The Fragile: Deviations 1 - Limited Edition 4xLP (Spring 2017)

[Wretchedest]

I think they're better than most of his recent instrumental work. They're still background music but far more interesting and even less repetitive.

That's true, the new album is basically ten different sections on repeat with little variation. I still like most of it though.

The "new" content here is ok, but it's important to remember its the stuff that wasn't finished or did not make it on to a DOUBLE ALBUM, and only released because die hard fans demanded it for 20 years.

[halo eighteen]

Is Mike Garson on any of the "new" songs? I'm glad I never bothered with the Apple Music stuff, because this will all be new to me. When I can finally listen that is. Fuck me for spending $80+ on it and not getting download links.

[xolotl]

Is Mike Garson on any of the "new" songs? I'm glad I never bothered with the Apple Music stuff, because this will all be new to me. When I can finally listen that is. Fuck me for spending $80+ on it and not getting download links.

No Mike Garson on the "new" stuff, unfortunately!

[halo eighteen]

No Mike Garson on the "new" stuff, unfortunately!

That's too bad. I guess there's probably a substantial amount of material still held over then..

[Tea]

That's true, the new album is basically ten different sections on repeat with little variation. I still like most of it though.

The "new" content here is ok, but it's important to remember its the stuff that wasn't finished or did not make it on to a DOUBLE ALBUM, and only released because die hard fans demanded it for 20 years.

Hey, NTAE is at least less repetitive than HM!!! And HM is less repetitive than Ghosts! I think he's getting back to thinking of music as a changing landscape instead of loops. Hopefully.


NOTE: ANYONE COMPLAINING ABOUT FIREBRAND AND DOWNLOADS GO TO THE OTHER THREAD!

[Zazzaro703]

I finally received my download link and am downloading now... waiting to see if the files are corrupt before my head falls off in excitement!!

My files were corrupt at first, but then I just did the extract all option on winrar and it fixed it.

[xolotl]

So this is something I'm capable of answering myself given some work/time, but I assume someone here is more familiar with it than me:

I never actually got around to importing The Fragile Instrumentals into my main music library, and I'm now wondering if it's worth doing or not. I assume that at least some of the versions from the Instrumentals release are basically the same as what ended up on Deviations, but it seems possible that at least some of them were changed, too. Opinions?

I suppose if nothing else, Instrumentals has a different cover image, so it'd be a bit more prettiness in my list of albums.

[seasonsinthesky]

So this is something I'm capable of answering myself given some work/time, but I assume someone here is more familiar with it than me:

I never actually got around to importing The Fragile Instrumentals into my main music library, and I'm now wondering if it's worth doing or not. I assume that at least some of the versions from the Instrumentals release are basically the same as what ended up on Deviations, but it seems possible that at least some of them were changed, too. Opinions?

I suppose if nothing else, Instrumentals has a different cover image, so it'd be a bit more prettiness in my list of albums.

I kept it all for now. TDTWWA is the Quiet version, and I could swear SD is yet another early mix with more/different layering than the Apple Music release. "Ripe" alt is absolutely different because it's a good 3 minutes longer; on AM, it didn't have the end portion (assumed to be called "Decay"). WITT has its regular intro instead of "Missing Places." And a bunch of tracks crossfade on Deviations 1 that don't on AM.

[xolotl]

I kept it all for now. TDTWWA is the Quiet version, and I could swear SD is yet another early mix with more/different layering than the Apple Music release. "Ripe" alt is absolutely different because it's a good 3 minutes longer; on AM, it didn't have the end portion (assumed to be called "Decay"). WITT has its regular intro instead of "Missing Places." And a bunch of tracks crossfade.

Excellent, thanks! Just the sort of feedback I was hoping for. Into the library it goes!

