer in the world who wouldn't have a hard time mixing Decon. All things considered I think Jens and Dev did a great job with the mix.

Lossless audio makes a big diff. Now that I have the CD's and ripped them straight to FLAC...I mean, the difference is huge. For how immense Decon is, it sounds fantastic. This is a truly a mix that you really never finish; at some point you just gotta give up and call it good. I think it's damn good.

I like the production on Ghost too, but some of the vocals are heavily doused in reverb and echo, and I understand that they are suppose to be...but there are some parts where I'd like to be able to understand the lyrics without needing to look at the sheet.

They are both great. Anyone who said it's thin must have only heard the 192K leak. And who knows what his listening environment is? Is he listening to it on a good stereo system or with good headphones? Or is he listening to it through his Gateway laptop speakers????