2025.02.12 - Saitama, Japan (Night Two)

[xxHybridXeroxx]

3 minutes ago, Ravok said:

Seems like the sound was much more massive on Tokyo night #2 as well. Very weird stuff going on all around.

FOH guy better get it together lol

[rracer2013]

1 hour ago, LPLStaff said:

It's not just you - the earlier songs are really off with the guitar. It's Points, Papercut, OSC, Lying From You, those heavy early songs. Either Alex is off or the amps are off. He fixed APFMH in 2025. Having hope the rest can be improved. You can hear it immediately on Points. In-person at the first show back it was VERY noticeable with him and it's driven me crazy every time I've seen them since.

@LPLStaff - So can you please explain? Do you think he has a wrong timing or do you mean his strumming patterns or what else? I want to understand.

Edited February 13 by rracer2013

[c3bebuilder]

6 hours ago, rracer2013 said:

@LPLStaff - So can you please explain? Do you think he has a wrong timing or do you mean his strumming patterns or what else? I want to understand.

He does have different strumming patterns from what I’ve noticed, he tends to down stroke more. His palm muting techniques are different compared to Brads which is why songs like Papercut sound a bit different and why APFMH sounded different too, he seems to have changed the way he does palm muting on that song though as @LPLStaff pointed out. 
Alex just has a different technique compared to Brad and I think he’s a pretty good fit to fill in for Brad personally.

I haven’t really noticed any issues with timing, the song he does seem to mess up a lot is The Catalyst. He always seems to play the wrong chords every time they play that song. (If you can even hear the guitar most shows lol)

 

Another thing to point out which I think I have before is the guitar tone on What I’ve done sounds horrendous, especially during the solo part it sounds extremely bland and im hoping that gets fixed.

 

I listened to some songs from both Tokyo shows and mostly EVERY song, the guitars are mixed super low and everyone else is louder. Not just Alex’s guitar but Mikes too, on some songs the guitar volume is turned up but on a lot of older songs like POA or Lying From You the guitars are mixed too low. Same thing goes for a lot of the playback samples, they sounded pretty low these past 2 shows. (Lying From You is a good example of this). This is just personally overall what I’ve listened to and think so far. I may be wrong on some things but this is just what I’ve noticed personally as I am not a professional audio engineer.

 

This overall seems more like an FOH issue and I hope they fix this soon.

 

 

Edited February 13 by c3bebuilder

[Stewe]

16 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

What is the show intro they used before Inception?

 

Full show: 

 

 

Kaijuu Daisensou March

[JerseyShore]

1 hour ago, c3bebuilder said:

He does have different strumming patterns from what I’ve noticed, he tends to down stroke more. His palm muting techniques are different compared to Brads which is why songs like Papercut sound a bit different and why APFMH sounded different too, he seems to have changed the way he does palm muting on that song though as @LPLStaff pointed out. 
Alex just has a different technique compared to Brad and I think he’s a pretty good fit to fill in for Brad personally.

I haven’t really noticed any issues with timing, the song he does seem to mess up a lot is The Catalyst. He always seems to play the wrong chords every time they play that song. (If you can even hear the guitar most shows lol)

 

Another thing to point out which I think I have before is the guitar tone on What I’ve done sounds horrendous, especially during the solo part it sounds extremely bland and im hoping that gets fixed.

 

I listened to some songs from both Tokyo shows and mostly EVERY song, the guitars are mixed super low and everyone else is louder. Not just Alex’s guitar but Mikes too, on some songs the guitar volume is turned up but on a lot of older songs like POA or Lying From You the guitars are mixed too low. Same thing goes for a lot of the playback samples, they sounded pretty low these past 2 shows. (Lying From You is a good example of this). This is just personally overall what I’ve listened to and think so far. I may be wrong on some things but this is just what I’ve noticed personally as I am not a professional audio engineer.

 

This overall seems more like an FOH issue and I hope they fix this soon.

 

 

Thanks for the insight. As someone who is the opposite of an audiophile and can't really tell any of these differences besides volume and some weird sounds, I'll try to focus more when I listen back.

 

The overall volume differences have been most noticeable to a layman like me. Mike's vocals always seem the loudest. Emily's vocals vary sometimes, especially when she moves the mic away from her. Guitar volumes seem to change a lot depending on songs. I can almost never hear Mike's guitar in any of the recordings. 

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

10 hours ago, Ravok said:

Seems like the sound was much more massive on Tokyo night #2 as well. Very weird stuff going on all around.

hard to tell if the sound was massive or not based on YouTube videos lol

 

 

[Ravok]

4 hours ago, JZLP-Benningstrong said:

hard to tell if the sound was massive or not based on YouTube videos lol

 

 

I was comparing the Erynn videos since they were at both shows in what seemed to be pretty much the same spot. 

[c3bebuilder]

7 hours ago, JerseyShore said:

Thanks for the insight. As someone who is the opposite of an audiophile and can't really tell any of these differences besides volume and some weird sounds, I'll try to focus more when I listen back.

 

The overall volume differences have been most noticeable to a layman like me. Mike's vocals always seem the loudest. Emily's vocals vary sometimes, especially when she moves the mic away from her. Guitar volumes seem to change a lot depending on songs. I can almost never hear Mike's guitar in any of the recordings. 

