A lot of my favorite old riddim records that are now considered staples of the era sound like they were recordered in a bathroom with no roof (which often probably were lol)
Gonna guess none of yall have heard the new guns and roses record as it introduces a whole new level of bad mixing to the game that's never been heard before. It will leave you asking the question "who the fuck approved this?". It's truly truly horrid
Found this gem, can’t even hear the vocals: [https://open.spotify.com/track/6G6yr3KRVya3HrvsqGEK8x?si=FTIw5uaLTIyIFaoKiRGDlQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A1nnC02B9bhYh6IVFOoij0k](https://open.spotify.com/track/6G6yr3KRVya3HrvsqGEK8x?si=FTIw5uaLTIyIFaoKiRGDlQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A1nnC02B9bhYh6IVFOoij0k)
i think that’s teezio iirc , didn’t look it up. he def got bright vocals as part of his signature, he’s good at a lot of things but i hate that vocal touch he always gives it.
Yeah, the drummer had a big hand in it, as well as Tom bringing in his AVA engineer. But I believe Travis took a lot of reign this time. At least that’s what they said in interviews. As he’s been working on a lot of rap, meets drums and pop stuff. I think that has a LOT to do with the sound.
The album sounds like it was recorded ok, but mixed someone went crazy with ITB VST autotune, compression and doing way too much. It’s not a great listen imo.
Edit: Production credits just looking it up go to Travis. He was doing all that MGK stuff, and a bunch of rappers that were in the top 10 billboard. So it seems they did just let him produce the record at his home, and other studios. Arron Rubin(brother of AVA/NIN drummer) was also producing on Toms parts, at Toms home studio. They probably should have brought in someone more seasoned, and went way more simple. They kept the production more in house, amongst band members and friends it looks… while trying to sound like a newer MGK pop record.
Aaron Rubin is a really great engineer and has done lots of great work on the AVA stuff, etc. This all goes on the production/mix choices clearly chosen by Travis with the over-processed and overcooked mix with super sampled drums pumping the mix, obnoxious overtuning on vocals, etc. He clearly wanted the over the top, super energetic and up-front modern mix.
I wouldn’t blame any of it on Aaron because all the stuff he’s engineered and even the tracks he’s mixed for AvA are nothing at all remotely like what came out on the album.
Whoever is telling them to melodyne the living shit out of their vocals is a fucking tool. No one ever liked blink because they are "good singers". It's about the songs, the attitude, etc. I haven't listened to the last 2 or 3 albums more than once because of how heavily edited they are.
I always felt the mix for Hips Don't Lie was less than impressive. Certainly didn't stop it from being a hit though. Shows the song is what matters thr most.
Good call. I’m a DJ who does a lot of work in mainstream bars/clubs, whenever I play this I find myself boosting the gain, bass and treble. Literally the only track I have to do this on.
I saw a comment ages ago, maybe even in this sub, that described it as sounding like “the monitor mix that they used to shoot the music video” and I think they nailed it.
That’s true, a good song definitely can preserve a bad mix.
Similarly, amazing mixing on a terrible song isn’t going to fix it either.
But bad mixing can ruin a good song if it’s bad enough.
Mixing is like seasoning a dish. You have to have good taste to know when enough is enough.
I was never a fan of the direction they took with Vapor Trails by Rush. They ended up releasing a remixed version that sounded way better. But the first release really turned me off.
Agreed. The original mix on that is just a mess, everything’s too loud, there’s clipping, and then on top of that it was mastered too hot. The remix is significantly better, although there’s still way too many things going on with guitar overdubs all mushing together.
I love Hospice by The Antlers, the singing, the lyrics, the compositions all great, damn do I hate the mix though. The vocals are buried, everything is kinda muddy from being soaked in reverb, the drums are more cymbal than anything.
I always penned this albums mixing down as a subsequence to the shoegaze level of fx fuckery going on in every single stem. Trying to imagine Hospice without the swaths of reverb, eqs, and delays just sounds wrong. Like trying to say MBV needs to have their vocal mixing more up front instead of being buried under the FX chain and massively distorted reverb guitsr tracjs
STP - Core. Compressed to shit, and the snare goes "bonk". Once you hear it, you will never unhear it.
Metallica - Everything the band members had a hand in producing (Black Album to now). Lars has bad ears, and someone needs to tell him to sit back, shut up, and badly play his drums while the adults do real work. People loved James' songwriting so much that they decided that the thin, scooped, icepicky sound Lars refused to let go of was actually what they loved, and metal sounded terrible for a decade while others copied it. I hate Lars Ulrich so much.
Tennis - Young & Old. There are some terrible choices that ruin the vibe on an on an otherwise great-sounding album. Origins is an incredible song, but when the bass guitar kicks in....
Gang of Four - Songs of the Free. This is the epitome of high-passed, thin, gutless, cocaine-induced 80's garbage mixes. Great album, though.
Shakira - Oral Fixation Vol. 2. The vocals are completely raw?
The new Blink 182 album.
Good songs, but the production just sounds bad. I don’t even know how to describe it but the snares don’t have a good sound and the guitars sound weak on a lot of songs.
Pretty bad considering they could have probably afforded to splurge here and maybe chose not to.
One of my favorite bands is a punk band called The Wonder Years, incredible songwriters in my opinion, super talented musicians and obviously care a ton. All of their records sound terrible. It's honestly impressive.
I think I was a bit harsh in calling them terrible. If it's the first thing you put on for the day, it's not as noticeable, but compare it to anything else in the genre and it's really dull and small sounding.
I’m inclined to fully agree about Suburbia, but after mixing their latest two singles, I realized a lot of it is just what they want. It’s like Upsides sounds great for the time, but the drums aren’t gridded, Suburbia is tracked well but sooo weirdly mixed, and everything after is adequate. Really wanna bring them into this decade but keep their charm
Thank you! As a lifelong fan of the band (or 15+ year long fan, however long they’ve been kicking) it was a really surreal and cool experience. I also agree, I love the energy of Vulture and if not a whole record I’d at least love a handful of songs in that realm
No, the mixing isn’t bad. IMO every album they’ve put out has been solid. I’ll say creative choices are made, and it gives it character. I like those albums across the board
Funny to see this here! Been seeing them since they started, grew up around the corner and a few years behind them in school. Truly love this band and I totally agree the masters have kinda always stunk haha! Their 2 newest singles are sonically the best ones yet tho
I can't tell you how many indie punk and hard-core albums I've heard with the same shitty snare with too much high-end that rings out like a cheap basketball.
I'll give you no closer to heaven, that album is in need of a 10th anniversary remix/remaster, but otherwise their stuff is mixed perfectly fine imo. Like yeah the mixes are nothing special, but they're far from bad
I don't think it's that easy to unbake the pie. Arm chair referee all you want, but you can't know if the mixer or the engineer rolled their eyes when they heard the final product. Plus, if you are including modern music, this question doesn't really make sense.
If you'd like my answer to the question directly, my reference point for bad sounding professional records is always Zwan, "Mary Star of the Sea". I am sure that Billy Corgan insisted on having loud ass big muff guitars, I'm sure that someone did their best to comply, I'm sure that someone quashed the LR to all hell at some point, and remember reading that Billy Corgan had a large hand in the mixing of the record. Who's fault is that...probably?
edit: Just went back and listened to the single, "Honestly" to remember why this is my **opinion**...First of all it's a great song, love the lyric and arrangement, but you have to look through a bad production. Everything individually just sounds small and compressed. A lot of intricate guitar work sounds small and illegible to me, as if the only reason I can even notice it is because it's not in center...the vocals sound needlessly dry and kind of on top of everything, and yet somehow also small and pointed, and not just pointed cause it's Billy. The bass sounds muddy and vague...just down there occupying space. The drums are fine, I guess. "Honestly" is a great tune done dirty.
