I’ve done home studio overdubs for my own projects for guitars and such - it’s not uncommon, and yes technically speaking, you are the engineer in that scenario!
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This is also not uncommon these days - I remember the same thing happened on Whoosh! but there were like three engineers plus Bob and I was like, “Holy fuck, how many mix engineers do you need?!”
I always thought Whoosh suffered for a very imbalanced mix so I guess the answer is, not that many!
Just because it’s been a trend doesn’t make it right/good.
Uwe, how do you find the compression to be a good thing?
I’ve been wondering when the a certain German lawyer will enter the discussion - let’s hope your summoning ritual worked 
Yes. Uwe has previously referred to Ezrin’s productions/mixes as being ”cinematic”. But compressed cinema can never be a good thing?
I think it really depends on how much compression you prefer in a mix and master - for me, I prefer a minimum use, you do need some of it, and at the same time, I can hang with a more overly compressed sound even though it’s not what I prefer.
I don’t experience Ezrin’s mixes as cinematic and I’d be really curious to hear more on how Uwe experiences the mixes - I think it would be worthwhile to hear his perspective, I might learn something!
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Is it a classic case of ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’? It makes us think back to the days when an engineer/producer spent forever on the drums. But in this day and age? It sounds like the drums are getting limited time spent on them, unless these engineers etc are not up to the job, as in what it use to entail. The microphones and their placement and also the room these days would be different we would think, or at least some of those things may be. Newer technology, people who are into todays ‘sound’. Has that like many other things these days, been ‘dumbed down’, so to speak. I listened to Eddie Kramer’s recent interview at Beato a few weeks ago, and of course the drum sound query and comments were there. From my memory Eddie said he uses 10% analogue, various analogue ‘plug ins’ and the rest is modern state of the art technology. I went and found online a recent song of Eddie’s work and of course it had the ‘modern’ sound, the drums dead and buried, muffled muddy over all sound to it. His ears wouldn’t be the best either I could imagine. A combination of various things, today’s way of doing it all, alas. I am a dinosaur in regard to this aspect of modern day recordings of rock and pop music and I am glad to be one, living in the past. Cheers.
Be very careful with who you summon Mike, he he he. He is an Ezrin acolyte and dare I say it, ‘living in the past’ in that regard. Ezrin was a very good producer back in the analogue days, like all of the very good producers were. Times have changed and unfortunately technology good or bad has become the norm, as it always does, eventually. Cheers.
I have been holding my opinion back, but I think it is time. I checked back and apparently two years ago I had a pretty glowing opinion of =1. I must say I was pleasantly surprised then, but as two years have gone by, it has landed somewhere not very much above Whoosh.
The same way I was somewhat excited to hear Splat! the first time, I will have to be realistic. Yes, it is a better album than I expected; some of the songs actually stick and Sacred Land I actually have listened on its own.
The honest question to ask is this: when Splat! ceases to be the “current” Deep Purple album, will I be going back to it, or will I choose something else? And as with =1, the answer will be “something else”. It’s not that the songs are bad, or that the production would be uninviting or that the chops wouldn’t be there. As with =1, some of the songs have decent choruses this time around.
What is not there is the, for want of a better word, exquisite mastery, that sets the earlier post-Blackmore Deep Purple albums apart from whatever else has been made over the past 20-30 years. Splat!, similarly to its immediate precedessors, is in that sense a pedestrian album. It is made by competent people with agreeable ideas and occasionally even clever lyrics.
All of this, of course, is to be expected. The main motors of the group are around 80 years old. It’s not like they have something to prove. Their desire to explore musical territory is limited - be it new or old territory. Deep Purple know they are to be saluted from just existing at this point, and they are enjoying every moment of it while this existence lasts. It just doesn’t make their new music very exciting or particularly interesting - especially when contrasted to the several periods in the history of the band, where it was both.
For what it is, Splat! is a nice record. And, I really like the cover art!
I’m glad it came out and I bought it.
