How Important Is Mixing/Producing?

[Roush]

I really like GN'R, Metallica, Jill Scott, The Fugees, Grails, Mars Volta, list goes on, and on.

But despite liking those artists -- there are some albums I just can't listen to due to the tasteless production. For instance, with GN'R. I cannot stand how Slash's Marshall is so fucking loud, and full. The rhythm guitar is weak. And the worst part about UYI? The drums. My God, listen to the reverb. I know alotta folks say "that's Matt Sorum's fault".

It is, and it isn't.

The choice of adding reverb to the drums certainly didn't help. Listening to AFD, and UYI back-to-back is like night, and day.

Another easy example if St. Anger, with its treatment of the infamous "tin-can drums".

How much does production, and mixing affect your enjoyment of music?

[AxlisOld]

New Metallica is a textbook example of how important it is. Death Magnetic was unmistakable for be because of the clipping, and then I found a fan remaster online that actually made it decent enough. I personally hate the mixing and mastering on UYI.

[Powerage5]

I'm in the exact same boat - I can't enjoy an album unless it has good production qualities (Barring punk albums, but even then I've always been more partial to the bands who sounded good sonically i.e. Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, etc.). Perfect example I can think of offhand - I've been on a big Mighty Mighty Bosstones kick all week from seeing them at the Hometown Throwdown. Some of their albums are totally unlistenable to me because of poor production (Jackknife To A Swan especially), even when the songs are great. They've had a couple songs they re-recorded throughout their career, and 9 times out of 10 I'll listen to the better produced version, even though that is usually the worse performance.

[bran]

doesnt really matter to me honestly, as long as the music is good. i cant listen to st anger isnt the tin can drums, but because the songs suck

the only time it matters to me is when the album clips because it was recorded too fucking loud.

[sweetness]

It's definitely important, it depends on the genre though. For example, I really hate blues with great production quality, it sounds so corny, I much prefer old blues recordings to new albums mainly because the production on older records just suits the music so much more, I prefer the more lo-fi sound. Same with punk and hardcore music for the most part, a more honest and unprocessed sound is a lot more appealing to me with those genres. When it comes to progressive rock bands and electronic music I deffinitely like the full on studio production sound though.

As for mixing, it varies so much it's hard to be too picky, but even if I don't love a mix I usually can still enjoy the music for what it is.

[Crash Diet]

How much does production, and mixing affect your enjoyment of music?

Pretty much

Mixing & production is a very important part of the process

You can have good song & average/bad mixing and production= totally fucked up an album

You can have average/bad songs & very good/stunning mixing and production= WIN

[dalsh327]

In dance & pop music - producers rule the charts. For rock bands, if they know what they're doing, can self-produce most of it, unless they're looking to get on the pop charts.

There's mixed feelings about remixing a classic album, but if the original stereo mix sucked, it's usually needed. A lot of albums recorded in the 80s probably should try to get rid of some of the mixes that make them sound dated, some of it sounds so thin.

How much does production, and mixing affect your enjoyment of music?

Pretty much

Mixing & production is a very important part of the process

You can have good song & average/bad mixing and production= totally fucked up an album

You can have average/bad songs & very good/stunning mixing and production= WIN

Has this happened often? You can't kill a good song.

[Roush]

I'm in the exact same boat - I can't enjoy an album unless it has good production qualities (Barring punk albums, but even then I've always been more partial to the bands who sounded good sonically i.e. Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, etc.). Perfect example I can think of offhand - I've been on a big Mighty Mighty Bosstones kick all week from seeing them at the Hometown Throwdown. Some of their albums are totally unlistenable to me because of poor production (Jackknife To A Swan especially), even when the songs are great.

Ha, I know the MMBT. So 90s. So ska. Speaking of punk, I tried to get into The Replacements, because I heard good things about Tommy's work. The songwriting is tops, the guitar playing is nice, but I can't get into it. Let It Be is too eighties for me. Something else that is too 80s is Prince. Now, I love Prince. But for the life of me, the 808 drum pads are too jarring for me.

As far as quality production goes, this one is probably going to bite me in the ass (on a GN'R forum, no less) -- but "Everyday Is A Winding Road" by Sheryl Crow has flawless production to me. The bongos, the guitar, the synthesizer weaving in, and out of channels, harmonies, etc. I love everything about that song. My favorite era for pop music production is easily the late 90s. It was that musical hangover of Fat Boy Slim, Beck, P. Diddy, and Trent Reznor that (to me) made pop music production more sophisticated, and tasteful in that era.