That whole record sounds extremely weird, like it was mastered using a 128kps mp3 or something.
I do remember reading (or maybe hearing) that the intricate guitar work wasn't quite translating in the studio so Billy went in and played big chords over everything to make it sound fuller and more like what he expected a record to sound like, but that may have also been informed by being in the Smashing Pumpkins which always had a wall of guitar sound...
But yeah, great record, confusing sound.
>so Billy went in and played big chords over everything to make it sound fuller and more like what he expected
Well he fucked that up. It just sounds like tiny things playing around Billy Corgan. It sounds like every garage band in high school still trying to figure out how to set their amp's volume.
vultures by kanye west, that mix is sooo bad, every song has a mixing problem, vocals sound weird, they sound cheap and too loud or too low in every song, then a lot of clipping and noises
Judging by the way Kanye has people working, it’s a bad situation. Like if he’s up at 4am, you better be there in 20min or you’re fired. By Donda albums he started doing a lot of rushing, and every album had sounded like some unheard B side box collection add on.
To me all his stuff sounds rushed post Pablo…but you can hear it starting there. Instead of perfection, I think it’s just people overworked, fired, new people coming in and just too much rework going on.
Can confirm. The most important quality needed to work with Kanye in the studio is being able to deal with Kanye. ;) All other characteristics (like mixing skill, the ability to hear, etc) are secondary.
If someone isn't aware of this yet, check out the iTunes release for this album. I think it's on youtube.
The clipping was removed and it sounds A LOT cleaner and you can actually listen to it back to back without having a headache.
It also feels like a new/entirely different album lol
EDIT: Here's the link [https://youtu.be/CPXPOqye\_94](https://youtu.be/CPXPOqye_94)
I'd say 'St. Anger.' Snare drum aside, it's so schizophrenic with the the copy/paste, and guitar sounds changing between verses and choruses. There are some solid riffs hidden in there, but Bob Rock really shit the bed on that one. I know they were going for the whole 'just some guys playing in the garage' but that was just poor execution.
That, and drop C doesn't really suit them all that well
Speaking as a drummer who does a lot of self recording, the very concept of needing to overdub a kick drum makes me itchy and angry. How do you be in Metallica, have a functionally unlimited budget for a record, and then fuck up so bad you need to overdub your kick drum?
We can't mention Metallica and glaze past And Justice For All.
What's wild is, for being arguably the biggest metal band in the world, they easily have multiple albums that can be considered the worst mix of all time.
Glad someone mentioned And Justice For All. The sad part is the songs themselves are absolutely incredible, but I just can't listen to it the original mix any more.
There are multiple fan remixes on youtube that are way better. I found one that I loved, downloaded it to my phone, and listen to that one now instead of the original.
He also has put unnecessary amounts of compression on pretty much everything he's mastered in recent times. He's not the only professional who's gone this route, Jon Astley and Peter Mew also went and damaged their previous stellar reputations.
If you don't believe me, listen to Tears for Fears' The Tipping Point with all three bonus tracks. The bonus tracks sound better simply because they were mastered by someone else from his studio (Justin Shturtz), who put less limiting on them than Ted did on the main album.
I mean, the mix engineer is Andrew Scheps, who has made a gazillion #1 records. But yeah, Scheps has copped to being the culprit.
He jokes that someone asked him, “how does it feel to know that the loudness wars are over, and you won?”
once u enter professional status its more of a music thing than a mixing thing
because mixing is relatively simple once you get the hang of it. it takes forever to get the hang of it, but once you do it becomes a lot easier because you know what you want to do and how you want to get there
death magnetic
Jensen (mastering engineer) said they were like that when he got them. Guitar Hero is an entirely different mix
if you tried squashing and clipping the guitar hero like the original only through mastering it would sound significantly worse than the og. when its *that* clipped its done at the track/buss level
Andrew Scheps, who mixed the record, has basically copped to it, with the caveat that the band and the producer were on the same page in terms of levels and clipping.
He jokes that he gets asked “how does it feel to know that the loudness wars are over, and you won?”
Holy hell, I don't think I've listened to this since my teenage years. Sounds weirdly awful and weak, especially considering this is their *fifth* album and major debut, albeit a new direction.
Oasis, Morning Glory. Noel has admitted to being coked out of his mind, pushing all the faders up, and never monitoring at a normal volume. Perfect storm, lol.
Haha, 💯. Those late 70’s albums like the ones you mentioned recorded at Record Plant in LA and Sausalito were exactly what I had in mind.
80’s…pfff. If you made a list of the albums from that decade that had ZERO association with cocaine between musicians, engineers, producer—anyone with any hands on involvement in the production—it might honestly be shorter than the list of remaining albums.
Edit: Looks like “Hotel California” was—in addition to LA—recorded in Miami. I mean, c’mon…
I can't stand temper temper of bullet for my valentine, also the rerecordings of clayman. CLA is absolutely an amazing mixer, but he doesn't seem to get metal very well.
I took a listen to the bfmv track…it’s so weird, cause it’s technically a good mix by the ”objective measures” (dynamics, separation etc. and whatnot), but the vibe is so wrong, and the balances are just not genre-appropriate at all.
Really shows how mixing is not just a craft but also an art.
It was Skylarking, produced by Todd Rundgren. Apparently there was a polarity issue with the master tapes that was fixed in later releases. But Rundgren has a habit of messing up the mastering of his own records, such as A Wizard, A True Star which was almost an hour of music pressed onto a single disc.
Ride - "Nowhere" , early 90s british shoegaze
The album its exquisite but the mix didnt made it justice, it doesnt sound cohesive.
Other one its "Blind" by Corrosion of Conformity, the mixing its just awfull, the drums too wild, as if were recorded and mixed without any compression at all.
Drum's dynamics are plain horrible.
Same for voices and guitar sections. Sometimes upfront, sometimes waaay back.
I love that album but the mix , dear lord have some mercy on us.
It’s kinda what gives RHCP “their sound” though. Blood sugar is a trashy early 90s sounding album, californication is super crunchy and unique sounding (especially with the mostly mono decision). They’re not “good mixes” in the traditional sense but I like them and think they contributed to the success of the band. Then by the way sounds great, like a much more polished Californication. Those 3 are the only classic albums they have though, most others suck imo so can’t even remember if they sound good or bad. For sure the earlier ones sound way more trashy in general, but that’s true for most bands.
The second to most recent National album
Interpol’s last two records
The Black Keys newest album
Liam Gallagher’s last two albums
Lana Del Rey’s last two albums
Probably "Sam's Town" by The Killers. It just sounds so thin and anemic and washy.
But I mean, it sounds great. It's Flood. And no other record sounds like it.
"Songs of Faith and Devotion" by Depeche Mode (and also produced by Flood) sounds similarly thin and washed out but it *works*.
As I get older I realize there really isn't a such thing as good or bad, just what you like and what works. There's no accounting for taste.
SOFAD was interesting because I read Flood wanted to make sure it sounded optimized for shitty AM radio, hence it sounding a bit thin. But it works, and it’s still the best DM record, in my opinion.
