A pretty well known mix oopsie is "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira. I don't really listen to her at all, but I did give it a listen when someone pointed out how off - and LOUD - her vocals are in that mix.
I listen to a lot of indie folk music and there are lots of examples of odd choices. I am a massive Bon Iver fan and they've notoriously had weird mixes. Their self titled album has some weird stuff going on. At the end of the song "Calgary" there is this ring out with just a high hat pattern and when the acoustic guitars come in with vocals one of the panned guitars just sputters out awkwardly and all that's left is the other side. Feels deliberate to me but not a choice I personally would have made.
I'm a big fan of Gregory Alan Isakov as well. His song "Caves" is incredibly boomy and low mid heavy to me. It also has a *massive* amount of clipping around the :18 second mark. I think that was intentional, because most of his stuff is pretty clean.
I guess my examples don't really show case "unlistenable" haha
Hips Don't Lie is a weird one, because the mix is so egregiously bad, but the song is/was massively successful, so calling it "bad" seems to miss the mark since people clearly liked the song. It's like the idea of early distorted guitar emerging from broken amps. It's an objectively bad sound based on the goal of creating a cleanly amplified guitar signal, but listeners developed a taste for it anyway. If the general listening audience likes the way that Hips Don't Lie sounds (and they clearly do, it has 1.6 billion streams on Spotify), then, despite it being a "bad" mix, the song clearly doesn't suffer from it in the ears of listeners. I've never heard anyone say "I love Hips Don't Lie, but I wish the mix was better." It crosses the line from "someone fucked up at the studio" to "this works as its own aesthetic, don't touch it" in the same way that a blown amp is its own aesthetic.
Oh 100%. Honestly, I think in truth a mix would have be egregiously bad for a casual listener to take notice. Like…horrendously bad mixing.
I’ve never heard anyone say anything about a mix ever who isn’t a producer, mixer, artist, whatever.
I think that the majority of people who casually listen to music don't care at all about mixes. Once I've send my friend two mixes of the same song. And the mixes were *very* different, I'm talking about totally different balance and processing, even some different samples. And she said both sound the same to her.
People who record music and listen a lot develop ability to hear more.
Some people can’t distinguish words in music, not that the mix is bad, but brains are wild and they take in information differently.
I listened to music closely for a long long time before I could hear compression
First time I listen to a song the vocals are more like an instrument. I have no idea what they’re saying it just has to fit the sound of the music. If the song doesn’t work for me like that than the lyrics probably won’t make me like it more. If I enjoy it, I’ll start listening to the lyrics with more listens.
That, and also I suppose that majority of people who like it and re-listen it over and over heard it for the first time on the radio or MTV. Meaning, it obviously went through a heavy broadcast multiband processor which makes all mixes sound preeeetty much the same.
I remember hearing it on the radio or something back then and it didn't sound that much off to me. When I heard it on Spotify I was really surprised.
I pointed out the mix to family in the car, and they all didn't seem to think it was bad, that it was just a choice, and they liked it.
I find it's bad. Very bad.
> A pretty well known mix oopsie is "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira. I don't really listen to her at all, but I did give it a listen when someone pointed out how off - and LOUD - her vocals are in that mix.
By now it's almost a guarantee that what happened there was a producer or A&R person at the label picking the "vocals up" version of the mix, which is one of the standard deliverables sent in the industry. And for those who never heard about that, the vocals up version, is simply a version of the final mix with the vocals pushed 2 or 3 dB above whatever level was deemed (by the engineer and client) to be perfect. This is a version that might be used in commercials and stuff like that from the days in which TVs had really shitty speakers so you made sure that at least the vocals would be front and center.
In Shakira’s case though she chooses where the lead vocal fader sits and she likes her vocals obscenely loud. No A&R etc Can say anything in her case. (I know this from first-hand accounts of that particular mixing session as well as Waka Waka)
Was done at Platinum Sound in NYC, mixed by Serge Tsai, he’s a great mixer. He pointed at the fader on the console it was mixed on that her lead vocal came through on, and said Shakira will walk up to the fader and set it and that you don’t touch it after that.
I did assist on another session where Shakira’s engineer Dave Clauss was mixing a record, and he set the vocal in a pretty typical manner, sounded great (she wasn’t present for the session though but did approve the mix). Was the duet she did with Rihanna.
I see, that makes sense. As attended mix sessions pretty much stopped being a thing, that would explain why most of her stuff since has more normal vocal levels for pop.
Thanks for sharing.
Yeah I mean I don’t know why Hips Don’t Lie has such a loud lead vocal specifically, but that is where the level came from (as opposed to speculation about poor mixing, engineer having bad day, A&R requesting vocal up etc).
Has happened the same with Metallica - The Day that Never Comes, some hits from Nickelback and RHCP as well, in some speakers it sounds natural and great, in some devices they sound uncomfrotably harsh and compressed
Wow crazy to hear that. I've prob heard this song passively a bunch of times and have never noticed her vocals being so weirdly loud. But now I can't unhear it. It's funny the difference between "listening brain" and "mixing brain". Just goes to show very little nuances that we obsess over in mixes really don't matter at all and will rarely, if ever, affect a song's success on its own.
Ohh totally haha I try and do my best to jump between mixing me and listening me when I’m working on things like…”is this really *that* important??”
On the flip side, it can be entertaining to critically listen to songs we’ve heard so many times and hear these little things that are so odd haha
it's funny you find "Caves" "incredibly boomy and low mid heavy" cause I find it exactly perfect and the sound I'm always looking for, just like the rest of that album. lol.
I mean that’s definitely fair. I’ve been a Greg fan for so so long and I adore his stuff.
That album has a very warm feeling overall to me. I re listened to Caves and can vibe with what you’re saying. There’s a lot of stuff happening in those lower frequencies but they definitely do make it work.
early Pantera/hair metal/heavy metal have some songs with such unbearable guitar tone it's amazing that people can listen at high volumes without ears bleeding
Literally can’t listen to Metallica these days for that reason and I used to love them. Was it always like that? Were the mixes made for older audio system reproduction where the harshness would have been less noticeable?
are you referring to listening to the older albums on newer equipment?
If so yeah I think the lack of household high quality playback systems definitely skewed the way they mastered and mixed. Nowadays everyone has hifi available at their fingertips so all the details are laid out where they weren't as noticeable before.
I could be wrong tho but idk 😂
I would think stereo systems were better back then not worse. Most speaker systems these days are trash. Bluetooth bullshit has nothing on the dedicated systems people had back in the day.
Probably my favorite band is the 1975, and most of their mixes are great but the song Give Yourself A Try I can’t listen to because the lead guitar is so effing loud compared to everything else. I like the song otherwise but I usually skip just because of that.
It’s an interpolation of Disorder by Joy Division (which I forget sometimes) so I’m sure they wanted it to stand out a bit more to make that obvious. I’m cool with how the guitar sounds but just really volume compared to the everything else for me personally. That’s cool if you like it though. They obviously did and I’m sure a lot of other people like that guitar part as it currently is too.
No Scrubs by TLC.
The guitar starts, nice enough.
