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So, one of my favorite songs ever is by Chevelle entitled "Emotional Drought" off the album This Type of Thinking Will Do Us In. The reason i came here to you folks is to see if the thing that been bugging me about the song is in the recording or the several mp3 files i have of it. I owned the CD at one time, but cant seem to find it, and my next step is to repurchase it if this query doesnt yield any answers. So, Emotional Drought has a section that repeats a few times during the song (like many do) and the part in questioning is at 4:13 to about 4:20 where the singer says "never touch, tried to. never touch, tried to", there is what sounds to me like a floor tom hit that has an echoing reverb that sounds quite distorted where it doesnt sound like this during the other instances where the exact same bit repeats earlier in the song. Ive obtained 4 different mp3 files from my hard drives, ipod and a friend. They all do it. Do any of you have this song in your libraries to check it out for me? I greatly appreciate you guys, who are the experts, looking into this!

Comments

youdoofus Thu, 10/12/2017 - 06:01

pcrecord, post: 453383, member: 46460 wrote: If bought from an official sources, it will be as the artist intended to. (considering the CD is always of better quality)
This version doesn't seem to have the distortion you talk about.

thank you for the reply, but i still hear it on this version too. Listen for a higher pitched tone such as a speaker makes when its dying after the 4 tom drum pounds right after he says "never touch". Its there in the third refrain but not the first two earlier in the song. Im just gonna hafta order the cd again since i still cant find mine

youdoofus Thu, 10/12/2017 - 07:06

pcrecord, post: 453393, member: 46460 wrote: Try on different listening devices, head phones, car etc...
I bet your speakers have a sympathetic frequency happening.
I know that some frequencies make my TV casing vibrate and it sounds like distorted. Maybe you are living the same phenomenon..

ive already done that too :( jbl head phones, some cruddy headphones from work, my car, my dads car (was over visiting them and figured, why not since its a 2017 santa fe and he never turns it up, so its pretty pristine), my home av system too which consists of a Denon receiver, B&W 6.5 2 ways with a 1" tweet (the distortion is in the freq range that would come from the 6.5 driver tho) and a definitive technologies sub. It does it on all of them. Ill try to trim the 3 instances of the repeated refrain and piece them together and upp them somewhere that i can link here, maybe soundcloud or something

i didnt want to come bug you folk without having done my due diligence first. Thanks for the help man!!! I appreciate ya!

youdoofus Thu, 10/12/2017 - 10:34

DonnyThompson, post: 453398, member: 46114 wrote: Yeah, I hear it.
It's either guitar amp feedback, or a harmonic pinch note.
And yes, it only happens on that same phrase at 4:12 - 4:20.

THANK YOU!!!! Everyone in my IRL circle of friends thinks im nuts LOL!!! So do you think its in the original mastered recording? Id hate to think it is because i love that song, and i cant ignore it when i hear the song now :( ive listened to this track hundreds of times (seen the band 11 times, kinda infatuated with their music). So, im boned on this one?

youdoofus Thu, 10/12/2017 - 10:35

pcrecord, post: 453397, member: 46460 wrote: I don't hear anything abnormal.. It may happen in a frequency range I'm not hearing myself. If you are in your 20s it's possible.
You also might have better trained ears than I do... who knows !
I'm gonna call my friends DonnyThompson and audiokid to see if they can hear what you are talking about.

Im 40, but my ears are still in pretty decent shape. Maybe i missed my calling :/

DonnyThompson Thu, 10/12/2017 - 11:04

youdoofus, post: 453401, member: 50627 wrote: So do you think its in the original mastered recording? Id

It's difficult to say, especially if several mastered versions exist from several different "official" mix versions, which is not as uncommon as you'd think these days. Different producers or mix engineers might be called in to give their own take on the mix(es). It's also possible that it was there all along and just not used in the version you mentioned, or it could have been overdubbed at a later date. Obviously one mix exists without that guitar harmonic cuz you've mentioned hearing it. I will say that it doesn't sound "accidental" to me, as the phrasing and notes are both in-time and within the key sig of the song. That's not to say it wasn't an "accident" that they decided to keep because they liked it, but I don't believe that a mix - or remix - engineer would have let that slide by if somebody with any authority didn't want it that way.
I'm not at all familiar with the band; so other than giving you my opinion, I don't know enough about them to wager anything more than a guess.
;)
-d.

youdoofus Thu, 10/12/2017 - 12:33

DonnyThompson, post: 453405, member: 46114 wrote: It's difficult to say, especially if several mastered versions exist from several different "official" mix versions, which is not as uncommon as you'd think these days. Different producers or mix engineers might be called in to give their own take on the mix(es). It's also possible that it was there all along and just not used in the version you mentioned, or it could have been overdubbed at a later date. Obviously one mix exists without that guitar harmonic cuz you've mentioned hearing it. I will say that it doesn't sound "accidental" to me, as the phrasing and notes are both in-time and within the key sig of the song. That's not to say it wasn't an "accident" that they decided to keep because they liked it, but I don't believe that a mix - or remix - engineer would have let that slide by if somebody with any authority didn't want it that way.
I'm not at all familiar with the band; so other than giving you my opinion, I don't know enough about them to wager anything more than a guess.
;)
-d.

Thanks for this very well thought out response! I know ive heard that sond without that weird sound in the third phrase, but now my mission is to find it. And from what youve alluded to about the existence of different mater or official mixes, i fear that if i was to buy a new one off amazon, id get the same thing again. Perhaps if I was to try ebay for an older one and it hopefully wouldnt have the weird sound on it.

Again, I truly appreciate every response in this thread, you guys ROCK!! :)

youdoofus Thu, 10/12/2017 - 21:16

DonnyThompson, post: 453410, member: 46114 wrote: It's too bad we can't A/B this commercial release mix with the one you originally heard. It'd be interesting to see if that pinch harmonic was the only thing they changed. Maybe you got ahold of an initial mix? Somehow a prelim mix got released by accident?
Tough to say ..

I do have a pre-release version of Clutch's "From Beale St. to Oblivion" that is very different than the studio release in several ways, and i prefer the less engineered version considerably

hackonsound Mon, 10/23/2017 - 16:32

In the recording in post #2, I heard the 'problem' that occurs in the range you mentioned described as a low end lasting few ms after the hit that produces unordinairy distortion. But also a thump is noticable along the recording that begins from 1:09 and lasts until the end, literally. This 'phenomenon' is called flat-amplitude, or profesionally called over-limiting set at very fast attack and release parameter values. Mastering shot is taken and refurnished with limiting is done after, so this means one word - "DESTROYED" recording. I do not mean harm, but it is sadly.