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Worst Sounding CDs Ever? Post your votes.

Saint Nick

Saint Nick

Lifer
This is probably a thread more for the audiophiles...but, anyways

I would have to vote for Zeitgeist by the Smashing Pumpkins. What a horrible sounding disc. There are so many layers of guitars and vocal harmonies that I feel like it all combines into a sonic mess right in between my ears. On top of that, the drums sound like trash cans and the cymbals too washy and phasey. THEN...they had to make it the loudest thing possible.

After Zeitgeist, I would say Californication or Death Magnetic.

I wish CDs were mastered like they were back in the 80s and 90s...I feel like those are the pinnacles of audio mixing and mastering.
 
Basically any music whose audience is listening to the music at 128 kbs on the earbuds that came with their ipod.
 
Yeah Death Magnetic just could have sounded so good, but the way it ended up was disappointing. I enjoy the songs, but I don't like listening to the CD, if that makes sense.
 
spidey07 said:
The last metallica album. Worst, recording, ever. It's not even a contest, it is indeed the worst recording ever.
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It is definitely the worst possible outcome of an album that could have been spectacular.

The Guitar Hero tracks are so much better, but still I think it could have been done a little better.
 
Glad I'm not the only one that thinks Death Magnetic sounds like a bunch of kids in a garage hitting everything they see with drumsticks.

Oh wait I'm thinking of St. Anger, not Death Magnetic. Not that Death Magnetic is much better.
 
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I sent some of my tracks to be mastered to labels, some labels are superb and some crank levels way too high. The low ends ends up losing warmth and the high end just gets harsh to the ears... and I'm talking about house music.

There's shitty mastering everywhere 🙂
 
Alienwho said:
Glad I'm not the only one that thinks Death Magnetic sounds like a bunch of kids in a garage hitting everything they see with drumsticks.

Oh wait I'm thinking of St. Anger, not Death Magnetic. Not that Death Magnetic is much better.
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St. Anger is a fustercluck as well. Maybe it's Rick Rubin 😛 I think Justice For All was pretty bad, the original. I guess I can't really remember. Anything too loud sucks...thats why I love the dynamic range of 70s, 80s, and even some 90s music.

On a side note, I think one of the best mastered albums is Tool's 10,000 Days. I really love the dynamics of it.
 
Ehh ... demos from lots of mid/late 90s death metal and black metal bands often had horrible shit production ... like ... somebody took a $5 microphone and recorded everything with just 1 mic in some corner of the room or something, and there was a power outage in the middle of the recording, then, they didn't bother to listen, edit, etc... and just burned it right to CD ... (or, in some cases, copied it right to tape...)
 
om3gawave said:
On a side note, I think one of the best mastered albums is Tool's 10,000 Days. I really love the dynamics of it.
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have you seen the article by the sound engineer? fantastic read

http://mixonline.com/recording/projects/audio_making_tools_days/

my favorite part

Once everyone was satisfied with the mixes, they flew to Portland, Maine, to master the project at Bob Ludwig's Gateway Mastering facility. Ludwig used the Pyramix Virtual Studio DAW and a state-of-the-art Sound Performance Laboratory analog console. Ludwig, Barresi and the band listened through 800-pound Eggleston Works Ivy Speakers that are actually seated down to bedrock
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Also, AJ's ridiculous geetar setup

Barresi explains guitarist Adam Jones' recording setup: “Adam mainly runs three amps: He has a Marshall that he loves, a Diezel and then he was using a Mesa Boogie at one point. I brought in a Bogner Uberschall head and a Rivera Knucklehead Reverb, and several other things. Then we just experimented with combinations of heads and cabinets until it worked for the song. Most of the 4×12s were Mesa Boogie cabinets, which are superior for their low end, except for the Marshall head, which went through a Marshall cabinet, and the Rivera went through a Rivera cabinet. I usually used stock miking. For me, that's a Shure SM57 and a Sennheiser 421 on every cabinet. The third mic could be anything that I felt the sound needed more of.”

The signal chain for tracking guitar was a bit complex. “Adam would play into whatever pedals he needed,” Barresi says. “That signal then went into a Systematic Systems Splitter. Then it would go to between three and five heads. The signal from the heads went to their own individual cabinets. Each cabinet had two or three microphones on it. Then all the microphones came back to the console, and they were blended down as separated for each amp. The Diezel amp went to its own track. The Marshall amp went to its own track. The third track was a blend of the Bogner and the Rivera, or whatever I liked for the song. And that would be one take — three tracks of guitar.”
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Ns1: I did read that...loved it. They had such great gear to use on that record, both for the band and the recording engineers.

I really wish that bands took their approach when mastering. They didn't want to be the loudest thing possible on the radio, and really stayed true to their roots of high dynamics.

I think even some pop songs could benefit from having a little bit more of a dynamic range.
 
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