Black Sabbath - *The official thread*

BTW did Rick Rubin really produce this, or was this an Iommi production uncredited in your opinion, S.D.?

corplhicks wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Gotta admire the balls of deciding to release a 9-minute track for their first single...and one that contains a bass solo instead of a guitar solo.

Nine minutes?! How will the radio handle this? Correction: will the radio handle this? Probably gonna be a crappy edit.

Actually the radio station here, which is the very definition of modern fm mediocrity, played the whole darn thing today. I guess when you've got the rep and history that sabbath w/ ozzy has you can make bolder moves like this and the establishment will bend over and take it. It's kinda sad that the Dio lineup didn't get that benefit the last go 'round, the radio didnt play a stinkin' note from that album despite its awesomeness. I guess ozzy's name power is just that much bigger than Dio's. I also wonder if they would have done better marketing wise if they could have used the sabbath name?

manny wrote:

BTW did Rick Rubin really produce this, or was this an Iommi production uncredited in your opinion, S.D.?

I think Rubin was more involved with this one than usual for him.

I like how they recorded the album, Rubin had them all play together for the recording of the basic tracks...no separate recording of drums then bass then guitars. He also had Ozzy cut his vocals with the band playing live in the next room instead of having him sing along with the pre-recorded tracks. All of this done to capture a more spontaneous vibe that harkened back to how their first few albums were recorded in the 70s.

That song "oozes" with total mid 70's Sabbath vibe


Great tune

New track sounds pretty good to me...

Sounds fine to me. I couldn't sit and listen to the whole almost 9 minutes of it but its ok. I hope there are better songs on the album, and it does sound like something off an Ozzy solo album. Of course you can tell thats Iommi and Geezer otherwise you wouldn't know this was a Sabbath song.

I hope the album is good. Ozzy has really wore thin on me over the years but this could change my feelings.

It's kind of strange hearing Ozzy in the Sabbath context where the vocal phrasing and lines sound kind of....... I don't know how to put it, pieced together in a traditional kind of way? Not that there wasn't a lot of straightforward stuff in the 70's. I think what I'm trying to say is that I miss a little of the drug-fueled insanity which used to inform Sabbath pieces for better or for much much worse. I know this is awful to say, but Ozzy being slightly sober catches me off guard when I hear Ozzy Sabbath. Dio Sabbath is totally lucid and that makes total sense and it's great. This feels...just a little safe for what I'd prefer. I don't dislike it though. That vocal effect can go away.

Love the new track and just picked up tix for LA show! Stoked to see this one!

Ozzy's voice is so clean in that song, idk... it's good but little disappointment.

Lol, what did you expect? That's been his voice for like a decade. They gotta process the crap out of it so it actually sounds like singing. He is old and his voice has suffers greatly from age and lifestyle, he doesn't have the chops or the energy to do what he did on say sabbath bloody sabbath, or hole in the sky. Just take the song for what it is, new music from a group that hasn't done anything meaningful together since many of us we're in diapers or just the twinkle in the the milkman's eye. Shut of the part of the brain that seems to need to find things wrong with it and enjoy a kickass offering of rock/metal.

Funny thing is, it doesn't feel like nine minutes. I take that to be a very good sign. This may not be horrible after all!

I gotta admit I was skeptical of ozzy's vocals during the little clip we heard, but after listening to the whole song I gotta say I am pleasently suprised about the quality of his contribution. I'm really not sure how people are getting the vibe of an ozzy solo effort though. To me it's total sabbath, the only similarity to his solo material (to my ears) is ozzy's current vocal qualities. Which is hardly something that can be changed. His voice is his voice.

Also, I like the drumming. I'm no expert on the quality of drums and stuff, but to me it seems wilks did a good job serving the song and adding to the heaviness. Iommi and Geezer as always are freakin awesome!

This is really one of my favorite metal singles to come out in a long time. It bodes really well for me that the album will be killer.

Unorthodox for a single. But I dig it. I didn't expect too much from the new Sabbath album. But I've changed my mind now. It's going to be a great record!

Witchfinder wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Stream (with intermittent station IDs inserted) of the new single "God Is Dead" is available to listen to here:

http://www.iheartradio.com/player/?mid=23086234

Geezer's bass sounds like it's strung with high tension wires (as it should be).

Not bad, but it sounds a lot like an Ozzy solo song.

I like the song but yeah, i gotta agree.

S.D. wrote:

manny wrote:

BTW did Rick Rubin really produce this, or was this an Iommi production uncredited in your opinion, S.D.?

Rubin had them all play together for the recording of the basic tracks...no separate recording of drums then bass then guitars. He also had Ozzy cut his vocals with the band playing live in the next room instead of having him sing along with the pre-recorded tracks. All of this done to capture a more spontaneous vibe that harkened back to how their first few albums were recorded in the 70s.

