Top Acts with bad MIxing

[FGL]

I think it is way more easy to speak about mixing and learn something if you talk about professional Songs that everyone will know. So I will ask everyone for examples off prominent bad Mixes that everyone will know. Number one hits and all time heroes included. Who knows the baddest Mix? New ones are very welcome, the old are mostly odd because it was yesterday.

I hope we will find every very bad mix in Youtube or Spotify. If ever possible share some Link.

[FGL]

I want to beginn with some of my all Time Heroes, Fatboy Slim/Right Here Right now. I love them, they are one off my alltime Favourites but what the Heck did they have thougth by doing the Stereo. This alltime "Clack" hard into the left or right Spektrum is total crap.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5kL3fvZKJ5Ua5pSqg2dkZv

[CharlyCharlzz]

I think fatboyslim do sample in his prods so maybe they sampled a old records or something , old records vinyls often got drums or bass on one side .

[electrochoc (PRX-A)]

This thread is a good idea!

One of my top examples of a song destroyed by bad mixing is M.I.A.'s "Meds and Feds". I really like M.I.A. in general, but this song suffers from an overuse of compressors/limiters. From the moment the bass drum starts, it squashes the "guitar" (probably a sampled one! ), which level really goes down too much. From 1:00, when the beat takes more place, the same guitar is almost buried and brutally comes back when the beat stops later in the song. I guess a sidechained compressor, using the beat as a modulation source, has been used to lower the guitar sound, but in a too obvious and very bad way... In general, this song seems to have suffered from the "loudness war": it would have needed to have a less uniform level.

I've read many times that when you properly use a compressor/limiter, you're not supposed to hear it per se. This song is to me a good example of how bad it is when you hear a compressor working too much.

[zeebot]

I absolutely love this version of 12 Gates but the production just drives me mad!
i'm not saying I could do better but its just urrrgh.
I might add its not because its on youtube the actual track sounds pretty much like this upload.
To my untrained ear the levels are wrong, its highly compressed and it seems they put some kind of over saturation/distortion in the master chain??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiHk8LPDj0w

[FGL]

I think fatboyslim do sample in his prods so maybe they sampled a old records or something , old records vinyls often got drums or bass on one side .

Hmm, I dont think so. 1998 I think it didn't was a problem to pan a sample or make it stereo. This was by intention. And I think if he dont have used this Drums nobody will have notice it or missed something.

[FGL]

This thread is a good idea!

One of my top examples of a song destroyed by bad mixing is M.I.A.'s "Meds and Feds". ...

Wow, this is really odd. It is this kind of odd that it could also be done by intention. But I would say anyway this doesn't sound good. Intention or not.

[FGL]

I absolutely love this version of 12 Gates ...

Very good find. In my opinion much to much rumble in the same frequency spektrum.

[eusti]

Really like what Ou Est Le Swimming Pool were doing, but always feel they somehow sounded crap... As if distorted or taken from a low quality mp3...
Of course that could be a video only case, but my digital files show the same issue...

D.

[Higor]

The entire...And Justice For All album. Some people say they can't hear the bass. There is a muddy sound around the 154,0 hz frequency. If you cut a bit of that things get a little better.

Someone - i don't know how - enhanced the bass to more definition.

[forensickbeats]

PROPELLERHEADS - Clang - that sub is maybe a bit too loud. The duo is somewhat famous.

Working for a Nuclear Free City - Dead Fingers talking - same issue here, but more severe. This track was used in a key moment in the pilot episode of the Breaking Bad series.


NAS - U Wanna Be Me - A song that Nas made for the 8 mile album of feminem. This is a bit too bass deficient for a hip hop song.



When I mix I always thing that my mixes suck, so I sometimes comfort myself by listening to such tracks.

The entire...And Justice For All album. Some people say they can't hear the bass.  (...)

This album is quarter century old and I think it sounds good for it`s time. The kick drum of the original version somewhat balances things up, in my opinion. But yes, the second version is more appealing. 

Here is similar example by The Prodigy:

Poison - oldskool EQ

Poison - 95 EQ boom bass

[Concep]

Early My Morning Jacket's mixes annoy the hell out of me.  Way too much reverb on the vocals.  You can't make out any of the words.

[MarkTarlton]

the  thing that you might not like is what makes it rad for some others...art is subjective and I can't think of any major artists mixes that I know of that I can diss even though it might not be my taste...it's fun to hear music that we don't like cuz that gives us a direction to NOT aim for which is as important as what you DO want

[mbfrancis]

Early My Morning Jacket's mixes annoy the hell out of me.  Way too much reverb on the vocals.  You can't make out any of the words.

Oh man I loved that...At Dawn was my favorite album for like 6 months, ha.  They recorded the thing in a big barn.