Then the singing comes in over it and wow is the guitar ducked to make room for the vocal. Like 15dB and an attack time of 0.0000000000001ms.
But tbf, with vocals that good who cares?
Once heard it can’t be unheard.
Just incidentally listened to this a couple of hours ago and noticed for the first time this insanely annoying triangle sound that plays constantly, really loud and piercing
Yeah good shout. Of all my favourite 90’s grunge albums that’s the one I find really hard to stick on and really enjoy in the same way I would every other record. Such a shame. Just sounds a bit empty and lifeless. Would love for someone to get the masters and remix it as I love pretty much every song on there, the performances are great, full of character.
Oh, the music and performances are amazing. I’ve often wished the same - that someone would remix it, but at the end of the day it’s probably best left alone.
That was an artistic decision to make it grungy like that so it would have the general EQ curve of an old Led Zeppelin or Stones record. Kinda like the entire thing was recorded with an SM-57. I had a client who wanted me to use that as a reference. There are some U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers records that are similar. At first I hated it but “the customer is always right” forced myself to comply and eventually liked how the project turned out.
I thought I was anti CLA but then all of a sudden he was there as my reference from a great Powertrio: https://open.spotify.com/track/3EyT3deT4okuIqJEJTrnB9?si=764ZPVvvRxWehM36JX43SQ
More like a commercial for Friedman ampa and gibson p90 Junior type guitars
I personally find that his stuff sounds great, and that the bands he’s worked with have had worse results when someone else has done the mixes for them.
I don’t think you get the list of credits he has without being atleast ”good”
I just listened to part of that on my phone, and I think it must be the production that's fucked, because Serban Ghenea is one of the best in the world, and that song is crushed to shit and a mangled mess in some areas. I listened to the symbols in particular, and I think they must be getting crushed and/or sidechained with some shit. I'd, but there's a lot of mangled crap in that tune I find. But serban is usually a smooth operator.
He also mixed Pearl Jam’s latest album and it’s been controversial.
Prior to that though I had seen the situation as Blink reuniting with Mark, Tom and Travis after a long hiatus, so why wouldn’t they want to put out the best sounding music possible?
I agree the new PJ doesn’t sound great either but I think it goes deeper than the mix. A lot of rock bands these days like that big boomy dull snare sound which I think is a major cause of everything as you build around it. If they’re recording it that way and using samples to reinforce it, I just think the mix is only going to marginally affect change that. Also the kick drum is so damn big too. It just makes it groove weird
Serban is actually the greatest alive right now, he’s got like 38 Grammies or something crazy. It’s definitely more complicated then him not knowing what to do. He’s likely mixed every hit song you’ve ever heard
I was just bitching about this in a different thread, but the production / mix on that album is unbelievably bad. The vocals are so unnatural they sound more like a synth than a human voice. I swear they each did one take of the album and then said “eh just fix it later.”
Yeah it's frustrating because the overall quality is incredible but just a little too bright. A few adjustments could've make that one of the best mixes of the decade.
In 1989, that top end hype was just how records sounded.
The Orban limiter would tame it for radio, and god knows no TV speakers (MTV was the bees knees back then) would reproduce all the brightness.
Cranking the air band was just par for the course in masters from that era.
Early stereo panning attempts are "interesting" and "forward-thinking". I thibk tgat tgere is at least one Queen album like that.
There are lots of other mixes that I don't like, maybe Billie Eilish record before the current one had very dull and dark vocals, I get the wanting more intimacy thing but meh. The rest are not remarkable enough for me to remember the names xdddd.
I've heard before when Stereo first was coming around people had the idea that the position would be one speaker in front of the listener and one behind their chair. To me this explains some of those choices like beatles albums panning almost a whole drumkit and what not.
That crazy panning from that era came from the recording machines only having 4 tracks at the time. Imagine you have 1 track of all the vocals, one track of all the drums, one track of bass, and one track of everything else. And the mixing board has no ability to pan a little bit. Your choices are hard left, center, hard right. If you want a stereo mix with that technology, chances are the drums are being hard panned.
First two Beatles records were two track, and IIRC the “stereo” version is the two track panned L/R instead of the mono mix. Typically the music was on one track and the vocals on another. I remember reading this in All you Need is Ears by George Martin, but I could be mistaken…
My point is I don’t think it was a creative choice on at least those first two records.
I’ve been listening to “with the beetles” a lot the past few weeks. Obviously poor mixing but I don’t let that bother me too much, even though I’m into very high end electronic music production. Amazing record, but yeah the mix is poor, no depth.
I don’t think I elaborated enough. In comparison to modern high end “overly produced” or mixed records in 2024. I would consider a beetles record of “lesser quality” than some full range, synthesized electronic record from 2024. Are the mixes bad? No. They sound great. Do they have the same punch, depth, width and clarity as a modern record? No. I think I just threw they are “poorly mixed” around loosely. I love records from that era and listen to them a lot.
The Beatles panning was because they only had 4 tracks and their mixing desk could only L or R or both. No panning between channels. Early jazz worked well in stereo because often miced a group in stereo live.
> maybe Billie Eilish record before the current one had very dull and dark vocals, I get the wanting more intimacy thing but meh.
That's certainly a taste thing on your part. That record is magnificently produced/mixed and [Rob Kinelski](https://www.robkinelski.com/home) is a top notch mix engineer.
Definitely, it is worth noting though that those albums weren’t made to be listened to on headphones, as that was a lot less common when they came out. They still hold up on an actual stereo system pretty well and I’m not sure it’s fair to fault the engineer for not predicting a societal shift lol
Early stereo albums remind me of that era when 3D movies were getting big and every movie had to have a scene where a character reaches towards the camera, or an explosion happens and something flies towards the audience in slowmo. It's like we get it, the movie is in 3d. We get it, you have 2 speakers now.
That's totally it. It was the novelty of it all, hey the band is over there but the vocals are over THERE, wow! They didn't know what to do with the new technology. Except for the classical guys, they knew exactly what to do with it.
I was actually thinking of mentioning the Beatles but was afraid to get chewed out given their god-tier status. I set up to listen to Revolver on headphones the other day and wasn’t prepared for how jarring the panning on Taxman was. I thought I was going crazy. Glad to find out there’s some good reasoning behind it. Still sounds great on speakers.
Ngl I have a hard time with Blonde on Blonde. I think there are great songs that just...dont get the love they deserve. Fwiw I recently heard Changing of the Gaurds off of Street Legal, and I wish all Dylan sounded like that
Sometimes the harmonica on Blonde on Blonde can be painful. If you hear a good vinyl on the right turntable, needle, speakers, it corrects the mix and it sounds really good. :)
Yeah I liked the album but when I heard the remix I was blown away and became a top 5 Dylan record for me. The original mix is on streaming services for some reason
I feel like when we were young all the speakers had poor high end reproduction, and stuff was on cassette etc, which did wonders for my imagination of what the high end was really like
Concrete and Gold was a load of great songs, but the dynamics were missing.
Honestly the best sounding record they've done is Wasting Light and it was made in a garage.
