DVD/DTS Poll Children of Bodom - Blooddrunk [DD DVD+CD]

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Rate the Audio-DVD of Children Of Bodom - BLOODDRUNK

  • 10 Great Mix, Great Sonics, Great Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 9

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 8

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 7

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1 Bad Mix, Bad Sonics, Bad Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    3

Bob Romano

Administrator
Staff member
Admin
Moderator
Since 2002/2003
Joined
Apr 26, 2002
Messages
5,741
Location
Viva Las Vegas
Please post your comments on Children of Bodom - Blooddrunk (DVD Dolby 5.1)(y)(n)
 

Attachments

  • children_of_bodom-blooddrunk.jpg
    children_of_bodom-blooddrunk.jpg
    76.6 KB · Views: 356
Last edited:
Well I was asked to put this poll up by our member "Baker" who wanted to warn anyone who was thinking about buying this disc. The general feeling of the PM I got was that this, as a 5.1 mix, is a piece of shit. But I am paraphrasing. I am sure Baker will post his thoughts here.

On a positive, this seems to be another release from Koch Records home of Ringo and other recent releases.
 
Hello there ! :D

I know that one of Quad.com's goal is to list each and every 5.1 "official" mix that's been released, and sometimes it's hard to tell which albums are being eventually released. Children of Bodom's Blooddrunk is one of those cases where one couldn't be sure, as just before actually buying it, I had heard that the "5.1 surround mix" was in fact a "...live in the studio rehearsal" (period).

Well I bought it, blind as a bat (the price sticker was glued right in front of the tech specs), and I still haven't listened to it throughout, but the ten minutes I've heard (which means more or less 1/3 of the entire album) are absolutely horrible. It has NO 5.1 whatsoever. It ranks up (well... down) with Within Temptation's The Silent Force, Edguy's Hellfire Club, and is surely worse than Nightwish's Once. Imagine Rush's Snakes and Arrows's rear reverb, and ONLY that, but 95% on the front speakers.

Listening to the stereo track in ProLogic is priceless. It is so more lively, punchy, clear, and SURROUND, that you might think you screwed up the Dolby tracks. No you haven't...

Cross my heart, I'll post a definitive review as soon as I got through the entire thing, but I don't think the last 20 (!) minutes could save this absolutely non-existent 5.1 track. It's great to see this in such a detailed website as Quad.com, as 5.1 mixes are getting rarer and rarer, and if some can be really interesting (including Opeth's Watershed which is disappointing, but is GOD compared to this), it's also neat to know about the shitty ones, so that record companies can understand that surround is not a gadget, but a creative process.

...And don't tell me that any random computer could process a good surround mix, because I still wonder * HOW * can a DD 5.1 mix be SO bad compared to the PLII rendition of any AC3 low-fi stereo track...

Whatever... I'd love to read other statements from those who got their hands on this package... As for the music, well it's Children of Bodom. It's half-gore half-fun, half-speed metal half-baroque, and if you've already bought two albums of theirs, you probably won't need this one at all...
 
I had promised to listen to it throughout, and I did. My ears are still bleeding !

Stay away from it. It's a sort of stereo mix, but completely messed up. There must be four or five moments where you can actually hear something in the rears, and it is "something". Mostly keyboards solos, sometimes guitar reverb, sometimes cymbals, but whatever it may be, it sounds like crap.

Well, now I guess I have to find these Yazoo remasters, just to check if my 5.1 set still works ! :D
 
Shame about this one. Could of been great.
 
Greetings dear QQers.

I have been traveling and largely offline. While in Scotland I picked up this disc with no idea of what it held. Just a desire to buy some surround in Scotland, I suppose. I was glad to find a poll for this disc. This for me will be a largely academic exercise because I do not like the music. That said, I do appreciate honest appraisals of surround discs, and I think I have something to add to this poll.

The relevant Wikipedia entry for this band begins like this: "Children of Bodom is a melodic death metal band from Espoo, Finland."

