Sandbag Watch - NIN and Sandbag part. Livenation picks up the pieces.

[swd]

Anyone in Europe bought Deviations in the US store and have a tracking number like TYPXXXXXXXXXXX that is impossible to track anywhere? I have tried lots of online services, including the one linked in the email from SB. Shipping confirmation date 06/30, and I mean the actual shipping, not the first email.

[denuir]

Received mine today in good condition. This thing sounds incredible. I held off on listening to the digital version and the additional pieces from the Fragile sessions are fucking fantastic. The details to The Fragile were never lost on me, but haven't heard them like this before. I'm pleased.

[klyrish]

I opened a ticket with sandbag on Saturday, should I have heard from them by now?

Yeah...I opened mine Saturday and they responded this morning about sending a new sleeve

[march_of_the_pigs]

Has anyone else had their sleeve seam separate? The glue just failed on mine. Hopefully a rare case.

[Wolfkiller]

Just opened mine and the corners are banged to fuck. Who do we bitch at about this?

[neorev]

You should probably run at 96kHz so you avoid your soundcard resampling on the fly – it can create errors, depending on the quality of the resampling algorithm.

Unless you have it at 192 because that's how you record into your recording rig. If so, ignore me!

Putting 96kHz out at 192 is still resampling and can still be done badly. Think about it, you're taking a piece of sound that has been cut up into little bits at a given rate and then being asked to output little bits at a faster rate and not an even multiple either (so you can't just double up the samples).

All theoretically of course. The hardware/software stack @neorev is using can likely up and downsample with no detectable problems.

As a side note I decided to give up on hi res audio a year or so ago and I have no regrets. I'm half tempted to give up on lossless music too. I just downloaded the new Public Enemy album in FLAC and M4A, I'll put the M4A on my iPod and stick the FLAC ZIP on my NAS in my ever growing Lossless folder. But then it occurred to me, there's next to zero chance I'll ever actually open that ZIP file.

So I tried switching my soundcard settings to 24/96 and played a 24/96 WAV and I must say switching from 24/192 to 24/96 had quite a negative effect. Playback was slightly louder, but there was added noise and the audio did not sound as clean. It's hard to explain, but there was added rumble to the low end and the highs were quite shrill. I switched back to 24/192 and all is good. A much cleaner and smoother sound compared to switch to 96khz. Interesting. I'll be sticking with my 24/192 setting.

[Jon]

So I tried switching my soundcard settings to 24/96 and played a 24/96 WAV and I must say switching from 24/192 to 24/96 had quite a negative effect. Playback was slightly louder, but there was added noise and the audio did not sound as clean. It's hard to explain, but there was added rumble to the low end and the highs were quite shrill. I switched back to 24/192 and all is good. A much cleaner and smoother sound compared to switch to 96khz. Interesting. I'll be sticking with my 24/192 setting.

You mentioned changing your soundcard settings, but is your Roland MX-1 even capable of 192k? You might be resampling multiple times:

MX-1: Changing the Sample Rate

[neorev]

You mentioned changing your soundcard settings, but is your Roland MX-1 even capable of 192k? You might be resampling multiple times:

MX-1: Changing the Sample Rate

No, this was on my other computer. My music making computer has the Roland MX-1, which is 24/96. But on my other computer that I also listen to music on, I tried lowering my soundcard settings and got these negative effects from switching from 192 to 96. At 24/96, my 24/96 WAV files sounded terrible.

[caca]

Holy shit, guys. I'm just catching up on this thread. I got mine today, safe and sound. Hopefully they'll make things right for those of you who received damaged goods. That sucks.

[atomobile]

I just received my Deviations1 Vinyl. The packaging is terribly cheap and easy to bend. I just contacted NIN.com about a replacement. I also recently received the Prick and Lost Highway color LPs. Both were also damaged. I have yet to receive an undamaged vinyl from the new nin.com. They said they would replace those other records too, but I haven't heard peep from them since. The last vinyl I received from the old nin.com, Before the Flood, came beautifully packaged and arrived in MINT shape. WTF is wrong with the new company? If they can't deliver a MINT Deviations, I will cancel my existing order of Broken, Downward Spiral, Fragile, Not the Actual Events, NBK, and get my money back for Deviations. I will buy the rest of the records at Amoeba where I can pick undamaged copy. Is it that difficult for them to invest in better packaging? I've never been so disappointed in NIN...