Oh yeah also forgot to mention that too. On some songs I can hardly hear Emily sing 

[JerseyShore]

7 hours ago, c3bebuilder said:

Oh yeah also forgot to mention that too. On some songs I can hardly hear Emily sing 

Do you think it's because she's singing those "powerful" parts too far from her mic? Or just a bad mix? Or something else?

[rracer2013]

18 hours ago, c3bebuilder said:

He does have different strumming patterns from what I’ve noticed, he tends to down stroke more. His palm muting techniques are different compared to Brads which is why songs like Papercut sound a bit different and why APFMH sounded different too, he seems to have changed the way he does palm muting on that song though as @LPLStaff pointed out. 
Alex just has a different technique compared to Brad and I think he’s a pretty good fit to fill in for Brad personally.

I haven’t really noticed any issues with timing, the song he does seem to mess up a lot is The Catalyst. He always seems to play the wrong chords every time they play that song. (If you can even hear the guitar most shows lol)

 

Another thing to point out which I think I have before is the guitar tone on What I’ve done sounds horrendous, especially during the solo part it sounds extremely bland and im hoping that gets fixed.

 

I listened to some songs from both Tokyo shows and mostly EVERY song, the guitars are mixed super low and everyone else is louder. Not just Alex’s guitar but Mikes too, on some songs the guitar volume is turned up but on a lot of older songs like POA or Lying From You the guitars are mixed too low. Same thing goes for a lot of the playback samples, they sounded pretty low these past 2 shows. (Lying From You is a good example of this). This is just personally overall what I’ve listened to and think so far. I may be wrong on some things but this is just what I’ve noticed personally as I am not a professional audio engineer.

 

This overall seems more like an FOH issue and I hope they fix this soon.

 

 

As you already explained really well, there are no problem reg. timings, strumming patterns or any skill based issues with the guitar play of Alex. On his IG account he played some really good stuff by David Gilmour. And that was one of the most difficult and the finest at the same time. So I would be surprised if he systematically plays a song tonally wrong all the time. I've never noticed or heard him get the chords wrong on Catalyst....

 

But that brings us to the real problem. As you said at the beginning, you often don't hear Alex or Mike's guitar at all. Even Emily's Stratocaster on OEA can't really be located at all. The whole acoustic focus is on Mr. Joe, Colin and the vocals. I think there are several problems, but they are only indirectly the guitarist's responsibility. 

 

IMHO the soundmix is still a challenge. Since none of the guitarists play via a pedalboard and the guitar signal goes directly into the sound system via radio transmitters and guitar sound modelers, they have to rely entirely on the remote -haven't seen any miked amp so far. The sound engineer may have difficulty mixing all the instruments in a balanced way, especially in real time. Your position in the venue will affect what you hear. In What I've done, you can clearly hear that Alex is playing on the front pickup of his Stratocaster - but it sounds really bland. Normally, with the right SoundMix setting and positioning, you'll hear a full-bodied, valvish sound. It's unmistakable. In OEA, Emily is constantly turning the volume control on her Stratocaster, perhaps changing something in her in-ear monitoring, but not what we hear. In DeadSara, she always played without in-ear monitoring and her guitars went directly into the amp, where the sound then went into the respective PA via the microphone. The audience and the band's monitor speakers were then fed from here. 

 

If you think about the fact that only 6 months have passed since the comeback and nothing for several years before that, then there is certainly still room for improvement in the interaction of all components. Moreover - the whole world is watching and listening to Emily's vocals, nothing seems to be more important, nothing has higher priority than getting even the smallest semitone right. Perhaps this also has an effect on the sound mixing.

 

I believe that the overall sound will improve over the course of the tour as the sound engineers, guitarists and vocalists learn. Maybe our feedback from the community will get through to them and give them an impulse to improve certain things.

[c3bebuilder]

17 hours ago, JerseyShore said:

Do you think it's because she's singing those "powerful" parts too far from her mic? Or just a bad mix? Or something else?

Can’t say for certain. But her mouth seems to be close enough to the microphone. Also worth mentioning the vocal microphones have changed from previous tours. Previously Chester/Mike were using Sennheiser SKM 2000 microphones with the e865 capsule. Now Mike/Emily are using Shure mics however, I am unsure of the model they are currently using.

 

15 hours ago, rracer2013 said:

I've never noticed or heard him get the chords wrong on Catalyst....

This is just me nitpicking I can kinda tell it’s sort of wrong but not a big deal.

 

15 hours ago, rracer2013 said:

The whole acoustic focus is on Mr. Joe, Colin and the vocals. I think there are several problems, but they are only indirectly the guitarist's responsibility

This is true especially for Colin, his drums have been really loud throughout this tour compared to previous tours the sound seemed to have been more balanced back then. However, Robs and Colin’s setup are completely different and the live gear since then has been completely revamped.

 

And like you said over time im sure the live sound will improve since this is their first tour in 7 years. There’s also a completely different FOH and monitor engineer and some of the original techs no longer work with the band anymore so it’ll take some getting used to for the new people. Pooch and Tater also were the ones that recommended the current FOH Jim Edbon which makes me wonder if LP contacted Pooch/Tater to rejoin them but they were unable to so they appointed Jim to be the FOH.

Edited February 14 by c3bebuilder