How Important Is Mixing/Producing?

[Vincent Vega]

Exile on Main St's production is perfect.

It fucking sucks.

It's perfect, gives the record it's feel of sleaze and grime. I want you to just picture America in 1972...Coming off the high of the '60s, Vietnam is winding down, people are feeling a bit better but everything is corrupt--from the White House to the NYPD, corruption is everywhere, as is Cocaine, Heroin, Quaaludes, and Sex, burnt out grungy hippies and blaxploitation and yet all of it is great in a sleazy, gritty way. Exile on Main St. is the soundtrack of 1972 America.

Edited January 5, 2013 by Vincent Vega

[Projected]

As a sound engineer - it's very important.

[Kill Devil Hill]

It's more important than the music usually.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Exile on Main St's production is perfect.

It fucking sucks.

It's perfect, gives the record it's feel of sleaze and grime. I want you to just picture America in 1972...Coming off the high of the '60s, Vietnam is winding down, people are feeling a bit better but everything is corrupt--from the White House to the NYPD, corruption is everywhere, as is Cocaine, Heroin, Quaaludes, and Sex, burnt out grungy hippies and blaxploitation and yet all of it is great in a sleazy, gritty way. Exile on Main St. is the soundtrack of 1972 America.

L.A.M.F by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers does a much better job of it in my opinion, at least in terms of sleaze and grit

[Roush]

As a sound engineer - it's very important.

Cool So what's your choice records for production/mixing?

Also, nice dialogue in this thread. I don't have a strong opinion on Exile. Eh, me -- I've always dug Sticky Fingers more for production.

[Ragnar]

Very important Chinese Democracy was molested, double penetrated, mutiliated, raped. molested and double penetrated again in studio songs themselves are great but shitty mixing and production ruined it

[Gordon Comstock]

Very important Chinese Democracy was molested, double penetrated, mutiliated, raped. molested and double penetrated again in studio songs themselves are great but shitty mixing and production ruined it

I love listening to the multitracks, especially Prostitute. God damn, Prostitute is a great song. I wish we could get stems for everything instead of having 20 different instruments just thrown under "additional instruments", but oh well. I like the way Chinese sounds when it's on my stereo, but there are times when I prefer opening up the multitracks and playing around with the mix.

[chevelle]

Bad production can definitely ruin good music for me. I'm not one of those guys who needs a record to be squeaky clean and super polished, but if it's super distorted and hard to listen to (like Kanye's MBDTF - good songs, terrible production), or is really obviously done on the cheap, I don't get into it as much.

[Roush]

Very important Chinese Democracy was molested, double penetrated, mutiliated, raped. molested and double penetrated again in studio songs themselves are great but shitty mixing and production ruined it

I love listening to the multitracks, especially Prostitute. God damn, Prostitute is a great song. I wish we could get stems for everything instead of having 20 different instruments just thrown under "additional instruments", but oh well. I like the way Chinese sounds when it's on my stereo, but there are times when I prefer opening up the multitracks and playing around with the mix.

Yeah, the record bugs me. Songwriting aside, the production style never makes up its mind. One song sounds like Odelay era Beck, the next song may sound lo-fi, and thin. To me, "overproduced" means a production style overstates itself. Which Chinese exemplifies.

[T.wa.T]

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

+1 Its the main issue I have w UYI. Compared to Appetite, it sounds to hollow n it sucks that they lowered Izzys guitar, tha fucks up w that? Not to mention Matt makes the dumbest faces while playing, he should put a bag over his head when playing, or a mask like Buckethead.