Speeddemon
Well-known member
Dude, you're missing his best: Dark Angel - Time Does Not Heal.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
Dude, you're missing his best: Dark Angel - Time Does Not Heal.
Terry Date has a million excellent albums, but yes, I'm way more impressed with his stuff like Dark Angel and Liege Lord that were recorded in the 80s before he had access to really excellent studios - it's really interesting to hear how he did things when he was McGuyvering tracks with paperclips and elmers glue and he had to really work to get the sounds he was after.
It's interesting because he was "ahead of his time" in the 80s but then "his time" arrived in the 90s and it was like the stars aligned with the right producer for the right bands at the right time.
Speeddemon
Well-known member
Holy crap... LIEGE LORD...
I have Master Control on vinyl since my late teens.
I assume Omen's "Teeth of the Hydra" and Heir Apparent's "Graceful Inheritance" are well known then for ya too? (not Terry Date, but still...)
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
Holy crap... LIEGE LORD...
View attachment 457407
I have Master Control on vinyl since my late teens.
I assume Omen's "Teeth of the Hydra" and Heir Apparent's "Graceful Inheritance" are well known then for ya too?
I may be familiar, yes
I vastly prefer savage grace (kenny powell's band before Omen) to Omen but they are still rad
Speeddemon
Well-known member
Yeah, I was looking for a different wording, in a sarcastic, uppity Peter Griffin-with-a-monocle-weird-flashback-type of style to pose that question, given that I expected a positive answer.I may be familiar, yes
Oh fo' sho.
In the early days of the interwebz, I usually checked out this dude's album review collection website, nolifetilmetal.com (checked; it's still there... http://nolifetilmetal.com/cdlist.html ) to find out about 'new' old bands I was unfamiliar with, since his taste in metal matched mine (and yours probably) for a good 85-90%. Whether it's Lizzy Borden, early Celtic Frost, Tokyo Blade, Raven (only the first 4 though...), or Onslaught.
Hmm, just noticed he never reviewed Panic-Epidemic (C-list band, mixed by Gary Holt and Rick Hunolt, early 90's scooped thrash)...Pretty good album, but it's also mostly pure nostalgia for me, having owned it for more than 30 years....
...but I digress.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
Yeah, I was looking for a different wording, in a sarcastic, uppity Peter Griffin-with-a-monocle-weird-flashback-type of style to pose that question, given that I expected a positive answer.
Oh fo' sho.
In the early days of the interwebz, I usually checked out this dude's album review collection website, nolifetilmetal.com (checked; it's still there... http://nolifetilmetal.com/cdlist.html ) to find out about 'new' old bands I was unfamiliar with, since his taste in metal matched mine (and yours probably) for a good 85-90%. Whether it's Lizzy Borden, early Celtic Frost, Tokyo Blade, Raven (only the first 4 though...), or Onslaught.
I read Satan Stole my teddybear reviews to hear about new music, and it 1000% influenced my taste
As even if John Chedsey hated it, the fact that he reviewed it means it was likely something that I would want to check out. Everything from Brocas Helm to Bathory etc etc etc
So I had a similar "early internet" source for music I hadn't heard of before - before that, it was just listening to headbangers ball, my moms misfits records, and the bad religion, nofx, and suicidal tendencies stuff that all the other skateboarding kids listened to.
skoora
Well-known member
He also did a great job on Louder than Love. Not so much on Badmotorfinger but the songs were too good and overcame it.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
Yep, the production on Louder than Love was excellent. It even fit the music really well.
Badmotorfinger, at least to me, sounds like they were intentionally going for something, and just missed the mark with the production, but the songs were so high quality it didn't matter
BTW I hate listening to soundgarden, but I respect the musicianship and songwriting. They did a great job adding odd time signatures into things and making them not sound awkward.
