What good reference albums like Tool's 10,000 days or Chevelle's 02 and 04 albums?

[DreamSound]

Well, I guess most of us started listening to a certain band when we were little kids and became identified with those bands and so we loved them. Lately, for me, becoming 'identified' is not enough, it has to have the best sound quality. Maybe I'm too picky, but I've been having a really hard time finding artists and bands that I like and I KNOW there's a bunch of them out there. In this thread I'd like to ask for your help on this sort of 'quest' . I feel sluty for some GREAT CD's right now if you know what I mean.

I've been listening to Chevelle again, and although I hate their last album "Vena Sera" (What Happened??! ) I've been pretty impressed since 2002 with their album "This Type of Thinking" and then in 2004 with "Wonder What's Next". I know they recorded in Warehouse Studios (Vancouver, Canada). I'd love to meet their engineers, shake their hand and ask them how they got every component in their album to be so loud without 'cancelling each other out.'

I also really like the recording for Tool "10,000 days" and 'some' Perfect Circle covers/remixes (3 Libras [feel my ice dub mix] The Outsider [Apocalypse Mix], Imagine, etcetera). Following this category I 'might' go for Phobia from Breaking Benjamin.

In all these albums I find the mixing and engineering to meet a common goal: The album should get as close as possible to make you believe you are in a personal live concert. The sound should be defined and clear, the vocals should still be the main component but without getting on top of everything or fighting with the guitars but instead the guitar tone should be backing the vocal tone and mixing/blending with them yet keeping them separate (I don't know how to explain it but I think this is where Chevelle did the best job), a bass and kick drum that hit your heart, guitars are very present, violins that fill the room, drums that are really strong like on a live situation but again it doesn't take over anything else. Overall I feel every element should be easily heard and you shouldn't have to ask was that the bass or guitar or kick drum?

What other albums alike do you recommend as a good recording reference? I've been looking extensively and I don't want to get sick of Chevelle, Tool and Perfect Circle but again, I'm having the a very hard time finding albums and even artists that meets the above qualifications.

In my search for good artists I've spent money on a band called Skillet that sounded decent on MySpace but after listening to their CD I was not impressed with the sound quality. After reading the thread on best albums for 2007 I saw consistently: Arcade Fire - Neon Bible and Silverchair - Young Modern as very good 2007 albums. My girlfriend bought me those two CD's for Christmas per my request. To be honest with you (I'm no saying these albums are bad AT ALL) I do like the sound quality, but I just can't get to listen to their whole album. Feel free to comment on what do you like about these two albums by the way.

In conclusion, I'd LOVE to go order a bunch of CD's of good music right now, can you PLEASE HELP ME?

[Jason Poulin]

Hey man, sounds like you're into the same stuff I am...


Asides from those albums you mentioned, I've also been listening to a lot of the newer System of a Down (Mezmerize, Toxicity)... Very raw but great seperation and dynamics.

There are a lot of balances between quality of music over quality of sound of the album, I know exactly what you mean.


J.

[Jonboy79]

For me 10,000 Days is a great reference album for drums and guitars but not so much for vocals. Most vocalists I work with wouldn't want themselves that buried in the mix. But if you've ever seen Tool live you know Maynard doesn't like to be front and center. Recording a lot of Hard Rock and Metal bands like you've mentioned and Breaking Benjamins and even bands like Trapt(who sound a little less processed) are often my go to's for reference. One Metal band I've been going to a lot and really like the sound of is In This Moment. It's got a great combo of screaming and singing and just sounds like I'd think a Metal album should.

[Zorran]

10000 days has some excellent imaging..you can really picture the instruments. it is hard to find albums close to that.

closer to phobia though, check out both the alter bridge albums, filter - amalgamut, sevendust - animosity, 36 crazyfists - a snow capped romance (just for drums), dark new day - s/t. all of these (except 36 cf) were mixed by ben grosse..and he is just the man. the amalgamut is probably the biggest mix ever!

a bit different but kinda similar-ish, would be 30 seconds to mars a beautiful lie, a perfect circle - thirteenth step, machine head - the blackening, and maybe army of anyone - s/t.

[DreamSound]

Well, hello Zorran, we meet again my friend.

Yes, 10,000 days is hard to find and I guess somewhat breakthrough for recording. I agree the vocals are buried, but they are miles ahead from Aenema and Lateralus which are also incredible albums, just not as good recordings. I was lucky enough to see them live a few months ago.

I'm going to checkout and buy CD's from the bands suggested here, thanks. I will appreciate further options/comments.

[nandoanalog]

It`s just a matter of taste, but my favourite drumsound ever is from TOOL`s Lateralus album...

[idrinkalot]

its funny that i consider these sounds & albums to be the absolute cliche of sampled autotuned grid-aligned music and the furthest thing from a band playing in a room together.

[nandoanalog]

Originally Posted by idrinkalot

its funny that i consider these sounds & albums to be the absolute cliche of sampled autotuned grid-aligned music and the furthest thing from a band playing in a room together.

If you`re talking about TOOL, then yeah, you drink a lot.

[mikymike]

Originally Posted by Jason Poulin

Hey man, sounds like you're into the same stuff I am...


Asides from those albums you mentioned, I've also been listening to a lot of the newer System of a Down (Mezmerize, Toxicity)... Very raw but great seperation and dynamics.

There are a lot of balances between quality of music over quality of sound of the album, I know exactly what you mean.


J.