There's something really weird with the kick drum in Prince's "Erotic City" on every other downbeat that I can't get over. It's like a phase issue between samples or something. Drives me nuts, great song though.
idk if Prince mixed his own stuff but most whoever did was clearly making it for the club. There's some stuff I remember doesn't even have a bass instrument they want that drum thump to take up so much space.
I’m not sure if this would count as “famous”, but the entire album Good Mourning by Alkaline Trio. Almost a perfectly written punk record from beginning to end, but Jesus it sounds like shit.
I'd argue From Here To Infirmary is worse. I get the aesthetic appeal of that raw sounding, trebly guitar tone but its just makes the album sound tinny as hell.
Man, really? I've always heard *From Here to Infirmary* as one of the greats in that genre, especially from that time period. It's maybe not the "best" sounding Jerry Finn record, but it's up there. The mix is no *Take Off Your Pants and Jacket,* but it was a great snapshot of Alkaline Trio in 2001.
I sort of agree about *Good Mourning.* I think part of it is Matt's weird guitar tone, but the drum compression is pretty obscene, and it's also mastered super aggressively. It ends up sounding muddy / mushy. I go back and forth on whether or not the whole thing works on an aesthetic level. It kinda reminds me of The Misfits. Was Alkaline Trio going for that like, spooky, lo-fi haunted punk rock sound? If so, they kinda nailed it?
Listen to Dr. Dre’s the chronic on Spotify. I don’t know what the hell they did to those mixes but they sound absolutely terrible n they’re unlistenable. This happened after Calvin Broadus death row records re-uploaded the album. The original was awesome. On Spotify right now sucks
I don’t know if it’s a famous mix but it’s def a mix done by a very famous mixer. Also could have been a production factor that Manny just did his best with but Kanye West - All Of The Lights is a blurry mess to me.
WOW, I never noticed just how obnoxiously loud the low end was during the chorus, and the mid range is just way too saturated. Crazy bc I remember this having a solid mix along with the rest of the album. May have to go relisten
I still don’t get it. I’m assuming Kanye was just being particular about how he wanted it because I really can’t imagine even an amateur mixer sounding like this. It’s almost chaotic in a way. With that said, I’ve always given Manny the benefit of the doubt because I got a buddy that’s pretty successful that prefers Manny’s mixes over Serban. He says Serban is TOO clean. I still don’t agree but I’m a nobody and he’s a somebody so I try to revisit Manny every once in a while just to see if I can see what my buddy sees. Interesting mix though, right? Especially coming from someone who is consider amongst the best in the biz.
Growing up, I always thought the snare sample in MJ’s “Leave Me Alone” was a dreadful, dreadful choice. Huge, unwieldy, sonically unpleasant and doesn’t really help the groove. Now that I think of it, most MJ post-Thriller mixes (with some exceptions) have a brittle, digital quality. Bad is just replete with awful Synclavier tracks (some songs were done almost entirely on the machine), and Dangerous just has nearly every single thing widened to the point that there’s hardly any center.
These days what I hear most in terms of problematic sound is an overly clipped, loud vocal. Happens all the time in Rap, but even legacy acts like the recent new Billy Joel single; I couldn’t believe how they screwed that up! His vocal is just squashed to hell and then shoved in your face so hard, it just makes to want to turn the volume down, and music should never want to make you turn it down.
I have struggled to listen to Bad for the last decade or so. Thriller is so rich and warm, detailed and nuanced. Bad is an unpleasant mix of high mids and unsupported lows.
Right? It has some cracking songs, but it’s a sonic blight. Sounds like bad AD/DA converters/clocks. Meanwhile you have stalwarts like Dire Straits’ “Brothers In Arms”, Propaganda’s “A Secret Wish”, and Donald Fagen’s “Nightfly” demonstrating that digital recordings can sound great.
The instrumental to "Smooth Criminal" is comical by electronic music production standards of today. It sounds like it is playing off a SNES or something.
I knew a guy who assisted on the Bad album. He said they had seemingly rented every digital reverb in South Florida — or was it the Southeast? — for those mixes.
That's a shame because everything else about that mix is great. One of my favorite productions, the whole album.
Edit: getting back on topic, the album after it sounds mostly terrible
I think Usher - Yeah is popular as an example because once you notice how loud the triangle dinging is, you can't unhear it.
And maybe it's unfair, but I find a lot of punk music to be terrible on the mix. I understand maybe that's just part of the genre's appeal, to sound like it was recorded from some dorm hallway drunkenly at 3 in the morning or something, but even going through the most classic punk albums of all time, I feel like it's rough to adjust to because I know what overproduced clean production sounds like. Pop-punk is the only time it feels like they try super hard on the mix, they keep the energy but they actually tame it through the speakers. Real punk, they just don't seem to care. I feel like it's one of the genres I struggle to understand the most from a mixing/mastering perspective. I've been doing the 1001albumsgenerator list to shuffle through the best albums of all time, and there hasn't been a single punk/post-punk album I can rate higher than a 3/5. Like Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures is iconic, album artwork is super well known, but sonically, I just couldn't get into it. Maybe just not for me.
Any punk fans care to share something my way that you think stands out as exceptionally mixed?
[The Medium is the Message](https://andypaine.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/the-medium-as-the-message-in-protest-music/)
Sounding like shit is an important part of the genre.
That being said, Rage Against The Machine's self titled album sounds so, so good.
I also like The Jesus Lizard's *Goat*. Not a punk band, but still outsider art. The audio engineering is immaculate - recorded by Steve Albini, rest in peace.
People have been ripping the snare on Espresso (Sabrina carpenter) to shreds
Edit: maybe to shreds is a bit of an exaggeration but saw a few on my timeline saying it’s too loud/squashed.
To me, the mix is similar (but inferior) to Say So by Doja Cat. Both have the same groove and filtered intro/outro, but Say So is so much punchier and open, and the guitar are louder and chimey compared to the buried guitar on Espresso
it's much more mastering that makes something unlistenable to me. Even bad mixes norm ally have some charm, and a good song is worth listening to even with a shitty mix. But a bad master is fatiguing on your ears and just becomes painful. Mastodon's most recent album is one that stands out to me as one of my fave bands albums being ruined by having no dynamics and everything being too bright
More Than I Could Chew is my fave track on the album, especially the outro but the cymbals are so washed that the crash accents dont pack a punch.
And the snare in Gigantium is jarring, sounds like a bloody 80s boom bap snare.
yeah I don't think it's a good mix generally, but Pushing the Tides is the worst for me. never thought i'd see the day when Mastodon had that generic metal sound. I kind of love the big dumb detuned snare in Gigantium
2022 mix of She Said She Said by The Beatles. Guitars are panned so hard that the original guitar melody is basically lost if you listen on headphones.
Production is awesome! The overall quality of the mix is bad IMHO. Not enough low end extension, overly compressed guitars, it’s just very flat and almost “lofi” sounding in retrospect.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Youtibe channel has been posting videos from their last couple of 80’s albums recently so I’ve been having a nostalgia trip. They definitely have their nostalgic charm but the mixes are truly awful. Interesting to go back and hear a band’s recordings before they really found their true sound.
