You may be right about the sound effects on Geddy's bass. But I'm talking about the digital distortion created in the mastering process of making this album. It was mastered too "hot," or too loud, causing many of the soundwaves to be "clipped" at the peaks.dANdeLION wrote: It took me a while to get used to that, too. It's mainly Geddy's bass that they rean through serious distortion, and I think perhaps an octave divider, too. His live sound has been much like that, too. I really, really miss the tone of his old Rickenbacker......
I can't get the original technical article, which explained this, to load. Here's what Wikipedia had to say:
Also check out: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
The production of Vapor Trails has been highly criticized due to the album's 'loud' sound quality, as compared to other modern recordings, which is very unusual for a major label release. As explained by Rip Rowan on the ProRec website, the damaged production is the result of overly-compressed (clipped) audio levels during mastering, though Rush have admitted that there was digital distortion during recording, which also contributed to the damage. Remastering the album would not correct the damage from digital distortion that was introduced during recording, but it could correct the other, more destructive damage that is the result of overly-compressing the audio during mastering. Fans continue to pan the sound of Vapor Trails and many are outraged that uncertainty remains whether the album will be remastered and reissued.
Ah, wait a second. I found a cached version of the page here, but no graphics--which were the cool parts of the article. You could visually see the compression, limiting, and clipping.
Here's more: Howie Weinburg is Killing Music