90s metal production

[Dave_Syn]

Throughout the 90s metal productions vary a lot. Albums today sound so much different than that era. Think early 90s Morrisound, to mid 90s Rotting Christ and Tiamat, to the Abyss Studios stuff in the late 90s.

Deicide's self titled is warm and muddy, Rotting Christ's stuff was just plain bad but atmospheric, and the Abyss stuff was trebly and digital. Very imperfect but there's something special about all of them. Today though, throw a mic in front of an amp and it's instantly huge.

I know there isn't just one thing that contributed to the sound of those albums so I'd like to hear some elaboration on this.

 

[Mike Moriarty]

Everybody is doing the flat midrange thing these days. Albums these days are cleaner but have no character. I prefer the 90's style.

 

[Dave_Syn]

I kind of want to say that analog tape has something to do with it, but the examples I've heard of tape machines sound good, crisp and clear and not too much different from anything into a DAW (unless slammed). It's almost like some of those older albums were recorded either on a cheap cassette tape or a cheap digital recorder.

What did they do?

 

[Manicompression]

Some of the old timers have talked about Morrisound before in threads. I think the point of view that I largely believe is that most of the guys who ended up engineering / mixing those records were familiar with how to work on rock albums, shit like Aerosmith an Foreigner. When it came to mixing stuff with fast double kick and growling vocals they tended to try to apply the same techniques and the result was muddy, strange, and unique sounding recordings. Obviously some of them honed their skill and got better over the years, and others didn't.

Another thing to consider is death metal has always been a very artist driven genre. So some of these bands probably guided the mix into what they thought they wanted despite the mix engineers. Also there has never been anywhere near the amount of money behind the genre so Its not like some putz A&R guy was sitting in the studio telling them what to do.

As for why stuff sounds similar today, I don't think thats necessarily true but certainly people have come around to techniques that work at achieving clarity in the din of nonsense that is a fast metal mix. The bands could still make weird sounding records, they choose not too.

 

[Terminus]

I am as 90's as they get and sometimes I think I'm stuck somewhere between 97-99 still but I think most of what you say is merely nostalgia. Our memory works like that. You remember the good stuff about the past but try to forget the shitty parts, and bam nostalgia. All the old videos games are better, all the old movies are better, all the old cars are better (except the Gremlin or the Pinto and even that's better that a fucking new minivan). Maybe only us old fucks would understand that, I don't know. Even old fake-ass wresting was better.

When it comes down to it, people just got better at it and showed other people how to do it, and those people tended to stick with that way and now we have what we have. Some people try to go left field, some stay in the middle. Some people don't pay attention to any of it and come out with unique yet awesome results, others stick with the tried and true shit and come up with a bag of dicks. And vice versa. Chaos, man. Utter and complete clusterfuck chaos.

Sorry that was a little tongue in cheek.

 

[Capitancambarro]

I kind of want to say that analog tape has something to do with it, but the examples I've heard of tape machines sound good, crisp and clear and not too much different from anything into a DAW (unless slammed). It's almost like some of those older albums were recorded either on a cheap cassette tape or a cheap digital recorder.

What did they do?

Most of the stuff in the latter 90ies was recorded either Adat, Tascam Da-88 or early generation HD Recorder like Fostex D80, D90 series. Tape was already dying out. Also Nubus Pro Tools Systems were the shit in the late ninetees.
I often love those imperfections too. Analog mixing, lack of gear (you couldn't just load a compressor on every channel of your desk - you maybe had 10 channels of compression if AT ALL) and lack of automation is why these albums sound as they sound. There was alot of variety in productions back then because everybody pretty much had their own working formula, unlike today were everybody is pretty much doing the same darn thing, using the same amps and plugs...

 

[cfh11]

love 90s productions. it is hard to separate nostalgia and the quality of the music from the mixes but i always find myself going back to that era for reference on where i want to be. andy's and colin's stuff from the 90s (obviously), scott burns, randy staub, and terry date all have had a huge impact on my mixing style. also really like a lot of the grunge productions from that time and some of the later nu metal stuff from ross robinson and brendan o'brien.

 

[ArthurD]

"randy staub, and terry date" +1

+ Brendan O Brien.

 

[DocSauerkraut]

I was always a fan of Michael Rosen, especially his drum sound on some recordings.

Regarding the typical 90s sound: To me it seems like the best area, regarding Metal. Most of the music released sounded really good (compared to the common muddy sounds of the 80s) but producers/studios still had their own distinct sound (far more than nowadays).
I would expect that the use of samples and amp simulation (soft-/hardware) is a huge factor why the buld of recent metal productions sounds very similar.

 

[Loki Laufeyiarson]

What happened between the 90s and now is the internet. Everybody is sharing recording and mixingtips with everybody nowadays and therefore a lot ends up sounding the same. That and the fact that there is new technology that makes a good sounding record cheaper to make.