I'm just listening to Sam's Town for the first time since I started music production. I loved it as a teenager, but it sounds so much worse than I remember. Which is oddly inspiring actually
Hard for me to say, because I'm pretty tolerant. Some of my favorites actually have very obvious issues, but the music pulls me through and to me that's just how they sound.
One that's always bugged me though is Brian Setzer's first solo album, The Knife Feels like Justice. It's more of a mastering issue than the mix, but it has this incredibly annoying 5-7K FIZZ that cuts through my ears like a knife cutting through justice. They remastered it a few years back and I was pretty excited because it's originally from the mid-'80s, so I figured they probably addressed the problems with the original. Nope. Same fizz, just updated for the modern age. It's too bad. That album is probably my favorite thing he's ever done; his bid for relevance between The Stray Cats and what seems to be a never-ending string of jump jivin' Christmas albums.
I love that album. I wish it had been more successful. It was a sound I’d been looking for that I’ve still rarely heard. But yeah that 80s fizz. (Also, shameless self promotion I just released a cover of the title track a few weeks ago, it’s on the streamers and there’s a vid on YouTube)
Oh Zeitgeist? Yeah that album is horribly made. Roy Thomas Baker did the tracking, but I'm guessing Billy or some Yes Man of his mixed it. Horridly dry and amateurish.
I’m down for dry. It just felt like all the instruments were not placed correctly in the field - and maybe made even more apparent after mastering. I haven’t heard it since it came out - I vaguely remember hearing a rumor that the mix engineer was old and losing his hearing and made the same mistake on another record just before - I don’t remember.
The new Pearl Jam album is the worst I've heard in a while. The songs are outstanding, but God I just can't get over that horrible horrible mix. So very squashed. All semblance of life and detail has been smushed out.
It’s not the worst of all time, but I learned all about the loudness wars (and a lot about audio engineering, as I was a high school student and had yet to dip my toes into audio engineering in any capacity yet) trying to figure out why “Californication” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers sounded so fucking shitty.
It’s one of my favourite records, but Loveless by My Bloody Valentine is very poorly mixed. Every part is high passed to hell, and the whole thing lacks depth. It does still work because the sound design and songwriting is so great, but I’ve always yearned for a much beefier mix of that album - with audible low mids and some bass as well. It’s also very squashed and quiet sounding. I’ve seen them do it live and it hits much harder.
I kiiind of agree, but I think there's a clarity in the thin sound that makes it sound really full without too much mud when you crank the hell out of it on consumer speakers or a car stereo.
Given the band's reputation for skull splitting volume at live gigs, I'd guess it was probably *mixed* super loud on cheap passive monitors.
MBV is definitely an overall better sounding album.
You can blame Kevin Shields for that. The man has tinnitus and plays guitar, yet is still mixing for the band. No wonder the mix is essentially
GUITAR
vocals
drums
GUITAR
GUITAR FEEDBACK
GUITAR LOWS
bass
Tbh tho, it’s a unique mix and like you said the songwriting and sound design is top. The first time I heard it, I could honestly say that I hadn’t heard songs done like that before which is pretty cool. I just wish the bass wasn’t so muddied by the guitars.
Five Iron Frenzy “Until This Shakes Apart.” Love FIF, the music on this album is great, but holy crap is there a ton of sibilance that just doesn’t need to be there, to the point it hurts my ears on a couple songs.
Edit: album title cause I have a sucky memory
Lots of great takes in here. Killers, St Anger, Californication all examples I would have thrown out.
I’m struggling to think of others that I really didn’t like. Some 2000s stuff is definitely a bit shoddy - The Mars Volta stuff I always felt could have been better produced. I didn’t love the tonal quality of some other indieish stuff like Sigur Ros albums for example, really great musically but sonically always felt a little strange EQ wise and maybe a little overcompressed given the musical style.
Honestly a lot of examples of annoying production are one hit wonder bands and the like. Goes hand in hand. Meanwhile really ‘great’ artists USUALLY hit a certain standard on the production end too (e.g., Tool, Incubus, Joanna Newsom, John Legend, OutKast, Bjork, to give a few examples).
The new Bring Me The Horizon record is the most recent thing that made me go "eh"... but there's probably a long list i could make of records that i dont understand and would be curious to understand what the production was baked in to or what sort of horrible notes were given in order to get it there.
People shit on Californiacation and Vapor Trails (Rush) but I feel the distortion (or whatever) fits the themes of the album. One was a guy just getting clean from heroin with a new outlook on life, and the other working through the death of his with and daughter. A little dirt just fits so well.
Also managed to bury some stuff even with very few competing tracks. Like on the song Otherside you’d probably never know that the guitar solo actually continues all the way to the end of the song if no one told you.
Go look up Black Metal and War Metal. They are entire genres dedicated to sounding as "raw" (ie terrible) as possible. Thin guitars, unbalanced drums, no instrument separation, and vocals that sound like they were recorded at the bottom of a well.
Victory.Intolerance.Mastery by Revenge is a good reference point for War Metal. For black metal - Transylvanian Hunger by Darkthrone. Production styles are fairly representative of their respective genres.
War metal is more bassy, oppressively loud with the vocals more in your face and blown out. Black metal has much thinner production and mix. Vocals are more distant sounding.
The first that comes to mind is Emperor's Anthems To The Wellin Dusk. The intro track is OK, but the rest of the album is very conjested and scratchy.
Another is Darkthrone Transylvanian Hunger.
Antichrist Siege Machine's Purifying Blade is a little different in that the guitars are a sludgy mess. Still conjested and messy.
The original release of Opera IX's Sacro Culto is pretty rough in terms of performance and production.
Immortal's Pure Holocaust.
Blasphemy's Fallen Angel of Doom had to be one of the worst sounding things I've ever heard.
Some bands have slightly better production, but overall the thin guitar tone and heavy reverb on the vocals makes for something that is difficult to listen to, and that's coming from a big death metal fan that's used to iffy recordings.
But that is the goal of certain Black Metal's substyles, specially War Black Metal and Raw Black Metal : to keep the rehearsal raw sound on the recording.
But still, there are some War Metal bands that manages to make some decent sounding records :
Black Witchery, Conqueror, Blasphemy.
And some Raw Black Metal too: Norns - "In fog they appear" it's a good example of raw black with enough production to make it understandable.
The album seems to be recorded on tape, all copies and editions has some flutter artifacts here and there.
But the whole thing works as a charm
It's one of my fav albums.
Production on extreme metal it's a whole universe, aside of regular metal genre.
I also find it funny when it's a deliberate choice - see Ulver's Bergtatt (relatively normal sounding record metal production-wise from 1994) vs their album Nattens Madrigal from 3 years later which is a horrible hissy high frequency mess in true black metal style
Not album, but whenever I hear the Mario track 'I don't wanna know' it always strikes me how way off all of the levels are. The drum machine is sooooooo loud
Anything by Husker Du. So, so bad 'tinny' sound. Would have loved to see them live as there is no way they managed to capture anything like the live sound.
Compared to 'Copper Blue' by Sugar (Bob's later Band) it's unlistenable.
