Favourite studio album - production wise?

[Ray Luxury-Yacht]

Inspired by the 'favourite studio album' thread - but didn't want to gate-crash it with a side-track so started a separate thread.



I have many favourite studio albums, music-wise...but being lucky enough to own a reasonable hi-fi separates set-up, some of my favourite albums music-wise also grate and jar a bit because of their fairly awful mix and production, which really shows up on a decent hifi.

Some of them, especially in the advent of digitisation and compression, just sound as flat as a pancake. I know that engineers have to produce albums with the masses in mind, that will sound ok on any music system, and not have any high gains that will rattle cheap speakers, but still - it just ruins the music for me, especially if it's quite heavy rock.

Metallica are one of the worst for this - there are parts of some of their songs where the drums should come smashing through and hit you in the face etc - but they just end up flat in the mix with everything else.


So, my favourite studio album production-wise is Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Welcome to the Pleasuredome.' It plays in a beautifully analogue fashion, with proper highs and lows, with gains where gains should be heard - with an overall pleasing 'brightness' to the playback - with none of the highs clipped and compressed.

Anyone else know what I mean and have any other examples, good or bad?

[Zad]

I don't have a huge album collection, but I definitely agree on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Overlooked by many at the time of it's first release because of the headline publicity seeking (and for my part because I only ever heard it on crappy cheap stereos at mates houses) the full length title track has amazing layering and a dynamic range that is used rather than abused.

I would almost say it sounds better to my ears now than it did in the 80s. I think at the time I had other things on my mind. Parties, alcohol, things that happen at parties after alcohol...

Anyway, it is the sort of CD that has me pondering buying it on original vinyl and saving up for a decent turntable.

[rover 623gsi]

when I saw the title of this thread I thought Lexicon of Love by ABC - which of course was produced by Trevor horn who was also responsible for...

[Marvindodgers]

Two of my all time favourite albums (Welcome To The Pleasuredome and Lexicon of Love) mentioned in the first few posts of this thread. Both are just spectacular productions by Trevor Horn and his team using the full dynamic range in a way that just isn't used in mainstream music these days as everything is now pushed to the max!
Another wonderfully recorded 80s classic is So by Peter Gabriel.

[Justin Cyder]

Always been quite keen on John Leckie meself. I think that is a great CV for a producer.

[vixen1700]

Probably Unknown Pleasures if it's purely down to production.

[Mastodon2]

Soilwork's "The Living Infinite" is a great example of how to produce a modern metal album. The tones of the instruments are great, the drum sounds are crisp and clear. The guitars are panned with one guitarist on the left, another on the right, the bassist on both sides and the drums panned across from left to right, so that when the drummer does a roll heading from the snare to the floor toms, the sounds cross from the left to the right. Gives a great impression of actually being in the presence of a real band. All the guitars sound super crisp, which is a credit to the musicians as much as the producer, even when there are loads of notes flying through distorted amps they still have great note separation. The whole thing is crisp and punchy, while still having some airy-ness about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r3MOPAK-m0

Ok, so it's youtube here, so it's already compressed and lost a ton of quality, but you can tell this is a top work.

Some metal albums just have terrible production where it sounds like every instrument track has been dumped on top of the others and the whole thing sounds thick and heavy, but not necessarily good. On the other hand, the tendency in modern metal with all this "djent" crap is to go too crisp, to the point where everything sounds overly quantised and sterile.

Erik Rutan who produces his own albums and albums from the like of Cannibal Corpse is also really good. The things he can do with guitars and basses in Ab are incredible.

[popegregory]

Ray, if I may ask, what separates make up your "fairly good" hi fi?

[CHamphill]

I find it difficult to separate the three "middle" Talk Talk albums, It's My Life, The Colour Of Spring and Spirit Of Eden, but if pushed The Colour Of Spring is beautifully and obviously meticulously produced; nothing over blown and nothing not intentionally pushed down in the mix; a fantastic record.

[LDN]

Production wise / modern: 30 Seconds To Mars "This Is War"

[dobly]

Talk Talk - Colour of Spring, Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock
Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis
Propaganda - A Secret Wish
Radiohead - In Rainbows

just a few off the top of my head

[Ray Luxury-Yacht]

[quote=popegregory]Ray, if I may ask, what separates make up your "fairly good" hi fi?[/quote
'Reasonable' I said

Its Arcam Alpha 8 separates, with two amps bi-wired into a pair of Kefs.

[angusfaldo]

I got lucky at work a few years back and came into some spare cash and spunked well over 10k on hifi. I thought it was a great idea until I found out just how bad some stuff sounds on hi-end gear. So have been searching ever since for recordings with superior production. Here's the results of my search so far (not much to show really)

Flickering Flame - Roger Waters (particularly Perfect Sense, both parts)
Jeff Buckley - Grace (especially Mojo Pin and Last Goodbye)
Felicity Lott and Royal Scottish Nat. Orchestra - Strauss's Four Last Songs
Ozric Tentacles - Erpland

Also, I'm a bit embarrassed about this one because the album is soooooo cheesy and self indulgent. But on Robert Plant's covers album Dreamland there is one shining star among the awful ste he calls cover songs, which is Morning Dew. Please don't buy the album - I don't want you to ask me to refund the cost... Morning Dew is a masterpiece though.

And sorry they are not studio - but for live recordings these two go down in my top list:

When Hell Freezes Over - Eagles Live
Abdullah Ibrahim - Cape Town Songs - an awesome recording of great live jazz..

[S47]

Boston - Boston

[Justin Cyder]

S47 said:

Boston - Boston

That whole thing was a one man production project wasn't it? An exercise in building layers of tracks into songs specifically for the purpose of demonstrating the guy's ability ISTR.

[Ozone]

Dare by the Human League, Martin Rushent at his peak.

Cupid and Psyche '85 by Scritti Politti, it does sound like everything was put in to a Synclavier and sequenced but it is brilliantly put together.

Both of these vinyl records sounded good on my crappy cheap deck/amp/speaker combo

Any Trevor Horn production sounds good, he had/has a great team to help him too.

Edited by Ozone on Wednesday 24th July 21:31

[Asterix]

Ozone said:

Cupid and Psyche '85 by Scritti Politti, it does sound like everything was put in to a Synclavier and sequenced but it is brilliantly put together.

I'm a huge fan of the production on this album.

Funnily enough I stuck it on while I was working earlier today and realised after two listen throughs, I hadn't done a stroke of work as I was focusing on the amazing balance and clarity, even though there is often so much going on.

[Ozone]

Asterix said:

Ozone said:

Cupid and Psyche '85 by Scritti Politti, it does sound like everything was put in to a Synclavier and sequenced but it is brilliantly put together.

I'm a huge fan of the production on this album.

Funnily enough I stuck it on while I was working earlier today and realised after two listen throughs, I hadn't done a stroke of work as I was focusing on the amazing balance and clarity, even though there is often so much going on.

I think that is the key, I struggle to follow the background patterns and where they lead to with the space around them, it is very engaging

[Justin Cyder]

Quincy Jones is another for me on that note of clarity in the mix. Love near enough everything he's produced.