What Does Dream Theater Need to Do? (Musically)

I like Dream Theater but I don't think of them as highly or lowly as others. Every album I've heard has its strenghts and weaknesses. What I would like to have them do is the following:

Epignosis wrote: Petrovsk Mizinski wrote: Epignosis wrote: OzzProg wrote: Bring in the London Philharmonic! That solves every band's low point in their careers. In all seriousness: 1. Turn up their Bass player's amp 2. Stop thinking about making quick cash on "Hit singles" 3. Get back to wicked ass keyboards like in "THE DANCE OF ETERNITY!" Woooo! You know what?  A plus right there. Myung is a fantastic bassist, but you'd almost never know it.  Portnoy drowns him out every time. Dream Theater does not need singles if they're making solid albums (and they are). And yes, Rudess is excellent, especially when he uses various tones (instead of the electric guitar clone). I've mentioned this before but if you can't hear Myung, buy new speakers. Seriously, listening through studio monitors, I can hear Myung perfectly. I've listened through many different avenues, and it's rare that I can hear him clearly.  Remember that most consumers don't have studio monitors to enjoy their music, so its up to the band to sound good on merely decent speakers.

You're right Rob.
Most people don't have studio monitors and most likely will never need them either.
What they do commonly have though, is a home hi fi system.
Unlike studio monitors, which are designed to have as flat as possible a frequency curve across the frequency range, most hi fi systems hype up treble and bass frequencies, thus increasing the low end content.
If I can hear Myung's bass clearly on my studio monitors which only have 6.5 inch low end drivers (thus that means there will be a degree of low end roll off), then I would find it quite hard to believe that the average listener cannot hear the bass on their hi fi system which may have a bass driver as big as 12 inches or perhaps even larger.
I can't speak for Octavarium or Systematic Chaos since I don't listen to them anymore, nor do I plan to listen to the new album, but SFAM which I believe you reviewed and claimed lacked bass, is actually a pretty well produced album. The mix is fairly good and the bass guitar is pretty much dead even with the guitars.

I will now go into a long winded section because I need to clear up some misconception many people have that are not familiar with how heavy metal is mixed and what instruments in metal are supposed to do.
Sometimes you will hear a bassist break out into a "prominent" sounding bit but then they are back in the mix later.
This is not because the bass has became inaudible and "drowned out by Portnoy's drumming".

There are two environments.
Live and the studio, but we know that already.
In the live environment we will hear a band as it is. We might hear two guitarists, a bassist, the vocalist and the drummer. Sometimes you might hear triggers but it's unnoticeable much of the time.
But other, we only hear "one" track of each instrument ultimately. It's the live "real" setting.
Chances are, you'll hear that booming bass guitar of Myung in a certain venue more so than usual because of the way the place is designed.
In the studio, people do not set out to create something that sounds "real".
In many ways, the studio environment can be compared to that of a movie.
We all know that dragon flying in the air isn't real. It's CGI.
We all know a movie isn't filmed "live". That is, scenes and shots are not filmed in the order we see them. Sometimes the second or 3rd scene was filmed towards the end of even during post production or whenever.
Think about it in album terms now.
The order the tracks play in doesn't necessarily represent the order in which they were written/recorded etc.

The important thing is to stop trying to think about studio albums as being realistic as such, because they aren't.
Guitars will be double or quad tracked. Post processing EQ will be applied. There might be many layers of vocals impossible to replicate in a live environment. There is compression, and perhaps other various plug ins.
Yes, your favorite hero drummers often don't even play the drum tracks exactly as you hear them on an album.
You're lying to yourself if you honestly believe a drummer can go in there and hit every single drum consistently in one take. Humans are not machines, humans are not consistent enough to deliver that level of perfection on an instrument that relies so heavily on dynamics like drums.
Some of the drums you'll hear are probably triggered. Sometimes entire sections are programmed because the drummer at the time couldn't not play the part well enough to record it in the small time frame they had with the limited budget they might have had perhaps. Or perhaps they just couldn't at all but in a live situation they could "fake" the part so they added it in the album.
It is "not up to the band to make sure it sounds good on merely decent speakers".
If I were a producer of an album, I would not let a band run amok with the mixing and mastering process.
That is why we have sound engineers. It is their job to make sure it sounds good on *studio monitors* so the end result is that it will sound heavenly on your high quality sound system and at least decent on an okay hi fi system.
If you are listening to Dream Theater through speakers with a bass driver much smaller than what the sound engineer was using in his/her studio monitors, yes the bass content you hear will be reduced.
In this day and age, I'd like to think we are able to assume a level of intelligence on our own behalf and accept that is the fault of our sh*tty computer speakers we might be listening through for the lack of bass, and not blame the sound engineer  and even worse the band when clearly listening through studio monitors, which is the reference they have used for the mix, show that they have done a good job.