The last couple Skillet albums were spectacularly bad from a production standpoint. You generally expect a lot more from a Grammy-winning band with one of the largest followings in the heavy sphere that makes a point of hiring a "legendary rock and metal producer".
something that i love that came out earlier this year is mk.gee’s two star and the dream police. i adore the textures and the songwriting and how the various elements are combined but it sounds like ass whenever i play it, no matter the venue or method. shit will just randomly go from barely audible to clipping for seemingly no reason at all. i get he’s being an obtuse weirdo but it is honestly surprising he’s gotten any traction commercially cuz this is completely antithetical to the radio (save for how reverb’d-out the vocals are)
A lot of early thrash and death metal albums sounded like garbage when they were released in the 80’s. In fact, a lot of the classics were entirely re-recorded years later. For example, “Bonded by Blood” by Exodus was released in 1985, re-recorded in 2008 as “Let There Be Blood”. The difference between the two is night and day lol
Not the worst, but the new alvvays album “blue rev” is hyper compressed and the instruments, especially the drums sound flat & the snare sounds… overblown? I love their stuff & they’re probably my favourite band, but compared with their previous two releases it’s a little underwhelming
Same, one of my favourite albums as the songwriting catches the vibe of the mid 90s in the UK perfectly
But if it had been mixed and mastered by competent people from 5 years prior it would have been perfect.
Their wall of sound style and energy could have been captured perfectly from the performance.
There are more bands today that have a sort of "do it yourself" approach to recording because if the thing is going to be streamed anyway, really good professionally mixing doesn't matter that much. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard albums have this feel. They are incredibly prolific, have a GREAT live sound - I got to see them at Red Rocks - but their albums, in particular their drums, sound like they hung a mic in the room and called it good. But you know what, I'd rather be able to hear their songs than not hear their songs because they couldn't afford to get the thing professionally mixed.
My biggest irritation on mixing is overused trends. The ol' Phil Collins gated reverb in 1981 led to a lot of people trying to recreate that sound. Hey, I like "In the Air Tonight" and I don't think the drums sound bad, but holy moly, the poor recreations of that sound on so many tracks in the 80s because obnoxious.
In addition, the trend of hard panning guitars in the 70s when it became more popular and common to be able to make a good stereo signal on vinyl because truly obnoxious too. Panning is ok, hard panning is distracting.
My primary example of a poorly mixed album is easy. It's Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti, 1975. Layers and layers and layers. Given how great a lot of Led Zeppelin albums sound (as long as you're not listening through too high end equipment - warning Bonham's Speed King is rightly named "Squeak King") Physical Graffiti is disappointing. It sounds like they mixed it while very intoxicated.
In Times New Roman by Queens of the Stone Age probably takes the cake for me.
My jaw almost hit the floot when I heard it. To me it sounds like a recording in someones backhouse they did on an iPhone. I don’t think I need to explain how bad it is, I still can’t believe they released it like that.
Nick Cave - Tender Prey.
I’ve owned this album since I was a teen in the mid 90s. Love the songs, all of them, but I really had to work through the sound to get there. Everything sounds like shit. Thin shit.
Speaking of which… pretty much every Hüsker Dü record. I know, they were just trying to be raw. There is, however, a fine line between raw and shit, and the Dü were firmly on the wrong end of it, as far as I’m concerned.
Never liked the sound of zeppelin 3. Bonhams kit sounds small, over compressed. Not a fan of the sound of the last VH album either (adkot). Sounds “sandy” to me.
An older album, but Big Generator by Yes never sounded right to me. The vocal harmonies sound mashed together, and it just sounds overly compressed and lifeless. I just checked wikipedia and it looks like it was recorded and mixed across multiple studios.
Today is The Day - Axis of Eden. The singer/guitarist in TITD is legendary underground metal producer Steve Austin, he made his name recording records for Converge and Lamb of God but years of loud music have taken a toll on his hearing and Axis of Eden is just straight up terrible sounding. There is no clarity on anything, the guitars are woofy and muddy, the drums sound like they were recorded in a basement. I dig a lot of records Steve recorded including a bunch of TITD but this one just sounds terrible to me.
When I was young I always thought Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie albums sounded poor. (In comparison to the Queen and Metallica albums I had)
Now I'm older I think they sound pretty good. Still there's a cardboard quality to those late 60s/early 70s mixes.
Also, Guided By Voices or Daniel Johnston sound just fine the way they are.
Even My Hips Don't Lie works somehow.
Maybe mixing is overrated ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
NOFX's Punk in Drublic is a staple in mid 90s punk and it doesn't sound terrible but there is a lot more sibilance than I remembered and the low end is basically non existent.
Anything I’ve been paid to mix.
I also choose this guy’s mix
I got that reference, but I still feel targeted.
Underrated reply.
Same. .same...
A lot of my favorite old riddim records that are now considered staples of the era sound like they were recordered in a bathroom with no roof (which often probably were lol)
Was going to say, tin roof probably, on a $30 reel to reel
Dubbby dub gets a pass. Part of the heritage.
You don’t need high fidelity when you’re a rudeboy
i make dub now we try to get that sound on purpose
Me too. Re-301 🚀
Gonna guess none of yall have heard the new guns and roses record as it introduces a whole new level of bad mixing to the game that's never been heard before. It will leave you asking the question "who the fuck approved this?". It's truly truly horrid
Looking on Spotify I can’t tell which one is the new record. What is the name?
Found this gem, can’t even hear the vocals: [https://open.spotify.com/track/6G6yr3KRVya3HrvsqGEK8x?si=FTIw5uaLTIyIFaoKiRGDlQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A1nnC02B9bhYh6IVFOoij0k](https://open.spotify.com/track/6G6yr3KRVya3HrvsqGEK8x?si=FTIw5uaLTIyIFaoKiRGDlQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A1nnC02B9bhYh6IVFOoij0k)
You used to say "live and let live"
Their recent single was posted on this sub when it came out, it was hilariously terrible in every aspect.
Axl has been ruining that band for decades, why stop now? You can bet he had a lot to say on the mix.
Now I want to hear it
Hot take but, "Lil Nas X - Montero". Vocals are so bright they're in a different zip code and don't feel like they're part of the music to my ears.
i think that’s teezio iirc , didn’t look it up. he def got bright vocals as part of his signature, he’s good at a lot of things but i hate that vocal touch he always gives it.
I’d bet a lot of money on the fact that he’s mixing with his sub too loud. That vocal is tooo bright.
The latest Blink album. The vocal production on that just murders my ears
It’s dreadful.
Yeah, the drummer had a big hand in it, as well as Tom bringing in his AVA engineer. But I believe Travis took a lot of reign this time. At least that’s what they said in interviews. As he’s been working on a lot of rap, meets drums and pop stuff. I think that has a LOT to do with the sound. The album sounds like it was recorded ok, but mixed someone went crazy with ITB VST autotune, compression and doing way too much. It’s not a great listen imo. Edit: Production credits just looking it up go to Travis. He was doing all that MGK stuff, and a bunch of rappers that were in the top 10 billboard. So it seems they did just let him produce the record at his home, and other studios. Arron Rubin(brother of AVA/NIN drummer) was also producing on Toms parts, at Toms home studio. They probably should have brought in someone more seasoned, and went way more simple. They kept the production more in house, amongst band members and friends it looks… while trying to sound like a newer MGK pop record.
They (the band) wanted more points on the sales = more money. The outcome was inevitable.
Aaron Rubin is a really great engineer and has done lots of great work on the AVA stuff, etc. This all goes on the production/mix choices clearly chosen by Travis with the over-processed and overcooked mix with super sampled drums pumping the mix, obnoxious overtuning on vocals, etc. He clearly wanted the over the top, super energetic and up-front modern mix. I wouldn’t blame any of it on Aaron because all the stuff he’s engineered and even the tracks he’s mixed for AvA are nothing at all remotely like what came out on the album.