[Benedict]

I'm with Mr Tarlton here in that I don't really see any of these as bad mixes, just personal preferences becoming bugbears.

Metallica's "Justice" may be light on bass but all of the 'put the bass back' mixes I have heard are just cluttered and have lost the focused brutality that makes "Justice" so special. Sure it may sound new and clever to hear the bassline clearly but I think Lars was very right to push it down. I suggest the record wouldn't have done so well (and be considered a classic today) with the cluttered mix.

A good mix should only (and ever) be about getting the message of the song (or piece) across. Putting-on extra rules that all mixes should conform to are counterproductive. 

[Higor]

One thing is for sure, it's so much easier to look at the "mistakes" of others than our own. :s0959:
When i listened to the And Justice For All at my fifteen years, being just an average listener, without looking at the technical aspect of the things, i always thought it sounded strange. Today is interesting to compare with the new bass version but i would keep with the original. Perhaps that strangeness makes part of the experience.
And despite the criticism, of the technical aspects, the thumbs up are there on the youtube videos because that's the way the average listener judges. And at the end this is the way i end up judging too. The technical aspect, although extremely important, it's secondary in music and art because sometimes it's a matter of taste and a very subjective and relative thing.

[dvdrtldg]

The first Frank Black and the Catholics album is always a frustrating listen for me. Great songs, possibly the best thing he's done outside The Pixies imo. But the mix is so shit. It was recorded live to 2-track and the basic sound is great - really raw, just the sound of four guys in a room rocking the fuck out - in fact so rough that their record company initially refused to release it. But the mix, ugh. Vocals & lead guitar way too far forward, makes it sound like a crappy demo.

[JoshuaPhilgarlic]

Well, I don't say it's a bad mix, but it clearly shows the limitations of those days days:

Kraftwerk - The Robots

I mean the original version from 1978!! On some instruments or FX you hear when noisegates are opened and closed (or the tracks are un/muted manually). That's indeed cause of the background noise of the instruments of those days, the lack of tape noise reduction etc. It's not an example of bad mixing, but it's interesting how even the godfathers of electronic Pop had to fight against technical limitations. That's why they are pioneers !!!

[Benedict]

Well thank you for introducing me to that Frank Black record. I think it is a great mix. Where most of that sort of thing just left me cold (after all, "Nevermind" is very contrived) this just grabs me right away. I hear the people and the point really well.

Kraftwerk's "The Man Machine" is a great record and when I realized you could hear gates opening and closing it just made me love it more.

I think we should be accepting and celebrating each artwork for its completeness. If it were something else then it would not be what it is (and I'm not just trying to be be vague and existentialist). Sure Bruce Springsteen's first album "Greeting From Asbury Park N.J." may sound thin by today's standards but it adds the to the strange 'twitchiness' of those amazing songs. 

If you need it to sound more polished then get Manfred Mann's 1983 Budapest concert.

[bitley]

The mastering of Human League's rather great hit track Human is horrible on the greatest hits CD compared to the fat and warm vinyl version. Just stumbled upon this last week and got a rather unpleasant surprise discovering this. The CD version actually destroys the song altogether.

[Benedict]

I have a best of Culture Club that also sounds thin.

Something I hate is when you get some git re-Masturbating a track based on his trying to make it sound modern because he thinks that only what he thinks is worth anything. It sounded that way because that is the way it sounded at the time. Who says if we love it enough now to want to re-buy that we suddenly want it to sound like a failed attempt at Trance. The worst I know is a best of Joy Division that seems to make them sound Grunge. Don't buy the Green one. Get the gray one that still sounds like 1979.

[Higor]

Bruce Springsteen at the beginning sounds so much like Phil Lynott/Thin Lizzy that is almost annoying. Perhaps just a coincidence.

[Benedict]

Bruce Springsteen at the beginning sounds so much like Phil Lynott/Thin Lizzy that is almost annoying. Perhaps just a coincidence.

I'm intrigued, why is sounding like Thin Lizzy annoying?

[dvdrtldg]

I want to like The Smiths. Really, really want to like them. They've got so many elements that I love in pop music: chiming guitars, smart lyrics, simple arrangements, songs with real character. But their records sound so bad to me that I just can't get into them, all thin and weedy and trebly and lacking punch. One of the worst-sounding studio bands of the 80s, a decade when there was certainly no lack of competition.

[FGL]

[video] Really like what Ou Est Le Swimming Pool were doing, but always feel they somehow sounded crap... As if distorted or taken from a low quality mp3...
Of course that could be a video only case, but my digital files show the same issue...

D.

Don't hear anything special in this. A little much Compression but for me it is very OK.