Is (new) Rings Of Saturn actually legit?

[Rizzo]

No flaming \ spamming \ whatever here. I'm serious.
I remember all sorts of head-scratching about ROS playing half speed and-or having guitar pro-like guitars on their albums and stuff like that in the past times.
How did all this thing end up?
I mean, I know how the HAARP Machine story ended up for example, so I'm not willing to give them my attention.

I was searching for new music via the classic "best album of 2014"-type lists, and their latest work was named several times, hence the doubts floating back to my mind.
So, coming back to the opening question: are they legit or just bullshit?
Are they worthy spending time on?

 

[Jonathan20022]

/Opinions

If you like them more power to you, and if you don't then that's fine too.

I don't know about their recording process but it could very well have been recorded at half speed.

 

[PlumbTheDerps]

Still terrible, and there are places on the new album where I can literally hear Guitar Pro midi patches. Nothing worth listening to.

 

[MoshJosh]

I haven't personally seen them live but a friend went to one of their concerts recently and said they tore it up. So I'm assuming they can play a good deal of the material if not all of it. . . but again I didn't experience this first hand.

 

[Rizzo]

/Opinions

If you like them more power to you, and if you don't then that's fine too.

I don't know about their recording process but it could very well have been recorded at half speed.

I'm not stating any opinion, instead I'm just asking for yours.
What I'm saying is that I never atually listened to their works (2 songs at random maybe, you know) and knowing they're still around and going now I'd like to BUT remembering the controversies around them (the only thing i remember well), I'm a little restrained.
That's why I'm asking. I'm just not willing to devote my time to a band that eventually fakes its musicianship.

 

[ncfiala]

Their stuff is so awful it doesn't really even matter.

 

[cougarhunter96]

I'm not stating any opinion, instead I'm just asking for yours.
What I'm saying is that I never atually listened to their works (2 songs at random maybe, you know) and knowing they're still around and going now I'd like to BUT remembering the controversies around them (the only thing i remember well), I'm a little restrained.
That's why I'm asking. I'm just not willing to devote my time to a band that eventually fakes its musicianship.

You can't ''fake'' musicianship, if they wrote this song that no one else wrote then he wrote it, plain as day. If classical founders like Mozart were alive today I'm positive they would use as many tools as they could just like they did back then. Now on the other hand, if they cannot perform the song then yes a lack of respect is understandable, if the people are walking around like royalty after the fact, then yes a loss of respect if fine, but old men that wrote songs over 40 years ago can't perform it the same, there's gonna be performance issues, hell Tosin Abasi one of the prog leaders has several videos of him slopping up his lead parts. people have some unreal expectation of watching robots play, then you bitch when they're staring at their frets more concerned with what you think than having fun, is that fair? Now I went a little off track, my point is, even the Haarp Machine had REALLY cool ideas, and I REFUSE to knock the writer down because he had trouble performing that extremely technical music, that I can't play. What about electronic music? Do you listen to that? There's no way ANY EDM artist can play what they wrote because it's all programmed the way you're accusing HAARP or ROS of programming, that's hypocritical standards of modern musicians.

 

[stevexc]

You can't ''fake'' musicianship, if they wrote this song that no one else wrote then he wrote it, plain as day. If classical founders like Mozart were alive today I'm positive they would use as many tools as they could just like they did back then. Now on the other hand, if they cannot perform the song then yes a lack of respect is understandable, if the people are walking around like royalty after the fact, then yes a loss of respect if fine, but old men that wrote songs over 40 years ago can't perform it the same, there's gonna be performance issues, hell Tosin Abasi one of the prog leaders has several videos of him slopping up his lead parts. people have some unreal expectation of watching robots play, then you bitch when they're staring at their frets more concerned with what you think than having fun, is that fair? Now I went a little off track, my point is, even the Haarp Machine had REALLY cool ideas, and I REFUSE to knock the writer down because he had trouble performing that extremely technical music, that I can't play. What about electronic music? Do you listen to that? There's no way ANY EDM artist can play what they wrote because it's all programmed the way you're accusing HAARP or ROS of programming, that's hypocritical standards of modern musicians.

Great rant, 10/10. It just ignores the fact that the issue wasn't that HAARP couldn't play their own music, but that they PRETENDED that they could.

You don't see EDM artists pretending that they can "play" their music (as terrible as an analogy as that is - seeing as how they are performing it exactly how they intended to) on guitar when they're really not. There's no misdirection there.

If you write something you can't play, awesome. If you openly use studio magic to record it, that's fine. If you record videos of you playing it at half tempo, increase the speed, and overlay GuitarPro output over it... that's where the issue is.