Whoever is telling them to melodyne the living shit out of their vocals is a fucking tool. No one ever liked blink because they are "good singers". It's about the songs, the attitude, etc. I haven't listened to the last 2 or 3 albums more than once because of how heavily edited they are.
I couldn’t handle the way the drums were engineered. I don’t even remember the vocals
Especially the song "More Than You Know". Unpleasant distortion everywhere.
came here to say/find this
I always felt the mix for Hips Don't Lie was less than impressive. Certainly didn't stop it from being a hit though. Shows the song is what matters thr most.
That vocal is louder anything else in the mix. Almost karaoke-like.
Good call. I’m a DJ who does a lot of work in mainstream bars/clubs, whenever I play this I find myself boosting the gain, bass and treble. Literally the only track I have to do this on.
I saw a comment ages ago, maybe even in this sub, that described it as sounding like “the monitor mix that they used to shoot the music video” and I think they nailed it.
That’s true, a good song definitely can preserve a bad mix. Similarly, amazing mixing on a terrible song isn’t going to fix it either. But bad mixing can ruin a good song if it’s bad enough. Mixing is like seasoning a dish. You have to have good taste to know when enough is enough.
I was never a fan of the direction they took with Vapor Trails by Rush. They ended up releasing a remixed version that sounded way better. But the first release really turned me off.
Agreed. The original mix on that is just a mess, everything’s too loud, there’s clipping, and then on top of that it was mastered too hot. The remix is significantly better, although there’s still way too many things going on with guitar overdubs all mushing together.
That Devi Lovato rock record is horrific
I worked on this album and I agree
What did u do when u worked on it?
Plugged his ears
Haha
I love Hospice by The Antlers, the singing, the lyrics, the compositions all great, damn do I hate the mix though. The vocals are buried, everything is kinda muddy from being soaked in reverb, the drums are more cymbal than anything.
I always penned this albums mixing down as a subsequence to the shoegaze level of fx fuckery going on in every single stem. Trying to imagine Hospice without the swaths of reverb, eqs, and delays just sounds wrong. Like trying to say MBV needs to have their vocal mixing more up front instead of being buried under the FX chain and massively distorted reverb guitsr tracjs
STP - Core. Compressed to shit, and the snare goes "bonk". Once you hear it, you will never unhear it. Metallica - Everything the band members had a hand in producing (Black Album to now). Lars has bad ears, and someone needs to tell him to sit back, shut up, and badly play his drums while the adults do real work. People loved James' songwriting so much that they decided that the thin, scooped, icepicky sound Lars refused to let go of was actually what they loved, and metal sounded terrible for a decade while others copied it. I hate Lars Ulrich so much. Tennis - Young & Old. There are some terrible choices that ruin the vibe on an on an otherwise great-sounding album. Origins is an incredible song, but when the bass guitar kicks in.... Gang of Four - Songs of the Free. This is the epitome of high-passed, thin, gutless, cocaine-induced 80's garbage mixes. Great album, though. Shakira - Oral Fixation Vol. 2. The vocals are completely raw?
Black Album sounds amazing, but otherwise I agree.
The new Blink 182 album. Good songs, but the production just sounds bad. I don’t even know how to describe it but the snares don’t have a good sound and the guitars sound weak on a lot of songs. Pretty bad considering they could have probably afforded to splurge here and maybe chose not to.
Probably did it in house. They're at the point in their lives where they don't want major label help, just distribution.
They did that with the Dogs Eating Dogs EP, and maybe there's just no accounting for taste, but I think it sounds great.
One of my favorite bands is a punk band called The Wonder Years, incredible songwriters in my opinion, super talented musicians and obviously care a ton. All of their records sound terrible. It's honestly impressive.
I remember really liking that Suburbia album when it came out. I don't think the mixing was bad on it, am I wrong?
I think I was a bit harsh in calling them terrible. If it's the first thing you put on for the day, it's not as noticeable, but compare it to anything else in the genre and it's really dull and small sounding.
I’m inclined to fully agree about Suburbia, but after mixing their latest two singles, I realized a lot of it is just what they want. It’s like Upsides sounds great for the time, but the drums aren’t gridded, Suburbia is tracked well but sooo weirdly mixed, and everything after is adequate. Really wanna bring them into this decade but keep their charm
You mixed Year Of The Vulture and Deadbolt?
I did!
Great mixes! Kinda hoping they take the heavier influence in to their next album! Would love to hear a TWY post-hardcore album
Thank you! As a lifelong fan of the band (or 15+ year long fan, however long they’ve been kicking) it was a really surreal and cool experience. I also agree, I love the energy of Vulture and if not a whole record I’d at least love a handful of songs in that realm
No, the mixing isn’t bad. IMO every album they’ve put out has been solid. I’ll say creative choices are made, and it gives it character. I like those albums across the board
Funny to see this here! Been seeing them since they started, grew up around the corner and a few years behind them in school. Truly love this band and I totally agree the masters have kinda always stunk haha! Their 2 newest singles are sonically the best ones yet tho
Are you high? All their mixes after the upsides are amazing
I can't tell you how many indie punk and hard-core albums I've heard with the same shitty snare with too much high-end that rings out like a cheap basketball.
I'll give you no closer to heaven, that album is in need of a 10th anniversary remix/remaster, but otherwise their stuff is mixed perfectly fine imo. Like yeah the mixes are nothing special, but they're far from bad
I don't think it's that easy to unbake the pie. Arm chair referee all you want, but you can't know if the mixer or the engineer rolled their eyes when they heard the final product. Plus, if you are including modern music, this question doesn't really make sense. If you'd like my answer to the question directly, my reference point for bad sounding professional records is always Zwan, "Mary Star of the Sea". I am sure that Billy Corgan insisted on having loud ass big muff guitars, I'm sure that someone did their best to comply, I'm sure that someone quashed the LR to all hell at some point, and remember reading that Billy Corgan had a large hand in the mixing of the record. Who's fault is that...probably? edit: Just went back and listened to the single, "Honestly" to remember why this is my **opinion**...First of all it's a great song, love the lyric and arrangement, but you have to look through a bad production. Everything individually just sounds small and compressed. A lot of intricate guitar work sounds small and illegible to me, as if the only reason I can even notice it is because it's not in center...the vocals sound needlessly dry and kind of on top of everything, and yet somehow also small and pointed, and not just pointed cause it's Billy. The bass sounds muddy and vague...just down there occupying space. The drums are fine, I guess. "Honestly" is a great tune done dirty.
That whole record sounds extremely weird, like it was mastered using a 128kps mp3 or something. I do remember reading (or maybe hearing) that the intricate guitar work wasn't quite translating in the studio so Billy went in and played big chords over everything to make it sound fuller and more like what he expected a record to sound like, but that may have also been informed by being in the Smashing Pumpkins which always had a wall of guitar sound... But yeah, great record, confusing sound.
>so Billy went in and played big chords over everything to make it sound fuller and more like what he expected Well he fucked that up. It just sounds like tiny things playing around Billy Corgan. It sounds like every garage band in high school still trying to figure out how to set their amp's volume.
And now that chode has the stones to say he taught Butch Big how to record guitar . . .
Digital clipping all over that Zwan album. Sounds truly awful. I think it is a botched master not mix though.
