Your very *favourite* metal production?

[GarethSE]

I really really like Soundtrack To Your Escape by In Flames. It's got this really unorthodox sound to it, but still seems so right for the music. Even though that type of sound is not something that I strive for, it's one of my favorite to just put on the stereo and blast it. Alot of very subtle things going on in the mix too, every now and then I discover something I never noticed before. Great album, and great job by Mr.Bergstrand.

Agreed 100%
The snare sound makes me cream. Huge sounding guitars too!


Converge - Jane Doe is probably my favourite production job ever. I'm usually into really tight mixes, everything having its own space, tracked nice and clean and everything played tighter than a virgin on prom night.
But goddamn, the production adds so much to the music it's absoloutely unbelievable.
No Heroes is fantastic production wise too. The bass and guitar sounds sound like one instrument, in the best kind of way possible, absoloute magic.

Isis - In The Absence Of Truth is just a generally perfect production job. A nice balanced mix. Great sounding drums especially.

Lamb of God - Sacrament for my fix of over-production. Randy sounds like a man posessed, and the talking snare drum reverb still has me confused to this day. Props to machine for his work on this.


I don't think I could actually single out just ONE album as my favourite production job, but these ones are right up there.

 

[Gnash]

Back In Black

I can listen to this album on record, radio, cassette, CD, mp3, whatever. The production is perfect.


Anything from Colin, or Sneapster. Brits have it, hands down!

 

[_Brutalism_]

My favourite production has to be :

Sepultura - Beneath the Remains. It might not stand up to modern releases but for me its got balls and captured the idea of the album so well.

Also, if you don't mind me adding, I'm digging (some of you might bash me here) the Winds of Plague production because every single instrument is clear in the mix and its got major balls in my opinion. Without the production I reckon they'd be far worse off.

However, I'm loving Exodus' Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A. Drums are fantastic and the mix is wicked.

Of course there are tonnes of great sounding albums but since the OP asked for 1 favourite (even though I didn't abide by the rules) I mentioned the most memorable at the moment.

Good idea for a thread.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

Necrophagist - Epitaph

2nd runner up - All That Remains - This Darkened Heart (this band kind of sucks but the recording (Zeus) kills)

Pretty sure Zeuss hasn't really worked with ATR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Darkened_Heart

 

[Force666]

Oh shit. That's right. ADAM D did that. I'll edit my earlier post. Duh, thanks for the catch.

 

[rushzil2112]

I realized today that my favorite production is Royal Hunt - paradox. I totally forgot about this cd for some reason. The bass drum has punch boom and clarity, the toms are great, and the snare has some great fatness to it. The vocals on this cd are beyond great, plus it helps when you have a singer like D.C. Cooper.

After listening to a bunch of stuff today, I had a few more pop out at me I forgot about.

Evergrey - recreation day, and in search of truth
Bleed the Sky - Paradigm in Entropy, and also Murder the Dance(it is much like Stabbing the Drama in that at first it doesn't sound the greatest right off but after many listens you just realize how great it works for the music)
Death - Symbolic
Edguy - mandrake(I think this is one of the ballsiest power metal productions along with Gamma Ray - no world order)
Textures - silhouettes
Hacride - amoeba
Mercenary - everblack(I think this is one of the heaviest ballsiest bassiest albums, it just makes my home system rumble and scream at me)
Rage - unity(awesome mix, great guitar sounds, great drums)
Scarve - the undercurrent(the bass drum is so much in the sub it is crazy)
Sybreed - antares
Symphony X - V-new mythology suite
Mnemic - passenger

 

[Black neon bob]

Holographic Universe

this!

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Symphony X- The Odyssey

Awesome music, awesome mix, and everything just works.

 

[blackcom]

I think I'm the first, but the Black Album obviously has some serious production skills backing it up. That has really shaped much of today's metal bands, at least in terms of what they want their CD's to sound like.

What do I like best? The drum sound really raised the bar for me, in terms of really polished "larger than life" sounds. There is also a cool ambiance backing the drums up (due to all those room mics they used). The bass also sounds absolutely thunderous.

Hehe... The black album.... I have a funny little story here....
I was At Dug-Out Studios and Daniel Bergstrand was mixing an album I had produced and he started talking about productions.... I remember him saying "..when the Black Album came out every one was soooo stunned how good it sounded, but nowdays it's not really that big of a deal anymore..."