Without at least some compression, pretty much all rock recordings would be unlistenable. The cymbals (particularly crash) are loud. No, not loud, but LOUD. Like, up to +130dBa loud. And it’s not like one can isolate them from all the other mikes, as the rest of the kit is right there. So it bleeds everywhere. Compression is the only way to make it palatable.
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With the emphasis on some.
The thread that won’t die…
Well, finally some Dynamic Range numbers are in, and they mark a whopping difference on the vinyl version in this regard.
Has someone got a vinyl version, does it sound better or more lively?
Just wondering…
Regards, J.-
Explanation for people with real lives
The higher the DR number below, the more “uncrompressed”, “natural” or “dynamic” the record sounds to average humans. On the flipside, the lower the number, the more “squashed” and tiresome it sounds.
First of all, (personal pet peeve) that’s not dynamic range, but peak factor. Second, those numbers are totally as expected. Vinyl as analog medium produced higher distortion as the signal level rises. Digital media produces lower distortion ratio with rising signal levels – up to a point where the samples hit full scale, when all hell breaks loose. Hence, the propensity to master for digital with higher levels of compression to make it sound louder and subjectively “better”, what one simply can’t do on analog.
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Nick I think you’re right, that’s the peak value.
I don’t quite understand your point about compression, but what I know for sure is that the “available” dynamic range of a CD will always be greater than that of a vinyl.
With CDs you can get close to 100dB, with vinyl, if the mastering is done well and the materials are of quality, you can get to 70dB…if all goes well…
then the compression they use squashes the sound on the CD, losing overall dynamics, but squashes it upwards, therefore towards 90dB and almost 100dB, that is, the compression does not squash the waveform downwards, it would be stupid not to use all the dB that the CD offers.
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Just more info on this [admittedly very specialist] subject…
The readings I just took from Bandcamp’s [legal] digital version of Splat! (WAV option)
Juuuuust data guys - not arguing any point in any way 
Of course, this means nothing without comparing it to another thing (i.e. another album by DP or other artist).
It’s all good, guys 
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I should send all this data to my engineer and watch him have an orgasm lol
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Thanks Julio for this data, it would be interesting if you could find the same data there for Perfect Strangers and Purplendicular, the first albums of the 2 previous eras.
I’ve been listening to SPLAT! quite a bit now and I have to admit that I have rather mixed feelings about it.
First of all, let me say that I have huge respect for these guys. They are still making and releasing new music at an age where most bands would have retired a long time ago. And they can obviously still play. There is no question about that.
But as a long-time Deep Purple and, especially, Ritchie Blackmore fan, I have to say that the recent albums don’t really do very much for me anymore.
For me, Now What?! was the big exception. I still think that album is really, really good. There are very few songs on it that I don’t like. Maybe “Blood From A Stone” never really worked for me, but apart from that I think there was a lot of life and variety in the album.
And somehow I feel that after Now What?! the formula became more and more obvious.
The albums sound very similar to me. Not necessarily because the riffs are the same – obviously they aren’t – but because the overall approach has become very familiar. Similar production, similar rhythmical feel, similar song structures, lots of mid-tempo material, Gillan often working in that almost spoken vocal style, then a melodic section, back to the main riff, etc.
Again, this is just my personal impression. I know a lot of people love the recent albums.
But I often find myself listening to SPLAT! and thinking: “Yes, this is very well played and very well produced… but what is there here that I desperately want to hear again?”
And that is the problem for me.
I don’t really hear enough of that element of surprise that made Deep Purple so fascinating to me in the first place.
One thing I have also wondered about for quite some time is Bob Ezrin’s role. I know the band speaks very highly of him and that they obviously trust him. Steve Morse even described him back in the Now What?! period as someone who was very good at taking all their ideas and making them work as songs.
And I can understand why that is useful. A producer who comes into a room and says “this works, this doesn’t, let’s cut this part, let’s make this section shorter” can save a band enormous amounts of time.
But personally, I sometimes feel that Ezrin has become a little too involved in the songwriting and arranging process.