[tony.parente]

Trent just liked some guys tweet about taking his advice and turning his phone off before listening to his deviations. So well, he's seeing our tweets about it.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

You have to wonder if TR is reading all this fan backlash, and what his next move will be. Obviously, another apology isn't going to cut it for most people. He's going to have to say something, since he's got a show in three weeks and a new EP coming out any day now.

I am curious as to what will suffice to the fans who have been disappointed by this horrendous rollout of the "new and improved" NIN store..

[BenAkenobi]

You have to wonder if TR is reading all this fan backlash, and what his next move will be...

Obviously,

Now he's slipping on the the tears you've made him cry

Damn, now he's totally going to unleash T a p e w o r m on this petty world, straight as it deserves, it simply cannot be any other way, it's debuting any day now. I cannot believe it was that simple to get him to do it, just a handful of pages of complaints on a fan forum. Why didn't we do it before. Oh wait, we did, apparently. Countless times.

Obviously,

[jfsaudio]

Yep, same situation here...

Anyone in Europe bought Deviations in the US store and have a tracking number like TYPXXXXXXXXXXX that is impossible to track anywhere? I have tried lots of online services, including the one linked in the email from SB. Shipping confirmation date 06/30, and I mean the actual shipping, not the first email.

[cheddamash]

You have to wonder if TR is reading all this fan backlash, and what his next move will be. Obviously, another apology isn't going to cut it for most people. He's going to have to say something, since he's got a show in three weeks and a new EP coming out any day now.

I am curious as to what will suffice to the fans who have been disappointed by this horrendous rollout of the "new and improved" NIN store..

He really does have to say something and soon, but what else are you expecting him to do but apologize? I honestly feel bad for him. You know he's raging over both of the distribution company fails. To be fair though, how could he have anticipated all of this? Sure, there's people that just aren't happy with Deviations and I think there's some validity there, but that's really the only thing that was in Trent's control. That said, he's the only one that can rectify the situation. I'm not dissuaded from buying the next EP, but I'm sure there are definitely some that are currently hesitant of placing any more orders at nin.com. I can't blame anyone for purchasing it elsewhere at this point. There's no way he just releases the next EP without addressing the shipping issues first, but I don't expect anything more than a "we'll make it right" sentiment. IMO he's already adequately addressed the production times and Firebrand's fuckery. If we get another update regarding Sandbag properly packaging vinyl going forward I'll be satisfied. On that note, those of you that have contacted Sandbag regarding your damaged Deviations are you getting confirmation that they are packaging future vinyl shipments better?

[atomobile]

If we get another update regarding Sandbag properly packaging vinyl going forward I'll be satisfied. On that note, those of you that have contacted Sandbag regarding your damaged Deviations are you getting confirmation that they are packaging future vinyl shipments better?

I asked them if they would be upgrading their packaging. This is what they said: "Our packing methods have proven to be very successful in the past, however once the items are passed over the couriers then controlling the quality of your items becomes somewhat out of our control. We take great pride in delivering these bespoke items with the greatest amount of care possible..."
So they don't give a flying F.

[WorzelG]

I honestly wouldn't mind if Trent just did away with physical products and sold the new EPs digitally as long as high quality was an option. I'm in the process of downsizing my cd collection anyway

[sick among the pure]

I'm going to guess because of the holiday weekend that I won't hear back from them until wednesday at the earliest (got the automated "we got your e-mail and will try to reply within 24 hours" e-mail from them on Saturday). I'm in no rush so long as they make things right. Saying "it's not our fault the mail carriers suck" is basically them saying "we don't feel like spending more on things that are proven to protect vinyl shipments" though, that pisses me off. It's obvious that they could spend the tiniest bit more effort and money on shipping and these things would be 99% undamaged. It's like they did one of those "I'll wrap these x-mas presents in a brown paper bag" packing jobs and said "good enough".

[afors]

It would be interesting to do a poll of ratio of damaged to non damaged Deviations deliveries.

Having had my (fortunately) mint copy delivered by 24hrs, I'm super pleased with the sound quality - played all 8 sides last night, very clear and nice.