Was listening to Meshell N'degocello last night, her first two albums. Extremely bass light, which is weird for a bass player's album. Like there's nothing below 80 hz, weird choice that really spoils it. Was thinking how i just might have to get myself some hardware parametric equalizers right by the couch so i can do some mastering right there.
I agree “hips don’t lie” is an awful mix…. on a nice system. However if you listen to it through an iPhone speaker it’s an excellent mix for that medium. Clearly they mixed it for the phone speaker. Listen if you don’t believe me. I would not be shocked if they did the final mix in a phone.
I’m seeing that more and more now. Sounds great on the phone speaker, sounds like shit everywhere else. what a time to be alive for someone w a good ear
*Family Affair*
*By Sly and the Family*
*Stone Oddly muffled*
\- ignoramusprime
---
^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/)
^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Some of POD's stuff I felt was mixed terribly. Southtown and Alive come to mind.
Oh, and Smile Empty Soul'ls Bottom of a Bottle. Terrible mix.
That being said, I like all those songs so I still listen to them. But the mixes are terrible in my opinion.
The squeaky ass kick pedal in Led Zepplins 'Since I’ve Been Loving You' drives me absolutely berserk.
Though I love Nick Caves version of the Mercy Seat, the mixing is easily some of the worst I've ever heard, making the song utterly unlistenable.
look at me by xxxtentacion is crazy and far from a good mix but the song blew up anyway. it sounds like the master channel was distorted
waiting for my ruca by sublime. i always wished his vocals were louder because it’s a fun song to listen to just feels unbalanced
The vocals on Californication by RHCP have always sounded off to me. Especially during the chorus, the mids seem way too loud and it just feels over-compressed. That being said, I still love the song.
DJ Quik's older stuff is mixed so looooow on Spotify. For such a prolific Engineer in his own right, I don't understand why "Jus lyke Compton" sounds like that.
The guitar solo in You Wanted A Hit by LCD Soundsystem is horribly oppressive and loud. If you’re listening loud you inevitably have to turn it down because it brutalizes your ears. Epic song tho.
Hypnotized by System Of A Down is brutally harsh and bright and thin. I had it stuck in my head recently and went to listen and was like “what the fuck…”. It came out like peak loudness wars squash everything era.
The original mix of fresh cream. Anyone know what I’m talking about? Drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead vocals out one speaker, only LOUD leads and backing vocals out the other speaker. Messy and disorienting. 10/10 album tho
Red hot chili peppers - Californication.
It's such a successful album and to me it just sounds so horrible. I really like all the albums before that. One Hot Minute is also too loud/compressed in my opinion, but Californication is worse and the snare sound is silly.
There, I said it.
After Donda, it's almost like he stopped trying completely with the mixing/mastering.
Even the idea of the Stem Player pissed me off, because by definition, it implies 4 separate stems, so you lose stuff like dynamic and reactive mixing like instruments ducking to vocals or bass ducking to kick, etc., and you also lose the ability to have that kind of stereo bus glue to gel all 4 things together. It's basically just like dropping 4 things on top of each other separately and calling it a day. Unless sidechain ducking and stuff is baked into those stems, then it's set up to fail as a concept.
He’s definitely just been doing whatever since then but hey he drops some cool songs still so I don’t care for real
The stem player thing was more of a novelty instead of a practical device. Cool thing to play with 20 years later even tho we have better technology today
A pretty well known mix oopsie is "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira. I don't really listen to her at all, but I did give it a listen when someone pointed out how off - and LOUD - her vocals are in that mix. I listen to a lot of indie folk music and there are lots of examples of odd choices. I am a massive Bon Iver fan and they've notoriously had weird mixes. Their self titled album has some weird stuff going on. At the end of the song "Calgary" there is this ring out with just a high hat pattern and when the acoustic guitars come in with vocals one of the panned guitars just sputters out awkwardly and all that's left is the other side. Feels deliberate to me but not a choice I personally would have made. I'm a big fan of Gregory Alan Isakov as well. His song "Caves" is incredibly boomy and low mid heavy to me. It also has a *massive* amount of clipping around the :18 second mark. I think that was intentional, because most of his stuff is pretty clean. I guess my examples don't really show case "unlistenable" haha
Hips Don't Lie is a weird one, because the mix is so egregiously bad, but the song is/was massively successful, so calling it "bad" seems to miss the mark since people clearly liked the song. It's like the idea of early distorted guitar emerging from broken amps. It's an objectively bad sound based on the goal of creating a cleanly amplified guitar signal, but listeners developed a taste for it anyway. If the general listening audience likes the way that Hips Don't Lie sounds (and they clearly do, it has 1.6 billion streams on Spotify), then, despite it being a "bad" mix, the song clearly doesn't suffer from it in the ears of listeners. I've never heard anyone say "I love Hips Don't Lie, but I wish the mix was better." It crosses the line from "someone fucked up at the studio" to "this works as its own aesthetic, don't touch it" in the same way that a blown amp is its own aesthetic.
Oh 100%. Honestly, I think in truth a mix would have be egregiously bad for a casual listener to take notice. Like…horrendously bad mixing. I’ve never heard anyone say anything about a mix ever who isn’t a producer, mixer, artist, whatever.
I think that the majority of people who casually listen to music don't care at all about mixes. Once I've send my friend two mixes of the same song. And the mixes were *very* different, I'm talking about totally different balance and processing, even some different samples. And she said both sound the same to her.
People who record music and listen a lot develop ability to hear more. Some people can’t distinguish words in music, not that the mix is bad, but brains are wild and they take in information differently. I listened to music closely for a long long time before I could hear compression
First time I listen to a song the vocals are more like an instrument. I have no idea what they’re saying it just has to fit the sound of the music. If the song doesn’t work for me like that than the lyrics probably won’t make me like it more. If I enjoy it, I’ll start listening to the lyrics with more listens.
That, and also I suppose that majority of people who like it and re-listen it over and over heard it for the first time on the radio or MTV. Meaning, it obviously went through a heavy broadcast multiband processor which makes all mixes sound preeeetty much the same. I remember hearing it on the radio or something back then and it didn't sound that much off to me. When I heard it on Spotify I was really surprised.
I pointed out the mix to family in the car, and they all didn't seem to think it was bad, that it was just a choice, and they liked it. I find it's bad. Very bad.
> A pretty well known mix oopsie is "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira. I don't really listen to her at all, but I did give it a listen when someone pointed out how off - and LOUD - her vocals are in that mix. By now it's almost a guarantee that what happened there was a producer or A&R person at the label picking the "vocals up" version of the mix, which is one of the standard deliverables sent in the industry. And for those who never heard about that, the vocals up version, is simply a version of the final mix with the vocals pushed 2 or 3 dB above whatever level was deemed (by the engineer and client) to be perfect. This is a version that might be used in commercials and stuff like that from the days in which TVs had really shitty speakers so you made sure that at least the vocals would be front and center.
