Fun fact. Andrew wrote the guitar parts and did lead guitar for this song. That's why the instrumental feel has more of an Eidola vibe than a DGD vibe. Brought a fresh feel to their music
If you like the swancore style you should listen to Royal Coda their newer song "We Slowly Lose Hope For Things To Come" is phenomenal and features purely Kurt Travis one of the earlier DGD leads
Yes, please do some Royal Coda! Will Swan is one of the guitar players and DGD's old singer, Kurt Travis is the front man. Their newest record is INCREDIBLE and I'm sure you would love it
Jon's voice has evolved so much since the first album its insane. Hands down best scream vocalist in the game in terms of sound/clarity and it isn't even a competition
Would love to see you react to Feels Bad Man. It’s a bit more pop than their usual, but it’s some of Tims best base playing on the album IMO. Love all you guys do here - you’ve re-ignited my drive to learn music (and music theory specifically)
on this same thread, going back in time and reacting to Summertime Gladness, which is probably one of their absolute weirdest song/video combos but a ton of fun
I'm not sure if it's auto-tuned but Tilian's vocals are definitely processed on the album and he uses a lot of layering. However he can definitely hit all the same notes live so I think it's mainly for effect, gives it a very "poppy" sound a lot of the time. Also in the future it'd be cool if you checked out one of their songs like "Nothing Shameful" or "For The Jeers" which have prominent vocal spots by the 2nd guitarist Andrew, he's a phenomenal singer in his own right. Or you could check out his own band Eidola, their song "Mutual Fear" has a good music video as well as a feature from Jon Mess so it'd be pretty familiar territory I think.
I think that's my problem with Tillian's vocals on a lot of the DGD albums. They always sound very processed. I liked how his vocals sounded a lot more on Dreamhouse by Tides of Man, for example. He's a great vocalist, I just wish they'd dial it back a bit on the production side to let him shine through more.
Most producers of modern music do use pitch correction. Even if a vocalist is fairly close in pitch, it just helps give vocal tracks a more polished sound.
There was shoutouts to the band members, but let’s not forget the late, great Tim Feerick on bass. He brought so much groove to this album, even if it’s a little less prominent in the mix of this song. He brought so much to the band.
@@Orithous true there is some studio trickery going on but Tilian tends to be stronger at the beginning of tour then gets flatter bc he's always at the top of his range and blows his voice out
@@Orithous pitch correction is used all the time, it's nothing new. But to insinuate Tilian can't hit those highs live is just factually wrong. He doesn't hit it perfectly every single time, but he's still getting there
All I was saying was that I was not sure about auto tune or not because I don’t really know anything about it. I’m sure it’s used for the albums, But I have heard him in person and he does hit the high notes.
Also if you think it is impossible for him to hit the highest notes then you have not seen him in person. Yes sometimes it’s shaky and you can tell his voice gets tired but he can definitely sing it.
How do I request you reacting to the band "Gold Necklace"?? Especially the song Vibe with Me. The lead singer is ex lead vocalist for Dance Gavin Dance Kurt Travis and the band seems to have perfected the Soul Rock style. Knowing just how much you enjoy jazz and dance gavin dance, I think this would be something you'd love!
Industry standard is to use auto-tune, but not in the way of fixing anything. You can usually tell when it’s a good/bad singer. With a bad singer, you’ll use it to fix their vocals, but most producers and mixers only use auto-tune to shape the already good vocal, and trim things, more than fixing a bad take or anything.
Finally the trilogy is completed! Die Another Day was a solid DGD song, not to much of anything, not too little, and covered all the bases (kinda like a bowl of plain oatmeal, then dumping an ass load of maple syrup, but only from "cage-free" TREES). I love your reviews, especially the fundamental breakdowns of the individual instruments/vocals that go unnoticed! There is still alot more DGD to cover! Alot of their best songs dont have music videos but there are still some gems!
Please please PLEASE react to “Ember” and “For the Jeers”. Honestly…. probably the best (which I’m sure will be debated) songs on the album!!!!!! Please please please! POR FAVOR!!!!!!
Jon Mess' vocal progression has been amazing. If you haven't already, you should react to "And I Told Them I Invented Times New Roman" which is off their first full length album. It is without Tilian, but Jon Mess is there and sounds so different to what he sounds like today
So couple of notes to some questions you asked and a request! 1) Kris Crummet has mixed, recorded, and produced every one of their albums 2) normally Will does all the writing but this song in particular was written by Andrew! 3) While everything has auto tune nowadays, I’ve seen them like 5-6 times and depending on when you catch em on your, Tilian can either definitely hit these notes or he’ll avoid/hit lower register to probably save his voice. 4) Andrew is the vocalist of Eidola, who you should definitely do a reaction to!! Perennial Philosophy or Mutual Fear ft. Jon Mess being some suggestions!