So there you have it. Those who are not fans of Death Metal can probably move on. The music itself is, to me, disturbing, grating, overbearing, and un-enjoyable. But I suspect that there are those who search the web looking for new music who use those adjectives as key words to find the stuff they really like. To quote the eminent musicologist Dr Hans Keller from a famous 1967 Pink Floyd interview "they have an audience, and people who have an audience ought to be heard. Perhaps it is my fault that I don’t appreciate them.”

So I am taking the time to comment just in case there are a few death metal fans kicking around here who are looking for surround titles. I say: not so fast on the previous reviews: the quote "It has NO 5.1 whatsoever" is simply not true. Sorry Baker - no offence intended.

Even with all channels at nominal one gets the occasional in-your-face center channel guitar solo. This is not a mix choice I would make, but it IS discrete. I dropped out the front mains and the center goes from zero to full, burns a solo, then drops back to zero, or at least ambient.

As for the rears, they are poorly balanced, but again there ARE discrete elements on offer. To hear them well I bumped my amp to +10db extra on both rears, and all kinds of stuff popped out. There is some ambience on offer to be sure, but I also found guitar, keyboards, and vocals, often discrete from the fronts, other times doubling the fronts but not throughout the whole song, so there is a fill/unfill effect in evidence.

Again and for the record, I do not even like this music. But if there are death metal fans out there, I would actually recommend this IF you are willing to either tweak your system every time you play it - or - you are able to extract all the music and boost the rears manually, then reburn for playback. Of course with either method the noise floor comes up as well, but this music rarely has the sort of dynamics where this is noticeable.

Even with the adjustment, this is an unbalanced and rather odd mix, but it ain't nothin'. There is plenty of ambience-only crap out there that falls short of this attempt to place discrete elements in the center and rears. This is simply poorly realized in the nominal balance.

Here is what I found when I bumped the rears up +10db:

01 Hellhounds On My Trail Rears: isolated guitar & keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
02 Blooddrunk Rears: isolated vocal & keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
03 Lobodomy Rears: isolated vocal & keyboard parts
04 One Day You Will Cry Rears: isolated keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
05 Smile Pretty For The Devil Rears: Isolated guitar solo & keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
06 Tie My Rope Rears: isolated keyboard & vocal parts
07 Done With Everything, Die For Nothing Rears: isolated guitar solo & keyboard solo
08 Banned From Heaven Rears: isolated keyboard & guitar parts & solo, Center: Isolated guitar solo
09 Roadkill Morning Rears: isolated guitar parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo

It may interest you to know that at +10db the rears were never too loud for the rest of the balance.

One other odd note: on my Oppo BDP-95 the pause button does not pause this disc. I can hit stop and then play to resume from the same position.

OK folks, whoever has this, I am curious to know what you think if you make the recommended adjustments. I still call it a 4, but not a dead 1.

When this finished I put on Elton John - Honky Chateau to cleanse my pallet. Beautiful!
 
Greetings dear QQers.

I have been traveling and largely offline. While in Scotland I picked up this disc with no idea of what it held. Just a desire to buy some surround in Scotland, I suppose. I was glad to find a poll for this disc. This for me will be a largely academic exercise because I do not like the music. That said, I do appreciate honest appraisals of surround discs, and I think I have something to add to this poll.

The relevant Wikipedia entry for this band begins like this: "Children of Bodom is a melodic death metal band from Espoo, Finland."

So there you have it. Those who are not fans of Death Metal can probably move on. The music itself is, to me, disturbing, grating, overbearing, and un-enjoyable. But I suspect that there are those who search the web looking for new music who use those adjectives as key words to find the stuff they really like. To quote the eminent musicologist Dr Hans Keller from a famous 1967 Pink Floyd interview "they have an audience, and people who have an audience ought to be heard. Perhaps it is my fault that I don’t appreciate them.”