I think this is a good way to record. Most of the time should be in writing the music and the recording/mixing really shouldn't take that long. I'm of the opinion that when a band takes too long and picks over every note to get that absolute perfect sound, the life and spirit of the music is washed away.

People say that, but anytime production sounds weird or a solo sounds off or whatever it might be, fans and label people just cry bloody murder. Just an observation. Of course, I mean, I'm all for getting it perfect so I don't think that's what takes 'soul' out, however, editing stuff which was not there e.g. if you couldn't sing the track, we fix it....or we create your amp sound in the computer.... that is the stuff that sucks it out, trust me.

The best way to record is using analog equipment (IMHDO)

Digital began the road to madness and ProTools made computer geeks think they know how to record music and producers/engineers think they are computer geeks.

Being that Ozzy hasn't sang on a Sabbath lp since 1978 (36 years) of course his singing is gonna sound like solo Ozzy. (DUH) I'll cop to not having listened to an entire Ozzy album since "No More Tears" and I can still say that none of the music on any album he released after that one in 91 sounds like the music on the song "God is Dead ?" posted above

James B. wrote:

The best way to record is using analog equipment (IMHDO)

Digital began the road to madness and ProTools made computer geeks think they know how to record music and producers/engineers think they are computer geeks.

It's really just a "tool", how you use that tool is the determining factor. You can record in digital but use the same basic approach that was used in tape-based recording. Just because you can go in and fix every little detail and cut and paste things doesn't mean you have to do it that way.

I know some engineers that treat Pro Tools just like a tape machine, no cutting and pasting and fixing, just hit record and make the musicians play complete takes. Want to double-track a guitar part? If you cut and paste it's perfect but doesn't sound "alive" like the old-fashioned way of having them duplicate that part again on another track...you can never play the same part identically, there's always a little variation, that variation makes it sound real and you can tell humans are playing the instruments. Did the vocalist hit a bum note during the chorus of take 3? Tough shit, make him do another take, don't just punch-in one line.

That approach to recording (which is part of the producers job, to set the ground rules and approach to be used) works the same in either analog or digital.

My point being the roles that humans play in the recording process have become secondary in the majority of today's prctices. My comment on digital leans more towards digital effects, processing and instrumentation as the raod to madness. Us kids in the garage bouncing tracks on a 4 track reel to reel had a better understanding than alot of "professionals" today. At least we used our ears and we definitily were not so lazy.

James B. wrote:

Us kids in the garage bouncing tracks on a 4 track reel to reel had a better understanding than alot of "professionals" today. At least we used our ears and we definitily were not so lazy.

Studio time is expensive as hell, one thing about the cut & paste method of recording is you can get in and out of the studio quicker. It's not always a matter of laziness, but of budget.

S.D. wrote:

Studio time is expensive as hell, one thing about the cut & paste method of recording is you can get in and out of the studio quicker. It's not always a matter of laziness, but of budget.

Doesn't keep alot of bands/producers from using drum programming That is just laziness and using tecnology to do that Stewert thing..."look what I can do"

Even when I was strung out on heroin, I could tune and mic a drim kit faster/better than pogamming a song measure by measure

James B. wrote:

Doesn't keep alot of bands/producers from using drum programming That is just laziness and using tecnology to do that Stewert thing..."look what I can do"

Again that is budgetary. These days you can produce an album in your apartment...except for the drums. You need a place to set them up, you need a relatively sound dampened space, you need multiple good microphones (and having an actual drummer helps too). What you really need is to pay for studio time to track the drums...but if you don't have the $500 per hour budget for that and you live in a 1-bedroom apartment then you use software instead.

Anytime I hear people talk about an album containing drum programming I think "yep, they couldn't really afford to record an album".

man are we derailing a thread

I understand budget restraints, that stuff went on back in the anaolog (dinosaur) days too.

regarding drums and modern recording practices. In some genres of metal, technology is used to get hyper fast drum tempos and patterns that even the real drummer cannot play.
Is that done more for saving money or using technology to cheat and then go back to my earlier point of actual people becoming secondary in the recording process ?

My position is biased I suppose cause of all the rhetoric at the inception of this "magical digital audio" and I havn't really been impressed with much of it. From guitar amps, to vocal processing, to MIDI, CDS, and the entire recording process for that mater.

I walked away from doing sound because of the headache from musicians and all the new toys. In cloing, the new Sabbath song sounds promising and nothing like any solo Ozzy song I ever heard. Zak would of ruined it if that was the case as far as music goes.

Yes, sorry for the derailment, we should take this up in another thread at some point.

Anyway, listened to "God Is Dead?" again this evening and it gets better each time I listen to it. I think 13 is going to end up being a killer record.

STILL haven't heard it; Boston had my attention and bandwidth all day And now it's movie time with the wife . So Sabbath tomorrow.