Come to think of it there has to be companies that make DIY puzzles so…
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kyo looks like he can’t be bothered to get dressed nicer after a petit bra gig thing, everyone else is literally glowing
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70 % black pieces and you have to listen to Diru while putting it together. Difficulty level: advanced
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My copy of the new single came a day early, and I was going to post this over in that thread but this is really more about the band’s music and releases as a whole rather than just the new release, despite this stemming from listening to it and looking at the liner notes
I think our issues with Dir en Grey mixes have little to do with the actual mixers
TIW was mixed by Dan Lancaster, who has worked with Blink-182, One OK Rock, Enter Shikari, Bring me the Horizon in their sleek pop era, etc
We’re all mad about Tue Madsen’s mixes for Diru but this is the guy who mixed classics from August Burns Red and Suicide Silence, among many others
The studio recordings on the new single were mixed by Tom Lord Alge, a certified fucking legend in the industry who has mixed for everyone from U2 to Marylin Manson to Angels and Airwaves to Pink to the fucking Rolling Stones. He’s not the celebrity his brother Chris is with a million signature plugins from Waves, but Tom is every bit as respected by his peers as his brother is
All mix engineers who are very well known and well respected in the industry, and while tastes may differ there are very few in the field who would say any of the above are BAD engineers. I can’t speak for the history and credentials of those in Japan who mixed for Dir en Grey before they started working with European and American engineers, but I’ll give them the respect of assuming they’re all capable mixers who hold the respect of their peers. So, what’s the common factor here?
It’s Dir en Grey themselves
The only explanation that makes sense to me anymore is that most of what we dislike across various Dir en Grey mixes is actually a result of decisions made not in the mixing phase, but in the production and tracking stages (and sometimes the mastering stage - still looking at you TIW). The drum samples? Probably picked by Shinya. Guitar tones? We’d be silly to assume Kaoru and Die aren’t spending a great deal of time dialing in what they want, and same goes for Toshiya and his bass tones
Why they make the choices they make is another mystery for another day. Perhaps even for another detective. But I think it’s time we cut the mix engineers some slack, and start assuming that these were creative decisions made by the band and their production team
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Yeah, I was thinking about this myself earlier today. This “issue” is so consistent for years, that it must be a conscious choice
I dont really have a problem with the production generally. Haha.
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Great points. To piggy-back off your post: this is the sound the band is going for and it’s very easy to blame it on the “mix” or “mastering” or whatever we like to complain about.
When the band switched to 7 string guitars, their tone was heavily mid-scooped. That can risk drowning out Toshiya on recordings, and the band has referenced this fact in the past.
Lately, with The Insulated World and Phalaris, the guitars are heavily mid-focused and there’s a little less distortion/gain. Over time they’ve fundamentally changed how the guitars sound to give Toshiya’s bass prominence in their sound.
To illustrate my point, listen to Die’s guitar here:
Die’s sloppy playing aside, the guitar tone is significantly different than what they were playing 12 years ago:
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Ok, but for example they never played Marshall. Comparing their sound in these guitar videos to their studio sound is a stretch …
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You don’t know that. The band has used all kinds of equipment in the studio over the years.
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That’s also irrelevant because we’re talking about trends in equalization not brands of amplifiers.
