Machina II Thought

[Sleepwalk Faller]

I've noticed something interesting with the two Glass' Themes on Machina II, and I can't remember if it's come up before.

I always considered the original version better than the "spacey" one, just because I'm not wild about the "spacey" production. After listening to it more, though, I notice that the most striking thing about it is the sonic "gap" where the guitar is in the normal version. I find myself "listening" to a guitar that's only in the original version--or that's buried so far back in the track that it nearly disappears. It seems a clever artistic move, if it's deliberate, but I'm not sure that it is. Has anybody ever heard anything about the idea behind the second version?

I only ask because I've noticed how the production on other songs (like Real Love, Home and White Spyder) obscures the vocals instead. Treating elements in alternating, opposite ways like this is a lot like the play between loud and soft on MCIS (and so Machina II might have more of a main idea than I gave it credit for before.)

[slunked]

i have always liked the spacey version better. i like the way billy sounds on it more that the first.

[jLc]

I've always thought that the Machina 2 production and mixing is overall dire. It sounds like crap. Ten years ago I recorded using a cheap mixer driven thru' an amp directly connected to the recorder and I pulled the Reverb knob all the way up to 10 (my amp ain't like Spinal Tap's which knobs have an "11" mark after the 10 "top volume" one :lol:). Most of Machina 2 sounds oversaturated in the same way. It just makes me dizzy.

[slunked]

granted, machina II does sound awful, but it gives it a certain nuance that doesnt appear on the other pumpkins albums. any version we have heard has most likley been pulled from the vinyls, and transferring vinyl to compact disc never sounds good anyway. but even the studio versions of machina II do sound pretty much the same. but as i said, i like the fuzziness and overall low fi production. i think with machina II, you either take it or leave it. i mean, none of us had to pay for it, so whats the big to do?

[Cool As Ice Cream]

I like these thoughts.

I have no idea what you're talking about, but I want you to know that you have my full support.

[Peter]

typical belgian trash. no idea what's going on (too drunk) so they just go "oh yeah! yeah!"

:confused:

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Yeah, that's what I always do, eh, Peter? Especially when you're posting the usual bullshit. Right? EH?!?

[Jackal]

Peter's really turning into a troll. He only posts to be mean. I'm so disappointed in him.

[slunked]

remember the billy goats gruff? that was a nice story. no one uses the word gruff anymore. scrugg mcgruff. chicago illinois 60652. why do i remember that? maybe billy is friends with scruff mcgruff. i bet hes in the pumpkins now.

[jLc]

Nah. I'll tell you who is in the pumpkins now: 24 tracks of reel tape, that is, 1 Jimmy and 23 multitracked B0lly clones playing 23 different guitar harmonies. That's Smashing Pumpkins now.

And a Mellotron, of course. Don't forget the mellotron.

[Tyler]

remember the billy goats gruff? that was a nice story. no one uses the word gruff anymore. scrugg mcgruff. chicago illinois 60652. why do i remember that?

maybe because it is the greatest tv jingle of all time

[slunked]

maybe because it is the greatest tv jingle of all time


that is true.


but latley i have had the "1800-my lemon" jingle stuck in my head.

and i dont think a day has gone by in the last 10 years where i havent sang to myself "for taste and more it's encore"

[daisydaisydaisy]

Most of Machina 2 sounds oversaturated in the same way. It just makes me dizzy.

I can see what you're saying, but i've always kind of liked that. It's way thicker and more fucked-up sounding than a lot of their stuff, and besides the Pumpkins, i tend to lean more towards the thick and fucked-up side of music.

[jLc]

Yeah, I'm pretty "extreme" when it comes to heavy sound, but I much prefer the rich-on-bass-yet-well-defined "drone" in their earlier work. I mean, I prefer the guitar work in "Quiet" (which is like a bulldozer inside your brain) than the spacey, saturated and "full-spectrum-filler" later production (Machina & Machina II).

Machina has one flaw, in my humble opinion: besides being extremely a long record, the oversaturated and overproduced sound ends being exhausting. I mean, there's simply too much stuff. It has sections of incredible work which sound awesome, but most of it (again, IMHO) is way too bloated.

In earlier records, you had that guitar wall and tons of stuff and fills and things like that, but sound was more "isolated", I mean, you could tell what's what. In Machina, the different tracks take too much room in the spectrum (mainly 'cause the incredibly high levels of reverb). You can hear a constant "pedal sound" (same notes in a constant drone in the background) across the whole song. There's no gap of the spectrum which ain't filled. If you examine the wave in a suitable program you can't see peaks or valleys, I mean, everything is at the loudest point.

Smashing Pumpkins lost one of their best features: the dynamics. In Gish or Siamese Dream, and even in Mellon Colly, the band played a lot with dynamics (a feature that dinimished as time went by, sadly) having extremely heavy and extremely quiet sections in the same song. In Machina everything is so loud and so complex all the time that I get tired of listening to it. It's the only SP album that I can't listen from the beginning to the end in one go.

[Herr Lipp]

I left Machina II at someones house who moved away. And dont have the internet connection to download it all again. Sucks, even though I only like about 10 songs on the whole thing.

[Herr Lipp]

same happened with my pisces iscariot and adore. I bought a new adore (standard) but not a pisces.

[Asher]

Yeah, I'm pretty "extreme" when it comes to heavy sound, but I much prefer the rich-on-bass-yet-well-defined "drone" in their earlier work. I mean, I prefer the guitar production in "Quiet" as opposed to production in Machina I & II.

Machina is oversaturated and overproduced. It has sections of incredible work which sound awesome, but most of it is way too bloated.

In earlier records, you had that guitar wall, but you could distinguish the individual components. There's no gap in the spectrum; everything is at the loudest point.

The band gradually moved away from one of their strengths, dynamics.

Both "I of the Mourning" and "Glass and the Ghost Children" play with dynamics, but it's not as pronounced as it was on "Hummer", "Soma", or "Bullet". The production works in places, for me "Raindrops + Sunshowers" (I loved "Appels + Oranjes" and had received in advance of Machina a leak of "Raindrops + Sunshowers" and had very high hopes for the record), "I of the Mourning", "Heavy Metal Machine", and the last movement of "Glass and the Ghost Children".There's not a damn thing that hasn't been run through an effect somewhere on that record, exempting the a capella break in TEG. The album is drenched in sound throughout, which I agree becomes monotonous. The acoustic demos show how much better "Wound" started out acoustic.

When production is the same all the way through, no matter the record, it gets boring; that's just how we're wired. Go pick up a book. If short, relatively simple sentences weren't dispersed in between longer lines, it becomes aggravating. Film is the same way: if it's exclusively made up of thirty minutes scenes, with the same two characters, most of us would walk out.

The supersaturated production style hit a new low with the album version of "Heartsong", which is frankly unlistenable ever since I saw it live and acoustic.

[jLc]

Yeah, I do concur, maybe that's that: the monotonous production techniques. In every other SP record you have lots of changes from a song to the next one. You have frantic blasts of shouting and distortion or mellow, quiet, spacey ballads. A song has real drums and a distorted bass and the next one is basicly drumless with an electronic beat and some piano. Maybe I'm biased and probably this is the result of not having listened too much to Machina, but I think that the album lacks that kind of "variety". It's what you said about books or films. It may have awesome pieces of music, but it's exhausting to listen to all of them in a row.

I also agree with the "Heartsong" thing you mention, and that happens to me with many songs, specially the latest ones.

I simply don't like the undefined bunch of sound that lies behind billy's voice, where you can't tell what's doing what and even which instruments are there.