I know this will probably be controversial here, but I don’t really believe the producer should become another songwriter in the band. The producer should help the musicians turn their ideas into the best possible record, but I’m less comfortable when the producer starts deciding what the songs themselves should be.
Maybe that is one reason why I feel the recent albums have gradually become more concise and radio-friendly. There is less room for those strange little detours, long instrumental sections and unexpected ideas that used to make Deep Purple sound like Deep Purple.
Interestingly, when Now What?! was made, the band themselves talked about having no restrictions on song length. Ian Paice even said that if a song needed seven minutes rather than five, they would let it run and that instrumental sections should be allowed to develop naturally.
That spirit is exactly what I miss.
I also think Simon McBride has changed the character of the band again. I like him as a guitar player and I think he has brought something valuable back into Purple: riff-oriented hard rock guitar.
Steve Morse had a completely different vocabulary. His playing was much more adventurous harmonically and rhythmically, and he brought a lot of his own musical background into Purple. Simon seems much more directly connected to the traditional hard-rock guitar language.
And that is not necessarily a criticism. Some of his riffs are great, and I can understand why the band enjoys playing them.
But at the same time, I sometimes hear passages on the newer material and think: “I’ve heard this Purple formula before.” Certain chord movements, grooves and arrangements seem to come back again and again.
The production doesn’t help for me either. Everything is incredibly polished and controlled, but sometimes I find it a little flat. Almost too carefully produced. Deep Purple used to sound like five musicians in a room who might suddenly take a song somewhere completely unexpected.
Today I sometimes hear five excellent musicians executing a very carefully constructed Deep Purple song.
That’s a subtle difference, but for me it’s an important one.
And maybe this is also where my perspective as a Blackmore fan comes into play. I grew up loving the fact that Deep Purple could be unpredictable. With Ritchie, there was always the possibility that something slightly dangerous or completely unexpected would happen. Sometimes it worked brilliantly, sometimes it didn’t. But you never felt completely safe.
I don’t necessarily want Simon to play like Ritchie. That would be pointless. But I miss that feeling of adventure.
And I’m also not convinced by statements that every new Deep Purple album is somehow “better than anything since Machine Head”. I’m happy for the band to feel that way about their current work. They have every right to be proud of it. But as a listener, I simply don’t hear it that way. To me, that sometimes sounds more like the kind of thing you say when you are promoting the new album than an objective musical judgement.
The other thing I wonder about is the sheer amount of output.
Deep Purple are now at an age where the clock is obviously ticking. Maybe that makes them want to keep recording and releasing albums while they still can. And I completely understand that.
But perhaps there is also a downside to releasing new material at such a regular pace. I sometimes wonder whether the band would benefit from taking three or four years, disappearing for a while, writing without any pressure and only returning when they really have something they absolutely love.
That was part of what made Now What?! so special to me. There was a sense that something had happened during the writing process. The band had ideas, they jammed, they explored, and Ezrin helped turn that material into a record. Steve Morse even said that they had written so much material by then that he was begging them to stop writing and start recording.
That kind of abundance is probably healthier than trying to produce another album simply because it is time for another album.
So, where does that leave me with SPLAT!?
I think it is well played. There are good songs. Simon sounds great. Don Airey is obviously still Don Airey, and Gillan, Roger and Ian Paice remain an extraordinary rhythm section.
But I don’t think I will ever put SPLAT!, Whoosh!, Infinite or =1 on the same level as the great Purple records from the past.
And that’s not because I expect them to recreate Machine Head. I don’t. That would be ridiculous.
I simply miss the feeling that Deep Purple were still discovering something.
Maybe that is an impossible thing to expect from a band that has been doing this for almost sixty years.
But as a Blackmore fan, I still listen to Deep Purple hoping for that little bit of danger, weirdness and adventure.
And when it appears – even for a few minutes – I’m still absolutely there.
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I can see why you make those comparisons since it says DP on the cover, but it’s been 33 years since TBRO now + RB and JL are gone. RB’s abilities have left him, so that type of Purple will never come back (sadly). But it is what it is.
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