DWPS?
No, looks more like downstroke escapes mostly
He is a killer player…and singer…and songwriter.
Ian is a fantastic player! His band (Big Wreck) is one of my all time favourites. I wish I can see them live once the pandemic is contained.
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I saw him do a guitar clinic. Some of the guys in Big Wreck were backing him up. Everything he played off the cuff sounded polished and melodic yet he could really shred. Inspiring.
Great player, and great singer. I love some of his Thornley stuff, but without exception every Thornley album he releases is more brickwall-limited than the last, tot he point where it’s physically difficult to listen to.
Awesome playing here, he really holds back in his own music, t’s cool to hear him just rip.
Brickwalling means that the volume on an album is boosted to the point that there’s no dynamic contrast and everything is all kind of a big block of noise.
I get the definition behind the term brick walled but I’m not sure I hear what it means. Maybe I’m biased since I like the big wreck albums a lot. I’d probably just need some side by side comparison of brick walled audio vs not
Not sure if you are into Metallica but if you listen to Death Magnetic (brickwalled) and then the Black Album (more traditionally mastered hard rock) you should hesr a noticeable difference in the dynamic range. Especially if you listen with headphones.
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as others have said, basically the dynamics are SO compressed that the sound becomes tiring to listen to.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication” is an early example of an album that was badly overcompressed in the mastering phase as part of the “loudness wars,” and in hindsight that explains why I always had a hard time listening to that one even if i liked some of the songs.
@joebegly 's suggestion is a good one - for bonus points, there at least used to be a “Guitar Hero” rip out on the interwebs where someone had taken the raw tracks made available for Guitar Hero, that HADN’T been mastered so aggressively, and created a more moderately mastered version of that album. Finding that, and comparing it to the “official” studio recording, should make for a very good example. Death Magnetic is a very extreme example where you can hear audible clipping on snare hits at times, but extreme examples make great learning tools.
Speaking personally, music with dynamics smashed to the point of nonexistance tends to give me headaches when I listen to it. It sounds very unnatural to your ear in ways that are difficult to put a finger on.