I
itsgoodnow
Well-known member
I think one of the big reasons is certain engineers have 1 of 2 philosophies.1) I am trying to capture this band faithfully or 2) I am trying to create an idealized version of a sound. The second is much more prevalent in production today. Drums on a recording sound absolutely fucking nothing like a real drum set. The amount of processing and cleaning and low end boosting in unnatural eq curves alone set the stage for the type of polish that is applied across the whole album. It’s been taken to such an extreme now that it sounds ridiculous.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
I think this is the real sticking point that has gotten us to where we are now. Especially the drums are unrecognizable as a live drum set anymore.
A lot of this "production as idealized sound" philosophy doesn't even bug me when it's taken to a certain level, but I think modern producers are missing the forest for the trees; you create these "idealized sounds" because you have a creative vision you want to accomplish with the band. Not because it needs to sound "professional" (read: sounds generic like everything else) or because it needs to sound "perfect."
And it's not limited to just metal or rock or one genre. This problem is in EVERY STYLE OF MUSIC. Everything from Country to Metal has been absolutely beaten down by this generic, bland "pro toolsified" version of what production sounds like.
The really infuriating part is that this isn't even digital or pro tools fault. You can use digital to create anything you want.
shadow
Active member
i suppose I'm outta the loop then. I was thinking of Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness (band in the room sound) vs Blesses are the Sick (slick and tight). I like both. I'm usually on Pandora and they play a bunch of stuff from every era (much more than metal too of course). I guess I haven't been exposed to the data stuff much. Lucky me.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
I wouldn't even call MA's production (on any album!) slick or tight by modern standards.
Basically all modern "metal" is of the "data" type. It sounds like everything has been replaced with midi, and every instrument has been snapped to the grid.
It all is completely overproduced, under-written crap. It all has the same "metalcore" influences from Killswitch, Lamb of God, and Trivium (which, all of those bands are just aping "slaughter of the soul" and "vulgar display of power") and the same neural DSP guitar tones. The same steven slate and GGD drum samples. The same darkglass "clank" bass tone.
These are just the first few bands that come to mind. They all are supposedly differently styles of music, and all are on different record labels, so I don't want to hear excuses from anyone about this lol.
shadow
Active member
Holy shit, yup, I'm outta the loop, I didn't even know the Gen Alpha mel was a thing. Sounds super annoying. That annoyance is then repeated by everyone and their mother's parrot til the cows come home. Holy shit.
shadow
Active member
LOL, you're not gonna like this - that's the 2nd time I've heard Rings of Saturn, and I dig em. I'll go away now...
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
I don't know why you would like it, when you can just download guitarpro tab software yourself and set the tempo above 200 bpm and make cookie monster noises on your own
N
Nigel
Well-known member
I don't know why you would like it, when you can just download guitarpro tab software yourself and set the tempo above 200 bpm and make cookie monster noises on your own
This gives credence to the idea of RIIA / Tavistok theories...
Speeddemon
Well-known member
This whole talk about grid quantizing etc. made me realize that's probably why I instantly loved the new Cruel Force record from this year so much. Totally NOT a generic metal production! Doesn't sound quantized either.
And it helps the songs themselves kick major a$$ obviously.
And it helps the songs themselves kick major a$$ obviously.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
Yes. It does give credence to them. I'm agnostic on whether it's a conspiracy, but the dumbing down and simplification of everything can't even be refuted intellectually anymore
Remember when metal records had space and reverb and sounded like they were in a space? I think 90% of the reason the production sounds great on that is because there's verb and acoustics on everything
skoora
Well-known member
I don't know why you would like it, when you can just download guitarpro tab software yourself and set the tempo above 200 bpm and make cookie monster noises on your own
Shit, just another reason to despise Coldplay, those bastards.
DanTravis62
Moderator
Moderator
if you haven't experienced it before, try keeping straight all the different gen alpha songs that use that melody - I piss off my nieces and nephews all the time being like "isn't that blah blah?" "NO ITS ACKSHUALLY _____ "
It's impossible when every song that comes out, by literally every fucking artist, uses the exact same melody
