Andy Wallace is probably my favorite producer ever.
Anyone know Grace from Jeff Buckley? Obviously not metal, the sheer depth of the sound, is just incredible. Another one of those records where it sounds like Jeff and the band are playing their fucking hearts out right in front of you.
Not a knock to modern metal, since I listen to a lot of modern metal and love it to fucking death, but it seems like you just can't get that kind of depth in that music at all sonically, it seems just all so pushed to the front, whereas you listen to Grace and each instrument and even the individual drums just seem to be coming from different directions and you can practically close your eyes and picture where each band member is in the room.
Amazing dynamics too.
I absolutely adore the dynamics in RATM's music.
It's just so awesome to listen to "Freedom", and hearing that part where Zach says "Anger is a gift" and then you're on the edge of your seat trying to listen to it closely, and suddenly, WHAM, you're blown back into your chair and get this massive rush from the onslaught that comes straight after.
That is the level metal should be mastered at IMO.
It just makes me wish more bands understood how to use dynamics to their advantage and I think that would help to make modern metal less samey sounding from band to band.
I mean, think about it. You sit there and watch a good electric guitarist playing through the clean channel of his amp. The dude knows how to use the dynamic range of the clean tone to a great emotional affect.
And it's the same when you're sitting there noodling around in the clean channel yourself, it's just not the same when you compress the shit out of it, because you can't dig in anymore, give your all and make the individual notes have their own character as well as it could when it's an uncompressed clean tone and you just don't feel as rewarded.
I grew up listening to my dad play the classical guitar and it wouldn't have been 1/4 as good and interesting to listen to if every note was just the same volume each time.
I really do look forward to the day more bands and engineers are able to utilize towards technology and go against this trend of loud, non stop in your face music for every album and song (I realize that's not the case in everything, but it seems to be a good majority of metal nowadays anyway) and understand the beauty of dynamics.
Just hearing that 3D flair In Utereo, Grace or the debut RATM album have.
For the post 2000 period, Oceanic and Panopticon are great examples of albums that have a great level of spatial depth that you're aren't going to hear in seemingly most of modern metal and are always not mastered as loud either (although post metal is inherently dynamic genre of music).
Although understandably this kind of music is not always to the tastes of guys who are listening to death metal or whatever all day (there was a time when I wasn't listening to post metal either) but I think it's your loss not to hear these 2 albums for another perspective on post-2000 productions.
