what's your reference cd? / what u listening to now!

[bad_dude_69]

just wondering what you guys carry around as your reference cd & why.

me -

frank zappa - apostrophe
OR
talking heads - remain in light

i've probably heard each album 200 times each and i'm (needless to say) intimately aware of their sound -- their production values are practical and close to my ideal.

also, what u listening to now!

me -

john coltrane - meditations / love supreme
hella - the devil isn't red
the books - the lemon of pink
the akira soundtrack

[andrewstadium]

spoon - girls can tell
love it. anybody know the low down on this recording?

[dayvel]

Madonna - Immaculate Collection

[aurelialuz]

Madonna - Immaculate Collection

that's actually a really great suggestion. i've heard that music more than i'd care to admit and it's fairly hi-fi too.

one that i use a lot is 'frank's wild years.' lots of depth in there.

alex

[jayro_rockola]

In Utero has always been a good benchmark for me - pretty bad ass mixes.

Thanks to all you guys, the last few CDs I got and have been listening to are

My Bloody Valentine - loveless
Beach Boys -Friends/20/20
John Vanderslice - Cellar Door
Olivia Tremor Control - 2nd album

I have been turned onto so many great albums to listen to through all 'yall...

[mjau]

Beck's Sea Change

[markpar]

Rush's - Moving Pictures. I've heard it about a zillion times.
Same goes for Boston's first album
I've also found myself using Pearl Jam's No Code lately, as well.

As for what I'm listening to now, I have about 85 gigs of my CD collection ripped here at work and I just put it on random play.

-mark

[bad_dude_69]

sea change --

you gotta respect the snare on "paper tiger".

[jdsowa]

I guess it goes without saying that you wanna use references that relate to the style of music you're recording. But how about records that you're not very familiar with? Sometimes doing that will lead me in new directions or give me a much-needed shot in the arm. Plus I know from experience that it can be unhealthy to constantly strive from that ONE type of sound again and again. References can be misused if you're just trying to ape someone's guitar sound but they can be very helpful when you've been working on your own for a while and you throw in a CD and it makes you go, "oh, crap..my guitars are worse than i thought."

[matttherat]

I guess it goes without saying that you wanna use references that relate to the style of music you're recording. But how about records that you're not very familiar with? Sometimes doing that will lead me in new directions or give me a much-needed shot in the arm. Plus I know from experience that it can be unhealthy to constantly strive from that ONE type of sound again and again. References can be misused if you're just trying to ape someone's guitar sound but they can be very helpful when you've been working on your own for a while and you throw in a CD and it makes you go, "oh, crap..my guitars are worse than i thought."

True, but I thought the point of reference disc, at least for me, is to palce context on the speakers you are listening through. From studio to home to car, each environment makes a single CD sound somewhat different.

So I guess I think of CDs as sort of benchmark for which frequencies are being exagerated or hidden on a certain sound system.

[cgarges]

Lately for some reason it's been "Shining In The Light" on the Page and Plant CD. Not sure why, it just works great for me. And it puts me in a good mood.

If I'm working with a band that wants something bright and compressed, Dave Matthews' "The Best Of What's Around" works well. Again, not sure why, but my mixes come out consistently better (or at least more in the right direction) if I use this as a reference. It's been that way for years. Maybe it's time for an upgrade. I've had really great luck with Jeff Buckley's "Grace." Which song depends of course on the style of whatever I'm mixing.

For any sort of jazz stuff, I like the modern route and pretty much anything Lee Townsend worked on is great. I hardly ever actually use a ref for hip hop or acoustic solo or duo stuff.

Surprisingly, Kid Rock's "Cowboy" is a pretty full-range recording. Steve Durr uses it to help tune rooms.

Of course, when I was doing a lot of karaoke stuff, the original recording was always the reference.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC[/list]

[brainfreezebob]

Paul McCartney: Ram
Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs
Flying Burritto Bros: Gilded Palace of Sin
Byrds: Sweetheart of the Rodeo
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Moby Grape: Moby Grape
Rock & Roll with the Modern Lovers
Coltrane: Favorite Things, Blue Train
Miles Davis: A Silent Way
Phils Ochs: Pleasures of the Harbor
Jim O'Rourke: Insignificance
Magnetic Fields: Charm of the Highway Strip
Neil Young: Zuma, On the Beach, Time Fades Away, Rust Never Sleeps
REM: Reckoning, Murmur
Magnolia Electric Company (Songs: Ohia)
Walkmen: Bows and Arrows
Scott Walker 4
The Teardrop Explodes: Kilimanjaro
The Band: Music From the Big Pink

[JohnDavisNYC]

scary monsters, sea change, hail to the theif(despite the obnoxious ammounts of compression), and achtung baby.

achtung baby is maybe my favourite, because the dynamic range is huge, and there's a ton of low end, so it's easy to tell what's going on down there. HTTT tells me what's going on in the mdrange, becuase the mastering kinda sucks and it's pinned at zero the whole fucking time... sounds harsh to me.

scary monsters is just one of my favoutite mixed records ever. i love it. sea change the sense of space, depth (on the kick drum, particularly) and reverb (the strings have like 9 seconds of reverb it seems)

that's just me.

cheers,
john

[soundguy]

Rush's - Moving Pictures. I've heard it about a zillion times.

man, I dont know if I would want that sound on my record, but Im at a loss to think of another sound on a rock record that works more perfectly in a mix than the snare/snare verb on Tom Sawyer. Every single time I hear that song, Im amazed at what the snare and the verb on it does for the mix. What the hell reverb is tht on the snare? I want that tom sawyer patch on my lexicon.

dave

[djgout]

ISIS- oceanic..........my favorite referenece disc. Matt Bayles did such a good job with them, that kick sound is to die for.