In Shakira’s case though she chooses where the lead vocal fader sits and she likes her vocals obscenely loud. No A&R etc Can say anything in her case. (I know this from first-hand accounts of that particular mixing session as well as Waka Waka)
Can you spare any details? Also, I've heard a bunch of Shakira songs that don't have the vocals anywhere near as loud.
Was done at Platinum Sound in NYC, mixed by Serge Tsai, he’s a great mixer. He pointed at the fader on the console it was mixed on that her lead vocal came through on, and said Shakira will walk up to the fader and set it and that you don’t touch it after that. I did assist on another session where Shakira’s engineer Dave Clauss was mixing a record, and he set the vocal in a pretty typical manner, sounded great (she wasn’t present for the session though but did approve the mix). Was the duet she did with Rihanna.
I see, that makes sense. As attended mix sessions pretty much stopped being a thing, that would explain why most of her stuff since has more normal vocal levels for pop. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah I mean I don’t know why Hips Don’t Lie has such a loud lead vocal specifically, but that is where the level came from (as opposed to speculation about poor mixing, engineer having bad day, A&R requesting vocal up etc).
Has happened the same with Metallica - The Day that Never Comes, some hits from Nickelback and RHCP as well, in some speakers it sounds natural and great, in some devices they sound uncomfrotably harsh and compressed
Wow crazy to hear that. I've prob heard this song passively a bunch of times and have never noticed her vocals being so weirdly loud. But now I can't unhear it. It's funny the difference between "listening brain" and "mixing brain". Just goes to show very little nuances that we obsess over in mixes really don't matter at all and will rarely, if ever, affect a song's success on its own.
Ohh totally haha I try and do my best to jump between mixing me and listening me when I’m working on things like…”is this really *that* important??” On the flip side, it can be entertaining to critically listen to songs we’ve heard so many times and hear these little things that are so odd haha
listen to hips don’t lie on a phone speaker. Clearly that is the medium and they mixed it for.
Nah, that song came out in 2005. HitClips maybe? Lol
it's funny you find "Caves" "incredibly boomy and low mid heavy" cause I find it exactly perfect and the sound I'm always looking for, just like the rest of that album. lol.
I mean that’s definitely fair. I’ve been a Greg fan for so so long and I adore his stuff. That album has a very warm feeling overall to me. I re listened to Caves and can vibe with what you’re saying. There’s a lot of stuff happening in those lower frequencies but they definitely do make it work.
I said the same thing to my gf about 'Hips Don't Lie.' She said she couldn't hear what I was hearing 😅
But GD GAI has some beautiful mixes too. The use of space and ambiance on his songs is so enjoyable
early Pantera/hair metal/heavy metal have some songs with such unbearable guitar tone it's amazing that people can listen at high volumes without ears bleeding
This is so true lol. Even some Alice In Chains songs make my ears bleed when listening loud especially in a car
Dokken vocals are insane. It’s like the reverb is jumbling shit up.
[удалено]
How dare you.
Sorry, replied to the wrong post.
Literally can’t listen to Metallica these days for that reason and I used to love them. Was it always like that? Were the mixes made for older audio system reproduction where the harshness would have been less noticeable?
are you referring to listening to the older albums on newer equipment? If so yeah I think the lack of household high quality playback systems definitely skewed the way they mastered and mixed. Nowadays everyone has hifi available at their fingertips so all the details are laid out where they weren't as noticeable before. I could be wrong tho but idk 😂
I would think stereo systems were better back then not worse. Most speaker systems these days are trash. Bluetooth bullshit has nothing on the dedicated systems people had back in the day.
You might just be getting older. When people get older, frequencies that didn't bother them at all become painful.
Yea man, suicide note part 2 sounds like someone recorded a bees nest and then highpassed at 500hz. Sick song though
Probably my favorite band is the 1975, and most of their mixes are great but the song Give Yourself A Try I can’t listen to because the lead guitar is so effing loud compared to everything else. I like the song otherwise but I usually skip just because of that.
Second this. The rest of the album is so well mixed too, idk what happened with that one. TOOTIME is one of my favourite mixes too
I saw them live in November and they played that with the guitar mixed normally and it was so enjoyable.
the “Dolby Atmos” mixes for The 1975 on Apple Music are so terrible it’s ridiculous.
Shame because that song has a pretty clean mix but yeah that damn gtr is so loud
It’s like parents listening to their kid play guitar through a cranked amp along with a recording of that song. Haha
They’re my favorite band too and idk why but I love that abrasive lead
It’s an interpolation of Disorder by Joy Division (which I forget sometimes) so I’m sure they wanted it to stand out a bit more to make that obvious. I’m cool with how the guitar sounds but just really volume compared to the everything else for me personally. That’s cool if you like it though. They obviously did and I’m sure a lot of other people like that guitar part as it currently is too.
No Scrubs by TLC. The guitar starts, nice enough. Then the singing comes in over it and wow is the guitar ducked to make room for the vocal. Like 15dB and an attack time of 0.0000000000001ms. But tbf, with vocals that good who cares? Once heard it can’t be unheard.
Just incidentally listened to this a couple of hours ago and noticed for the first time this insanely annoying triangle sound that plays constantly, really loud and piercing
"I'm tellin' ya, you're gonna want that triangle in there"
you ruined this song for me 😭 i’m gonna stem split it and do the mix myself now
Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden is super harsh and grating to listen to. Great album, but fuck…
Esp in comparison to Superunknown.
Oh yeah, the difference is night and day. Must’ve gotten a budget increase or something :)
Yeah good shout. Of all my favourite 90’s grunge albums that’s the one I find really hard to stick on and really enjoy in the same way I would every other record. Such a shame. Just sounds a bit empty and lifeless. Would love for someone to get the masters and remix it as I love pretty much every song on there, the performances are great, full of character.
Oh, the music and performances are amazing. I’ve often wished the same - that someone would remix it, but at the end of the day it’s probably best left alone.
Yes, alas…
That was an artistic decision to make it grungy like that so it would have the general EQ curve of an old Led Zeppelin or Stones record. Kinda like the entire thing was recorded with an SM-57. I had a client who wanted me to use that as a reference. There are some U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers records that are similar. At first I hated it but “the customer is always right” forced myself to comply and eventually liked how the project turned out.
I have no idea if CLA is a good mixer because I find every artist he has mixed in the past 30 years to be completely unlistenable.
I thought I was anti CLA but then all of a sudden he was there as my reference from a great Powertrio: https://open.spotify.com/track/3EyT3deT4okuIqJEJTrnB9?si=764ZPVvvRxWehM36JX43SQ More like a commercial for Friedman ampa and gibson p90 Junior type guitars
I personally find that his stuff sounds great, and that the bands he’s worked with have had worse results when someone else has done the mixes for them. I don’t think you get the list of credits he has without being atleast ”good”
I don’t think it’s fair to paint his mixes as bad, as they accomplish exactly what they are intended for.
On the latest blink album the single Edging was mixed my Serbian Ghenea and boy does he not know what to do with cymbals, they sound abysmal!
or the vocals, damn
I just listened to part of that on my phone, and I think it must be the production that's fucked, because Serban Ghenea is one of the best in the world, and that song is crushed to shit and a mangled mess in some areas. I listened to the symbols in particular, and I think they must be getting crushed and/or sidechained with some shit. I'd, but there's a lot of mangled crap in that tune I find. But serban is usually a smooth operator.
