Looking back on earlier favorite albums

[RedDog]

Inspired by the Pantera thread in the main forum, I have been cycling through some of my favorite album sounds from the last few years. I used to think Mudvayne's Lost and Found was the heaviest album I've ever heard, production-wise. A huge amount of bass, and the drums dominate, this album alone turned me onto drop tuning and extended meter phrasing. Looking back on it now, I realize how middy the guitars are, and the beef I'd always loved about them coming from the bass guitar. it's amazing what you can learn by going back to earlier works, much like watching a movie you saw as a child as an older individual and understanding that much more about something you already know and love. Sounds now, like the bass is very active, and a lot of the sub bass has been subtracted from the bass guitar, allowing more intelligibility, giving more room for each accent fill to slam the floor. The kick isn't extremely present, but highly emphasized by both it's panning and frequency at which it is set. Most notable about this album is it's apparent loudness, a factor I could never quite comprehend until now. There is a lot going on with the vocal presence range, and the way the guitars are emphasized. the bass has it's clearly defined bounds and in faster material, less subs provide greater room for the track to stand out. It's a very vocal and drum production, with guitars filling in the holes and the bass keeping the sounds interesting for me.

I'd like to thank the members of this forum for sharing with me the knowledge to identify these elements and giving me the inspiration to create my own works. You guys have given me more than anyone I could ask for, or even pay for.

Hat's off to you guys for this one.

 

[Nimvi]

I love that feeling of rediscovering what you already loved so much. It's like a small epiphany every time you learn something new, or upgrade an important part of your monitoring chain. Becoming good at knowing what to listen for is not an easy journey, but I think it's incredibly rewarding. I think someone once posted a cycle of phases you go through with audio engineering, and it was spot on for me. It described how at a certain point you are so concerned with listening for the technical details of a mix, that you can barely enjoy it anymore, but this is followed up by a phase where you start to hear the beauty again, but now WITH all those extra details. That's the part of the cycle I'm currently in, and I'm loving it to bits.

For example, one of my favourite albums of all time is Death's Individual Thought Patterns, because I feel that every bandmember contributes evenly to bringing the music to a higher level on that album. Now that I start to get better at picking out the details in a mix, I can just sit back and listen to a single instrument during the entire playthrough, and it has done nothing but increase my love and respect for the music. Every kick, every bassnote, every guitarsolo just seems to be exactly as it should be. It's a wonderful experience.

It also makes me think about the old question of "how important is a great mix when 99% of the people won't be able to tell the difference?". Sure, they may not be able to pick out the details as much, but for some reason we have (probably) loved our favourite albums before we knew anything about that stuff too, yet it seems like the quality was noticable to our brains, even if we didn't know why.

One thing that makes me sad though, is that I'm not able to share my passion for those intricate details with any of my friends. They look at me like I'm nuts when I try to point out how awesome that bassline is. Might as well tell them how whimsical the oxygen molecules are today. Fucking sucks.

 

[Terminus]

My Dying Bride - Like Gods of the Sun was the first record where the guitar tone really jumped out at me. Think that was 5150 through Marshall 1960a or b cabs.

Carcass - Heartwork really stood out for obvious reasons I dont need to go into here.

Fear Factory - Demanufacture was one of my first wow moments with production when it came out.

Cathedral - Caravan Beyond Redemption was a wow moment when it came out (thanks to Andy) and it still remains my favorite Cathedral record due to both songs and production.