• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Songs That Producers Totally Messed Up..

#81
Too many to list but you can call 867-5309 to hear it run.

The first one that comes to mind was/is a local band that played the "long hair and spandex days" club circuit we were on, a band named "Zebra". The drummer was a favorite drummer, Guy Gelso, of mine and I still mainly listen to him when I hear their songs or his current band's tunes. They got signed and their LP was a big let down as it failed as in FAILED to capture their live energy and sound. They had shopped demo tapes that everyone in New Orleans got copies of that were tons better.
Examples that come to mind are below.

Demo Version:


LP version


The entire LP failed to capture their live show energy and sound back then.
Another NOLA band, The Sheiks, with a great bassist(Nick Ferber) had the same thing happen to them, live show and demos rock then LP is lame.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fretless1!, mindwell and ctmullins
#83
I have a love/hate relationship for what Eddie Kramer was allowed to do with Hendrix. On one hand, it's kind of the sound I immediately identify with Hendrix, but on the other, I can't help but think he could have been better served by someone else. The panning stereo and overall "blanket" over the recordings was something that perplexed me even before I knew there was names for those things.
 
#85
The fuzz on "Gone, Gone, Gone" by Lefty Frizzell. Wait, it's cool, maybe, what? Cryin' won't bring her back.

The producer that told Ira Louvin that mandolin made the sound "Hokey." Ira smashed the mandolin, and never played it again.
 
Last edited:
#86
petrus61 said:
I have a love/hate relationship for what Eddie Kramer was allowed to do with Hendrix. On one hand, it's kind of the sound I immediately identify with Hendrix, but on the other, I can't help but think he could have been better served by someone else. The panning stereo and overall "blanket" over the recordings was something that perplexed me even before I knew there was names for those things.
Click to expand...

Well, the first couple Hendrix albums were recorded to be heard through tiny/tinny little radio speakers that many people had at the time, with the era's somewhat limited recording technology, so there's that. Still great music. But "All Along the Watchtower" or "1983 ..." , recorded at Electric Ladyland, couldn't sound a whole lot better, imo. Watchtower in particular (with Jimi on bass, no less!)
 
#87
ZenG said:
Producers back in the day often wouldn't let a song out of the studio until they decided it was "right" for the masses. They often insisted on stuffing big drum tracks into songs that didn't require it....plus other effects as well.

I thought "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" was a productional wreck.

I also thought "Unchained Melody (Righteous Brothers) was horribly done productionally.

What are some of your choice production " trainwrecks"?
Click to expand...

McCartney hated what George Martin did to "The Long and Winding Road"

I hate some of the very early stereo recordings where they totally isolate the instruments one the left or right
 
  • Like
Reactions: FilterFunk
#89
P. Aaron said:
ALSO: the remix of ZZ Top's Le Grange with that reverby snare. Takes the zero-gravity swing of the original mix right out of it.
Click to expand...

It gets much worse than that with ZZ Top: there was a period where the only versions of ZZ Top albums available were CDs where the drum tracks had been replaced by samples. It was UGLY. There are CDs out there of Tres Hombres and all that good early stuff with gated snares added.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mindwell
#92
Maybe it's 'cause I also produce, but I like many of the oddball mixes and weird warts and stuff that a lot of people are referencing here(whether they were intentional or not!). It's "vibe". Like them or not they are part of that track's identity. If every mix had everything in the "right" place, then well, it'll all sound just "meh". If every mix was a just nice tidy "correct" recording of how a band plays the song live, etc. then....snooooooze.......
 
  • Like
Reactions: TyBo
#94
Ric5 said:
I hate some of the very early stereo recordings where they totally isolate the instruments one the left or right
Click to expand...

Those early Beatle recordings were recorded on 4-track machines and were recorded and mixed to be released in mono only. Those bizarre stereo releases with voices on one side and instruments on the other were an afterthought by the record company to sell to the emerging stereo market for more profit (stereo records were more expensive than their mono counterparts back then). Neither George Martin nor the Beatles had anything to do with those so-called stereo releases. In fact the first CD re-releases of the early Beatles albums were in glorious mono, as indeed they should be.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TyBo and FilterFunk
#95
Here's my submission to this. From 1967 "The Buckinghams Susan" originally included an excerpt from Charles Ives "Central Park in the Dark". I've always love the production level of the Buckinghams music and I'm also a big fan of Charles Ives' music... but putting them was less than a good idea.

 
  • Like
Reactions: getrhythm
#96
shastaband said:
Those early Beatle recordings were recorded on 4-track machines and were recorded and mixed to be released in mono only. Those bizarre stereo releases with voices on one side and instruments on the other were an afterthought by the record company to sell to the emerging stereo market for more profit (stereo records were more expensive than their mono counterparts back then). Neither George Martin nor the Beatles had anything to do with those so-called stereo releases. In fact the first CD re-releases of the early Beatles albums were in glorious mono, as indeed they should be.
Click to expand...
Was just listening to the stereo "Revolution" in the car on the radio(the "Love" version I guess it is? With REALLY hard-panned guitars, etc.). I too prefer the mono versions of the Beatles stuff as it was intended, but I also like hearing these stereo ones - they're just kind of bizarre but I still enjoy 'em;)
 
#97
BAG said:
I'm not going to nominate any one act or producer at blame but I think the biggest crime against decent music recordings is the over compression of final mixes over the past few decades. In an effort to be the loudest CD/MP3 in a listener's CD stacker, mp3 player etc, too much dynamic range, and therefore musical feeling and instrument separation etc has been lost to the loudness wars.

So much dynamic range has been squashed.
Click to expand...
Yes...the loudness wars have been terrible for music, and they've made it harder for home studio productions to compete. No one wants their mixes to be the ones that have to be turned up.
 
#98
BassChuck said:
Here's my submission to this. From 1967 "The Buckinghams Susan" originally included an excerpt from Charles Ives "Central Park in the Dark". I've always love the production level of the Buckinghams music and I'm also a big fan of Charles Ives' music... but putting them was less than a good idea.

Click to expand...

LOL! You are not alone in that assessment. I just spent two weeks on a cruise ship with Dennis Tufano, the original lead singer of The Buckinghams, and to this day he remains baffled by that section. Some of the ways he described it were "pointless," "bizarre," and "an attempt to make it sound like The Beatles." But Jim Guercio was just starting out back then, and to his credit, he did get better :D
 
#100
As far as I'm concerned no producer working with an engineer has ever been able to capture Renaissance in the studio. They are glorious live but each and every one of their albums suffers from horrible overall sound and dreadful mixes. (Especially when dealing with Annie's voice but the rest of the band as well.)
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back