I just looked at him thinking "what the hell are you saying?", then I just rememered he had produced and mixed Stabbing the Drama wich IMO actually sounds better then the Black album so there you go... haha... Come to think of it STD is my favourite production too.

I'd love to hear Daniel Bergstrand produce and mix a Metallica album. I'm under the impression he's not afraid to tell anyone what "has to be done" to make things sound great.

 

[Rex Rocker]

Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill
As I Lay Dying - An Ocean Between Us

 

[Ermz]

Danne has a good point. Everyone gets so hung up about the Black album being huge that they seem to forget to actually listen and realize it doesn't sound all that special. The levels are out of whack, and the frequency content really isn't distributed that well across the instruments. I'm sure it was a great indication of its time, but if we just get hung up on sentimentality, we won't move forward.

 

[SickBoy]

Well, I don't see much love for the works of Morrisound so I'll have to jump in...

Iced Earth's "Horror Show" is one of my favorite productions, I love heavy as fuck rhythm tone Schaffer used to have in those days and the drums sound wonderfully, so clear and present, in your face. I'd love to be able to produce such guitars and drums one day... Of course, I lack Christy and Schaffer in the equation but there's no harm in hope

 

[Razorjack]

Stabbing the Drama is my favourite too.

 

[Metaltastic]

Interesting bit about STD, though - except for the drums (which were recorded at Dug-Out), everything was recorded and all the mixing was done at Fascination Street studios, and although Bergstrand is listed as the main engineer, it also says "Additional Engineering: Jens Bogren;" I wonder how much he contributed? Oh yeah, and next to Bergstrand's name under the "engineer" category is always the name "Orjan Ornkloo" - probably the assistant or something, but god what a ridiculous name

 

[The Unavoidable]

Interesting bit about STD, though - except for the drums (which were recorded at Dug-Out), everything was recorded and all the mixing was done at Fascination Street studios, and although Bergstrand is listed as the main engineer, it also says "Additional Engineering: Jens Bogren;" I wonder how much he contributed? Oh yeah, and next to Bergstrand's name under the "engineer" category is always the name "Orjan Ornkloo" - probably the assistant or something, but god what a ridiculous name

Örnkloo means eagle claw. But it's one O to much, idk about that. And he's also the guy that has done all the programming and keys on the latest In Flames albums.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Pfff I wish my last name was Eagle Claw

 

[Metaltastic]

Hahahahahahaah, true that!

 

[benversluis]

I'm sure it's been said, but....

At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul

Holy balls. Could metal production get any better? The drums are, in my opinion, the best drum sounds I've ever heard (metal or not). The toms, kick, and snare are just amazing. The guitars are thick without being irritating and without being gimmicky. Even the vocals sound fucking brutal.

As far as recent production....

Black Dahlia Murder - Nocturnal

BDM progressively steps up their production with each album. I can't help but wonder where they'll go from their newest album. Granted, the album is FUCKING SMASHED (read: no dynamic range) but man...the vocals, drums, guitars...even the bass has an awesome tone. What a fucking great album.

 

[SickBoy]

I realized today that my favorite production is Royal Hunt - paradox. I totally forgot about this cd for some reason. The bass drum has punch boom and clarity, the toms are great, and the snare has some great fatness to it. The vocals on this cd are beyond great, plus it helps when you have a singer like D.C. Cooper.

Interesting choice, I myself never saw that album as a production masterpiece... To get things straight, I LOVE that album, one of my alltime favs, but the production is IMO too drowned in reverb and the great fat snare you mention has no meat at all for me, all that's left is a short overcompressed 'snap' and a reverb trail... Funny how we perceive the same thing differently!

 

[rushzil2112]

Or it just means we describe things differently, because fatness to me is a nice snap(but the snap is not higher-pitched, say Portnoy's snare on Awake) but has some reverb.

I love Joey's snare sound the new Slipknot cd(I've always liked his drums, or at least on the new one and volume 3). The whole overall sound on the new Slipknot is great though, and Corey's vocals sound better than ever.

I also forgot to mention the two newest Adagio's, they both sound great and the piano on underworld sounds amazing to me.

If I had to chose the drum sound for a cd I was playing on, I think I would have to go with Lamb of God's ashes of the wake, at least at this moment in time. My mind changes a lot, I've got way too much music always running through my head to be albe to decide on anything, hehe.