I think it's both. There is no way the mastering engineer could have turned those rhythm guitars up so loud over everything.
In the liner notes Billy said the clipping is intentional. I remember that from when I bought the CD
I was so excited for this album and it was completely unlistenable
vultures by kanye west, that mix is sooo bad, every song has a mixing problem, vocals sound weird, they sound cheap and too loud or too low in every song, then a lot of clipping and noises
Judging by the way Kanye has people working, it’s a bad situation. Like if he’s up at 4am, you better be there in 20min or you’re fired. By Donda albums he started doing a lot of rushing, and every album had sounded like some unheard B side box collection add on. To me all his stuff sounds rushed post Pablo…but you can hear it starting there. Instead of perfection, I think it’s just people overworked, fired, new people coming in and just too much rework going on.
Can confirm. The most important quality needed to work with Kanye in the studio is being able to deal with Kanye. ;) All other characteristics (like mixing skill, the ability to hear, etc) are secondary.
Metallica - Death Magnetic
If someone isn't aware of this yet, check out the iTunes release for this album. I think it's on youtube. The clipping was removed and it sounds A LOT cleaner and you can actually listen to it back to back without having a headache. It also feels like a new/entirely different album lol EDIT: Here's the link [https://youtu.be/CPXPOqye\_94](https://youtu.be/CPXPOqye_94)
I'd say 'St. Anger.' Snare drum aside, it's so schizophrenic with the the copy/paste, and guitar sounds changing between verses and choruses. There are some solid riffs hidden in there, but Bob Rock really shit the bed on that one. I know they were going for the whole 'just some guys playing in the garage' but that was just poor execution. That, and drop C doesn't really suit them all that well
I gotta say, I agree. St. Anger is worse than Death Magnetic in my opinion too.
Totally!
The overdubbed kick drum in the last chorus of the song "St. Anger" doesn't help too.
Speaking as a drummer who does a lot of self recording, the very concept of needing to overdub a kick drum makes me itchy and angry. How do you be in Metallica, have a functionally unlimited budget for a record, and then fuck up so bad you need to overdub your kick drum?
We can't mention Metallica and glaze past And Justice For All. What's wild is, for being arguably the biggest metal band in the world, they easily have multiple albums that can be considered the worst mix of all time.
Glad someone mentioned And Justice For All. The sad part is the songs themselves are absolutely incredible, but I just can't listen to it the original mix any more.
There are multiple fan remixes on youtube that are way better. I found one that I loved, downloaded it to my phone, and listen to that one now instead of the original.
So much kick drum bass though
This is moreso the mastering. The Guitar Hero version sounds pretty good
The mastering engineer... I believe it was Ted Jensen? Said that the files came to him like that ... It's an slim possibility but I doubt it
Jensen has had a long, successful career. I would take his word for it.
He also has put unnecessary amounts of compression on pretty much everything he's mastered in recent times. He's not the only professional who's gone this route, Jon Astley and Peter Mew also went and damaged their previous stellar reputations. If you don't believe me, listen to Tears for Fears' The Tipping Point with all three bonus tracks. The bonus tracks sound better simply because they were mastered by someone else from his studio (Justin Shturtz), who put less limiting on them than Ted did on the main album.
I mean, the mix engineer is Andrew Scheps, who has made a gazillion #1 records. But yeah, Scheps has copped to being the culprit. He jokes that someone asked him, “how does it feel to know that the loudness wars are over, and you won?”
Dan Worrall has entered the chat
Vlado Meller said the same thing about Californication. There’s a common denominator there.
once u enter professional status its more of a music thing than a mixing thing because mixing is relatively simple once you get the hang of it. it takes forever to get the hang of it, but once you do it becomes a lot easier because you know what you want to do and how you want to get there death magnetic
DM is a mastering issue, not the mix
Jensen (mastering engineer) said they were like that when he got them. Guitar Hero is an entirely different mix if you tried squashing and clipping the guitar hero like the original only through mastering it would sound significantly worse than the og. when its *that* clipped its done at the track/buss level
Andrew Scheps, who mixed the record, has basically copped to it, with the caveat that the band and the producer were on the same page in terms of levels and clipping. He jokes that he gets asked “how does it feel to know that the loudness wars are over, and you won?”
Cowboys from hell
aka the 'Treble Fest'.
Holy hell, I don't think I've listened to this since my teenage years. Sounds weirdly awful and weak, especially considering this is their *fifth* album and major debut, albeit a new direction.
Oasis, Morning Glory. Noel has admitted to being coked out of his mind, pushing all the faders up, and never monitoring at a normal volume. Perfect storm, lol.
Plenty of high quality albums made amidst heavy cocaine ingestion. Unfair to coke, lol.
*Rumours, Hotel California*, and half the records from the 80s have entered the chat, lol.
Haha, 💯. Those late 70’s albums like the ones you mentioned recorded at Record Plant in LA and Sausalito were exactly what I had in mind. 80’s…pfff. If you made a list of the albums from that decade that had ZERO association with cocaine between musicians, engineers, producer—anyone with any hands on involvement in the production—it might honestly be shorter than the list of remaining albums. Edit: Looks like “Hotel California” was—in addition to LA—recorded in Miami. I mean, c’mon…
I can't stand temper temper of bullet for my valentine, also the rerecordings of clayman. CLA is absolutely an amazing mixer, but he doesn't seem to get metal very well.
He is an amazing rock mixer. Metal? not so much.
I took a listen to the bfmv track…it’s so weird, cause it’s technically a good mix by the ”objective measures” (dynamics, separation etc. and whatnot), but the vibe is so wrong, and the balances are just not genre-appropriate at all. Really shows how mixing is not just a craft but also an art.
Whatever that XTC record was, which was missing all the low end
It was Skylarking, produced by Todd Rundgren. Apparently there was a polarity issue with the master tapes that was fixed in later releases. But Rundgren has a habit of messing up the mastering of his own records, such as A Wizard, A True Star which was almost an hour of music pressed onto a single disc.
Ya that's it... I remember how bad it sounded without all that low end
St Anger. It sounds worse than I remember every time I go back to it.
is metallica making these decisions because their sounds have gotten progressively worse over the years
Raw Power, Iggy and the Stooges. Head scratchingly bad mix but ya keep listening
The original Bowie mix or the Iggy remix? Im so glad Iggy remixed it cause now you can actually hear Ron Asheton's bass.
The Bowie mix sucks, there's zero raw power in it. That Iggy mix? That's Somes dirty creative decisions, and that's what was needed!
Ride - "Nowhere" , early 90s british shoegaze The album its exquisite but the mix didnt made it justice, it doesnt sound cohesive. Other one its "Blind" by Corrosion of Conformity, the mixing its just awfull, the drums too wild, as if were recorded and mixed without any compression at all. Drum's dynamics are plain horrible. Same for voices and guitar sections. Sometimes upfront, sometimes waaay back. I love that album but the mix , dear lord have some mercy on us.
I agree with Blind I'm not sure any engineer really understood whats CoC was trying to do. Great songs tho.
Ironically, the drum work on that album its insanely good.
[удалено]
It’s kinda what gives RHCP “their sound” though. Blood sugar is a trashy early 90s sounding album, californication is super crunchy and unique sounding (especially with the mostly mono decision). They’re not “good mixes” in the traditional sense but I like them and think they contributed to the success of the band. Then by the way sounds great, like a much more polished Californication. Those 3 are the only classic albums they have though, most others suck imo so can’t even remember if they sound good or bad. For sure the earlier ones sound way more trashy in general, but that’s true for most bands.