The misconception among people that don't understand metal mixes that the bass cannot be heard, I will demystify that for anyone reading this right now, hopefully in terms you can understand.
In metal, electric guitars are going to be tuned anywhere from E standard (the tuning you'll hear on guitars on all the early Metallica albums, all the early Sabbath albums before Iommi had the finger accident and the tuning you'll hear on most of SFAM too) to an octave below and yes, some bands go even lower.
Now, for those of you who don't really understand guitars, they are a mid range instrument.
Not low end, mid range.
What does this mean folks? When you hear the chugging Drop D riff in Home, are you hearing below 100 Hz?
No siree bob, you are not.
That heavy punch in the gut provided by guitars in metal comes from the mid range, but towards the lower mids, 300 Hz, 400Hz, 500 Hz.
Now, but the low E string of a guitar has a fundamental frequency of around 82.4 Hz. That is well within the "bass" territory of a mix.
What years of testing by sound engineers and guitarists have revealed is that those fundamental frequencies of the chugging low notes of a heavily distorted guitar are simply not required in a metal mix. Why?
Because it isn't adding any heaviness, because the heaviness, comes from the mid frequencies described above.
Sound engineers will apply a high pass filter above 100 Hz, maybe at 150Hz or even higher.
Those fundamental frequencies of the low end guitar notes are now gone from the mix.
Do you know what happens when you don't bother to record bass tracks after you do that?
The resulting sound is extremely thin and weedy.
In metal, often the bass is just played in unison with guitar riffs.
That space where the sound engineers have high pass filtered  guitars out of the mix need to be filled.
It's filled with the bass guitar and the bass drums.
The bass guitar is now, essentially, an extension of the low end of the guitars. The fact "Myung is an excellent bassist but you'd almost never know it" proves that he is in fact, good at what he does, which is most of the time to beef up the low end of the guitars in a way that makes the sound bigger overall without you sitting there thinking "woa, what a flashy bass player" the entire time.
Right now, I'm sitting here at my computer, studio monitors unplugged, listening through my bargain basement computer speakers with a 2 inch bass driver, perhaps even 1.5 inch since I'm not going to get out measuring tape and measure them.
I can hear Myung fine. No, not as clearly as I can through my hi fi or studio monitors, but he is there, no doubt.
I know this, because when I go into my recording software programs, load up "Home" from SFAM, and listen to the main chugging drop D riff, I get the EQ plug in and remove all the frequencies below 150HZ.
The sound is now thin and weedy after I do that because I cannot hear Myung's unison riffing with Petrucci.
Once I bump those frequencies back to normal, everything sounds full and big again because the bass drum and bass guitar is now about dead even with the guitars.
Try this test for yourself if you want the proof Myung is in the mix.
You can do this test with Dream Theater, Gojira, Between the Buried and Me, Opeth, even Porcupine Tree, anything that has heavy guitars and you start to realize that the bass guitar in metal is not about "making sure you're heard" as such, but making sure you're holding down the tightness of the band and acting as an extension of the low end of the guitars.
Guitars do not chug by themselves, contrary to what 14 year old kids believe. That riff in Home is chugging because Myung is there to add kick to Petrucci's riffs.

Anyway, I conclude this lesson
This is clearly the result of someone who used to have severe anxiety problems and used to read constantly, but eh, whatever, at the end of the day it helped me to understand the importance of the bassists role in heavy metal and also it's good production tips in general.
Oh and hopefully for anyone that read the whole thing you learnt something new today


Edited by Petrovsk Mizinski - June 17 2009 at 06:51

Damn you people really need DT in your lives, even more than me... Even those who want to change everything in the band have posted here more than in threads about their favorite artists.....