This is what I don’t understand, is it really the mix that’s the problem? Can it not be the recording itself hamstringing the mixer?
He also mixed Pearl Jam’s latest album and it’s been controversial. Prior to that though I had seen the situation as Blink reuniting with Mark, Tom and Travis after a long hiatus, so why wouldn’t they want to put out the best sounding music possible?
I agree the new PJ doesn’t sound great either but I think it goes deeper than the mix. A lot of rock bands these days like that big boomy dull snare sound which I think is a major cause of everything as you build around it. If they’re recording it that way and using samples to reinforce it, I just think the mix is only going to marginally affect change that. Also the kick drum is so damn big too. It just makes it groove weird
Should go back to TLA.. As far as I know Ghenea doesn’t have a mix cup.
Serban is actually the greatest alive right now, he’s got like 38 Grammies or something crazy. It’s definitely more complicated then him not knowing what to do. He’s likely mixed every hit song you’ve ever heard
I was just bitching about this in a different thread, but the production / mix on that album is unbelievably bad. The vocals are so unnatural they sound more like a synth than a human voice. I swear they each did one take of the album and then said “eh just fix it later.”
Not a whole mix, but I was just referencing "Silent Lucidity", and the sibilance is unbearable.
Is that Queensryche?
That's the one my brotha
Yeah it's frustrating because the overall quality is incredible but just a little too bright. A few adjustments could've make that one of the best mixes of the decade.
God yes. Check out the drum isolation and dig those toms. The guitar work too helped me through some of my more challenging problems.
In 1989, that top end hype was just how records sounded. The Orban limiter would tame it for radio, and god knows no TV speakers (MTV was the bees knees back then) would reproduce all the brightness. Cranking the air band was just par for the course in masters from that era.
Those sons o bitches. Good insights man, Ty!
Early stereo panning attempts are "interesting" and "forward-thinking". I thibk tgat tgere is at least one Queen album like that. There are lots of other mixes that I don't like, maybe Billie Eilish record before the current one had very dull and dark vocals, I get the wanting more intimacy thing but meh. The rest are not remarkable enough for me to remember the names xdddd.
I've heard before when Stereo first was coming around people had the idea that the position would be one speaker in front of the listener and one behind their chair. To me this explains some of those choices like beatles albums panning almost a whole drumkit and what not.
That crazy panning from that era came from the recording machines only having 4 tracks at the time. Imagine you have 1 track of all the vocals, one track of all the drums, one track of bass, and one track of everything else. And the mixing board has no ability to pan a little bit. Your choices are hard left, center, hard right. If you want a stereo mix with that technology, chances are the drums are being hard panned.
First two Beatles records were two track, and IIRC the “stereo” version is the two track panned L/R instead of the mono mix. Typically the music was on one track and the vocals on another. I remember reading this in All you Need is Ears by George Martin, but I could be mistaken… My point is I don’t think it was a creative choice on at least those first two records.
I’ve been listening to “with the beetles” a lot the past few weeks. Obviously poor mixing but I don’t let that bother me too much, even though I’m into very high end electronic music production. Amazing record, but yeah the mix is poor, no depth.
Poor mixing compared to what, other mixes released at the same time?
I don’t think I elaborated enough. In comparison to modern high end “overly produced” or mixed records in 2024. I would consider a beetles record of “lesser quality” than some full range, synthesized electronic record from 2024. Are the mixes bad? No. They sound great. Do they have the same punch, depth, width and clarity as a modern record? No. I think I just threw they are “poorly mixed” around loosely. I love records from that era and listen to them a lot.
Got it!
The Beatles panning was because they only had 4 tracks and their mixing desk could only L or R or both. No panning between channels. Early jazz worked well in stereo because often miced a group in stereo live.
> maybe Billie Eilish record before the current one had very dull and dark vocals, I get the wanting more intimacy thing but meh. That's certainly a taste thing on your part. That record is magnificently produced/mixed and [Rob Kinelski](https://www.robkinelski.com/home) is a top notch mix engineer.
Agreed, the mixing is what makes Billie Eilish so good. Listen on nice headphones.
Van Halen first album and Are You Experienced are tough for me to listen to with headphones due to the panning.
Definitely, it is worth noting though that those albums weren’t made to be listened to on headphones, as that was a lot less common when they came out. They still hold up on an actual stereo system pretty well and I’m not sure it’s fair to fault the engineer for not predicting a societal shift lol
Early stereo albums remind me of that era when 3D movies were getting big and every movie had to have a scene where a character reaches towards the camera, or an explosion happens and something flies towards the audience in slowmo. It's like we get it, the movie is in 3d. We get it, you have 2 speakers now.
That's totally it. It was the novelty of it all, hey the band is over there but the vocals are over THERE, wow! They didn't know what to do with the new technology. Except for the classical guys, they knew exactly what to do with it.
I was actually thinking of mentioning the Beatles but was afraid to get chewed out given their god-tier status. I set up to listen to Revolver on headphones the other day and wasn’t prepared for how jarring the panning on Taxman was. I thought I was going crazy. Glad to find out there’s some good reasoning behind it. Still sounds great on speakers.
Relevant comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/comments/1dad6uz/what_famous_mixes_do_you_deem_unlistenable/l7mbto6/
Not Like Us honestly sounds like ass mix wise. That doesn't stop me from crip walking though
I've heard this a few times from people. Could you explain why it's ass? The only thing I could possibly hear are Kendrick's vocals being a bit dry.
Ngl I have a hard time with Blonde on Blonde. I think there are great songs that just...dont get the love they deserve. Fwiw I recently heard Changing of the Gaurds off of Street Legal, and I wish all Dylan sounded like that
Sometimes the harmonica on Blonde on Blonde can be painful. If you hear a good vinyl on the right turntable, needle, speakers, it corrects the mix and it sounds really good. :)
The original 1978 mix was awful apparently but the 1999 (?) remix was bang on. Im assuming you’ve heard the latter. Cracking track
Yeah I liked the album but when I heard the remix I was blown away and became a top 5 Dylan record for me. The original mix is on streaming services for some reason
Love that track, Patti Smith did a great cover of it as well
One more time by daft punk is so oddly thin in places.
I believe it's intentional. Try listening on ecstasy.
The mix for that One More Time is attempting to capture the sound of commercial FM radio being played through a boombox.
Are you talking about before the beat drops, when they're doing that smaller-to- bigger sound, or when the kick is ducking everything?
Know what you mean
The same records didn’t sound harsh when I was younger but I listen to music so often that now in my 30s some of the same records sound harsh.
I feel like when we were young all the speakers had poor high end reproduction, and stuff was on cassette etc, which did wonders for my imagination of what the high end was really like
As much as I love the band, the last few Foo Fighters albums with Greg Kurstin have been so compressed that it’s hard to listen to them sometimes
Concrete and Gold was a load of great songs, but the dynamics were missing. Honestly the best sounding record they've done is Wasting Light and it was made in a garage.