As far as Im concerned, these recordings are amongst the clearest, powerful, defined, recordings Ive ever heard. Very underrated!!!

[Blake Minaker]

I am going to concur with what's been said here already. 10,000 Days sounds great imo. Toxicity is very dry and I love it that way. Really hard. Suits that band very much with that type of material, very different from Mesmerize/Hypnotize. Anyway, I thought I would throw in a few more suggestions:

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Isis - Panopticon

Both have kind of a shoegazer layered guitar big drum sound I really like, and I think are a very good example of good sounding modern albums. Of course, YMMV

[bexarametric]

Originally Posted by idrinkalot

its funny that i consider these sounds & albums to be the absolute cliche of sampled autotuned grid-aligned music and the furthest thing from a band playing in a room together.

Tool and Autotune?? They barely use compression.

[SighBorg]

Lo-Pro - Lo-Pro

Former members of Ultraspank & Godsmack

Recorded at NRG

Produced by Don Gilmore

Engineered by Don Gilmore & John Ewing Jr.

Mixed by Chris Lord-Alge

Mastered by Bob Ludwig

Handclapping by Gayle Boulware

Nough said.

Nearly every track is good. Bass sound is amazing.

BTW, I like msn music's description of John Ewing:

"The strong ears of engineer John Ewing, Jr. have survived recording sessions with Limp Bizkit, Korn and many other howlingly loud bands. Often working in connection with NRG studios of Los Angeles, he should not be confused with the Ewing, Jr. who was arrested for bombing the County Courthouse in Urbana"

[DreamSound]

drinkalot why don't you sober up and mention what bands that you 'think' beat the above? You make no sense.

Nando I agree. I love the way Danny Carey records drums in ALL their albums.

I will check out the other bands mentioned, now I got some material to research and hopefully I'll get to start ordering CD's from deepdiscountcd.com this coming week.

Any more suggestions?

[The Suicider]

Originally Posted by Kelly644

Lo-Pro - Lo-Pro

Former members of Ultraspank & Godsmack

Recorded at NRG

Produced by Don Gilmore

Engineered by Don Gilmore & John Ewing Jr.

Mixed by Chris Lord-Alge

Mastered by Bob Ludwig

Handclapping by Gayle Boulware

Nough said.

Nearly every track is good. Bass sound is amazing.

BTW, I like msn music's description of John Ewing:

"The strong ears of engineer John Ewing, Jr. have survived recording sessions with Limp Bizkit, Korn and many other howlingly loud bands. Often working in connection with NRG studios of Los Angeles, he should not be confused with the Ewing, Jr. who was arrested for bombing the County Courthouse in Urbana"

Thanks for the CD reference. I checked them out, and like the production alot.

[meshuggener33]

Originally Posted by idrinkalot

its funny that i consider these sounds & albums to be the absolute cliche of sampled autotuned grid-aligned music and the furthest thing from a band playing in a room together.

You're right!!! It is funny!!! Typing vs listening are two different things. Try the latter first. With 10,000 days and APC's Thirteenth Step. Then do the typing

[meshuggener33]

Other records to check out would be from the Deftones. Self titled is a huge sounding record. Check out the track Minerva for sheer size. Also Porcupine Tree. One of their records is incredibly mixed and produced, I forget the name. Have a hunt around.

[-Noodles-]

Alter Bridge - Blackbird.

Isis - The Absence of Truth

Edit;

Opeth - Deliverance / Ghost Reveries

[fuzzrhythm]

Deftones - Around The Fur
Soungarden - Superunknown
Rage Against The Machine - The Battle of Los Angeles
Weezer - S/T (Blue)

[DontLetMeDrown]

Originally Posted by Kelly644

Lo-Pro - Lo-Pro

Former members of Ultraspank & Godsmack

Recorded at NRG

Produced by Don Gilmore

Engineered by Don Gilmore & John Ewing Jr.

Mixed by Chris Lord-Alge

Mastered by Bob Ludwig

Handclapping by Gayle Boulware

Nough said.

Nearly every track is good. Bass sound is amazing.

BTW, I like msn music's description of John Ewing:

"The strong ears of engineer John Ewing, Jr. have survived recording sessions with Limp Bizkit, Korn and many other howlingly loud bands. Often working in connection with NRG studios of Los Angeles, he should not be confused with the Ewing, Jr. who was arrested for bombing the County Courthouse in Urbana"

Very cool to see Lo-Pro mentioned here. I knew about Ultraspank, but I didn't know any of them were former members of Godsmack. Very insteresting. They just finished tracking their newest album at our studio. Mixing starts next week and is being done by Angus Cooke (Ataris, Lagwagon, Nerf Herder).

Back to topic...

I'm also into bands like Chevelle and Tool and also some pop and metal stuff. Here are some of my go-to reference CDs which span a few different genres:

Chevelle - This Kind of thinking... (excellent overall)
Linkin Park - Meteora (great nu-metal guitar ref)
American Headcharge - The Feeding (maybe my fav gtr tones ever)
Finch - What it is to Burn (excellent pop ref with saturated gtrs)
My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (excellent "squash" ref)
Vendetta Red - Between the Never and the Now (great clean gtr ref)
Death Cab for Cute - Plans (excellent pop reference, superior clarity)
Killswitch Engage - The End of Heartache (perfect metal reference)
Unearth - III: In the Eyes of Fire (maybe my fav drums ever)

[beef]

Isis - in the absence of truth (steve albini)
neurosis - given to the rising (steve albini)

Great sounds!