King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

Personally I like the sounds on alot of Wagener's stuff. I like the guitar tones on Pornografitti, although III sides is by far my favorite of theirs. Waiting for the punchline sounds like pure, unadulterated dog ****. When that was released, I was a huge Extreme fan, heard that and wanted to puke. The rawness of it sounds like contrived rawness.

+1, I love first two albums, especially Pornografitiy, on the first one I hear too much Brian May/EVH tones. III sides is great too but some songs bore me. But, Stop the World and the opening track are master pieces. Sometimes musicians need to be saved from themselves - Punchline doo-doo.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

Well, I dug out my old hair metal CD wallet and gave 3 sides, punchline and pornograffitti a listen, just for fun.

3 sides is interesting, a very hifi, clear sounding record for a hard rock band. From memory it was digitally mastered, which was still fairly unusual at the time. It definitely sounds like Nuno wanted to get clarity across the mix and not push any frequencies in particular. That bass sound is a turkey, though. It's interesting, listening now I can really hear the soldano all over it. Quite a unique recording for the era.

Compared to that, punchline definitely fattens up the drums and bass. I quite like the drums on this, very much a modern take on the Bonham thing, and a more believable room sound than on 3 sides. I'd say punchline is the most ballsy extreme recording, and also the least dated (the most dated being the debut, with it's hilariously overhyped drum sound, courtesy of Mack). Also like a lot of Nuno's signal processing and the sag he got from the bassman he used on this record. Is the rawness contrived? -perhaps. I'm sure they were feeling pressure to follow the fashions of the times. But to me it sounds like Nuno just wanted to get a more 70s, real band sound going.

And, well, pornograffitti is exactly as I remember it: all pushed in the upper mids, and really fatiguing to listen to. And that gated verb on the drums hasn't aged well. I guess I never noticed it back then because it was way less pronouced than the first album, and well, gated verb was the industry standard, kind of like how kids growing up listening to heavily edited pro tools recordings now think that is how things sound normally.

If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say most of the damage was done in mastering. I'm sure if you cracked out the tapes to a lot of those Wagener records and listened to them on well tuned monitors they'd probably not sound pushed at all. I've had experiences with mastering where things have gotten pretty 'wagener-esque' due to the sound of the room we were using...

But hey, Extreme got off lightly. At least compared to what Wagener did to Saigon Kick...

 

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

Hot Grits,
Ok, lets leave Extreme alone, the solo on In My Dreams from Dokken's Under the Lock and Key, one of the most tastefull solos ever done by George in those years and voted best solo of the year either by GP or GW magazine, you think that there Wagner did way more even by the era standards too?

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

Hot Grits,
Ok, lets leave Extreme alone, the solo on In My Dreams from Dokken's Under the Lock and Key, one of the most tastefull solos ever done by George in those years and voted best solo of the year either by GP or GW magazine, you think that there Wagner did way more even by the era standards too?

Well, it's a great solo. The production on the Dokken stuff is still definitely Wagener, but is a bit more bearable. Definitely not as nasty as Extreme or Saigon Kick...

 

[devastone]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

Compared to that, punchline definitely fattens up the drums and bass...
...Also like a lot of Nuno's signal processing and the sag he got from the bassman he used on this record. Is the rawness contrived? -perhaps. I'm sure they were feeling pressure to follow the fashions of the times. But to me it sounds like Nuno just wanted to get a more 70s, real band sound going.

Actually it was a reissue Vibroverb IIRC, it wasn't a Bassman. You can definitely hear that it was a pushed Fender (with a Rat). The mix on that one is really good too. I think alot of people were disappointed because is was such a change in sound from their previous discs. I remember thinking WTF when I got it, then I saw them live on that tour and I "got it". It became one of my favorite discs of theirs.

As far as Saigon Kick, I think the songs on the first disc are incredible, one of my favorite bands. I don't mind MW's sound on that one as much as Porno, but to each his own I guess. You can still pick the era that it came from.

Anyway, given the chance, I'd still love to work with MW.

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

Actually it was a reissue Vibroverb IIRC, it wasn't a Bassman. You can definitely hear that it was a pushed Fender (with a Rat). The mix on that one is really good too. I think alot of people were disappointed because is was such a change in sound from their previous discs. I remember thinking WTF when I got it, then I saw them live on that tour and I "got it". It became one of my favorite discs of theirs.

As far as Saigon Kick, I think the songs on the first disc are incredible, one of my favorite bands. I don't mind MW's sound on that one as much as Porno, but to each his own I guess. You can still pick the era that it came from.

Anyway, given the chance, I'd still love to work with MW.

You're dead right. It was a vibroverb ri. Didn't know he stuck a rat in front of it, though.

I really liked the Saigon record, as far as songs went. I had a listen to it yesterday, prompted by all this, and there's still some great music on there. They were also pretty ambitious in terms of the breadth of music they attempted, which was unusual for the era.

 

[devastone]

Re: King's X in the studio, kinda interesting.

You're dead right. It was a vibroverb ri. Didn't know he stuck a rat in front of it, though.

He uses a Rat on pretty much everything, but I think more as a boost than with the gain cranked. I can't guarantee he used it on WFTP, but I think he did, there seems to be some of that Rat filter tone coming through, the filtering on them is pretty distinctive. I could be wrong, I can't say I've had the pleasure of playing through a cranked Vibroverb.