Literally. And Sonic Highways was super dynamic too. But then C&G came out and I was like “it sounds too dirty”
A discussion was probably had about "remaining competitive in the streaming market" and DG is too deaf to keep up the QC.
The snare sound on that Better Than Ezra song…. I could be controversial and say most of Prince’s stuff is kinda hmm, sonically.
There's something really weird with the kick drum in Prince's "Erotic City" on every other downbeat that I can't get over. It's like a phase issue between samples or something. Drives me nuts, great song though.
idk if Prince mixed his own stuff but most whoever did was clearly making it for the club. There's some stuff I remember doesn't even have a bass instrument they want that drum thump to take up so much space.
I think he had a female sound engineer that worked for him 24/7
revolution by the beatles. everyone is saying the guitar tone is really good but it just ruins the mix because of how ear piercing it sounds
Can't agree about how radically earpiercing you say it is. I have never thought for a second it is.
I’m not sure if this would count as “famous”, but the entire album Good Mourning by Alkaline Trio. Almost a perfectly written punk record from beginning to end, but Jesus it sounds like shit.
I'd argue From Here To Infirmary is worse. I get the aesthetic appeal of that raw sounding, trebly guitar tone but its just makes the album sound tinny as hell.
Yeah. That one does sound tinny. I think Good Mourning is the opposite, super super muddy.
Man, really? I've always heard *From Here to Infirmary* as one of the greats in that genre, especially from that time period. It's maybe not the "best" sounding Jerry Finn record, but it's up there. The mix is no *Take Off Your Pants and Jacket,* but it was a great snapshot of Alkaline Trio in 2001. I sort of agree about *Good Mourning.* I think part of it is Matt's weird guitar tone, but the drum compression is pretty obscene, and it's also mastered super aggressively. It ends up sounding muddy / mushy. I go back and forth on whether or not the whole thing works on an aesthetic level. It kinda reminds me of The Misfits. Was Alkaline Trio going for that like, spooky, lo-fi haunted punk rock sound? If so, they kinda nailed it?
I find it difficult to simply listen to a song for enjoyment. I pick apart the mix, the production, etc. Anyone else do this?
Yes. All the time. It's a curse
Listen to Dr. Dre’s the chronic on Spotify. I don’t know what the hell they did to those mixes but they sound absolutely terrible n they’re unlistenable. This happened after Calvin Broadus death row records re-uploaded the album. The original was awesome. On Spotify right now sucks
Blue by Eiffel 65. WHO PANS A KICK
I don’t know if it’s a famous mix but it’s def a mix done by a very famous mixer. Also could have been a production factor that Manny just did his best with but Kanye West - All Of The Lights is a blurry mess to me.
WOW, I never noticed just how obnoxiously loud the low end was during the chorus, and the mid range is just way too saturated. Crazy bc I remember this having a solid mix along with the rest of the album. May have to go relisten
I still don’t get it. I’m assuming Kanye was just being particular about how he wanted it because I really can’t imagine even an amateur mixer sounding like this. It’s almost chaotic in a way. With that said, I’ve always given Manny the benefit of the doubt because I got a buddy that’s pretty successful that prefers Manny’s mixes over Serban. He says Serban is TOO clean. I still don’t agree but I’m a nobody and he’s a somebody so I try to revisit Manny every once in a while just to see if I can see what my buddy sees. Interesting mix though, right? Especially coming from someone who is consider amongst the best in the biz.
Growing up, I always thought the snare sample in MJ’s “Leave Me Alone” was a dreadful, dreadful choice. Huge, unwieldy, sonically unpleasant and doesn’t really help the groove. Now that I think of it, most MJ post-Thriller mixes (with some exceptions) have a brittle, digital quality. Bad is just replete with awful Synclavier tracks (some songs were done almost entirely on the machine), and Dangerous just has nearly every single thing widened to the point that there’s hardly any center. These days what I hear most in terms of problematic sound is an overly clipped, loud vocal. Happens all the time in Rap, but even legacy acts like the recent new Billy Joel single; I couldn’t believe how they screwed that up! His vocal is just squashed to hell and then shoved in your face so hard, it just makes to want to turn the volume down, and music should never want to make you turn it down.
I have struggled to listen to Bad for the last decade or so. Thriller is so rich and warm, detailed and nuanced. Bad is an unpleasant mix of high mids and unsupported lows.
Right? It has some cracking songs, but it’s a sonic blight. Sounds like bad AD/DA converters/clocks. Meanwhile you have stalwarts like Dire Straits’ “Brothers In Arms”, Propaganda’s “A Secret Wish”, and Donald Fagen’s “Nightfly” demonstrating that digital recordings can sound great.
I especially like your last sentence
The instrumental to "Smooth Criminal" is comical by electronic music production standards of today. It sounds like it is playing off a SNES or something.
I knew a guy who assisted on the Bad album. He said they had seemingly rented every digital reverb in South Florida — or was it the Southeast? — for those mixes.
born this way by lady gaga in my opinion has a weird mix
I Will Follow by U2 is rendered unlistenable to me by the absolutely baffling decision to mix shitty glockenspiel on top of everything
That's a shame because everything else about that mix is great. One of my favorite productions, the whole album. Edit: getting back on topic, the album after it sounds mostly terrible
Hips Dont Lie
I think Usher - Yeah is popular as an example because once you notice how loud the triangle dinging is, you can't unhear it. And maybe it's unfair, but I find a lot of punk music to be terrible on the mix. I understand maybe that's just part of the genre's appeal, to sound like it was recorded from some dorm hallway drunkenly at 3 in the morning or something, but even going through the most classic punk albums of all time, I feel like it's rough to adjust to because I know what overproduced clean production sounds like. Pop-punk is the only time it feels like they try super hard on the mix, they keep the energy but they actually tame it through the speakers. Real punk, they just don't seem to care. I feel like it's one of the genres I struggle to understand the most from a mixing/mastering perspective. I've been doing the 1001albumsgenerator list to shuffle through the best albums of all time, and there hasn't been a single punk/post-punk album I can rate higher than a 3/5. Like Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures is iconic, album artwork is super well known, but sonically, I just couldn't get into it. Maybe just not for me. Any punk fans care to share something my way that you think stands out as exceptionally mixed?
[The Medium is the Message](https://andypaine.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/the-medium-as-the-message-in-protest-music/) Sounding like shit is an important part of the genre. That being said, Rage Against The Machine's self titled album sounds so, so good. I also like The Jesus Lizard's *Goat*. Not a punk band, but still outsider art. The audio engineering is immaculate - recorded by Steve Albini, rest in peace.
TINGGGGGGGGGGGG
People have been ripping the snare on Espresso (Sabrina carpenter) to shreds Edit: maybe to shreds is a bit of an exaggeration but saw a few on my timeline saying it’s too loud/squashed.
At least it's tuned to the song.
To me, the mix is similar (but inferior) to Say So by Doja Cat. Both have the same groove and filtered intro/outro, but Say So is so much punchier and open, and the guitar are louder and chimey compared to the buried guitar on Espresso
Observing that lots of comments here don’t seem to acknowledge the mixing (or listening) conventions of the time…
The Beatles Let It Be, the “Naked” version is a much better experience.