[ericy210]

Thanks to someone here who helped me until Customer Service sent me an updated link and additional instructions. It's amazing to a) hear it without vocals- there's a lot of intricacies under them, b) hear some of the beloved songs tweaked and freshened, and c) hear some new content which is brilliant.

anyone hear try burning onto CDs? Does it fit if one CD captures the first two vinyls and a second CD captures the last two? My car isn't Bluetooth.

thanks, and enjoy!

[xolotl]

anyone hear try burning onto CDs? Does it fit if one CD captures the first two vinyls and a second CD captures the last two? My car isn't Bluetooth.

If you burnt onto CD-Rs with 80-minute capacity, it looks like it'd actually just barely fit onto two CDs.

The first would be Somewhat Damaged -> The New Flesh (tracks 1-19), total length of 1:18:38. The second would be The Way Out Is Through -> Ripe With Decay (tracks 20-37), total length of 1:15:04.

Kind of nice that the beginning of the second disc would still be TWOIT.

[seasonsinthesky]

anyone hear try burning onto CDs? Does it fit if one CD captures the first two vinyls and a second CD captures the last two? My car isn't Bluetooth.

Yep, it still works. Up to "The Way Out is Through" runs at 78 minutes, while starting from TWOIT grants you 75 minutes.

[Star]

Thanks to someone here who helped me until Customer Service sent me an updated link and additional instructions. It's amazing to a) hear it without vocals- there's a lot of intricacies under them, b) hear some of the beloved songs tweaked and freshened, and c) hear some new content which is brilliant.

anyone hear try burning onto CDs? Does it fit if one CD captures the first two vinyls and a second CD captures the last two? My car isn't Bluetooth.

thanks, and enjoy!

I just finished burning it to CD. I used two 80 minutes CDs and it fit. And it plays in my car CD player. So, I am thrilled. I also burned the EP until I get what ever the physical component is. I would have preferred to buy the CD with the pretty booklet but since it wasn't an option, I did it the old fashioned way, downloaded and burned it.

[Pbgut]

Kind of suprised Untitled and The new flesh version 2 aren't included, from nin.com years back. I think those are both great segues.

I second this.

[jmtd]

Kind of agree with @neorev on this one. The Apple Music release has rather stolen its thunder. Also, the limited blurb we got about it last week led me to believe that TR/AR would have been remixing the material such that this was more of a self contained experience. The verse/chorus/verse structure stuck out on the AM release as odd, there was a sonic hole where the vocals sat for many of the tracks. What I'm reading (haven't listened yet) leads me to worry D1 suffers this too.

[MAD]

Holy shit, the transition from Missing Places into We're In This Together.


!!!!!! FUUUUUUUCK


Also,

Kind of suprised Untitled and The new flesh version 2 aren't included, from nin.com years back. I think those are both great segues.

Well, it is called Deviations 1.

Let's wait.

[blassster]

Kind of suprised Untitled and The new flesh version 2 aren't included, from nin.com years back. I think those are both great segues.

Yup! Hoping there's a fragile deviations 2, with tracks like these - there were other great things from the site, like The Fragile (deconstructed), La Mer (version), and No, You Don't (version). Plus the Mike Garson stuff.
Edit - but don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with what we have right now.

[Alucard69]

One Way to Get There sounds to me, as if Charlie Clouser had some input in it.

I'd say it's Keith Hillebrandt.
Remember The Fragile era nin.com remixes? That was his work in majority.

[Harry Seaward]

Can somebody outline the best way to convert WAV to FLAC without any quality loss? I've tried using both foobar2000 and a program called Free Audio Converter, but the bitrates don't match up. I selected "0" for the encoding preset, which I think should convert it without any quality loss, but I'm not sure. For instance the source WAV file is 4,608kb/s but the output FLAC file is 3,394kb/s. Is this normal?

[camebackhaunted]

Yes. Think about it.

kb/s is literally size divided by time. You are losslessly compressing it, so the size is reduced.

