Good albums with disappointing sound/production

[wheresthefbomb]

Hard to say. I usually chalk things like that up to "artistic decisions" and don't think about it. When I don't enjoy production it's usually music I'm already not into, for example I do not enjoy the clinical cleanliness that has come to characterize a lot of prog metal, but I don't care much for modern prog either way.

However, I'm pretty hit and miss with remasters. Sometimes they're better and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're objectively "better," but lose some of the feel and sounds that became so familiar in the original. The remaster of Nevermind comes to mind, or WITTR - Diadem of 12 Stars.

 

[mcleanab]

Totally agree about the first two Ozzy albums... brilliant songs, terrible sounds... the TRIBUTE album makes up for some of it, but all the songs that weren't played live I can only dream about...

 

[MFB]

I must be the only one who considers the album production as part of the final product and not a separate component that's supposed to make the final sound "better." Like, if the early thrash albums were immediately clean and pristine sounding it'd be a stark contrast compared to the musical content, so why should I take it at face value? These were kids who just wanted to get their stuff out there regardless of how it literally sounded. Sure there are some that come out years later with a remaster and it's like, "OK, yeah this does clean up the original which wasn't even that bad" (see: Night of the Stormrider, or As The Palaces Burn) but the original's still exist with their original grit too.

Unless an album is glaringly bad in how it sounds, which only ones that come to mind for that were those whack as fuck In Flames remixes, then it just doesn't actively register to me

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

Seems like a lot of folks commenting on this thread don't know the difference between production, mixing, and mastering.

They are three separate phases of the process, folks. And each phase has a very different function.

 

[Crungy]

@Alex79 I was looking for someone to mention that one and I totally missed that part of your post! At the time I didn't think much of it, but compared to other albums and then later In Flames it was a major head scratcher as to how they ended up with that mix.

 

[beerandbeards]

Morbid Angel “Covenant”. It’s just too quiet and I have really crank it. I’d love a 30th anniversary remaster

 

[GunpointMetal]

Seems like a lot of folks commenting on this thread don't know the difference between production, mixing, and mastering.

They are three separate phases of the process, folks. And each phase has a very different function.

Songwriting, mixing, and mastering all fall under umbrella of "Production", and I'd say it's fairly obvious in thread and OP that we're talking about the overall final sound of an album which is effected by all of those things.

 

[tedtan]

I’d argue that songwriting and arranging should be part of preproduction, though I realize that not many people actually do preproduction these days.

 

[estin]

Motley Crue- Too Fast for Love
Ozzy 1981-1982
Maiden- Piece of Mind

All of have been remastered 1-4 times I'm guessing and I can't tell you if any are better off for it.

"remastered" = brickwalled for more volume. *maybe* a touch of upper highs to make people think "its so open and airy" LOL

 

[Crungy]

I’d argue that songwriting and arranging should be part of preproduction, though I realize that not many people actually do preproduction these days.

Which blows my mind, that is such a helpful thing to do.

 

[Seabeast2000]

"remastered" = brickwalled for more volume. *maybe* a touch of upper highs to make people think "its so open and airy" LOL

Brickwalled--Compressed to hell?

 

[estin]

Morbid Angel “Covenant”. It’s just too quiet and I have really crank it. I’d love a 30th anniversary remaster

thats what the volume knob is for

masters are too damn loud these days for me, I turn the volume up to 8-9 o clock and its already too loud with zero dynamics. Why should wispering and screaming be the same level?!?! lol

the industry standard production techniques gotta go, everything just sounds the same across all genres.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

After the Burial - Wolves Within

Sound doesn’t usually bother me but this album is rough. The mixing changes song to song which is really strange but I heard they had a very small budget. Neo Seoul is time be of my favourite metal songs but I have to listen to it first otherwise it’s really jarring.

+1 to Wintersun Time part 1. Way to many layers that didn’t add anything to the songs but bloated the mix.

 

[Edika]

Most older Swedish Death Metal productions. I know the HM-2 chainsaw sound is the sound a lot are after and I love a lot of the bands and albums that used it but to my ears it's almost a fuzz sound. If the signal was clipping a bit more and was a bit dirtier you'd get a fuzz.