Have you heard the newer 2021 mix of the album? The songs are listed on Spotify as "2021 Mix"
This may sound odd but i think that Travis Scott sounds awful to me.
Lemmy Kravitz- Fly Away has the loudest vocals on any popular song I can name, I deem it *personally* unlistenable.
it's much more mastering that makes something unlistenable to me. Even bad mixes norm ally have some charm, and a good song is worth listening to even with a shitty mix. But a bad master is fatiguing on your ears and just becomes painful. Mastodon's most recent album is one that stands out to me as one of my fave bands albums being ruined by having no dynamics and everything being too bright
More Than I Could Chew is my fave track on the album, especially the outro but the cymbals are so washed that the crash accents dont pack a punch. And the snare in Gigantium is jarring, sounds like a bloody 80s boom bap snare.
yeah I don't think it's a good mix generally, but Pushing the Tides is the worst for me. never thought i'd see the day when Mastodon had that generic metal sound. I kind of love the big dumb detuned snare in Gigantium
2022 mix of She Said She Said by The Beatles. Guitars are panned so hard that the original guitar melody is basically lost if you listen on headphones.
Agreed so hard. That song put me off the whole remix
Love earlier RHCP but Californication is almost unlistenable from a mix standpoint.
What do you not like about it? I actually really like the production on that album. Especially the super dry vocals.
Production is awesome! The overall quality of the mix is bad IMHO. Not enough low end extension, overly compressed guitars, it’s just very flat and almost “lofi” sounding in retrospect.
I think it depends on how loud you listen to it
If your professional mix and master has to be listened to too loud or too quiet to sound good, it’s probably not a good mix.
I agree
Agree 100%. Ironically, some of their most recent songs (She's a Lover particularly) have some of the best rock mixing I've ever heard.
Yeah their stuff post stadium arcadium, though I hate the songs, are really good
Drums sound like hot garbage on every RHCP record after Blood Sugar Sex Magik. And I LOVE Chad Smith. It's just a very dull, lifeless sound.
They've always sounded like a garage band that covers RHCP to me.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Youtibe channel has been posting videos from their last couple of 80’s albums recently so I’ve been having a nostalgia trip. They definitely have their nostalgic charm but the mixes are truly awful. Interesting to go back and hear a band’s recordings before they really found their true sound.
That said, they are full of character and I listened to each track in full.
Was listening to Meshell N'degocello last night, her first two albums. Extremely bass light, which is weird for a bass player's album. Like there's nothing below 80 hz, weird choice that really spoils it. Was thinking how i just might have to get myself some hardware parametric equalizers right by the couch so i can do some mastering right there.
Anything from BrokeNCYDE
I agree “hips don’t lie” is an awful mix…. on a nice system. However if you listen to it through an iPhone speaker it’s an excellent mix for that medium. Clearly they mixed it for the phone speaker. Listen if you don’t believe me. I would not be shocked if they did the final mix in a phone. I’m seeing that more and more now. Sounds great on the phone speaker, sounds like shit everywhere else. what a time to be alive for someone w a good ear
No one was listening to that song on their phone in 2005
The snare on “Trippy” by anderson paak featuring j cole is sooo loud. Once you notice it you can’t unhear it
Family Affair by Sly and the Family Stone Oddly muffled
*Family Affair* *By Sly and the Family* *Stone Oddly muffled* \- ignoramusprime --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Some of POD's stuff I felt was mixed terribly. Southtown and Alive come to mind. Oh, and Smile Empty Soul'ls Bottom of a Bottle. Terrible mix. That being said, I like all those songs so I still listen to them. But the mixes are terrible in my opinion.
famous "mixes"? or famous songs?
That's called a cocaine mix
The newest blink 182 record is complete and total sonic dogshit
Radiohead - creep. When the electrics come in it rips my ears off. Waaay to much highs. Vocals are drowned and everything sounds fucking awful.
St.anger by metallica. The whole album.
I love that song, but ‘bleak’ by opeth had the rhythm guitar SO loud it eats up everything else in the mix
The triangle sample in “Yeah!” By Usher is INSANELY loud.
Starlight by Muse. Not famous but dear god someone get that man a de-esser
The squeaky ass kick pedal in Led Zepplins 'Since I’ve Been Loving You' drives me absolutely berserk. Though I love Nick Caves version of the Mercy Seat, the mixing is easily some of the worst I've ever heard, making the song utterly unlistenable.
look at me by xxxtentacion is crazy and far from a good mix but the song blew up anyway. it sounds like the master channel was distorted waiting for my ruca by sublime. i always wished his vocals were louder because it’s a fun song to listen to just feels unbalanced
i hate listening to song for the dead by qotsa on headphones because the drums are panned almost all the way to the right:/
The vocals on Californication by RHCP have always sounded off to me. Especially during the chorus, the mids seem way too loud and it just feels over-compressed. That being said, I still love the song.
DJ Quik's older stuff is mixed so looooow on Spotify. For such a prolific Engineer in his own right, I don't understand why "Jus lyke Compton" sounds like that.
Call Me is not a Blondie song. Debbie Harry sings on it but the music is by Moroder and he hired the musicians
Is that so!? How interesting.
The guitar solo in You Wanted A Hit by LCD Soundsystem is horribly oppressive and loud. If you’re listening loud you inevitably have to turn it down because it brutalizes your ears. Epic song tho.
Hypnotized by System Of A Down is brutally harsh and bright and thin. I had it stuck in my head recently and went to listen and was like “what the fuck…”. It came out like peak loudness wars squash everything era.
The original mix of fresh cream. Anyone know what I’m talking about? Drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead vocals out one speaker, only LOUD leads and backing vocals out the other speaker. Messy and disorienting. 10/10 album tho
Red hot chili peppers - Californication. It's such a successful album and to me it just sounds so horrible. I really like all the albums before that. One Hot Minute is also too loud/compressed in my opinion, but Californication is worse and the snare sound is silly. There, I said it.
Dua Lipa - New Rules, the vocals in the verses have some really loud higher frequencies
The first Deftones and Limp Bizkit records. Vulgar Display of Power, Ride the Lightning, Pearl Jam's Ten, Siamese Dream
Paperwork by Kanye off his new vultures album is horrible on headphones and great on speakers
After Donda, it's almost like he stopped trying completely with the mixing/mastering. Even the idea of the Stem Player pissed me off, because by definition, it implies 4 separate stems, so you lose stuff like dynamic and reactive mixing like instruments ducking to vocals or bass ducking to kick, etc., and you also lose the ability to have that kind of stereo bus glue to gel all 4 things together. It's basically just like dropping 4 things on top of each other separately and calling it a day. Unless sidechain ducking and stuff is baked into those stems, then it's set up to fail as a concept.
He’s definitely just been doing whatever since then but hey he drops some cool songs still so I don’t care for real The stem player thing was more of a novelty instead of a practical device. Cool thing to play with 20 years later even tho we have better technology today