Which CD you are using as your reference CD?

[smcoptyltd]

Just wonder which CD you are using as a reference CD to get well balanced mix?

Any recommendation? images/icons/grin.gif

TIA...

[rmx]

Right now "Back in Black"- ACDC

Peace images/icons/cool.gif

[GORILLA]

Hey for metal tunes...Testament's "The Gathering". images/icons/grin.gif
For hard rock tunes...System of a down's "Toxicity" images/icons/grin.gif

[Peter Duemmler]

For frequency balance I often use Shania Twain´s "You win my love".

Peter

[Mike Tholen]

Marylin Manson's "Mechanical Animals" shows just how heavy and dynamic things can get, for the hard **** .
Los Lobos' "Kiko" is an all around gem of a recording.
the Jellyfish records are pretty damn amazing too. images/icons/grin.gif

[picksail]

Currently,

One Size Fits All- Frank Zappa(Kerry McNabb)
This has always, been one of my favorite albums in all respects. I discovered last night that the song Inca Roads is 1.3db(RMS)lower on the left side.

Killer Queen- Queen(Roy Thomas Baker)

[AEXXL]

Dr Dre... the chronic 2001...for hip hop its on top

[Alécio Costa]

Pop/heavily sequenced: Roxette´s Crush on you
Hard Rock: Stve Vai´s Firegarden, Satriani´s Extremist
Nice Drums sounds : The Police
Pop/ soft rock: Teras for fears´s Sowing the seeds of love, Elemental
OLder rock stuff tone: Yes´s Fragile, 90125, Dark Side of the moon
Older Dance/op: MJ´s Thriller, Bad images/icons/tongue.gif

[sdemott]

Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead - overall great sounding CD.

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon - again, great sounding.

The Outfield: Play Deep - wonderful use of imaging, great drum sound, full sounding mix with a lot of breathing room.

Johnny Frigo: Live From Studio A - one of Chesky's releases recorded by Bob Katz, wonderful audiophile recording done with a single stereo mic.

Crosby, Stills & Nash: the first album - lush voices & wonderful acoustic guitars.

Night Ranger: Midnight Madness - I have never heard a better dirty electric guitar sound than that of Brad Gillis' old strat through that Boogie.

Derek & the Dominoes: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs - for the pure energy and emotion. Lots of stuff I wouldn't want to imitate...a bit raw/unpolished, but I'd take performances like these over a technically great mix any day of the week.

[tlester]

A faithful CD for years has been Elemental from Tears for Fears.

Anything by Sting/Police
Chevel - Hard Rock
Micheal Smith "Mary, Margret, Pat, and Kate" - Folk
Metalica - Heavy Stuff
The Elms - Killer Guitar
Tom Petty (anything form the last 3 CD's) - Everything... drums, guitar, bass, vocals, BG's, etc...
Anything mixed by Andy Wallace!

-Tom

[narcoman]

errr,

Queens of the Stone age - Songs for the Deaf
The hives - your new favourite band (particularly track2)
The dirtbombs - electra glide in black
a few others as well but those are the main ones that i sit with all the time. especially the hives - so incredibly well mixed and mastered for that garage rock sound. amazing job - no reverbs to speak of as well.

cheers

[bruceup]

David Sanborn and Bob James 'Double Vision'. The first track, 'Maputo' is always the first track I put listen to anywhere. Bill Schnee at his best.

[generator]

I usually ask the clients who they'd like to be mixed or mastered to, as a reference.

Recent requests:

Mudvayne
Good Charlotte
DMX
Hed P.E.
Busta Rhymes
Blink 182
Korn
The Ataris

[D Clarkson]

Aaliyah

[narcoman]

aarrrggghhh Good charlotte. I'm forever hounded by this band...arrrggghhhh#


cheers

[6X 2]

This is kinda obvious, but...

You should pick CDs you think sound great and that you also know very well, i.e. listened to on a million different systems.

I'm using a bunch of cds, but it depends on what the stuff is you're working on.

At the moment:

Bill Frisell: Gone, just like a train
Kenny Wheeler: Angel song
Weather Report: Heavy weather
Henry Threadgill and make a move: Where's your cup?
Norah Jones: come away with me
Coldplay: Parachutes or A rush of blood to the head
The Coral
David Bowie: 1. Outside
Kings of convenience: Quiet is the new loud
Turin Brakes: The optimist LP
Tom Waits: Alice
Jeff Buckley: Grace
Kelly Joe Phelps: Slingshot professionals
Radiohead: Kid A
Aphex Twin: drvqs
Rough Trade Electronic 01 compilation (got loads of great electronic stuff...)

...and so forth and so forth... images/icons/grin.gif

6x 2

[doorknocker]

Originally posted by 6X 2:

Bill Frisell: Gone, just like a train
Kenny Wheeler: Angel song
Weather Report: Heavy weather
Henry Threadgill and make a move: Where's your cup?
Norah Jones: come away with me
Coldplay: Parachutes or A rush of blood to the head
The Coral
David Bowie: 1. Outside
Kings of convenience: Quiet is the new loud
Turin Brakes: The optimist LP
Tom Waits: Alice
Jeff Buckley: Grace
Kelly Joe Phelps: Slingshot professionals
Radiohead: Kid A
Aphex Twin: drvqs
Rough Trade Electronic 01 compilation (got loads of great electronic stuff...)
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">images/icons/smile.gif Cool list! A lot of my faves, too...might check out the ones I don't know....

