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Celestial fucking intelligence!11111333fryday


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Ok guys its friday the 13th today and i have fever like really high fever !!! LMAO

 

Please someone review this crazy bomba album .. didnt know fever could put people in a trance situation

 

We are celestial beings .. cant express how happy and weird im feeling .

 

Goa fucking trance i love you :D

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This album is pure gold man . Made from the heart . Each and every sound is crystal clear . Melodies are driving me crazy . and the bass ... dont know what it is . Its kinda teleporting me to goa. Pure state of mind. And this is on my sound link mini. ;) listening to this in a huge rig will send some trance people nutty :D

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Each and every sound is crystal clear

 

Ok, was holding back but this does it - the gripe I have with this album is that it's too f***ing loud, with #2 in particular going to the extreme with several clipping sounds. It's too compressed and is barely listenable on headphones - either it's too quiet, or unpleasantly noisy. Hope that's not the beginning of Suntrip's new standard for mastering, because all their other releases I was buying blindly and I knew the sound-picture will be balanced and pleasing. :(

 

As for the music, I found Ephedra to be much better, with more defined melodies, arrangements and progression and a sound that's particular to them, i.e. a succesful mix of goa and nitzho. This is yet another typical album sounding a lot like mix of E-Mantra, Artifact303 and Cosmic Dimension, which in itself is good but simply more of the same. But obviously to each his own, tastes and stuff :)

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Ok, was holding back but this does it - the gripe I have with this album is that it's too f***ing loud, with #2 in particular going to the extreme with several clipping sounds. It's too compressed and is barely listenable on headphones - either it's too quiet, or unpleasantly noisy. Hope that's not the beginning of Suntrip's new standard for mastering, because all their other releases I was buying blindly and I knew the sound-picture will be balanced and pleasing. :(

 

As for the music, I found Ephedra to be much better, with more defined melodies, arrangements and progression and a sound that's particular to them, i.e. a succesful mix of goa and nitzho. This is yet another typical album sounding a lot like mix of E-Mantra, Artifact303 and Cosmic Dimension, which in itself is good but simply more of the same. But obviously to each his own, tastes and stuff :)

I'm sorry you feel the album is too loud and/or compressed. I personally do not hear it. I've realized over time that Tim Shuldt's mastering has been remarkably consistent over the years. Artist styles have come and gone, but the overall volume levels of all suntrip releases has remained the same even when other albums are getting louder and louder *cough* Goa Classics Remixed *cough*. Maybe try comparing older releases with this album.

 

As for the comparisons to those other artists I think it's pretty fair, but I feel Celestial Intelligence has a different approach to pacing and song structure. This album is relentless but not over the top and unpredictable.

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Ok, was holding back but this does it - the gripe I have with this album is that it's too f***ing loud, with #2 in particular going to the extreme with several clipping sounds. It's too compressed and is barely listenable on headphones - either it's too quiet, or unpleasantly noisy. Hope that's not the beginning of Suntrip's new standard for mastering, because all their other releases I was buying blindly and I knew the sound-picture will be balanced and pleasing. :(

 

I have to agree. I don't really listen my headphones anymore but I tested this album and it sounded pretty harsh.

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Sorry for going a little over the top yesterday but objectively speaking yeah its true it is loud. but not like filteria loud. This has a much better flow to it and sounds punchy in the right kind of way . There is a calm in the storm and pretty good twists and turns if you keep an open ear . The music just hits the spot like the way it hit me with artifact303 . It captures the morning vibe really well but thats just IMO

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Sure, it's loud but just loud enough to fit the style and speed of the album itself. If it's over-compressed just the slightest my thought is that is that it's intentional to add a little muscle. That loudness fits the album very well. I wouldn't call the sound quality harsh by any means though.

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Strong album for sure! About the mastering, maybe it's ok for certain types of soundcards/headphones/speakers. Anyway, i suggest an experiment: On a decent sound system, listen to some track from this album, followed by some track released on YoYo Records/Matsuri/Blue Room, yes in the 90s. Seems to me that the mastering back then was more home-listener friendly.

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Strong album for sure! About the mastering, maybe it's ok for certain types of soundcards/headphones/speakers. Anyway, i suggest an experiment: On a decent sound system, listen to some track from this album, followed by some track released on YoYo Records/Matsuri/Blue Room, yes in the 90s. Seems to me that the mastering back then was more home-listener friendly.

 

These guys knew how to master:

 

http://www.discogs.com/artist/357287-Geoff-Pesche

http://www.discogs.com/artist/261923-Kevin-Metcalfe

 

I'm not an engineer, but listen to the Made On Earth compilation. Those tracks were recorded over 5 years with a lot of difference in production quality, and they all play nice with each other. That's good stuff.

 

And breathing/dynamics are a good thing to have in music, whether in a party or at home.

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U r also part of Suntrio Records so have no value in saying its of poor quality even if you think it is eh? I've not heard it but definitely found that every release on Suntrip up until Blacklight Moments always caused me significant listening fatigue. And seeing as I actually bought all those earlier releases I feel I have the right to say this.

 

It might be designed to be played out & about, but surely you can strike a happy medium for home listeners as well? Tim Schuldt is I hit and miss, sometimes his mastering is just so spot on and other times I wonder how much time he actually wlent working on it or just has a preset that he uses for certainly labels so they all kinda sound the same?

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I have good headphones and earplugs and Celestial Intelligence sounds super good for me.

 

With all due & huge respect I have for you & Jos - you're biased here.