So I am taking the time to comment just in case there are a few death metal fans kicking around here who are looking for surround titles. I say: not so fast on the previous reviews: the quote "It has NO 5.1 whatsoever" is simply not true. Sorry Baker - no offence intended.

Even with all channels at nominal one gets the occasional in-your-face center channel guitar solo. This is not a mix choice I would make, but it IS discrete. I dropped out the front mains and the center goes from zero to full, burns a solo, then drops back to zero, or at least ambient.

As for the rears, they are poorly balanced, but again there ARE discrete elements on offer. To hear them well I bumped my amp to +10db extra on both rears, and all kinds of stuff popped out. There is some ambience on offer to be sure, but I also found guitar, keyboards, and vocals, often discrete from the fronts, other times doubling the fronts but not throughout the whole song, so there is a fill/unfill effect in evidence.

Again and for the record, I do not even like this music. But if there are death metal fans out there, I would actually recommend this IF you are willing to either tweak your system every time you play it - or - you are able to extract all the music and boost the rears manually, then reburn for playback. Of course with either method the noise floor comes up as well, but this music rarely has the sort of dynamics where this is noticeable.

Even with the adjustment, this is an unbalanced and rather odd mix, but it ain't nothin'. There is plenty of ambience-only crap out there that falls short of this attempt to place discrete elements in the center and rears. This is simply poorly realized in the nominal balance.

Here is what I found when I bumped the rears up +10db:

01 Hellhounds On My Trail Rears: isolated guitar & keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
02 Blooddrunk Rears: isolated vocal & keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
03 Lobodomy Rears: isolated vocal & keyboard parts
04 One Day You Will Cry Rears: isolated keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
05 Smile Pretty For The Devil Rears: Isolated guitar solo & keyboard parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo
06 Tie My Rope Rears: isolated keyboard & vocal parts
07 Done With Everything, Die For Nothing Rears: isolated guitar solo & keyboard solo
08 Banned From Heaven Rears: isolated keyboard & guitar parts & solo, Center: Isolated guitar solo
09 Roadkill Morning Rears: isolated guitar parts, Center: Isolated guitar solo

It may interest you to know that at +10db the rears were never too loud for the rest of the balance.

One other odd note: on my Oppo BDP-95 the pause button does not pause this disc. I can hit stop and then play to resume from the same position.

OK folks, whoever has this, I am curious to know what you think if you make the recommended adjustments. I still call it a 4, but not a dead 1.

When this finished I put on Elton John - Honky Chateau to cleanse my pallet. Beautiful!

Yes indeed; rears are way too low. Unfortunately there's a few DVD Audios, Blu Rays and SACDS like this! The Septic Flesh Great Mass is the same.
The fronts on this are far too compressed. I think the music is great but the vocals are terrible.
 
Yes indeed; rears are way too low. Unfortunately there's a few DVD Audios, Blu Rays and SACDS like this! The Septic Flesh Great Mass is the same.
The fronts on this are far too compressed. I think the music is great but the vocals are terrible.

I meant to mention the vocals. I think the over-compression is a stylistic choice. Here we have the one genre where brick walling is used as an effect. I do not like the effect, but I don't think it is accidental.
 
I meant to mention the vocals. I think the over-compression is a stylistic choice. Here we have the one genre where brick walling is used as an effect. I do not like the effect, but I don't think it is accidental.

All compression during mastering is used for same effect. Compression can never be accidental. Slayer's Reign in Blood had lots of compression during recording yet CD and LP sound magnificent. The Beatles used lots of compression. The loudness wars is a different issue. We are talking about loudness for loudness sake.
 
All compression during mastering is used for same effect. Compression can never be accidental. Slayer's Reign in Blood had lots of compression during recording yet CD and LP sound magnificent. The Beatles used lots of compression. The loudness wars is a different issue. We are talking about loudness for loudness sake.

I guess what I am suggesting is that the negative artifacts present in the vocals on this recording are purposefully made to sound "bad," in the same manner as other recordings sound "bad" accidentally courtesy of the loudness wars. I suspect Death Metal practitioners are playing with sonic badness in the same way they are embracing one of society's greatest aversions: death. Does that make sense?
 