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To thetrendkiller’s credit, the speaker cabinet is going to be the single most important EQ stage in a guitar signal chain, much more so than the amp head, the guitar itself, or anything else. Second most important EQ stage will be mic selection and placement. Dirty guitar tones especially don’t take too much post-EQ well at all, and most of the time the team is going to spend the time to get that as close to the desired end result as possible at the source. When given a guitar tone that doesn’t really work for a project, most engineers I know would prefer to re-amp the DI or re-track entirely with a different amp setup vs. getting heavy handed with EQ moves
And the tones in that second video you linked I am 99% sure are just whatever amps the magazine’s studio had on-hand - similar to how everybody who came in to do demo videos for GuitarWorld back in the day had the shittiest tone every single time between whatever crap amp they had in the space and the engineers on the back end who managed to make even the product video for the Randy Rhoades Jubilee series from Marshall sound like a box of fucking bees. Made no goddamned sense
I am fairly certain though that the Gear Factor vid you shared was done w their overseas live rigs (I THINK it was recorded during either the EU or NA leg of the TIW cycle?) and a much better representation of their actual sounds
You’re 100% right on them starting out with a VERRRRY scooped tone when they first made the switch to 7’s. I think they managed to still have Toshiya cut through pretty well though, for example his bass tone across Dum Spiro Spero is VERY mid-forward, verging almost on a honky funk tone if it weren’t for the grit and drive he’s got on that record. I feel it was more on Arche where he started to get drowned out a bit more as his tone had less mids and was focused a bit more on the lows and subs, with some pushed highs to let the clank of his slap parts cut through. And then he feels really drowned out to me on TIW, personally 
Having less gain on Phalaris I think was a great move - as I get older I’ve continued to find that using less gain actually sounds bigger and heavier because it’s less compressed, and has much more note clarity overall in big massive chords across all of/most of the strings.
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This, 100%
This is ultimately why the choice in amp is irrelevant because a musician is going to gravitate towards the sound they like regardless of what amplifier they’re using.
I highly doubt Kaoru and Die went into the studio to film that video and let some random dude set the rig up for them with 0 input. Either they, or their tech, would set up the amp as close to their specifications as they can given the circumstances.
For example, when demonstrating how they play riffs off their album Dum Spiro Spero, they’re going to try and get an approximation to that sound. They’re not going to plug into a Vox AC30 and call it a day.
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That’s the thing though - I 100% would believe this. From a decade and a half of bad tones in official gear reviews from Guitar World, instructional DVD’s from the likes of Malmsteen or Vai or Friedman, and (going back to Guitar World) the “Betcha Can’t Play This” series, I’ve seen SO many artists who’s tones I actually really love and adore have these kinds of videos with tones that sound nothing like theirs and they have very little say in what’s going on. Sure, the people behind the scenes probably aren’t giving them an AC30 or Twin Reverb for a heavy tone, but it’s not even close to out of the realm of possiblity to me that for the DSS instructional video they were given something like a Marshall MG solid state rig, which in that time period were notorious for having terrible overdriven/distorted tones
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In a general sense you’re correct, BUT: those examples you’re referencing are either
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Designed to sell a specific piece of gear where the guitarist would have 0 input (or desire) to be involved in how the gear sounds
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Designed to demonstrate the skill of the guitarist with little attention paid to the gear
This is a different case because you have guitarists showing off riffs from an album, not endorsing gear or explicitly showing off their skill.
Lastly, it’s not like they’re using garbage like a MG in that vid. It looks like a JCM2000. While not the cream of the crop from Marshall, it’s also not some junk they dragged in to make a quick video. That’s nice gear they’re playing out of. There’s some level of care and attention being shown here.
(Also I always loved the Frank Gambale guitar videos. That dudes a trip)
Rejoice, everyone
there is an second round of bad merch in their essentials store
https://twitter.com/DIRENGREY_ENG/status/1747816500797579589?t=D5i3S81TSaBq8FyCMRNgkw&s=19
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interesting you say this bc the whole time i was watching this video i thought …ah, they don’t sound very good do they
my mind autocompleted to “maybe this is just how much difference it makes having the rest of the band backing vs just hearing the one instrument” … but …
compare Toshiya in this video to Daiki from this series of playthroughs Deviloof did, it’s night and day how much more Daiki sounds like himself imho
This made me laugh. Because the other day when I read some post here about the new single I thought “Do you guys even like Dir en grey?”
And your post basically answered this. If it’s not just the mixes but the artistic decisions of the band than some people who complain about the music really just don’t like Diru anymore 
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Hating Dir en grey has always been the favorite pastime of the online Dir en grey fandom!
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You don’t truly love something unless you hate it
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