Wintersun - The Way of the Fire - Remastered and Remixed version
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- Опубліковано 8 жов 2024
- Time 2: you probably already know how the genesis of this album was controversial and "troubled" since, although it was supposed to be released immediately after the first part, the production took a long time due to "technical limitations" complained by Jari, who said he was unable to manage the complexity of the project with the hardware he had back then and who asked for money both from the label and the fans (infamous crowdfunding campaign).
Obviously the album had already been composed and ready for some time but the mixing and mastering phase was missing and that, according to Wintersun's mastermind, took a long time.
Well... the result is rather poor and many limitations in the production are evident such as the vocal parts and the orchestrations drowned by the wall of sound of drums and guitars in particular, with the drums being too predominant and the equalization too boomy, bombastic and full which creates the very annoying "wall of sound" effect.
The solution, although partly limited by the stems already bounced into "macrotracks", came with the Time Package which offers numerous bonuses allowing fans to create "their own mix" of the album. Or kind of.
So here's my version of "The Way of the Fire", the album's lead single and perhaps the busiest track on the album after "Storm".
It's only an experiment and I did it with the spare time between one working shift and another and at home just to hear the result with a couple of studio monitors.
I won't give my review of the album itself because I feel like it won't be fair but, knowing that Time I was, to me, only a good album, I think this one falls a little bit behind (although I like Silver Leaves quite a bit).
Equipment used: Apple AirPods 3, MacBook Pro M1 with LogicPro, EVE Audio SC203 and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen.
Out of morbid curiosity I'd really like to see what happens if you remix this in a way that screams Atmospheric Black Metal. The Forest That Weeps was recieved this treatment and it was beautiful
I dropped everything in my personal mix. I dropped the drums and bass guitar -5db. Less is more Jari.
Jari stepped up on the vocals for this record, so it’s wild that the vocals are so often buried in the released mix…..
Indeed, the mixing is underwhelming at best and vocals are drowned as hell.
The final result? Lack of clarity in the mix to push the bombastic approach and, of course, everything is muddy and boomy as hell except for the drums which are far too loud and those detached from the rest (also drum parts are clearly programmed and not played by Hahto unless he tracked the parts to be then replaced 100% by samples).
@@francescopanciroli1382 I do think it’s Kai on kit the whole way through, but yeah every drum is definitely sampled and processed to hell. I don’t think I’ve heard a more heavily quantized record and that includes stuff like drill death metal. I don’t hate that in of itself though, I had to get used to it on the first Time but I can feel what Jari is going for. Oddly enough, the clarity is improved on my AirPods whereas in the car or a speaker, it’s that ticktock kick/snare thing clearly dominating. I have to wonder if it’s a staging thing. I got used to it but getting used to the character of the mix is something IMO more suited to classic metal, black metal, more raw stuff with that charm…the slickness of the Time project needs to be going all the way in terms of clarity for max effectiveness, just plug in and go.
Jari also said he has a different orchestral effect on practically every riff and I hate that we aren’t really hearing that either. Maybe we’re feeling the *effect* of it, I’m not sure, I didn’t get the package with the stems. But I’d just love to be more immersed in the layers here.
@@francescopanciroli1382 The drums are said to have been live tracked by Kai, with triggers on them (at least the kick and snow, probably the toms, too). You can definitely tell that the kick is basically 100% sample-replaced, and the snare is def mostly sample-replaced, unless it's partly the acoustic snare in there, with a really flat and low tuning. Can't hear much snare rattle, too. Tbf the drums were tracked a decade ago, so the recording quality may have not been fully satisfactory for Jari's ears today, in the modern climate of trigger-heavy mixes.
Beautiful !!