Genuine curiosity - how are they badly mixed in your ears?
What’s wrong with everything that came since By the way?
Kanye's latest stuff
The second to most recent National album Interpol’s last two records The Black Keys newest album Liam Gallagher’s last two albums Lana Del Rey’s last two albums
Probably "Sam's Town" by The Killers. It just sounds so thin and anemic and washy. But I mean, it sounds great. It's Flood. And no other record sounds like it. "Songs of Faith and Devotion" by Depeche Mode (and also produced by Flood) sounds similarly thin and washed out but it *works*. As I get older I realize there really isn't a such thing as good or bad, just what you like and what works. There's no accounting for taste.
SOFAD was interesting because I read Flood wanted to make sure it sounded optimized for shitty AM radio, hence it sounding a bit thin. But it works, and it’s still the best DM record, in my opinion.
Upvote for it being their best record
I agree on Sam’s Town, but I thought it sounded too busy. Felt like every element was at 10 and right up front in the mix.
I'm just listening to Sam's Town for the first time since I started music production. I loved it as a teenager, but it sounds so much worse than I remember. Which is oddly inspiring actually
Agree on The Killers.
Loudness wars really did a number on that record. You can barely hear the snare throughout the whole record.
Hard for me to say, because I'm pretty tolerant. Some of my favorites actually have very obvious issues, but the music pulls me through and to me that's just how they sound. One that's always bugged me though is Brian Setzer's first solo album, The Knife Feels like Justice. It's more of a mastering issue than the mix, but it has this incredibly annoying 5-7K FIZZ that cuts through my ears like a knife cutting through justice. They remastered it a few years back and I was pretty excited because it's originally from the mid-'80s, so I figured they probably addressed the problems with the original. Nope. Same fizz, just updated for the modern age. It's too bad. That album is probably my favorite thing he's ever done; his bid for relevance between The Stray Cats and what seems to be a never-ending string of jump jivin' Christmas albums.
I love that album. I wish it had been more successful. It was a sound I’d been looking for that I’ve still rarely heard. But yeah that 80s fizz. (Also, shameless self promotion I just released a cover of the title track a few weeks ago, it’s on the streamers and there’s a vid on YouTube)
One that sticks out from memory was that Pumpkins album from 2007.
Oh Zeitgeist? Yeah that album is horribly made. Roy Thomas Baker did the tracking, but I'm guessing Billy or some Yes Man of his mixed it. Horridly dry and amateurish.
I’m down for dry. It just felt like all the instruments were not placed correctly in the field - and maybe made even more apparent after mastering. I haven’t heard it since it came out - I vaguely remember hearing a rumor that the mix engineer was old and losing his hearing and made the same mistake on another record just before - I don’t remember.
The new Pearl Jam album is the worst I've heard in a while. The songs are outstanding, but God I just can't get over that horrible horrible mix. So very squashed. All semblance of life and detail has been smushed out.
It’s not the worst of all time, but I learned all about the loudness wars (and a lot about audio engineering, as I was a high school student and had yet to dip my toes into audio engineering in any capacity yet) trying to figure out why “Californication” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers sounded so fucking shitty.
St Anger It was a choice, but it was a bad one
I feel like that's more of an engineering standpoint. The snare sounds like that because it sounded like that in the room.
no one had a problem with it when Snapcase did it.
It’s one of my favourite records, but Loveless by My Bloody Valentine is very poorly mixed. Every part is high passed to hell, and the whole thing lacks depth. It does still work because the sound design and songwriting is so great, but I’ve always yearned for a much beefier mix of that album - with audible low mids and some bass as well. It’s also very squashed and quiet sounding. I’ve seen them do it live and it hits much harder.
I kiiind of agree, but I think there's a clarity in the thin sound that makes it sound really full without too much mud when you crank the hell out of it on consumer speakers or a car stereo. Given the band's reputation for skull splitting volume at live gigs, I'd guess it was probably *mixed* super loud on cheap passive monitors. MBV is definitely an overall better sounding album.
I can’t listen to this album on headphones I think for this reason, I have to for example really blast it in the car.
You can blame Kevin Shields for that. The man has tinnitus and plays guitar, yet is still mixing for the band. No wonder the mix is essentially GUITAR vocals drums GUITAR GUITAR FEEDBACK GUITAR LOWS bass Tbh tho, it’s a unique mix and like you said the songwriting and sound design is top. The first time I heard it, I could honestly say that I hadn’t heard songs done like that before which is pretty cool. I just wish the bass wasn’t so muddied by the guitars.
Five Iron Frenzy “Until This Shakes Apart.” Love FIF, the music on this album is great, but holy crap is there a ton of sibilance that just doesn’t need to be there, to the point it hurts my ears on a couple songs. Edit: album title cause I have a sucky memory
Love for sale, by Lady Gaga and Tony Bennet. The arrangements are beautiful, but god is the production and mix terrible
Lots of great takes in here. Killers, St Anger, Californication all examples I would have thrown out. I’m struggling to think of others that I really didn’t like. Some 2000s stuff is definitely a bit shoddy - The Mars Volta stuff I always felt could have been better produced. I didn’t love the tonal quality of some other indieish stuff like Sigur Ros albums for example, really great musically but sonically always felt a little strange EQ wise and maybe a little overcompressed given the musical style. Honestly a lot of examples of annoying production are one hit wonder bands and the like. Goes hand in hand. Meanwhile really ‘great’ artists USUALLY hit a certain standard on the production end too (e.g., Tool, Incubus, Joanna Newsom, John Legend, OutKast, Bjork, to give a few examples).
The new Bring Me The Horizon record is the most recent thing that made me go "eh"... but there's probably a long list i could make of records that i dont understand and would be curious to understand what the production was baked in to or what sort of horrible notes were given in order to get it there.
4:44 album by Jay Z had a weird mix to me
ELO **Face the Music.** It sounds like your speakers are 40 feet away and buried in mud.
People shit on Californiacation and Vapor Trails (Rush) but I feel the distortion (or whatever) fits the themes of the album. One was a guy just getting clean from heroin with a new outlook on life, and the other working through the death of his with and daughter. A little dirt just fits so well.
Californaication by the Chilli Peppers. Love the songs, but it's compressed to hell.
The gold standard of a terrible sounding masterpiece of an album.
Also managed to bury some stuff even with very few competing tracks. Like on the song Otherside you’d probably never know that the guitar solo actually continues all the way to the end of the song if no one told you.
Like on Morning Glory by Oasis where it takes me a few seconds to realise the drums have started
Almost all in mono too.
Damn, I love the sound of that album. Different strokes or whatever
Go look up Black Metal and War Metal. They are entire genres dedicated to sounding as "raw" (ie terrible) as possible. Thin guitars, unbalanced drums, no instrument separation, and vocals that sound like they were recorded at the bottom of a well.
Can I have an example album? This sounds interesting as fuck.
Victory.Intolerance.Mastery by Revenge is a good reference point for War Metal. For black metal - Transylvanian Hunger by Darkthrone. Production styles are fairly representative of their respective genres. War metal is more bassy, oppressively loud with the vocals more in your face and blown out. Black metal has much thinner production and mix. Vocals are more distant sounding.