Subtly became important again with hip-hop, electronic, rock, and alternative acts constantly challenging the industry standard. Another honorable mention: Mezzanine. by Massive Attack. "Teardrop" off that record is famously known for "that song that opens House MD". Those cats had a mastery of sub-bass on that record. I feel like I could talk forever about this stuff. God, I'm a geek. Nine Inch Nails is another one. Cannot stand The Downward Spiral's use of cheesy, '90s, electronic beats. The songwriting, and craftsmanship is Reznor's best. But i]The Fragile trumps it on production, and while the songwriting is lesser than TDS -- I dig it more simply because I admire his use of space, guitar tone, and the use of live drums.

My favorite, produced hip-hop record is Slaughterhouse's self-titled. But their second record is another case of fire, and ice. It got Use Your Illusioned into this simplistic farce of a record where all the important, obvious hooky aspects are pushed up. And the subtlety is non-existent to appeal to the lowest common denominator via radio play. People can say what they want about GN'R. But to me, Appetite is the Holy Grail of rock 'n' roll production to me. Take a throwaway track like "Think About You". The mixing with the acoustics, surf guitar, chorus, just...everything is perfect.

I won't even delve into Chinese Democracy's production. Say what you will. Whether your dislike it, like it...whatever. It's probably the strangest album I have ever heard. Because it's not intentionally strange like a Mike Patton side project. Chinese is accidentally weird. Every song sounds like it was tailored in a different era by a different producer in a different room (and it likely was.) It is such a disjointed, schizophrenic album. Listen to "Better", than "There Was A Time". "TWAT" sounds like it was recorded in 1998 with a lo-fi Beck style in mind. It sounds thin compared to "Better" which is a full blast of mid-2000s rock instrumentation.

Another pet peeve is everything post-sobriety, Trent Reznor has used virtually the same annoying, digitized guitar feedback on every NIN album after. With Teeth, Year Zero, and The Slip. It simply does not sound good.

[bacardimayne]

It can be more important than the music itself depending on the genre.

[DieselDaisy]

Does this include overdubs? If so, I hate the shitty overdubs Axl placed on UYI. I also do not like the children in Kiss's God of Thunder.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Very very very very very important. There are certain schools of thought that are very anti-production techniques but i always found that to be like, a bit...i mean it's a kind of production isn't it, the desicion to leave something raw or muddy or what have you.

Production has been the downfall of many-a album. L.A.M.F by Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers i think is one of the 5 best rock n roll albums of the 70s but it's production let it down on it's initial release, it's had a shitload of re-releases and re-productionizing or whatever but it had already had the wind taken out of its sails by then.

Yeah, production is massively important. Some albums are like...production driven i mean, Joy Division for example, Martin Hannett should've been the 5th member. So, y'know, the whole "overproduced by Martin Hannett" Jello Biafra thing is all really cute but i've always considered lack of production in effect a production choice if you get my meaning.

The best albums in this world are what they are cuz of a good producer, Nevermind the Bollocks would not have sounded like it did were it not for Chris Spedding, listen to the early Pistols demos and although it sounds like great raw product it's not as sleek and defined and compacted and fucking roaring as the end product of NMTB.

The Stooges Raw Power, another fantastic example, loads of people love and adore the Bowie mix, which was originally pointed out as one of it's failings, Iggy remixed it in 1997 and basically just turned everything up, chucked it in the red and made that fucking album roar, the Bowie mix is haing a resurgence in popularity though, with the advent of the re-release and, to my mind, the notion dawning on a lot of people that if this is a seminal album that made a load of people run out and start bands or sparked ideas then it's the original Bowie mix, despite prior criticisms, that they did it to...to me though, i love the Iggy mix, the 97 mix, it's much more suited and much more loud and lairy and in your face, the way a Stooges album should sound.

Production can make or break an album, you could give one album to 5 or 10 different producers and you'd come out with 5 or 10 different sounding albums. Production is incredibly important i think.

[Roush]

Sugaraylen, I had no idea two mixes existed of Raw Power. In terms of best-produced albums -- here's my list. No order, I ain't a numbers guy.

Des Visages Des Figures - Noir Désir

Listen to "L'appartement".

Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

Not even gonna bother.

Peace Beyond Passion - Me'Shell Ndegeocello

What can I say? I'm soft for bass, smooth harmonies, and auditory space.

Urban Hymns - The Verve

Wow.

Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits

...Also his best record in general.

I'm too tired to extrapolate. But here's my shit list as far as producers go: Butch Vig (Nevermind, Garbage), and Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd.)

[DieselDaisy]

My favourites...

Mike Clink (for Appetite obviously), Jimmy Miller (stones), Roy Thomas Baker (Queen), Eddie Kramer (Hendix, Kiss) and George Martin (Beatles).

I do not really have any dislikes but I hated the production on VR's Contraband, Josh Abraham. Yack. Cluttered modern nu-metal shit. A lot of the nu-metal acts had awful producers.

[Johnny Drama]

No ones mentioned The Black Album. That's a beautiful sounding album.

[DieselDaisy]

I find the black album a bit, sterile. My favourite Metallica production is Load; the guitars sound fantastic. Metallica have suffered terribly on their last two records from production related issues, Death Magnetic in the mastering.

I forgot Sam Phillips on my list.

What is everyone's opinion on Rick Rubin. I heard some artists are slightly put off my his eccentric style whereby he has about seven artists in production around town and he visits each one for a hour and says, ''I like that, I like that, I do not like that'', and leaves! But he is certainly successful (Slayer, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond).

Edited January 3, 2013 by DieselDaisy

[Guest Len B'stard]

Sugaraylen, I had no idea two mixes existed of Raw Power. In terms of best-produced albums -- here's my list. No order, I ain't a numbers guy.

Check em out man, i'd love to hear what you think. There's the original Bowie mix and the one Iggy did in 97. In fact the original mix was out of circulation for ages until the recent re-release.

[Gordon Comstock]

Cluttered modern nu-metal shit. A lot of the nu-metal acts had awful producers.

I find it interesting that Terry Date, who did nu-metal acts like Slipknot, also "produced" Oh My God. Sorta gives even more of a view into what Axl wanted to do in the late 90's.

I don't really know a lot about different producers, I couldn't tell you who produced a lot of my favorite albums off the top of my head except for GNR albums. Whoever said Chinese was like, "accidently weird", I agree with that, but I like it. I like to go through the multi-tracks and play around and hear all the buried sounds (Prostitute is just... something else entirely).

For me, it's all good when the guitars sound full and all, but I tend to focus a lot on the bass and drumming (which is why AFD shits all over UYI production-wise)

[Johnny Drama]

Yeah but Terry Date also did Soundgarden and Pantera. Soundgarden have alot of shit produced stuff but Pantera have some really well produced stuff. Especially the guitars how Dimebag used to manually record his tracks on top of each other perfectly instead of double tracking etc.

[bran]

Yeah but Terry Date also did Soundgarden and Pantera. Soundgarden have alot of shit produced stuff but Pantera have some really well produced stuff. Especially the guitars how Dimebag used to manually record his tracks on top of each other perfectly instead of double tracking etc.

yeah terry date also did bands like dream theater, sanctuary,dark angel, overkill

i always thought he did a pretty damn good job, especially on the guitars.

[Zeppelin]

Production/engineering are extremely important to music. Good songs are good songs, but good songs with great production values take those good songs and bring them to another level.

Some of my favourites include Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree), Todd Rundgren (Utopia, Meat Loaf, solo records, etc.), Peter Collins (Rush), Terry Brown (Rush, Fates Warning), James Barton (Queensrÿche), etc. Barton is a mixing specialist. The man knows what he's doing. He helped mix one of my all-time favourite sounding records: Empire by Queensrÿche. An absolute gem of an album with great production. Peter Collins did the production on it too.

Great songwriting is always better when brought to life with amazing production values. One of my more recent favourites in terms of production is Steven Wilson's Grace For Drowning. It's brilliantly produced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOuiRehjKKU

[wasted]

A good song can survive production. Its like a hot girl wearing bin bag.

[Vincent Vega]

Exile on Main St's production is perfect.

[Johnny Drama]

Exile on Main St's production is perfect.

It fucking sucks.

[Gordon Comstock]

Yeah but Terry Date also did Soundgarden and Pantera. Soundgarden have alot of shit produced stuff but Pantera have some really well produced stuff. Especially the guitars how Dimebag used to manually record his tracks on top of each other perfectly instead of double tracking etc.

Yea, sorry, when I said Terry Date did nu-metal albums, I was talking just in '99, when he did stuff like Limp Bizkit, Deftones and Slipknot.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Exile on Main St's production is perfect.

I could agree with you on that actually