Here are a few more:

-Dr.John: 'Anutha Zone': produced by John Leckie, amazing low end...even on tiny car speakers and still doesn't sound crushed on a bigger system...

- Jah Wobble and Bill Laswell: 'Radioaxiom: A Dub Transmission'
Amazing low end without boom.

-Nils Petter Molvaer 'Khmer'
Molvaer is also featured on 'Radioaxiom'....and you thought ECM records are too 'brainy' sounding.......

-V.M Bhatt / Ry Cooder 'A meeting by the river' : now that's what I call a room sound..... the antithesis of 'stupid loud' mastering.

- Buddy Guy 'Blues Singer'
Brand new acoustic record, killer performance and sound.....It's a tribute to Muddy Waters' 'Folk Singer' record that Buddy played on 40 years ago, they even managed to somehow get the same reverb sound....BTW 'Folk Singer' is a incredible sounding record, the CD reissue is good but doesn't come close to how it sounded on vinyl, IMHO.....

-Radiohead 'O.K Computer'

-The Rolling Stones 'Beggar's Banquet' : amazing new Bob Ludwig remaster, just got a new Sony SACD player, holy **** images/icons/shocked.gif this sums up rock and roll for me....

-Steely Dan 'Aja' : Best drum/bass interplay and sound I've ever heard.

-'Portishead' : talk about setting a mood.....

- Frank Sinatra: 'In the wee small hours': talk about setting a mood...

-Jeff Buckley 'Grace'
Just so that it's mentioned one more time.....


and plenty more......

Andi

[metaltim]

it seems you heavy music fans out there forgot to mention Tool, specifcially their latest, Lateralus (though aenima is clea nas well)
this is heavy music, with songs that focus a lot on drum and base, at it's finest production.

tim

[Donny]

Ricky Peterson "Night Watch" for r&b/smooth jazz/pop

[woodywho]

For HipHop ..........Dr. Dre 2001 (instrumentals) CD. images/icons/wink.gif

[johnwhynot]

1st thread on this subject in the history of the Internet that doesn't mention.

G...

G...

I CAN'T SAY IT!!! but it's a CD with lots of Fender Rhodes and 10k on the drums.

Interesting choices here - I use different stuff wherever I go, but some CDs that get a frequent spin are:

QotSA
lateralus
The Rhino compilation of Dionne Warwick...
Frank Sinatra as mastered for the CBS miniseries
Hoagy Carmichael and Louis Armstrong - I have several compilations
I actually like Kid A for ear-tuning, because so much of it is in strange and unfamiliar frequency areas.

But there are many, many of them...
JW

[M2E]

It's wierd that no one has mentioned this but truely if you can do it like this.
Get a copy if some way possible of a mix of your favorite mixer. I've been fortunate that I've had three different types of mixers that I like mix my stuff and so now when I mix I A/B to that.
1. Mix 1- Tony Masseratti
2. Mix 2- Manny Marquain (I think that's right)
3. Mix 3- Dave Pensada
Reason being is that a mix is so much different than a mastered CD. For one, levels are totally different. When a mixer is mixing your record he is not squeezeing every little inch of life out of it to get it as loud as you think. Don't get me wrong, the mixes are loud but not near as loud as a mastered cd and still it sounds great (Thick, warm, hard,and has Dynamics).
The loudness factor is in the Mastering which is a whole nother ball game. In most cases you can't do that in PT's-Sorry.
But mixing, you can do all in PT's. I see it done all the time as well as I do it to.
But if you can't get a hold of a premixed CD then recopy a mastered one on CD but record it at a lower volume that matches a comfortable mix volume of your CD. Do you understand? That's very important because you'll be chaseing something you will never get.
CD's to recopy @ lower volume-
1. Bruce Sweiden- Any Micheal Jackson stuff
2. Dr. Dre or that new Fab(Street Dreams) for Hip Hop
3. For Hip Hop/R&B- Puffy's Stuff-Faith Evans, 112 huge sounding R&B Records
4. For Pop- Backstreet Boys records were mixed alright. Compressed to death but big sounding.
5. Pop/Rock- Tom Lord-Alge stuff like Avril Lavigne stuff is mixed pretty good. But I have to say that whoever mixed that damn Johnny Cash Record needs a grammy, no joke. It even sounds good on tv. Not a lot of records sound good on tv.

I hope this helps
"M2E"

[Mount Royal]

M2E: Kindly go over your suggestion about recopying a mastered CD again. I understood you to advise copying an already mastered CD, but doing so at a lower volume to change the character of the final product. Additionally, please mention how one gets a hold of alternate mixes or masterings of a given recording (without being a part of the production team).

Thanks,

John Caldwell