I do concur with other comments here re sleeve design being light. It's relatively thin card and made to be rectangular cross section (boxed shaped)
to accommodate the two records per side. The result is large volumetric areas at the corners. This coupled with the thinner card used leads to the
high susceptibility to damage in transit. I'm not sure how you will all get on with replacement sleeves, as they will be equally prone to damage in transit due
the the box shape and thin card combo. You would have to hope they stuck polystyrene padding inside to prevent crushing.
Amazon seem to mail out vinyl with cardboard protection around the record then into a larger box with bubble wrap packaging. Overkill, but it does work.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Now he's slipping on the the tears you've made him cry

Nice to see the mark has been made, lol

Damn, now he's totally going to unleash T a p e w o r m on this petty world, straight as it deserves, it simply cannot be any other way, it's debuting any day now.

OMG Let's hope, right?!

I cannot believe it was that simple to get him to do it, just a handful of pages of complaints on a fan forum. Why didn't we do it before. Oh wait, we did, apparently. Countless times.

Because it's worked so well for you getting the 5.1 Fragile mix or the Tension footage, I figured I'd give it a shot. Let's hope it pays off and we get some sweet Tapeworm goods before too long.

Oh...wait...you thought I was being serious back there, didn't you..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

"Our packing methods have proven to be very successful in the past, however once the items are passed over the couriers then controlling the quality of your items becomes somewhat out of our control. We take great pride in delivering these bespoke items with the greatest amount of care possible..."

L-M-F-A-O

Right, so tossing these $80 vinyl packages in a shitty mailer box with zero protective packaging whatsoever is the couriers' fault then?

Maybe...if these things were, I don't know, broken in half when they arrived to the buyer? Clearly the USPS and other global mailing constituents opened up all those mailers, fucked up the corners (some more than others) and then stuck them back in the box like nothing happened. Clearly this was the case. All the extra packaging in the world wouldn't have made a difference, so why bother in the first place, right?

Great logic there, Sandbag. Your "proven successful" packing methods are surely up for a few awards for this one. No doubt..

[Ryan]

Sandbag =

[swd]

I just can't believe that Sandbag, knowing that Trent choose them to make things right, decided to use the worse packaging I saw in 2017 to ship vinyl records. I have bought records this year from Amazon (.com, .fr, .es), Barnes and Noble, Insound, Analog Spark, Sound of Vinyl, Music Vaultz, Fnac, ImportCDs (as far as I can remember now) and all of them sent the records with better packaging than Sandbag. Crazy.

[ninjaw]

Anyone in Europe bought Deviations in the US store and have a tracking number like TYPXXXXXXXXXXX that is impossible to track anywhere? I have tried lots of online services, including the one linked in the email from SB. Shipping confirmation date 06/30, and I mean the actual shipping, not the first email.

Nope mine were a classic french tracking not starting with TYP, but yes, they were completly wrong about the service used

[Prettybrokenspiral]

The top ten Deviations 1 tracks as voted by ETS, for the week ending July 3, 2017


1. Was It Worth It?

2. (Hope It’s) Not What It Seems Like

3. The Day The World Fanbase Went Away

4. Taken (My Business Elsewhere)

5. Even Deeper (In Debt) / La Mer (Album Art)

6. (Replacement Orders Are Currently) 10 Miles High

7. The Big Come Down

8. Just Like You Imagined?

9. The Frail (Packaging)

10. The Wretched (Distributor)


(Just kidding. I still love you no matter what, Trent!)

[Kyle]

You forgot Somewhat Damaged. Unless it was because it was too obvious

[Ryan]

What about Please (+More Bubblewrap)?

[ParaGun]

So the gatefold is an atypical size? Is it possible that those idiots at Sandbag are damaging the records while trying to cram the gatefold in the standard box?

[Conan The Barbarian]

I don't expect TR to issue an apology, but I just want to know how he came to the conclusion of the packaging. I'm no vinyl expert, but reading others saying how it's all packed is a no no.

[Ryan]

Perhaps the artwork is also minimal because there will be a Deviations 2 and 3 with even more unreleased Fragile stuff on them? And then there'll be a grand final box to house the trilogy in? Or some shit like that.