I'd love to hear your reaction to One Man's Cringe, there's this really cool part where Tilian and Andrew go back and forth with vocals, it's beautiful
you said you were looking to sere an evolution of jon's voice. that's a great opprotunity to go back and listen to the older jonny craig stuff. the music of that era was also incredible.
If you want to hear how Jon Mess sounded early on, you should check out And I Told Them I Invented Times New Roman from Downtown Battle Mountain. You also get to experience Johnny Craig era DGD
DGD are considered to be in the post-hardcore genre, which is sometimes referred to as "screamo". I guess you could say it's somewhat a 'sub-genre' of emo, mixing melodic elements of "emo" or pop-punk with the heavier tendencies of hardcore [punk] music
Post-hardcore is defined as follows: is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. It was initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. Like post-punk, the term has been applied to a broad constellation of groups
For the auto-tune question you asked: No matter how great a singer's pitch is while recording, a pitch correction plugin is often applied during mixing, because frankly, our ears expect it. The sonic artifacts that a plugin like melodyne or autotune have can act as a sort of "glue" to help the vocals sit in the rest of the mix. A lot of mixers even run screams through pitch correction software. These plugins aren't only used to correct bad vocal takes anymore. Without the the software, it would still sound good. However, if you heard a mix of this song without pitch correction, you'd notice that something sounds a bit off. You just probably wouldn't be able to put your finger on it. For bands with really good vocalists, autotune is used more as an effect than an actual correction of pitch. I went to school for music production and audio engineering, along with being a musician myself. It's often a subtle but necessary step in the mixing process.
They do very minor correction, but Tilian is also a perfectionist and he is really really great at his layering and self-correction. Their song One in a Million off of Afterburner, I believe Tilian did 17 or so layers at the end? Created his own choir. Fuckin nuts. Andrew is also incredibly versatile in his singing too! Would love love love to hear you react to a song that Andrew has leads on! Their closer off of the new album, Have a Great Life really shows off their back and forth. As well as Swallowed By Eternity. Your videos are always so awesome. Really hope you can catch them live some time
Heck yeah this whole album is super dope. Jon absolutely crushed it as usual, and the instrumentals are some of my favorites from DGD. The song "pray to god for your mother" is really groovy.
They'll use some post processing on the vocals from what I can tell but not really what I'd call auto-tune. Tillian can hit those notes live if you wanted to do a live reaction from them there's some good ones out there from warped tour a few years back.
I already love listening to DGD, and Tilian is not from this world, but listening to them along with your reactions totally tickles me and adds a whole other vibe to the experience. Glad to have come across your channel - thanks for being you!
You should listen to their older stuff with Jon. His progression is incredible, he gets better every album. There was also an album here Will did the unclean vocals. Pleas do a react to Feels Bad Man
I love that you ask the same questions me and my musician friends also ask like "how did they discover their voice" how did they figure out this sound that isn't often taught. Love your videos
That's a great video idea to go in on how both vocalists developed their voices. You could do Tree City Sessions to compare Jon on current versions vs original few albums, and tides of Man tilian
Fun fact about Die Another Day! Andrew Wells (second guitar and vocals) wrote and performs the guitar lead. He also did the writing with Martin Bianchi in Bloodsucker and Will had no parts.
judging based on the young robot unboxing video, Id say if they use autotune its extremely little, and the mixer and masterer is kris crummett and he's been the same mixer since they started which i believe also gives the consistency the band gives.
A lot of people will put bands in the “swan-core” sub genre of post hardcore. It’s a mess but my guess is it stems from DGD members being in like 3-4 different bands lol
Just found your channel and I'm loving your reactions. DGD is one of my favorite bands, Tillian is a great singer but have you heard or reacted to any of Jonny Craigs songs when he was in DGD, or even Emarosa or SLAVES?
kris crummet produced all their albums also Tilians earliest bands is tides of man, also reccomend listening to whatever i say is royal ocean. one of the first dgd albums
Love your analysis! Stumbled upon a reaction to Spiritbox a while back and has been one of my favourite subs in the last while. Would love if you did some Deftones! Keep up the killer content, cheers!
Something similar to this that I think would be cool to check out is a new song from The Dooo, GBSN, and John Silkie called _but I pretend i'ma beginner. They are all musicians on RU-vid that came together to put out a song.
So mixing and mastering is done by Kris Crummett who is essentially an additional element of the band. He mixed all of their albums except Acceptance Speech, which is a good album but it says something when they released a better version of it a few years ago. Crummett is a big part of why their albums sound so good
You gotta listen to Amity affliction- not without my ghosts Amity affliction- drag the lake Amity affliction- all fucked up And plenty more. But those are top 3 i think youd really like to react too.
For the Jazz lover in you, check out Eternity Forever. The vocalist for the band, Kurt Travis, was a former DGD vocalist. And the guitar work is fantastic. If you do it, I'll buy a Howie is an asshole shirt for sure. I watch most videos that you post that are rock focused. The pop and rap loses me because it isn't my focus of music. But I love your commentary!
