#thesameasylumasbefore

[trvepeak-blog]

Mix Analysis #1 “The Same Asylum As Before” by Steven Wilson

FOREWORD

My first analysis is about a song from a person who inspired me so much that I wanted to become a sound engineer myself: „The Same Asylum As Before“ by Steven Wilson off of his album „To The Bone“. I’m a fan of his music since the 2005 release of Porcupine Tree’s „Deadwing“ and it was (and still is) „Arriving Somewhere But Not Here“ on this record that got me hooked.

In this article I will take a closer look at one of the songs of „To The Bone“ which is in a different way a progressive record. Instead of repeating the (well working) formula of it’s predecessors by writing long (or very long) prog rock songs with different time signatures and structures that go way beyond the typical ABAB scheme, he decided to focus completely on the perfect pop song. Not like recent EDM pop music, but more in the vein of bands like Talk Talk or even Abba, but without sounding outdated. So much to the introduction, let's have a look at the hard facts!

HARD FACTS

PLR: ~ 14 (lowest) ~ 7,5 (highest)

Average Loudness: -11,5 LKFS

Inter-Sample Peaks: -0,1 dBTP (left) -0,2 dBTP (right)

Digital Peak: -0,2 dBFS (left) -0,2 dBFS (right)

Mix: Steven Wilson Master: Tim Young at Metropolis

Year of Release: 2017 For measuring the PLR, Average Loudness and Inter-Sample Peaks I used MasterCheck Pro by british company Nugen Audio. To keep it as neutral and simple as possible, I chose the „Optimal Master - Codec Only“ preset. For measuring the Digital Peak Level I used the 4U Meter, Fader & MS-Pan Plug-In by german company HOFA. The DAW used is Logic Pro X. The source material is 16 Bit and 44,1 kHz. If you want to now what all those fancy words mean, have a look at this article.

As you can tell by the waveform, the recording has got a lot of transients and is very dynamic in general, which makes it a great listening experience because the change of the loud and quiet parts adds a lot of excitement to the song. Also the preservation of the transients makes it sound really snappy.

It’s peaking at -0,2 dBFS on both channels, which is fine cause this is a CD Master and regarding loudness you can go pretty crazy, as long as you take care of Inter-Sample Peaks, which could cause distortion when you’re listening to it through speakers. Highest Inter-Sample Peak is at -0,1 dBTP, which is also fine. All in all it’s not only a great sounding master, but also flawless from a technical point of view (in my opinion).

PERSONAL IMPRESSION

When I heard the first singles of „To The Bone“ I was slightly disappointed because I was expecting another huge progressive rock album like „HAND. CANNOT. ERASE.“ or „The Raven That Refused To Sing“. The super straight pop songwriting was unexpected but it’s not unusual at all for Steven Wilson, as he has proven countless times before with his solo project, Porcupine Tree and especially with Blackfield. The latter is so cheesy it hurts, seriously.

Also only one song hits the 3:30 mark on this album, so it’s still not a regular pop record by mainstream standards and “To The Bone” is only pop music in the context of his previous releases. I'm pretty sure a lot of fans will bitch about the simplicity of the songs but who cares; a great song is a great song is a great song!

CONCLUSION

Not only this song but the whole record is well produced and written and it’s a real treat to listen to it over and over again. It also shows how important it is to keep a certain amount of transients and dynamics in your music to make sure that it sounds good on any system, be it laptop speakers, smartphones, tablets or regular speakers. A good mix / master will always sound great no matter how bad the circumstances are.