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I'm interested in examples of what people consider excellently produced tracks, tracks that they aspire to (production wise), or simply tracks with the biggest fattest warmest bass, snappiest snare etc etc.
My idea is to have several of what are considered outstandingly (is that a word?
) produced tracks loaded up onto my pc so I constantly compare sounds that i'm making with them to try to push myself and get mine as high standard.
eg. if i'm making a kick, i want to compare with a track that has a very good kick to make sure off not far off the mark.
I have been listening to BT 'This Binary Universe' over the last few days, and that'll definitely be on the list! Amazing I think
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I've got a load of these so hard to really pick any out. In fact I mostly purchase music at this point for this purpose alone, especially with mastering different styles requires I have lots of stuff from different genres to compare.
Personally though I've been using 80's productions for my mix references. A lot of these are recorded from vinyl even when purchased digitally so I end up getting fairly coloured mixes when using them as references. For me this is a good thing as I'm really trying to impart some vibe and feeling from mixes these days and not just going for the typical clarity approach that's so common now.
A few of my favs are Rokysopp's Melody AM album, really nice warm and dirty and bit sloppy production. Italo stuff like Mr Flagio.. I even used an instrumental mix of Pat Benetars Love Is A Battlefield on my latest remix I'm about to finish.
I'll then compare that stuff with a few newer things that are still somewhat warm, Kris Menaces stuff is always excellent in this area. I still use Prydas 1983 remix for mastering as it's not too loud as compared to his recent stuff and more warm yet still sounds really big when turned up.
For really loud stuff I've been using some Chris Liebing tracks especially when I'm saturating through the Daking as his mastering engineer does the same type of process.
Joris Voorns stuff is good to check out as well, especially for seeing how lower levels can sound great.
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I've got to add that The Bassline Track and Resurrection bear a certain something that I haven't heard in productions lately.
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Great Picks J, kris menace is one of my favorites too among the many, Joris Voorn, Robert barbicsz, Brian Sanhaji. All their stuff sound really good in a club which leads me to a question. They all own their fairshare of hardware consoles/comp/limiters/reverbs etc. Is it even possible for an all in the box mixed session to sound 85% close or as good? The only one hardware comp that i own is the Alesis 3630 :o
PS: My apologies if i went off topic. Just had to
There Is No Magic Silver Bullet
Glenn Meadows
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Maybe you know already but Brian Sanhaji is the one who masters Chris's stuff so that's mainly why I listen to it as I had a techno client once that wanted that sound.
I believe Joris is doing it all in the box now last I heard but then gets mastered by Babicz.
A big reason why it sounds good is also just down to how precise they are with every step of the process. The hardware just adds a bit more shine to the final product.
In my experience an in the box production which is then run through some analog compression or just saturated with a nice preamp, like the Daking I use is enough to compete with anyone. And even purely digital can sound 'good' in the club... but in a way that to me can be also too clean and sterile, so it really depends on what your definition of good is.
I actually prefer sometimes that analog isn't as clear and meshes the sound a bit more. But some might like the clarity of digital.
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i am not an expert .
but i am in love in chicane tracks ... it seems to be totally perfect in every aspect. vocals,nice warm sound ,composition ....
atm i am listening to "daylight" and it is just perfect.
snother one i would say Sasha (xpander) and BT's tracks
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Cool, it's interesting to see what people think of as 'loud' 'warm' etc etc tracks - good for references for sure
I used to think my stuff sounded ok until I recently started comparing them to certain others...something I definitely kick myself for not doing ages ago! So i'm starting all over again lol
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[I]Interesting to know that about Chris.i just know that Brian masters his own stuff and that he runs his own studio. [/I]
[I]i actually knew about Babicz after a friend passed me a copy of his Slices DVD interview. Ever since then i've been listening to his stuff and really appreaciate his approach & style.i read somewhere on his blog that Joris does use custom analog gear if im not wrong mostly for summing purpose. [/I]
*A big reason why it sounds good is also just down to how precise they are with every step of the process.
[I]Absolutely agree on this, it's something that im trying to work hard on and develop myself. [/I]
[I]i prefer stuff thats not too clean as well, love the fact that a certain gear/plug actually colours the sound cause i think it adds a bit of character or vibe to a tune.[/I]
There Is No Magic Silver Bullet
Glenn Meadows
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Last I read of Joris he was doing it all in the box he said but who knows.
I do agree though that a final stage of analogue can add something nice if you've got everything else right prior to it.
It goes from sounding like a nicely produced track to 'music' for me...
Ever since I've added the analogue option to my services it's turned out to be fairly popular and I always like sending stuff out with that extra bit of quality myself.
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i think Jesse that maybe providing some short clips,even made by you just for "show" purpose before and after mastering ,and with for example "extra " feature like sending it through analog stuff etc,to show the ways how it influences track would be great .
some kind of "before-after"
