http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news...ce_i_wanted_to_cold_cock_him_right_there.html
Somehow I believe this guy.
Somehow I believe this guy.
Mixer for Metallicas IJFA wanted to knock Lars out....
- Thread starter scorpio01169
- Start date
HCL
Holy Crap! Lions!
Lars hate is way over the top. How many bands make bad mixing decisions? Plus it was the late 80s and they were rockstars, I'm not surprised he has a hazy memory of the time.
Nuno Filipe
You talkin' to me?
Genius Gone Insane
http://www.¯\(°_o)/¯.com
I do not understand why people have a problem with the bass in AJFA. When the stems got posted here it was pretty clear that the bass was a huge part of the guitar sound. If you take out the bass, the record falls flat.
P-E
Munchkin
^ I personally wouldn't agree with that. IIRC, the stems showed pretty clearly that the guitars themselves had a lot of low-end, while the bass was almost non-existent. If anything, the bass couldn't be turned up to achieve a balanced mix because of how much low end was already present in the guitars.
This makes sense if you try to remaster a song in the album for fun. I spent a few hours remastering Blackened and I ended up removing tons of low-end in the guitars and adding in some low-mids to achieve a more modern sound. I did a lot of post-processing to the bass too, but this is another story.
This makes sense if you try to remaster a song in the album for fun. I spent a few hours remastering Blackened and I ended up removing tons of low-end in the guitars and adding in some low-mids to achieve a more modern sound. I did a lot of post-processing to the bass too, but this is another story.
abt
BT
I agree the Lars hate is way over the top, especially over what happened 25 plus years ago. Everyone seems to forget the AJFA era he graced the cover of just about every drum magazine and was haled the best there was. Not to mention the AJFA sound, is the most converted, sort after sound ever in metal IMO. Forever after this album kicks and guitars sounded different. I may have been really young at the time, but I was there, I listened to the albums, I read the magazine. What Lars and Metallica did then runs deep through what we do now.
abt
BT
That's all well and good but I bet even if you could do a perfect mix by today's standards, and you could get everyone to agree the mix is better, I guarantee that 99 out of 100 would still prefer the original. That's where the art is, that's where the music is. It's a big part of what's wrong with music production today. Everything sound generic, nothing has it's own voice, nothing speaks to the people.
P-E
Munchkin
Oh, I totally agree that such a remix loses the whole original vibe of the album. However, my points were that the bass actually didn't play a huge role in the original sound, and that this - amongst other mixing choices - made the record difficult to appreciate for many people (like Burny and myself, for instance).
That being said, the mix's influence on the archetypical modern metal sound, especially regarding drums, is undeniable.
abt
BT
I don't even know what we're talking about now! haha! I agree with you about the bass.
I guess the point of the thread was to bag Lars but my point was not to disagree with anyone but to put it in perspective. I mean think about what they did in those days is mind blowing. Every step they took at first everyone bagged them. RTL "a fucking ballard!" six months latter "Fade to black is the best song every written". MOP same thing,for some reason at first they hated it, "This sounds terrible" "what a sellout" six months later "Puppets is the best album ever". Repeat for AJFA and the Black album. You get the picture.
I guess the point of the thread was to bag Lars but my point was not to disagree with anyone but to put it in perspective. I mean think about what they did in those days is mind blowing. Every step they took at first everyone bagged them. RTL "a fucking ballard!" six months latter "Fade to black is the best song every written". MOP same thing,for some reason at first they hated it, "This sounds terrible" "what a sellout" six months later "Puppets is the best album ever". Repeat for AJFA and the Black album. You get the picture.
AD Chaos
MGTOW
- Aug 3, 2009
- 1,602
- 14
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This. I knew nothing as well, but I still could tell it just wasn't the same as Master. I guess the problem for AJFA is that it had to follow Master Of Puppets, which I'm sure few would disagree is superior in most regards. The drums sounded kind of cut off, and the guitar (gtr&bass) sound just wasn't balanced and awesome, as in Master.. that mix is a staple imo. The music (except One obviously) was also a notch or two below, I guess that didn't help either.
There's something about that record (MOP) that made me wonder (back in 95) what is this thing in there that sounds so great, what is this ''sustain pedal'', the compression glue.. how can I sound the same with my DOD distortion and crappy guitar haha
I don't think anyone's managed to achieve that same je ne sais quoi ('perfect' EQ/sustain?) with a Rectifier ever since. That high gain dist is just butter-like smooth.. you can listen to it for hours and still enjoy it. Imo things like that may have even helped pave the way for them to become more and more mainstream as time went by. The violin-like delay sounds on Damage Inc.'s intro and Master are just glorious, too!
I can still remember going over and over the wine-red booklet.. ah memories.
No, The reason why I posted it was...not from a fans point of view but the point of view from the mix engineer, which is why we are here...mostly. The mix engineer to this day gets shit on because of that mix....he had done mixes for many people and I guess up until IJFA he was praised. Just think about it, for some engineers their future depends on past work and who knows what kind of work he lost because of a decision that was out of his hands.
abt
BT
I meant interview not thread, my mistake, and the way the entire AJFA section was extrapolated from it.
As for him losing work, I find that very hard to believe. If you can legitimatly put the name "Metallica" on your resume (even the unmentionables) and not have work for the rest of your life then your doing something wrong.
crillemannen
Member
I also thought the album sounded strange back when i knew nothing about music. Not anything i could point at, but yeah I forced myself to like it. Although I've listened to it a gazillion times in my youth it is probably the album i like the least of the good erá (81-99)
It is still an album that stands out from a mixing perspective, it is unique and is probably one of the first albums that pushed metal productions to what it is today.
It is still an album that stands out from a mixing perspective, it is unique and is probably one of the first albums that pushed metal productions to what it is today.
smy1
Member
I call a bit of bullshit on the fact that anyone other than pro-producers actually noticed the mix back when the album came out. Another question would be who even was old enough to listen to it in 1988? Cause comparing it to Korn albums 10-15 years later, of course it has no bass.
These days everyone and their mom has an opinion on a mix cause everyone has a friend who "produces beats". But back then? Before the days of the internet? Please ...
These days everyone and their mom has an opinion on a mix cause everyone has a friend who "produces beats". But back then? Before the days of the internet? Please ...
~BURNY~
Member
- Apr 20, 2005
- 5,091
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I was 13. Believe me if you want, I could not say why I didn't like it, I barely knew how a bass sounded, but I really hated their sound...
I also hated this one that came in 91 and was obviously heavily influenced by AJFA:
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SocialNumb
Damn Christians!
I was 13 also but I didn't give a crap what an album sounded like so long as it didn't sound like it was recorded on a cassette in garage with one mic. I can't stand Metallica anymore but they had a lot of influence on me as far as musical taste go. So for that, Thanks Metallica! 
Yeah I agree, I doubt he lost work, especially with his resume. The point I was making was I get bands that ask to listen to my past work in order to make decisions on whether I'm good enough to so the job, and it would suck if a band had me do something that influenced another band not to record with me. I mean I guess I could not show stuff I'm not proud of. But as far as this guy goes, this album was put out there for the world...not just friends to hear and when I and my friends heard it...lack of bass was a big deal especially because this was Jasons coming out party so to speak. And as a bass player I was a little disappointed.
bryan_kilco
Member
Damn bass players wanting to be all loud all the time.
They don't need to be heard anyway.
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