All FLAC is lossless by definition, that's what the L stands for. If you have any doubts, decompress the FLAC back to WAV and do a comparison of the 2 WAV files. If they're not bit by bit identical, then something has gone horrible wrong. (Although I don't know if those programs screw up the tags)

[Harry Seaward]

Yes. Think about it.

kb/s is literally size divided by time. You are losslessly compressing it, so the size is reduced.

The whole point is that I'm trying to not compress it. Hence why I chose 0 compression when converting, which it seems is supposed to mean 0 compression. But yet it keeps getting compressed. What am I missing here?

[camebackhaunted]

If you don't want to compress it, then you don't understand what FLAC is, and shouldn't be using it.

Hence why I chose 0 compression when converting, which it seems is supposed to mean 0 compression.

*facepalm*

All FLAC is lossless, regardless of which settings you choose.

Compression levels for FLAC are exactly the same concept as compression levels for zip files.

[seasonsinthesky]

The whole point is that I'm trying to not compress it. Hence why I chose 0 compression when converting, which it seems is supposed to mean 0 compression. But yet it keeps getting compressed. What am I missing here?

FLAC is a compressed format. The difference isn't that it doesn't compress, it's that it doesn't reduce the quality. So it's bigger than an MP3 but not as big as the WAV. This is the whole point of the format.

[Winter Is Coming]

The whole point is that I'm trying to not compress it. Hence why I chose 0 compression when converting, which it seems is supposed to mean 0 compression. But yet it keeps getting compressed. What am I missing here?

File size is smaller due to the advantages of the FLAC format. So it is lossless but uses less data than wav to output. Hence lower kb/s.

I'm pretty sure. I'm no scientist.

[Harry Seaward]

So what is the point of choosing 0-9 for encoding preset, 0 being fastest encoding and 9 being best compression, if every option is lossless? 0 and 9 would both be lossless but one would have a way higher bitrate and file size...? So if I choose 9, I'll have smaller files with lower bitrates, but still the same quality as the source WAV?

[Harry Seaward]

Is that talkbox in the TMHBM alt version?

[blassster]

So what is the point of choosing 0-9 for encoding preset, 0 being fastest encoding and 9 being best compression, if every option is lossless? 0 and 9 would both be lossless but one would have a way higher bitrate and file size...? So if I choose 9, I'll have smaller files with lower bitrates, but still the same quality as the source WAV?

Yes, same lossless quality. It's like zip file compression, the original audio is decompressed on the fly during playback. Just takes longer to encode at higher levels, but computers these days are fast enough to go with the best one. Use the highest number.

[seasonsinthesky]

So what is the point of choosing 0-9 for encoding preset, 0 being fastest encoding and 9 being best compression, if every option is lossless? 0 and 9 would both be lossless but one would have a way higher bitrate and file size...? So if I choose 9, I'll have smaller files with lower bitrates, but still the same quality as the source WAV?

Basically, one end of the scale is a faster encode because it retains more data, while the other end is more thorough and thus takes longer. Faster encode = larger filesize, deeper encode = smaller filesize. Almost the same as MP3 KBPS settings except it's always lossless.

Is that talkbox in the TMHBM alt version?

Sure is! This is the same one we got earlier this year on Apple Music.

[Jordan]

I'm sure this has been asked a couple times, forgive me. The Fragile: Deviations 1 download was WAV only. All the Definitive Editions came with FLAC, WAV and MP3. Correct?

[Harry Seaward]

Yes, same lossless quality. It's like zip file compression, decompressed on the fly during playback, and probably uses more power at higher compression levels. Using level 9 would be for saving space.

Basically, one end of the scale is a faster encode because it retains more data, while the other end is more thorough and thus takes longer. Faster encode = larger filesize, deeper encode = smaller filesize. Almost the same as MP3 KBPS settings except it's always lossless.

Cool, I think I get it now. Guess I was stuck on the whole "on the fly decompression" thing. Thanks.

Sure is! This is the same one we got earlier this year on Apple Music.

It's fucking awesome.