HiRez Poll Guns N' Roses - APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION [Blu-Ray Audio]

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Rate the BDA of Guns N' Roses - APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION


  • Total voters
    66
I am so glad to own this and thanks to atlantasteve's comment it didn't even break the bank as i could snap it off the GNR store for $40. Wonderful mix by Elliott. Probably the best you can get out of rock music.

Voted 9 (Content 10 / Fidelity 8 / Surround Mix 9)
Welcome to the QQ forum @dorikamu !
Glad to hear about your great deal on GNR.
It's a great one !
 
To me, this is one the most difficult discs to assign a fair score to. Some songs sound absolutely fantastic (the part just before 'You know where you are? You're in the jungle, baby!' is just one example of a magic moment). Because of that, I think it's surely a recommended purchase, whatever in the end the overall score for the whole album may be. However, the way My Michelle sounds must indeed be due to an unintended mastering error. That rules out a 10 for me.

Apart from that, this disc taught me something about what I do and do not like in a surround mix. In general, I love it when sounds are spread out across the channels. However, all sounds do have to sound great on their own when isolated. In the case of It's so Easy (when the 'It all fits so right' part comes in), the lower and higher pitched voices sound terrific when they are blended (which is not the case here). The lower voice then provides the body of the sound and the higher voices adds the edge that makes it all cut through. As much as I love separation, I would say these voices belong together, even in a multichannel mix. To my ears, it doesn't sound that good when such a high pitched voice is placed essentially in its own channel without any 'support' from lower frequencies. This, of course, is a matter of taste. I'm close to voting 8 at this stage, if it wasn't for...

The unbeatable rock guitar masterclass this disc offers!!! Listening to the many guitars so beautifully separated, makes me so glad this surround mix was ever created. All in all, I vote 9, which I think is a stunning score for a disc with such an abvious mastering error on it. Maybe one day some new anniversary edition comes out with that problem solved. Looking forward to voting 10 in that case :D
 
Just stumbled across this one and had the opportunity to hear it last night. I thought I remembered some of this as kind of rockin' from hearing it around. Not really a big hair metal fan but I thought it might be fun to rock out with your... The 5.1 mix isn't going to win any awards but it was at least OK. It sure exposed things though! Let's just say that I really understand the inspiration behind the Slash Shreds guy now! I never caught hearing this on the radio just how bad the playing was (beyond that one Child of Mine song on the radio with the train wreck solo, anyway). The Shreds guy didn't have to exaggerate very much! (But he did that too. :D)

If you actually like listening to this, this remix is probably at least miles above any of the chirpy volume war CD copies of the stereo mix out there.
 
In fact, this is the album that pretty much ended hair metal.
Yeah, I can see why! :D

Probably more like glam metal or something? I don't mean to disparage by calling something the wrong sub-genre and I know that gets important. I thought I was going to rock out to some college days nostalgia and instead got treated to an up close view of a band falling apart at the seams. I'd really only ever heard some of the tracks on the radio before. Surprised me for how popular they were. The beginner noises Slash makes in some parts really did connect the dots for the Slash Shreds guy though! I genuinely didn't make that connection before and just thought he picked an easy target or something. If you have any sarcasm in you at all, these videos will have you rolling! He went after a lot of others too. There's a Beach Boys video from him that has to be seen to be believed.
 
OK so I reviewed the comments in here before committing to a rating. Honestly, the My Michelle kick drum I didn't notice, but once it was pointed out, I went back and listened and yeah, it's definitely not really there. And it doesn't help that it follows up a song like Paradise City where the kick and snare is so prominent and integral. Paradise City is kind of like We Will Rock You in that regard. I think it's less an issue with Think About You, and when I go back and listen to the kick in songs that aren't named Paradise City, it seems more consistent with them. It's kind of hard to tell sometimes because not all songs are created the same-- some have toms that propel them, some have more space for the kick to fill, etc...

But generally speaking, I'd say the lack of kick in My Michelle was an oversight at the mixing board. It's easy to get caught up in listening for other things and forget about the kick if you're a mixing novice like me, but the pros should know better, or at least have a different set of ears to back them up and notice such things.

As for the mix, there is a lot to like about it, a lot of cleaning up involved. I echo what I said in the box set sale thread though in that it really seems like a decision was made to throw all backing vocals in the rear and any extra lead guitar...and pretty much nothing else. There are exceptions, like the little percussive thing at the beginning of Anything Goes, and some of the chorused rhythm guitar for songs like Paradise City. But the end result for me is that it all feels somewhat detached, like they just threw the overdubs in the rear channels. I contrast this with other rock albums like Slippery When Wet or Reckless, which all had a formula for the rears throughout, but felt more like a surround mix should feel. Maybe there were just too many tracks bounced on top of each other to throw into the rears, but I don't know. Still, the balance between the channels feels mostly right, and a song like You're Crazy just sounds brutal in a good way. I've never heard the rhythm playing on that song as well as I do with the surround mix.

