Pick an Album to Re-record

[Steo]

I'm going to go controversial here. The remix/ remaster of Obituary's slowly we rot. It's awful, all the "grit" & "mank" is gone. Makes it sound bland and dull. Maybe redo that one.

 

[ErockRPh]

Reign in Blood. It could be so much heavier.

Also, St Anger. Would it be salvageable without the trashcan snare? I'd be interested to hear

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Carcass - Reek of Putrefaction

 

[youngthrasher9]

Every Nile record. I love that band but the production is just flat across the board.

I could see the drum and bass sound needing a little more punch but other than that I would tend to disagree. To each their own, though!

 

[youngthrasher9]

Reign in Blood. It could be so much heavier.

Gotta disagree with this one too, tbh. It could be heavier but it wouldn’t really sound like slayer to me at that point. And I love how cavernous the guitar tracks came out on this one without being as thin and dry as SITA.

 

[Riffage]

So many of those early Judas Priest albums!
They seemed to have pop style production, giving the instruments too much space, and lacked the energy that they had live.
Unleashed was SO needed, and amazing.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Oh yeah an obvious answer in my case I cant believe

Judas Priest's Redeemer of Souls. It was unfortunately a huge mistake to self-produce it.

If a remix can't fix it, re-record it.

So many of those early Judas Priest albums!
They seemed to have pop style production, giving the instruments too much space, and lacked the energy that they had live.
Unleashed was SO needed, and amazing.

Lmao great minds (kinda) think alike. You're right though, Unleashed sounds fucking killer compared to the actual recordings.

 

[BillCartESP]

All Celtic Frost. Seemed really muffled and about 10 dBs below all other albums at the time.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Okay I've browsed this entire thread and I'm surprised to see no mention of Testament. First Strike Still Deadly imo showed how much a re-recording helps those old songs.

The "problem" is that a decade ago (and before) you could guess a band from its tone, wether you like it or not
Today everything sounds the same
The productions nowadays are crystalline, awesome but without personality

I find this complaint funny because that was a common complaint of a lot of mid-late 2000s - early 2010s metal as well lol. Every metal band was using EMGs, Tubescreamer, Rectos and 5150s and everyone was going for that Colin Richardson/Andy Sneap/Adam D sound. The more things change etc etc

Reign in Blood. It could be so much heavier.

Also, St Anger. Would it be salvageable without the trashcan snare? I'd be interested to hear

No, that album would need to not only be remixed, but trimmed of a lot of fat.

 

[gabito]

The first 3 or 4 Testament albums could benefit from something like this.

I wouldn’t do it though, they are what they are.

 

[Creech]

And Justice For All. Put me down in that crowd. But I don’t think I would go with that Anthraxy bass tone in the remixed version.

Also any heavy shit that’s basically triggered drums and growls.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Also, St Anger. Would it be salvageable without the trashcan snare? I'd be interested to hear

The trashcan snare is part of it, like nachos that are all stuck together as one giant nacho, or a malignant tumor that's wrapped itself around the basal ganglia. Sure, you could take it out anyway, but you'll never get back what you started with. It's best to just let it go, let grief take its course, and in time the pain will dull into more of a fond memory of what once was.

 

[Goblet of Gore]

In summation, all classic metal records should be re-recorded with Sneap using 5150/TS/V30/SM57 !!

 

[gabito]

In summation, all classic metal records should be re-recorded with Sneap using 5150/TS/V30/SM57 !!

And then we would complain about all modern production sounding the same.

 

[Chanson]

Coheed's first album, SSTB.

 

[Seabeast2000]

All Celtic Frost. Seemed really muffled and about 10 dBs below all other albums at the time.

I had Cold Lake back in the day and remember CF I guess not my bag. Holy memories.

 

[JediMasterThrash]

There's a few albums that actually had terrible production issues that some how made it to pressing (not just artist choice of tone).

Tony MacAlpine's Master Of Paradise was somehow mastered at about 10% volume, you have to dime your car stereo just to hear it, and the loss of bit depth really muddles it out.
Gary Hoey's Monster Surf was the exact opposite issue, it was mastered with the mains cranked so it clips almost the entire album. Every drum beat clips it and masks the guitars underneath.

One artist choice I'd throw in there is Iron Maiden's Matter Of LIfe And Death. This marked their change from studio-sounding albums to "live"-sounding albums, where they just recorded as a whole band in the most live way possible. And the result is inarticulate muddy mush. Every instrument and focal just mushed together. The songs are wonderfully progressive and written, I'd love to actually be able to hear the songs in a studio production.