I guess what I am suggesting is that the negative artifacts present in the vocals on this recording are purposefully made to sound "bad," in the same manner as other recordings sound "bad" accidentally courtesy of the loudness wars. I suspect Death Metal practitioners are playing with sonic badness in the same way they are embracing one of society's greatest aversions: death. Does that make sense?

Yes I understand where you are coming from; there is a style that Death metal vocalists use; the aggressive growl which doesn't sound clean and crisp to begin with. I am fine with that style; it is just that this particularly singer sucks balls. The other guys should of fired him and found somebody else IMO.

Death metal does not mean brick-walled; just listen to the stunning sounding Opeth LPS; sublime dynamics. Poor mastering is poor mastering regardless of genre.

When I learn how to I am going to make new DVD Audios out of 5/.1 albums I like which sound rubbish. With this one I would reduce volume of fronts by 5db, increase bass by 1db, rears by 10db and decrease treble by 1db.
 
Yes I understand where you are coming from; there is a style that Death metal vocalists use; the aggressive growl which doesn't sound clean and crisp to begin with. I am fine with that style; it is just that this particularly singer sucks balls. The other guys should of fired him and found somebody else IMO.

Death metal does not mean brick-walled; just listen to the stunning sounding Opeth LPS; sublime dynamics. Poor mastering is poor mastering regardless of genre.

When I learn how to I am going to make new DVD Audios out of 5/.1 albums I like which sound rubbish. With this one I would reduce volume of fronts by 5db, increase bass by 1db, rears by 10db and decrease treble by 1db.

It is hard for me to comment on the exact physics (the suction quotient?) of any existing ball suckage, as I am not a fan of the genre.

Your point about poor mastering is well taken. It is not specific to genre.

I do applaud your comment at the end of the post with recommendations for how to properly balance the playback of this recording. That is the sort of constructive information I try to contribute so that when others read this it can help them to get the most out of the title as it stands.

I am still interested to hear back from fans of this type of music as to whether, when properly balanced, they enjoy this as a surround title.
 
I am fine with that style; it is just that this particularly singer sucks balls. The other guys should of fired him and found somebody else IMO.

I guess that would be impossible since Alexi Laiho is pretty much the head of Children of Bodom and also the lead guitarist. ;) He's not bad for that style of vocals, even though I prefer other singers in that genre with a bigger vocal range.

The mix itself I remember to be very weak and disappointing. But I'll try out the settings posted in this thread and see if it helps.
 
I guess that would be impossible since Alexi Laiho is pretty much the head of Children of Bodom and also the lead guitarist. ;) He's not bad for that style of vocals, even though I prefer other singers in that genre with a bigger vocal range.

The mix itself I remember to be very weak and disappointing. But I'll try out the settings posted in this thread and see if it helps.

So he is the Dave Mustaine of Death metal? He should of hired a decent lead singer.
 
The discretion of the mix is not bad, but the front fronts are torn and disgustingly compressed. DR front of channels is 7dB, volume of all channels is unbalanced.
 
It is hard for me to comment on the exact physics (the suction quotient?) of any existing ball suckage, as I am not a fan of the genre.

Your point about poor mastering is well taken. It is not specific to genre.

I do applaud your comment at the end of the post with recommendations for how to properly balance the playback of this recording. That is the sort of constructive information I try to contribute so that when others read this it can help them to get the most out of the title as it stands.

I am still interested to hear back from fans of this type of music as to whether, when properly balanced, they enjoy this as a surround title.

I'm listening again and the 5.1 mix is interesting and real. The problem is mastering. The main channels are brutally overexcited and the rear discrete channels are very lost, which acts as a non-existent discrete mix. When muting the front channels and amplifying the rear mix, it stands out very well. Unfortunately, cymbals also suffer from brutal compression of the anterior canals.
 
Back
Top