Good albums with disappointing sound/production

[spudmunkey]

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Have Machine. I LOVE hearing those songs in modern recordings of live shows, where Trent put in months of post production...so damn good. Then you go back to the album sounds and it sounds like it's being played through a hotel am/fm clock radio in comparison.

 

[Protestheriphery]

Every Trivium album after In Waves.

Sin and the Sentence had a noticeably "amp sim' sound to it. Sounded highly processed, lacking the organic feel from their earlier stuff. Maybe my ears are just biased, because it was around the time I discovered they were touring with modelers. I thought "yup, thats what Epiphones through digital distortion sounds like". Not bashing that setup, but it does have a particular vibe.

 

[GunpointMetal]

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)

Well that was an incredible word salad to say the same thing I said but different words and a lot more of them. Songwriting/Tracking/Mixing/Mastering are all "production". Production infers there is a final product.

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

Well that was an incredible word salad to say the same thing I said but different words and a lot more of them. Songwriting/Tracking/Mixing/Mastering are all "production". Production infers there is a final product.

 

[Ross82]

Atreyu - Suicide Notes has a pathetic guitar tone, really thin and weak. Basically spoiled what is otherwise a decent album.

I see a lot of people mention In Flames - RTR and completely agree. I dont know what happened in the early 2000's but there seemed to be this really stupid trend of making snares sound like fucking saucepans. No snap and cut, just a clonky boink. Metallica definitely weren't the only ones guilty of crimes against Snare drums around that time period.

On the flip side of the thread topic, I consider Deftones' White Pony to have the best overall sound of any album with Killswitch Engages Alive or Just Breathing in second.

 

[epsylon]

I honestly dislike the way most "old school" (whether old or recent) black metal is mixed, and I say that as a black metal fan. People mentioned early Burzum and Ulver, which are unlistenable, but even popular, critically acclaimed albums could be massively improved with actually having bass in the mix and punchier kicks and snares drums. (Some of them also that really nasty high frequency fizz that is annoying...)

My fav black metal record of all time is probably In the Nightside Eclipse, and I can't stop thinking what it would have sounded like with the production style that is standard for "modern black metal" (i.e. think Mgla for the deliciously produced drums, recent Enslaved albums for the guitar work, or the Icelandics like Svartidaudi, who have mastered the wall of sound approach...).
Or even if you want to keep the lo-fi style, at least include some bass in the mix! Two example of lo-fi style done perfectly imo is S.V.E.S.T.'s "Coagula l'ether du diable" (which was likely recorded on a 4 track) and Carpathian Forest's "Black Shining Leather":


Or another example of what I mean is The Kovenant's "In Times before the Light" which was released in 1995, the re-recorded in 2002, and then remasted in 2007. Not a perfect example because the re-recording changes the vibe (and you may subjectively prefer the old style), but the production is infinitely better on the re-recording and the remaster.

1995:


2002:


2007:

 

[bozothedeathmachine]

As much as I love Faith No More's "The Real Thing", it should be renamed "Mids: The Album".

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Have Machine. I LOVE hearing those songs in modern recordings of live shows, where Trent put in months of post production...so damn good. Then you go back to the album sounds and it sounds like it's being played through a hotel am/fm clock radio in comparison.

Maaan...I don't know why this one didn't pop into my mind immediately since I'm a huge NIN fan. 100% accurate.

I mean, Trent was just cleaning toilets at a studio at that time in the 80s; and Pretty Hate Machine was him figuring things out in a kind of barebones production way afterhours utilizing gear that sounds super dated and archaic to our ears now.

But yes, the modern, reworked versions of early NIN hits that we see/hear at live shows nowadays are just phenomenal.

 

[keithhagel]

I didn't realize it at the time, but The Silent Circus and Alaska by Between the Buried and me had awesome songs but terrible mixes. I didn't even realize it until they put out remixed versions a year or so ago. It was like taking a large number of blankets off the speakers listening to the new versions, they sound so good.

 

[Fuchs]

I feel it is very unfair to judge old albums from today's standards. It is fair to judge old albums from the perspective of the time in which they were recorded. In this way, each AGHORA album meets the thread's assumptions.

 

[Chanson]

Coheed and Cambria's first album. Those first 4 albums from them were huge for me growing up. The production on the first one sounds more like a demo and sounds really out of place compared to their second album.

 

[maliciousteve]

Nevermore - Enemies of Reality

Arch Enemy - Rise Of the Tyrant

Both great but Rise Of the Tyrant has a really annoying, grating guitar tone. EOR has no punch at all, very flat sounding.

 

[Ross82]

As much as I love Faith No More's "The Real Thing", it should be renamed "Mids: The Album".

A noise gate on the guitars would be worthwhile too.

 

[ErockRPh]

Wow, am I the only one who can't handle the production on Reign in Blood? Maybe it's because I was first introduced to Slayer with Seasons in the Abyss. Not that the production was incredible on Seasons, but Reign sounds like a garage band demo. I think of all the power that was lost on those songs because the production is crap. I actually prefer the Decade of Aggression version of most of those songs, and the mix on that album isn't that great, either.

 

[MFB]

Coheed and Cambria's first album. Those first 4 albums from them were huge for me growing up. The production on the first one sounds more like a demo and sounds really out of place compared to their second album.

Second Stage Turbine Blade definitely has a sound like some of the other earlier pop-punk/alternative sounds that were coming out around the same time; it sounds like you're hearing a recording of it in the room vs. the instruments themselves, and even that's not the best way to describe it, but the only way that I can.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Sin and the Sentence had a noticeably "amp sim' sound to it. Sounded highly processed, lacking the organic feel from their earlier stuff. Maybe my ears are just biased, because it was around the time I discovered they were touring with modelers. I thought "yup, thats what Epiphones through digital distortion sounds like". Not bashing that setup, but it does have a particular vibe.

I actually don't think they recorded with Kempers. It's all real amps. The problem is that he's dialing in real mid-heavy tones with mid-heavy amps (EVH 5150, Peavey XXXII), boosting with a Tubescreamer-like pedal, and just to make it worse is using mid-heavy pickups (Fluence Moderns). Sounds like cocked wah city because of it.

I see a lot of people mention In Flames - RTR and completely agree. I dont know what happened in the early 2000's but there seemed to be this really stupid trend of making snares sound like fucking saucepans. No snap and cut, just a clonky boink. Metallica definitely weren't the only ones guilty of crimes against Snare drums around that time period.

RTR was the first album they did outside of studio Fredman since their debut album as well.

 

[Guitarslayer]

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

Remastering just to increase overall volume sometimes erases headroom. Queensryche's The Warning is a prime example of this. I had to pitch it & find an original

 

[Vogg_and_Vitek]

I’ve tried to spread the gospel of HATE ETERNAL’S first album CONQUERING THE THRONE, there are some absolutely badass songs and riffs on that album, the SUFFOCATION guy wrote a lot of the guitar parts and they are amazing. BUT the production and sound bafflingly terrible, just absurdly bad. Then their second album (not nearly as good imo) sounds even worse somehow. I’m not really a huge fan of a lot do their music but I swear that first album whips ass.

My other would be SLAYER’S DIVINE INTERVENTION. I love that album but the guitar/vocal mixing bothers me. most people I talk to hate this album tho.

Also really early Nile stuff is good but sounds like poop

 

[Wynseun]

Brave New Murder Day by Katatonia. The songs are great but I struggle listening to tgat album because of the production

 

[Jamiecrain]

Death Magnetic - Harsh sounding guitars

Periphery 3 - lack of clarity. Too much happening in all frequencies at once. Sounds like mush.