[Maxvla]

Anything by Foo Fighters. Their records sound average at best, but I still like them.

 

[Pachikara]

True, I agree. Black Sabbath- Born Again Production is awfull, sounds like Brickwalling started in early eighties!!.
 
UFO-1 seems much better than Making Contact in my opinion, but still sound bad though, I agree.
Quote:

Really don't understand that one at all.
 
UFO 1 is the worst sounding production wise album of their 20 studio albums.
 

 

[Pachikara]

The lead guitar solo part of "Bohemian Rhapsody- Queen " seems so chalked with all the instruments and operatic vocals, sounds kind of awfull to me, but Roy Thomas Baker intentionally made it like that I guess.

 

[Sweetmate]

Quote:

Some say its him others say its Greg Fidelman.
I remember reading something about Rick saying it wasn't me it was Greg.But then it was okay so why do you let Greg work for you still?
He also mixed/engineer Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication and Slayer World Painted Blood which some consider up there with Death Magnetic as one of the worst ever.

 
Greg Fidelman is an absolute sonic butcher.
 

 

[Pachikara]

Deep Purple- In Rock
 
Sounds like it was recorded mono, not much dynamics compared to the albums by other artists released in the same year.
 
Haunted- by Deep Purple (Bananas album)
 
- The drum sound is getting faded and drowned towards the middle of the song!.

 

[Pachikara]

Question to the Audiophile record producers of this forum:
 
If the production of an album comes out crispy and great, why cant the record company keep a record of all the console settings, Drum tunings etc...so that they can still use the same setting or change a bit depends on the addition of any instruments when the band comes in for their next album project?
 
I think most of the Ted Templeman produced Van Halen albums sound the same (great) no matter what the album is.
 
just a thought.

 

[Dev Avidon]

Quote:

Question to the Audiophile record producers of this forum:
 
If the production of an album comes out crispy and great, why cant the record company keep a record of all the console settings, Drum tunings etc...so that they can still use the same setting or change a bit depends on the addition of any instruments when the band comes in for their next album project?
 
I think most of the Ted Templeman produced Van Halen albums sound the same (great) no matter what the album is.
 
just a thought.

There's a lot more that goes into than that; take drummers, for example.  I've worked with quite a number, but just as an example, on my first album I worked with Benny Koonyevsky, who's a pretty laid back, easy flow kind of drummer.  It was pretty easy to tweak things to fit his sound and style because he keeps a pretty even feel and groove.  On my upcoming album, I worked with Karl Latham, who is the exact opposite.  He's a tone and detail fanatic, brought all his own kits; we subbed out different mics, tuned his toms/snares differently, even flat out changed out entire cymbal racks depending on the track and the way he wanted to play.  If I'd taken the same approach twice it would have sounded absolutely godawful.  As another point of reference, take my guitarist, Oz Noy, who did both albums.  Line 6 sponsors him, so practically every time I see him he has new gear.  Even if you were to leave all the equipment the same, play styles and compositional concepts change (or at least should) in between albums.  My upcoming album sounds nothing like my first one, nor should it.  Yes there are certain production styles that most audiophiles are never going to value (the "more side-chain compression is always good" camp especially), but apart from that, it's not a one size fits all proposition.
 
On another note, in keeping with this thread, my vote is for You Are the Quarry - Morrissey.  I love Morrissey.  I love the Smiths.  I liked the low-budget, indie production that early Smiths albums had.  There's something appealing in a lot of ways to me about presenting a raw product like that, warts and all.  I love the Pogues for the same reason.  No it's not great production, but the emotional timbre of it is there, and really, at the point where one has produced all the life and soulful imperfection out of an album it's no longer compelling to listen to (in my mind).  That was the first Morrissey album that I just couldn't listen to on account of the production alone.  It makes it feel trite and popstar-esque.  And for the love of God, you'd think they could at least get the preamps level from song to song!

 

[Pachikara]

very good explanation, thanks, but if the same band with the same members go back to the studio and chooses a different producer, why cant they demand the same quality album recording ?
 
sorry for being naive about this, but just being curious.

 

[mibutenma]

Quote:

UFO-1 seems much better than Making Contact in my opinion, but still sound bad though, I agree.

 

You might have a bad copy.
I read a review about Making Contact that non Chrysalis cd release of it had horrible SQ.
Perhaps pick up the 2009 remaster/reissue. I have no issues with it and its not brickwalled.
 

 

[aspenx]

Sorry, but I'm not getting it. How do you guys know it's the recording that's not up to mark and not the gear?
 
I have a problem with an album that I really like to listen to but whatever I do (so far), the bass doesn't sound tight and the trebles seem to "crumble away" at some points. I don't know what's wrong because other music that I run through my system sounds great to me, except this album (and excluding non-lossless files). Does it mean this certain album is badly produced? How do I ascertain where the weakest link or bottleneck is when I listen to it?

 

[Meliboeus]

Most of the album referred to in this thread do not suffer from subtle imperfections at some points in the recording, but show evident faults whose impact on perceived sound quality can be subjective : bad mixing, some instruments being covered by others, vocals too loud or too lean, people might disagree on those points to some extent; For example someone has mentioned Rising, while i don't think it's that terrible, but not good either.
 
However the "badly mastered" label can derive from technical faults on a recording, digital clipping, excessive compression, sibilance etc, no hi-fi system will make Death Magnetic sound good, that's a badly produced album.
 
For example compare these two tracks
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaNt5S9pibQ
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV59Rc35Lpw
 
Even in youtube quality, it's pretty evident Aja will sound awesome on just anything, and no audio system will take the muddyness away from Born Again.
 
 
 

 

[aspenx]

I think I get what you mean now.
 
Another question, can we assume that mastering quality is significantly consistent between tracks in the same album? I just noticed that I have issues with just a couple of tracks from the album I'm trying to properly listen to (I just biased my LT1364 in my amp to class A and it does sound better now though).

 

[Pachikara]

so here is my wild thought to the Black Sabbath listeners.
 
in 1982, If Sabbath had chosen the same producer and the same console settigs that they had in 1969, Born Again would have come out as crispier as their debut.

 

[chum_2000_uk]

 
Quote:

Some say its him others say its Greg Fidelman.
I remember reading something about Rick saying it wasn't me it was Greg.But then it was okay so why do you let Greg work for you still?
He also mixed/engineer Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication

Californication is probably the worst album I've heard in terms of compression and clipping. I used to have that album permanently on repeat about ten years ago - now that my gear is a lot better (and my ear for music quality) I simply cannot listen to it. There are not many albums that are so badly recorded/engineered that I find myself not enjoying the music, but Californication unfortunately is one of those rare ones.

 

[Currawong]

Early digital recordings are awful.  I remember looking on the back of CDs for AAD (Analogue recording, Analogue mastering before Digital conversion to CD) as "DDD" music such as Enya's Watermark just sounds awful.  Another one is the Nigel Kennedy's Vivaldi - The Four Seasons.  Absolutely amazing interpretation of Vivaldi's work, but the recording sounds very dull.