Petrovsk Mizinski wrote: Epignosis wrote: Petrovsk Mizinski wrote: Epignosis wrote: OzzProg wrote: Bring in the London Philharmonic! That solves every band's low point in their careers. In all seriousness: 1. Turn up their Bass player's amp 2. Stop thinking about making quick cash on "Hit singles" 3. Get back to wicked ass keyboards like in "THE DANCE OF ETERNITY!" Woooo! You know what?  A plus right there. Myung is a fantastic bassist, but you'd almost never know it.  Portnoy drowns him out every time. Dream Theater does not need singles if they're making solid albums (and they are). And yes, Rudess is excellent, especially when he uses various tones (instead of the electric guitar clone). I've mentioned this before but if you can't hear Myung, buy new speakers. Seriously, listening through studio monitors, I can hear Myung perfectly. I've listened through many different avenues, and it's rare that I can hear him clearly.  Remember that most consumers don't have studio monitors to enjoy their music, so its up to the band to sound good on merely decent speakers. You're right Rob. Most people don't have studio monitors and most likely will never need them either. What they do commonly have though, is a home hi fi system. Unlike studio monitors, which are designed to have as flat as possible a frequency curve across the frequency range, most hi fi systems hype up treble and bass frequencies, thus increasing the low end content. If I can hear Myung's bass clearly on my studio monitors which only have 6.5 inch low end drivers (thus that means there will be a degree of low end roll off), then I would find it quite hard to believe that the average listener cannot hear the bass on their hi fi system which may have a bass driver as big as 12 inches or perhaps even larger. I can't speak for Octavarium or Systematic Chaos since I don't listen to them anymore, nor do I plan to listen to the new album, but SFAM which I believe you reviewed and claimed lacked bass, is actually a pretty well produced album. The mix is fairly good and the bass guitar is pretty much dead even with the guitars. I will now go into a long winded section because I need to clear up some misconception many people have that are not familiar with how heavy metal is mixed and what instruments in metal are supposed to do. Sometimes you will hear a bassist break out into a "prominent" sounding bit but then they are back in the mix later. This is not because the bass has became inaudible and "drowned out by Portnoy's drumming". There are two environments. Live and the studio, but we know that already. In the live environment we will hear a band as it is. We might hear two guitarists, a bassist, the vocalist and the drummer. Sometimes you might hear triggers but it's unnoticeable much of the time. But other, we only hear "one" track of each instrument ultimately. It's the live "real" setting. Chances are, you'll hear that booming bass guitar of Myung in a certain venue more so than usual because of the way the place is designed. In the studio, people do not set out to create something that sounds "real". In many ways, the studio environment can be compared to that of a movie. We all know that dragon flying in the air isn't real. It's CGI. We all know a movie isn't filmed "live". That is, scenes and shots are not filmed in the order we see them. Sometimes the second or 3rd scene was filmed towards the end of even during post production or whenever. Think about it in album terms now. The order the tracks play in doesn't necessarily represent the order in which they were written/recorded etc. The important thing is to stop trying to think about studio albums as being realistic as such, because they aren't. Guitars will be double or quad tracked. Post processing EQ will be applied. There might be many layers of vocals impossible to replicate in a live environment. There is compression, and perhaps other various plug ins. Yes, your favorite hero drummers often don't even play the drum tracks exactly as you hear them on an album. You're lying to yourself if you honestly believe a drummer can go in there and hit every single drum consistently in one take. Humans are not machines, humans are not consistent enough to deliver that level of perfection on an instrument that relies so heavily on dynamics like drums. Some of the drums you'll hear are probably triggered. Sometimes entire sections are programmed because the drummer at the time couldn't not play the part well enough to record it in the small time frame they had with the limited budget they might have had perhaps. Or perhaps they just couldn't at all but in a live situation they could "fake" the part so they added it in the album. It is "not up to the band to make sure it sounds good on merely decent speakers". If I were a producer of an album, I would not let a band run amok with the mixing and mastering process. That is why we have sound engineers. It is their job to make sure it sounds good on *studio monitors* so the end result is that it will sound