 

[kamello]

After the Burial - Wolves Within

Sound doesn’t usually bother me but this album is rough. The mixing changes song to song which is really strange but I heard they had a very small budget. Neo Seoul is time be of my favourite metal songs but I have to listen to it first otherwise it’s really jarring.

+1 to Wintersun Time part 1. Way to many layers that didn’t add anything to the songs but bloated the mix.

came here to post about this one

The other day I was listening to Rareform, not a polished mix by any means but it sounds really powerfull, then I switched to Wolves Withing and the difference was abysmal

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

Everything Buster Odeholm touches production-wise sounds fantastic and I have no idea how the man does it.

That Born of Osiris record (or was it a single?) that Odeholm did additional production on and mixed years ago was a goddamn train wreck. I can't even remember the name of it, but I do remember the non-existent cymbals...

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

Songwriting, mixing, and mastering all fall under umbrella of "Production", and I'd say it's fairly obvious in thread and OP that we're talking about the overall final sound of an album which is effected by all of those things.

Production is the actual tracking/recording/layering process of creating music. You are "producing it". Bringing it into an actualized audio format that has been recorded.

Mixing is processing and manipulating the recorded audio in certain ways so that every element of the production is put "in its place" so that every element can be heard and contribute to the soundscape as it was meant to.

Mastering is bringing a final mixed track up to a certain, industry-standard level of loudness in terms of decibels and LUFS so that the final song can be played/presented coherently with other songs on a particular platform (streaming, vinyl, CD, social media, etc.) while also preserving (or hopefully preserving) the dynamics of the audio and correcting small errors that may be present in the final mix through additional EQ, saturation, compression, spatial manipulation, etc.

Again, three totally different phases.

There have been albums that have had wonderful production but shitty mixes. And the mix ruined the album. (Example: literally any early Metallica or early Fear Factory)

There have been albums that have had shitty production that was glued together into a passable mix because the engineer did the best with what they were handed. The production ruined the album. (Example: Wolves Within by After the Burial)

There have been albums that have had wonderful production and mixes, but the mastering was done in a half-assed manner that annihilated the dynamics, the leveling, and the quality of the final audio product. (Example: the DOOM Eternal soundtrack by Mick Gordon)

 

[BlackMastodon]

Production is the actual tracking/recording/layering process of creating music. You are "producing it". Bringing it into an actualized audio format that has been recorded.

Mixing is processing and manipulating the recorded audio in certain ways so that every element of the production is put "in its place" so that every element can be heard and contribute to the soundscape as it was meant to.

Mastering is bringing a final mixed track up to a certain, industry-standard level of loudness in terms of decibels and LUFS so that the final song can be played/presented coherently with other songs on a particular platform (streaming, vinyl, CD, social media, etc.) while also preserving (or hopefully preserving) the dynamics of the audio and correcting small errors that may be present in the final mix through additional EQ, saturation, compression, spatial manipulation, etc.

Again, three totally different phases.

There have been albums that have had wonderful production but shitty mixes. And the mix ruined the album. (Example: literally any early Metallica or early Fear Factory)

There have been albums that have had shitty production that was glued together into a passable mix because the engineer did the best with what they were handed. The production ruined the album. (Example: Wolves Within by After the Burial)

There have been albums that have had wonderful production and mixes, but the mastering was done in a half-assed manner that annihilated the dynamics, the leveling, and the quality of the final audio product. (Example: the DOOM Eternal soundtrack by Mick Gordon)

This is too much for my dumb ass to learn so I like the production umbrella approach. Of course I'm wrong, but I don't record anything and I don't care.

Tomato, tomato.

 

[mastapimp]

If there was ever an example of good versus bad for this post using the same album, I'd say it would be Enemies of Reality by Nevermore. The original mix was so shockingly bad and in the opposite direction of Dead Heart in a Dead World that it was remixed a year or 2 later, properly, by Sneap.

 

[mcleanab]

A LOT of Prince albums... Rush VAPOR TRAILS was a weird overall experience sonically, too...