Top Ten Albums All Recording Engineers Should Own

[bigbaconclassic]

I think Talking Book by Stevie Wonder should get a mention. I've always loved the drum sound Stevie got on "Superstition". Everything on that track sounds fantastic.

[Cathode_ray]

AJA - or any Steely Dan for that matter
Feels Like Home - Linda Ronstadt/Massenburg
Relish - Joan Osborne/W.Whittman
Jack Bruce solo stuff: Songs For A Tailor, Harmony Row
Dixie Chicken
CTA - hadn't heard in a while and was pleasently surprised! Would have been a better single album though.
At Last - Cindy Lauper/W. Whittman
Beatles - Any of em. Before Emrick was great as well - just different.
Photgraphs - Shawn Colvin/J. Leventhal. Man I wished I could mix like that!

[jkelly222]

It's very difficult to sum down everything I would like to list into just a list of ten; however, here's my effort. These are record's in which obtain not just incredible songs but captivating production.


1.) Beatles - Revolver
2.) Francoise Hardy - Soleil
3.) The Kinks - Great Lost Kinks
4.) Lee Hazlewood - Nancy & Lee
5.) T. Rex - The Slider
4.) Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
5.) Boy Dylan - New Morning
6.) Pete Dello & Friends - Into Your Ears
7.) Otis Redding - The Dock Of The Bay
8.) Alice Cooper - Love It To Death
9.) Badfinger - Magic Christian Music
10.) The Idle Race - Birthday Party

Totally didn't go out of my way to make a list of entirely records pre-dating 1975....

[dgrieser]

I just got Muddy Waters Folk Singer (from 1963) yesterday. I'm not sure a better recording has ever been made. All acoustic with Muddy, a young Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon on standup bass, and Clifton James on drums. The echo/verb on Muddy's voice is astonishing.

[warmdirt]

So I agree with so much of the albums already posted; I won't repost any of those, rather I've selected a few that haven't been posted yet, that I feel deserve mention.
1. For Everyman, Jackson Browne - Al Schmitt at his most gravy. Everything just sounds of a piece, unified. This album gets less attention but to me is maybe JB's best album sonically speaking.
2. For the Beauty of Winona, Daniel Lanois - Great example of a heavily produced album that pulls it off, every tone sounds sculpted with excruciating detail, and it's a very vibe heavy album that also ventures off into some very interesting sonic and tonal places.
3. The Blueprint - Jay Z - To me a great example of the hip hop SSL sound, you can just hear them slamming that bus compressor like crazy, especially on tracks like "Never Change."
4. The Deep Field - Joan as Policewoman - Bryce Goggin and his Neve laying down super fat tracks for this excellent songwriter. This album is a great example of huge bottom end that still is in control.
5. The Future - Leonard Cohen Included because listen to his catalogue prior to this album and you realize that his entire career to that point no one had recorded his voice correctly. On this album it's got that LDC front and center godliness that we now associate as the Cohen sound, but compare that to his "Songs From a Room" and the diff is shocking. Of course, he sang a big higher in his range back then, bot not always.
6. So Much for the Afterglow, Everclear - To me an example of just how far a mix can take a record. Andy Wallace at his best, turning simple riff rock that in a different mixer's hands could sound much less focused, one senses, even sloppy, into one of the classic albums of its time period.

[GooberNumber9]

I can't think of ten...

Led Zeppelin I - Amazingly modern sounding considering what they had to work with.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon - Same reasons as everyone else. Put together very well, especially for its time.

Alanis Morisette, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie - Recorded on 20-bit ADAT, sounds amazingly clean and rich. The lesson here is that it's not the gear.

Indigo Girls, Become You - Layers of vocal harmonies and acoustic and electric instruments all perfectly balanced and separated and polished off with mastering by Bob Ludwig. For understanding how it is possible to balance all those elements and capture some amazing acoustic sounds that play nice with a full band.

Tool, Aenima - Thick walls of distorted guitars and loud drums while still retaining overall crest factor, space, and separation. Another Bob Ludwig master.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication - What not to do.

The Beatles, ??? - I see the lessons to be learned from The Beatles to be mostly about producing, arranging, composing, and thinking outside the box. As much as those can sometimes be part of engineering, any of the later albums would be educational. In terms of putting all the sounds together on the technical side in a way that doesn't detract from and instead maybe enhances the songs, I'm not sure if I hear a lot of that from their recordings. I haven't heard any of the mono mixes, that I'm aware of, though.

[ChrisCo]

This is tough! My tastes run a pretty wide gamut, so this'll be an interesting list:

- The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's - 5 words: The Benefit of Mr. Kite. The inventiveness that went into that song alone makes it such an amazing display of sheer mastery of the tape deck, not to mention how catchy of a tune it is, layered melodies and delightful musical phrases. Weird that it's not my favorite song on the album, and that goes to show what a quintessential piece of artwork it would be to keep as reference/inspiration.

- Led Zeppelin IV - I love this reference for rhythm sections. Bonham is Bonham, but (as someone mentioned before) even the playing on Stairway, while somewhat reserved at times, the dynamics are just incredible (as well as JPJ's sick basslines to wrap up the song).

- Wilco: Sky Blue Sky - Fantastic songwriting, clever changes, really interesting arrangements. there's a certain amount of "sonic immersion" i love about this album that most of the songs provide.

- Shpongle: Are You Shpongled? - My friend called this "The Dark Side of The Moon" of electronica. It's a silly band name but an amazing piece of artwork. Through it, Simon Posford taught me so much about dynamics in that "to make something big, you have to first take something away". Not to mention really lush sounds with lots of details but not overwhelming. Pretty much ANYTHING Shpongle has done I've absolutely loved.

- At The Gates: Slaughter Of The Soul - Heavy. Powerful. Bone crushing. Everything about this recording is designed to melt your face. This is a good record to keep around for those artists looking for brutality and power in their production. (Even though I LOVE Vulgar Display of Power by Pantera, I wonder what would have happened if they would have gotten some of the sounds At The Gates got...)

- Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magic - It's possible to get a high energy production without having to pump the top end. I know it's played out, but when "Righteous & Wicked" ends, and it goes into "Give It Away", Keidis utters: "crank it", and BY GOLLY, I do!

- Guns N' Roses: Appetite For Destruction - My reminder that attitude is everything. I mean, not a shitty Axl "rockstar" attitude, let's be clear. I mean that if the performer doesn't feel it, it's probably not going to come through in the recording. (there are probably MANY albums that serve as examples of this)

- Maze: Joy & Pain - I love how this album feels. Slick production, but still has a soulful quality to it. Great mix. I love cranking this in the car!

- Rage Against The Machine: Evil Empire - Let some cats in a room bang it out. Throw some mics in the session. Let the chemistry run the show.

- Sade: Promise - Delicacy and dynamics. Plus, her rhythm section kicks ass.