heavenly on your high quality sound system and at least decent on an okay hi fi system. If you are listening to Dream Theater through speakers with a bass driver much smaller than what the sound engineer was using in his/her studio monitors, yes the bass content you hear will be reduced. In this day and age, I'd like to think we are able to assume a level of intelligence on our own behalf and accept that is the fault of our sh*tty computer speakers we might be listening through for the lack of bass, and not blame the sound engineer  and even worse the band when clearly listening through studio monitors, which is the reference they have used for the mix, show that they have done a good job. The misconception among people that don't understand metal mixes that the bass cannot be heard, I will demystify that for anyone reading this right now, hopefully in terms you can understand. In metal, electric guitars are going to be tuned anywhere from E standard (the tuning you'll hear on guitars on all the early Metallica albums, all the early Sabbath albums before Iommi had the finger accident and the tuning you'll hear on most of SFAM too) to an octave below and yes, some bands go even lower. Now, for those of you who don't really understand guitars, they are a mid range instrument. Not low end, mid range. What does this mean folks? When you hear the chugging Drop D riff in Home, are you hearing below 100 Hz? No siree bob, you are not. That heavy punch in the gut provided by guitars in metal comes from the mid range, but towards the lower mids, 300 Hz, 400Hz, 500 Hz. Now, but the low E string of a guitar has a fundamental frequency of around 82.4 Hz. That is well within the "bass" territory of a mix. What years of testing by sound engineers and guitarists have revealed is that those fundamental frequencies of the chugging low notes of a heavily distorted guitar are simply not required in a metal mix. Why? Because it isn't adding any heaviness, because the heaviness, comes from the mid frequencies described above. Sound engineers will apply a high pass filter above 100 Hz, maybe at 150Hz or even higher. Those fundamental frequencies of the low end guitar notes are now gone from the mix. Do you know what happens when you don't bother to record bass tracks after you do that? The resulting sound is extremely thin and weedy. In metal, often the bass is just played in unison with guitar riffs. That space where the sound engineers have high pass filtered  guitars out of the mix need to be filled. It's filled with the bass guitar and the bass drums. The bass guitar is now, essentially, an extension of the low end of the guitars. The fact "Myung is an excellent bassist but you'd almost never know it" proves that he is in fact, good at what he does, which is most of the time to beef up the low end of the guitars in a way that makes the sound bigger overall without you sitting there thinking "woa, what a flashy bass player" the entire time. Right now, I'm sitting here at my computer, studio monitors unplugged, listening through my bargain basement computer speakers with a 2 inch bass driver, perhaps even 1.5 inch since I'm not going to get out measuring tape and measure them. I can hear Myung fine. No, not as clearly as I can through my hi fi or studio monitors, but he is there, no doubt. I know this, because when I go into my recording software programs, load up "Home" from SFAM, and listen to the main chugging drop D riff, I get the EQ plug in and remove all the frequencies below 150HZ. The sound is now thin and weedy after I do that because I cannot hear Myung's unison riffing with Petrucci. Once I bump those frequencies back to normal, everything sounds full and big again because the bass drum and bass guitar is now about dead even with the guitars. Try this test for yourself if you want the proof Myung is in the mix. You can do this test with Dream Theater, Gojira, Between the Buried and Me, Opeth, even Porcupine Tree, anything that has heavy guitars and you start to realize that the bass guitar in metal is not about "making sure you're heard" as such, but making sure you're holding down the tightness of the band and acting as an extension of the low end of the guitars. Guitars do not chug by themselves, contrary to what 14 year old kids believe. That riff in Home is chugging because Myung is there to add kick to Petrucci's riffs. Anyway, I conclude this lesson This is clearly the result of someone who used to have severe anxiety problems and used to read constantly, but eh, whatever, at the end of the day it helped me to understand the importance of the bassists role in heavy metal and also it's good production tips in general. Oh and hopefully for anyone that read the whole thing you learnt something new today

I hope that was cathartic for you.

For me to buy another one of their albums, they need to tone down the metal.  I don't think trying to be heavy suits them very well.  I don't necessarily think that's what they need to do in general, just as far as I'm concerned.