 

Well, compare it to anything mastered by Colin OOOD (e.g. Artha, Portamento, recent Nervasystem, OOOD's own albums) and there's clearly a huge difference - those records are loud, punchy and spacious, without sounding tiring like Celestial Intelligence does. Would give arm & leg for Colin to master Suntrip's records, but I guess you have some long-term agreement with T. Schuldt, whose - coincidentally enough - music as BETH or Four Carry Nuts I always found too noisy, both in terms of style and sound-picture.

 

EDIT: just listened it back-to-back with Ephedra and some of OOOD's own music - the main difference with Celestial Intelligence is that the former have much less in way of mid/high-pitched frequencies, i.e. there's similar amount of bass & treble (hi-hats and the like), but CE has very loud "swirls", acid lines and backing synths, which makes - IMO - for a very crowded and unpleasant sound picture. The worst "offender" is track #2, which makes it worse by having mid-frequency hats and "snare"; others are "passable" but just barely. Too bad, because the music is really good...

 

EDIT2: Damn, just look at your own backyard - Cosmic Dimension is a very similar type of music and it is being very warm & balanced in how it sounds, very pleasant for headphones / home listening and I'm sure works equally well played loud (tested in my car :))

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With all due & huge respect I have for you & Jos - you're biased here.

 

Well, compare it to anything mastered by Colin OOOD (e.g. Artha, Portamento, recent Nervasystem, OOOD's own albums) and there's clearly a huge difference - those records are loud, punchy and spacious, without sounding tiring like Celestial Intelligence does. Would give arm & leg for Colin to master Suntrip's records, but I guess you have some long-term agreement with T. Schuldt, whose - coincidentally enough - music as BETH or Four Carry Nuts I always found too noisy, both in terms of style and sound-picture.

 

EDIT: just listened it back-to-back with Ephedra and some of OOOD's own music - the main difference with Celestial Intelligence is that the former have much less in way of mid/high-pitched frequencies, i.e. there's similar amount of bass & treble (hi-hats and the like), but CE has very loud "swirls", acid lines and backing synths, which makes - IMO - for a very crowded and unpleasant sound picture. The worst "offender" is track #2, which makes it worse by having mid-frequency hats and "snare"; others are "passable" but just barely. Too bad, because the music is really good...

 

EDIT2: Damn, just look at your own backyard - Cosmic Dimension is a very similar type of music and it is being very warm & balanced in how it sounds, very pleasant for headphones / home listening and I'm sure works equally well played loud (tested in my car :))

Yes exactly. I'm glad I'm not the only one with this. I don't like Cosmic Dimension musically but audio-wise it sounds much superior to Celestial Intelligence and even that isn't all that to me. CI sounds harsh and loud. It makes me wonder because as was mentioned before sometimes Schudt does a great job (i.e. Shakta) and sometimes just bad (Celestial Intelligence) Maybe it's the original mix that's poor? Then again I never heard such inconsistency with OOOD, though I've heard his masters much less.

Btw Ephedra was done by MasterDX, who I think is alright.

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For the sake of discussion, let's list the work of the same artist but with different mastering on different releases:

mastering: Trogdor The Burninator



mastering: Ovnimoon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipwp9KqYfmY

mastering: Deimos Soundlabs





mastering: Tim Schuldt

https://soundcloud.com/celestial-intelligence/celestial-intelligence-beyond

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Well shit, all of those sound better than the album.

I'm not an expert nor do I like to discuss mastering, but to my ears, sound on PE is indeed louder and sounds more 'agressive' on bass/kick, that's why I posted some examples from other releases (including Tim's mastering for Hado's Voyager compilation), just to compare it (even YouTube soundquality isn't the best representation tho).

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For the sake of discussion, let's list the work of the same artist but with different mastering on different releases:

 

mastering: Trogdor The Burninator

 

 

mastering: Ovnimoon

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipwp9KqYfmY

 

mastering: Deimos Soundlabs

 

 

 

mastering: Tim Schuldt

 

https://soundcloud.com/celestial-intelligence/celestial-intelligence-beyond

 

 

 

Thank you for this post Richpa. However, I think it's maybe not fair to make comparisons for so many reasons. Let me list those first and then give my interpretation of these masterings.

 

So the first thing is that, as I have learned, the mix is 90% of the final sound. Goa Overdose 2 was released in 2011 and who knows how old the track is. The point being that Celestial Intelligence has probably changed their production a lot over the years. This could account for an overall change in sound. Second, each one of these tracks were asked to fit the overall sound of the albums they appeared on, a product of many artists and many styles. Third, there is of course what the label wants of the music they release.

 

So then I think the best comparison here would be to look at these tracks from the perspective of how each masterer generally approached Celestial Intelligence's sound. Which final product fits the artists' intentions the most? My answer in general would have to be Tim Shuldt with Deimos not far behind. I cut Trogdor the Burninator some slack because he has had to master some pretty shitty mixes on tracks from "artists" who practically don't know what they are doing, who may or may not post on these forums, and may or may not be posting in this very thread at this very moment. :ph34r:

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Look I'm just gonna say that you look at much of Tim Schuldts work & he works with noisy industrial and heavy metal sounds. Always has even with his trance projects. I don't understand why with that history you'd expect him to do great work with this style that requires space & width to sound nice.

 

Every time a Suntrip release comes out the same complaints arise. Now I understand they probably get a good deal with Schuldt, this is business after all, but some times you need to make tough changed to improve your product. I don't understand why the Suntrip crew insist on being so stubborn about this. Why not get Oood or I'd say Hermatech Mastering to do a track off this album & compare?

 

I also get tired of this blame the artist for the final mix. I know a few professional mastering engineers who for a minimal additional fee will do a final mix down or if the mix sent in is not a high standard will just send it back and ask for it to be redone.

 

Stop blaming the artist, it's a poor quality of mastering & it's ruining quality releases. I for one will no longer buy Suntrip released until the product quality improves.

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