Other than that, I'd say every metal album released after 2000. Take away all their 5150/V30/sm57 and force them to have a unique tone. And in the post metal zone world, people need some education that cranking the gain to 12 followed by highpass/lowpass filtering eveything but the mids doens't leave any actual tone. I got a CRT TV with a digital TV antenna. At around 2AM some channels are just white noise static. Add drums, bass, and cookie monster and you've got every metal tone post 2000.

Mostly sarcasm. Mostly.

It's funny, even though albums like Somewhere In Time, Justic, Far Beyond Driven, etc, have really kind of ear-fatiguing tone, these are also some of the most "tone-chased" metal albums out there. The tone wasn't modern perfection, but it was the sound of that album, that band at that time of their career. I couldn't really imagine the album sounding any different.

Not that it wouldn't be fun to hear a remaster. Like Edguy's remade Savage Poetry I enjoy way more than the original. The original is mostly unlistenably bad production and vocal performance. And the Vision Divine Destination bonus disk which re-records 2 songs from every prior album. I have to say I like most of them better than the originals.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Okay I've browsed this entire thread and I'm surprised to see no mention of Testament. First Strike Still Deadly imo showed how much a re-recording helps those old songs.

I disagree. Sure the production is much slicker, since any kind of production was better than most of Testament's early albums, and they had a better tighter drummer. But all the youthful and angry energy have all been sucked out of the new recordings. Skolnick's solos, as dazzling as they are, cop it the most since he was fresh off his jazz sojourn and trying to get his metal back on quickly.

And this is the problem with every re-recording ever: it's impossible to capture that same performance from the original. You can improve the production, but in certain cases like Reign In Blood, you'll suck all the anger and violent energy out of it.

I say this as I listen to the Luna Sea's recent re-recordings of my 2 favorite albums of theirs. Having Steve Lillywhite has made everything sonically outstanding, but the band is not the same. They're not the young, angry visual kei goths spitting venom anymore. They're late middle-aged crooners living comfortably. Gone are their signature ice pick stabbing single coil guitar tones, and in place are smooth P90s. Ryuichi is less Snake and more Sinatra. Even if I enjoy the new recordings, they'll never replace the original. If anything, they're more complimentary retrospective accompaniments that can help us remember how good the originals still are.

 

[fantom]

Throwing in more black metal...

Arcturus- Aspera Hiems Symfonia (just give it a better sounding production, the album is solid, just takes time to get used to the sound of the guitars)
Limbonic Art- In Abhorrence Dementia (guitars are pretty drowned out, you could throw in most of their discography here)
Dawn- Slaughtersun (amazing album killed by crappy boring production)

Arch Enemy- Black Earth
Death- Individual Thought Patterns
Disarmonia Mundi (every single album sounds like bringing a monster truck to a library)
Therion- Theli (please just replace the synths with real instruments)
Bal-Sagoth- Dark Moon Broods Over Lemuria
In Flames- Subterranean (love this album, would like to see it redone)

And +1 to the comments about And Justice for All. Like, just put the bass in the mix.

I'll also agree on Symphony X New Mythology Suite. That is by far my favorite album from them and the guitars just feel more like they were mixed by a Jethro Tull fan. I don't get the negativity towards the other albums. Ya, the orchestrations on Odyssey are cheesy, fix the too.

Cradle of Filth, the only album that sounded like garbage was the first one. Cruelty and Dusk were fine.

Ulver’s Nattens Madrigal (I doubt many SSO members have listened to it).

It has the most horrendous black metal production of them all, perhaps. But the riffs and songwriting are amazing.

I don’t need or want modern production, by any means — but their previous album, Bergtatt, sounded great.

It's a pretty well known album. I don't think I've ever been able to sit through the whole thing though.

Are the rumours true that they spent all their recording budget on alcohol and nice suits?

According to Wikipedia, Garm says it's false. According to my ears, I believe it.

Surprised to not see Emperor in here. In the Nightside Eclipse could go for a remix or something. It's so hard to hear the guitars when they're both buzzsaws. If it sounded like Anthems, it would be perfect.

I also think they could improve Anthems. My favorite Emperor album, but the production is an acquired taste.

 

[Alberto7]

Also, St Anger. Would it be salvageable without the trashcan snare? I'd be interested to hear

Listen to any recent live recordings of any song in that album. They sound great!