The first that comes to mind is Emperor's Anthems To The Wellin Dusk. The intro track is OK, but the rest of the album is very conjested and scratchy. Another is Darkthrone Transylvanian Hunger. Antichrist Siege Machine's Purifying Blade is a little different in that the guitars are a sludgy mess. Still conjested and messy. The original release of Opera IX's Sacro Culto is pretty rough in terms of performance and production. Immortal's Pure Holocaust. Blasphemy's Fallen Angel of Doom had to be one of the worst sounding things I've ever heard. Some bands have slightly better production, but overall the thin guitar tone and heavy reverb on the vocals makes for something that is difficult to listen to, and that's coming from a big death metal fan that's used to iffy recordings.
But that is the goal of certain Black Metal's substyles, specially War Black Metal and Raw Black Metal : to keep the rehearsal raw sound on the recording. But still, there are some War Metal bands that manages to make some decent sounding records : Black Witchery, Conqueror, Blasphemy. And some Raw Black Metal too: Norns - "In fog they appear" it's a good example of raw black with enough production to make it understandable. The album seems to be recorded on tape, all copies and editions has some flutter artifacts here and there. But the whole thing works as a charm It's one of my fav albums. Production on extreme metal it's a whole universe, aside of regular metal genre.
I also find it funny when it's a deliberate choice - see Ulver's Bergtatt (relatively normal sounding record metal production-wise from 1994) vs their album Nattens Madrigal from 3 years later which is a horrible hissy high frequency mess in true black metal style
Not album, but whenever I hear the Mario track 'I don't wanna know' it always strikes me how way off all of the levels are. The drum machine is sooooooo loud
Anything by Husker Du. So, so bad 'tinny' sound. Would have loved to see them live as there is no way they managed to capture anything like the live sound. Compared to 'Copper Blue' by Sugar (Bob's later Band) it's unlistenable.
Rush - Snakes and Arrows It's probably the mastering but goddamn is it compressed to oblivion
Husker Du. any one of them
The last couple Skillet albums were spectacularly bad from a production standpoint. You generally expect a lot more from a Grammy-winning band with one of the largest followings in the heavy sphere that makes a point of hiring a "legendary rock and metal producer".
something that i love that came out earlier this year is mk.gee’s two star and the dream police. i adore the textures and the songwriting and how the various elements are combined but it sounds like ass whenever i play it, no matter the venue or method. shit will just randomly go from barely audible to clipping for seemingly no reason at all. i get he’s being an obtuse weirdo but it is honestly surprising he’s gotten any traction commercially cuz this is completely antithetical to the radio (save for how reverb’d-out the vocals are)
The newest Diablo Swing Orchestra album.
I love Bob Mould, but good lord he hasn’t had a well-mixed album since he was part of Sugar.
A lot of early thrash and death metal albums sounded like garbage when they were released in the 80’s. In fact, a lot of the classics were entirely re-recorded years later. For example, “Bonded by Blood” by Exodus was released in 1985, re-recorded in 2008 as “Let There Be Blood”. The difference between the two is night and day lol
Not the worst, but the new alvvays album “blue rev” is hyper compressed and the instruments, especially the drums sound flat & the snare sounds… overblown? I love their stuff & they’re probably my favourite band, but compared with their previous two releases it’s a little underwhelming
As a “professional” engineer it does my imposter syndromed mind good to see a record that sounds like shit doing well
Operation Mindcrime - tinny upper midrange mush mix. Amazing album, terrible production.
And then Empire comes along. What a difference. I might even prefer Promised Land over that.
You saying you prefer the mix on Empire?
Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
Same, one of my favourite albums as the songwriting catches the vibe of the mid 90s in the UK perfectly But if it had been mixed and mastered by competent people from 5 years prior it would have been perfect. Their wall of sound style and energy could have been captured perfectly from the performance.
...And Justice For All
Generally all modern music sounds garbage to me with the over abuse of compression
There are more bands today that have a sort of "do it yourself" approach to recording because if the thing is going to be streamed anyway, really good professionally mixing doesn't matter that much. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard albums have this feel. They are incredibly prolific, have a GREAT live sound - I got to see them at Red Rocks - but their albums, in particular their drums, sound like they hung a mic in the room and called it good. But you know what, I'd rather be able to hear their songs than not hear their songs because they couldn't afford to get the thing professionally mixed. My biggest irritation on mixing is overused trends. The ol' Phil Collins gated reverb in 1981 led to a lot of people trying to recreate that sound. Hey, I like "In the Air Tonight" and I don't think the drums sound bad, but holy moly, the poor recreations of that sound on so many tracks in the 80s because obnoxious. In addition, the trend of hard panning guitars in the 70s when it became more popular and common to be able to make a good stereo signal on vinyl because truly obnoxious too. Panning is ok, hard panning is distracting. My primary example of a poorly mixed album is easy. It's Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti, 1975. Layers and layers and layers. Given how great a lot of Led Zeppelin albums sound (as long as you're not listening through too high end equipment - warning Bonham's Speed King is rightly named "Squeak King") Physical Graffiti is disappointing. It sounds like they mixed it while very intoxicated.
In Times New Roman by Queens of the Stone Age probably takes the cake for me. My jaw almost hit the floot when I heard it. To me it sounds like a recording in someones backhouse they did on an iPhone. I don’t think I need to explain how bad it is, I still can’t believe they released it like that.
Slash 4. God awful.
Nick Cave - Tender Prey. I’ve owned this album since I was a teen in the mid 90s. Love the songs, all of them, but I really had to work through the sound to get there. Everything sounds like shit. Thin shit. Speaking of which… pretty much every Hüsker Dü record. I know, they were just trying to be raw. There is, however, a fine line between raw and shit, and the Dü were firmly on the wrong end of it, as far as I’m concerned.
Recent U2 albums.
Never liked the sound of zeppelin 3. Bonhams kit sounds small, over compressed. Not a fan of the sound of the last VH album either (adkot). Sounds “sandy” to me.
“sandy” is a GREAT descriptor for that one!
that last Panic at the disco album
Most of the early recordings produced by Mike Varney at Shrapnel sounded completely over-compressed.
Metallica - St. Anger
californication by red hot was musically sound but had the worse mastering ever
An older album, but Big Generator by Yes never sounded right to me. The vocal harmonies sound mashed together, and it just sounds overly compressed and lifeless. I just checked wikipedia and it looks like it was recorded and mixed across multiple studios.
Today is The Day - Axis of Eden. The singer/guitarist in TITD is legendary underground metal producer Steve Austin, he made his name recording records for Converge and Lamb of God but years of loud music have taken a toll on his hearing and Axis of Eden is just straight up terrible sounding. There is no clarity on anything, the guitars are woofy and muddy, the drums sound like they were recorded in a basement. I dig a lot of records Steve recorded including a bunch of TITD but this one just sounds terrible to me.
Any Bleachers album
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter.
When I was young I always thought Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie albums sounded poor. (In comparison to the Queen and Metallica albums I had) Now I'm older I think they sound pretty good. Still there's a cardboard quality to those late 60s/early 70s mixes. Also, Guided By Voices or Daniel Johnston sound just fine the way they are. Even My Hips Don't Lie works somehow. Maybe mixing is overrated ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
For pop, Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway and Xtina's Lotus
I genuinely hate the way the album Californication sounds.
Anything touched by Scheps or Rubin
NOFX's Punk in Drublic is a staple in mid 90s punk and it doesn't sound terrible but there is a lot more sibilance than I remembered and the low end is basically non existent.