Worst Guitar Tones in a Professional Recording.

[jamvanman]

All of 'Cowboys From Hell'.

Don't mind the album but I really dislike the sound of the guitars on this.

 

[~BURNY~]

Infernal - Edge Of Sanity (Tagtgren)
Bees!

 

[Mago]

Amon Amarth - Versus the World.

Because there would be a not so bad guitar tone under all that scratchyness that could have easily been reduced. The way it is it just makes my ears bleed.

 

[dan weapon]

I'm sure there are actual worse ones, but I'll give a shout out to the first couple of Carcass records, largely to highlight this was the same band that also put out Heartwork, one of the best metal guitar tones ever.

 

[Heabow]

I absolutely love the bass tone on Come Clarity, but everything else leaves much to be desired.

Same here. Their latest productions are so unclear, I find them very fatiguating. It totally serves the songs badly.

 

[tgs]

Ahah! Your post made me visit your website Your studio is pretty great man!!

Thanks, very cool to hear!

 

[mephetic_exhumation]

Not guitars, vocals.

Oops.. I just looked it up on the burzum site and it seems like you're right. I stand corrected

 

[Mago]

totally forgot about sworn to a great divide by soilwork. yuk. already deleted that one from my mind. songs were good tho, but the production sucked.

 

[Heabow]

Back on topic I'd say Soilwork 'Sworn To A Great Divide'.

That's one of the first that came to my mind I'm not a fan of Soilwork tones in general but this one is terrible for sure!

 

[Alphanumeric]

I think my least favourite tones are at extreme ends of a spectrum and showcase why going to far of one flavour is bad.

1. Justice for All to me represents the gone too scoop side of tube mid range. Really hollow.

2. Pantera's first 3 albums. Again, another gone too scoop style, but with solid state, adds fuel to the fire of steretypes about metal tones, insanely fizzy, muddy and extremely weak/quiet.

3. After The Burial's Wolves Within/any number of demo djent bands. Overdialed mids/presence coupled with extreme high passing. Sounds like listening to guitars through a telephone.

4. Iron Maiden. Too much natural marshall mid range, really honky and bland.

5. Any Cannibal Corpse right up until the new Mark Lewis one (great). Way too much gain and saturation.

6. Periphery debut, way too undergained.

7. Too much presence. The vast majority of modern podfarm core. The upper mids are so harsh its imposible to listen to it at high volume.

I've never really heard anything pro with too much low end in the guitars, if anything my personal favourites have a lot of weight (Thy Art - Hate, a lot of Colin Richardsons mid 00s work) ... so leaving that out.

 

[xTomx]

Taking Back Sunday - 'Tell All Your Friends'.
Bad edits, horrible mix, shitty MIDI instruments. They redeemed themselves with Louder now though.

All 90's hardcore.

 

[H-evolve]

It's probably not horrible, but I really don't like the guitar tone of the latest Starkill album, Virus of the Mind. The music is freakin awesome, but I just find the guitar tone to be thin and harsh.

But hey, maybe it's the new trend in guitar tone... I just don't like it.

 

[FrankyFVX]

Symphony X. I don't know about their newer stuff, but I can't even listen to stuff like Damnation Game because it sounds like someone just forgot to double-track the guitar and didn't adjust anything to compensate.

I really like their tone since Paradise Lost (when Mike made the switch to ENGL), but yeah for sure prior to that his tone was pretty weak/thin depending on the album

 

[Terminus]

totally forgot about sworn to a great divide by soilwork. yuk. already deleted that one from my mind. songs were good tho, but the production sucked.

I downloaded the stem tracks for Exile from Rock Band and whew boy those guitar tones are even more total shit soloed. I'm actually re-recording them myself for fun. I do like Flinks bass tone on there though.

 

[Rhorschack]

The guitars on Slayer's "World Painted Blood" take the take imo.