As far as RoS... I can't say I enjoy them. I can say that, to my ear, their guitar parts sound exactly like GuitarPro tracks. HOWEVER, I haven't seen any strong evidence that it's "fake" and not a stylistic choice, because I've heard other bands from the genre trying for a similar sound (Within The Ruins springs to mind). All I know is that it sounds like midi, and I don't like to listen to guitar that sounds like midi whether it is or not.

 

[Eptaceros]

When I listen to RoS, I don't hear music, I hear hours upon hours of sitting in a studio clicking around with a mouse.

 

[Rizzo]

It just ignores the fact that the issue wasn't that HAARP couldn't play their own music, but that they PRETENDED that they could.

You don't see EDM artists pretending that they can "play" their music (as terrible as an analogy as that is - seeing as how they are performing it exactly how they intended to) on guitar when they're really not. There's no misdirection there.

Pffffft guys I don't want flames here as I'd grow immediatley tired of pointless discussing (as I don't have to prove anything and my thoughts woudn't change things nonetheless), just your opinions.

The point is that, Steve got it. Yes I listen to electronica and that's just the thing. Sure you can't fake composition skills but if you claim you're playing something and then you're not actually doing it when how do you call that?
If you say you're a GUITAR PLAYER then I can't accept you can't play something you wrote (I don't mean "making mistakes" jesus, we're human beings) or that you didn't play it at all. Guitar pro is a double-edged sword for that, as any VST. Just say you're a composer and write electronic music instead, if that's the case.
If you claim to be an awesome drummer and then in reality all you do is programming drums not having ever touched a kit you can't proclaim you're a drummer, just one who's able to think as a drummer and writes stuff. Just admit things and then it's ok to me.

HAARP wasn't actually my cup of tea, but I found the unraveling of things just plain stupid. Just why doing that? Well whatever.

The problem is pretending. And I can't stand pretending in art as in anything else. Hence the request.
Now please let's end this discussion here and just leave your opinion.

 

[Rizzo]

PS
I checked back both ROS and HAARP, I think I'll pass on both

 

[Captain Butterscotch]

This thread again.

 

[SandyRavage]

Having seen them a bunch of times they play every single bit of it live and occasionally .... shit up.

I wouldn't doubt certain parts are recorded half speed and then sped up for clarity and because they are perfectionist but they nail every single riff and lick live.

Some people aren't into it, it's not my first choice but definitely fun to listen to on occasion, and worth the price of admission

 

[Lorcan Ward]

Hundreds of modern bands use tons of studio editing, ROS just make it very obvious with the copy/paste every note. Personally I really like how The Haarp Machine record sounds. Its surgically tight an every note rings out clearly.

The only important thing is you can play it live well enough to put on a good show. And don't lie that your guitar is real and unedited(which most of the bands do and then get really uptight when people call them out on it).

 

[xCaptainx]

I don't care if it's real or not, it's ....ing awful.

 

[asher]

The only important thing is you can play it live well enough to put on a good show. And don't lie that your guitar is real and unedited(which most of the bands do and then get really uptight when people call them out on it).

These are the two salient points in this whole debate, I think.

 

[InfestedRabite]

do bands doing this shit play to a backing track of their edited guitars live?

 

[The Mirror]

I read in another thread from some guy who obviously knows some of the modern producing techniques (guess he was a studio guy himself) that there is a way of recording, where every single note is recorded one at a time and then put together in post-production. That way the guitars sound like midi/GP and ROS are actually using that style of production.

I can't confirm that it's true as I just read it, but it sounded legit to me.

 

[mikah912]

This thread again.

I know, right?

My intent here is not to come off as a Rings of Saturn fanboy. I'm only mildly familiar with their pre-Lugal Ki En output. That album is pretty cool to me. I made my peace with the heavy post-editing applied to their albums. It's part of their aesthetic just like heavy vocoder usage is part of, say, T-Pain or super-layered reverb-drenched production is part of Devin Townsend's. They all need the assistance of technology in recreating that live.

I'm not concerned with them being able to sound exactly like the record live. That's not the point of live performance.

I tracked down a recent YouTube drum playthrough by their new drummer of one of the slower, breakdown-y songs off LKE (Natural Selection). Was it a lot sloppier than the (intentionally) unhumanly tight record? Oh yeah. But it was also recognizable from that band, and clearly he was trying to keep up with the backing tracks of his bandmates in his monitors without a click track. I understand they're still working out how to recreate these songs live, so their recent dates have been all older material. But they are out there playing their music live, and that's not "fake".

 

[Rizzo]

Alright guys I see some of you provided both some personal opinions here and some objective info there without flaming.
I know it's "this thread again", but hey sorry for asking for some knowledge.

Thank you all, I think I got what I was looking for.
The flamers are free to bring the flame now