I was hoping for better sex sounds in Rocket Queen, and that whole segment sure seems shorter than my little 16 year old self remembers. Rocket Queen, Paradise, and Sweet Child probably sound the best to me, but those three songs also have a lot of space to them, more so than the others.

I really like that the acoustic numbers from Lies were on this too, in a surround format. I mean, everything is pretty much here, and while I could do without the replica tickets, the posters, etc, I like the book a lot and the quality of the photos really captures the time well I think. Honestly, the extra stuff on here really pushes this up a notch.

So I'd probably give this surround mix somewhere between an 8 and a 9, but the extras on the boxset and the general improved clarity/fidelity kick this to a 9 I think.
 
But generally speaking, I'd say the lack of kick in My Michelle was an oversight at the mixing board. It's easy to get caught up in listening for other things and forget about the kick if you're a mixing novice like me, but the pros should know better, or at least have a different set of ears to back them up and notice such things.
It turns out that the front right channel is delayed by ~11 ms, causing the lower frequencies shared by the front channels to partially cancel each other. "Think About You" has a similar issue with the center channel offset by ~2 ms. Once the front channels are properly aligned on both those tracks, the low-end response is about as good as the other songs. I'd guess this was an error made at the mastering stage?

Speaking of the mastering, I'd be curious to hear what this 5.1 mix sounded like as a flat transfer - the higher frequencies seem quite a bit more prominent on the Blu-Ray than the original CD, to the point where some of the backing vocals and rhythm guitar parts in the rear speakers seem masked by the harsh cymbal crashes. I can crank the original CD at pretty high volume, but my ears start to feel it halfway through the Blu-Ray.
 
It turns out that the front right channel is delayed by ~11 ms, causing the lower frequencies shared by the front channels to partially cancel each other. "Think About You" has a similar issue with the center channel offset by ~2 ms. Once the front channels are properly aligned on both those tracks, the low-end response is about as good as the other songs. I'd guess this was an error made at the mastering stage?

Isn't that pretty much what phasing is? That the waveforms on one channel aren't lined up with the hits on another? I don't know. It doesn't seem like a phasing thing to me because there's no other bass to offset the kick frequency. I should still hear the thump of the kick with phasing. It would just be muddier. But I'll take your word for it that there's a delay and that's the issue.

I forgot to add that one of my favorite things about Think About You is that arpeggiated guitar that comes in on the chorus. Predictably, it's on the rear channels in the 5.1 mix, but it really sounds so thin to me. I know that it was probably recorded that way and in stereo it sounds better because that thin frequency spectrum it occupies gives it its own space and it blends nicely with only 2 channels. Separated for the 5.1 though, it's disappointing
 
I got a cheap (brand new) copy of this from ebay, arrived yesterday. Played all the different mixes and the dolby true hd jumps all over the place, is this a known problem with this disc or am I just unlucky?
 
I got a cheap (brand new) copy of this from ebay, arrived yesterday. Played all the different mixes and the dolby true hd jumps all over the place, is this a known problem with this disc or am I just unlucky?
Mine didn't, haven't played it in a while though
 
Isn't that pretty much what phasing is? That the waveforms on one channel aren't lined up with the hits on another? I don't know. It doesn't seem like a phasing thing to me because there's no other bass to offset the kick frequency. I should still hear the thump of the kick with phasing. It would just be muddier. But I'll take your word for it that there's a delay and that's the issue.

I forgot to add that one of my favorite things about Think About You is that arpeggiated guitar that comes in on the chorus. Predictably, it's on the rear channels in the 5.1 mix, but it really sounds so thin to me. I know that it was probably recorded that way and in stereo it sounds better because that thin frequency spectrum it occupies gives it its own space and it blends nicely with only 2 channels. Separated for the 5.1 though, it's disappointing
For what it's worth, I monkeyed with the alignment in Audacity but I think the bass drum just isn't there on those 2 songs. It becomes painfully evident when compared to the other songs on the album too.

I dig the Think About You guitar too and was similarly disappointed how it sounds on the 5.1 mix. Methinks there's more messed up on those 2 songs than just the AWOL bass drum. Wish someone at the label would fix them and make them available for download. It'd all be easily and quickly correctable if they'd just get on and do it.
 
If anybody's still interested in getting one of these Amazon's now selling them for $62. I just picked one up for $54 from the Amazon warehouse, brand new-sealed.
 
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What a pleasure to have such an exciting experience listening to this perfect surround mix by Elliot Scheiner. I have to laugh, because I enjoy pointing out when something is crankable. Sweet mother, this is already cranked! =) Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City, and Sweet Child O' Mine are much more fun in 5.1 surround. This will be another one of my favorite disc to demo surround. (Makes you feel good when a disc makes your system sound kick-ass!) :51QQ
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It is a tremendous album - but I don't think it's perfect. I personally find Paradise City's surround mix to be terrible - it really stands out from many of the other tracks. Also, I don't really like the decision to mix Axl's vocals in the rear speakers on many of the songs. So, I'll give it an 8.
 
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