Everyone's favorite reference songs ?

[garytube]

Just wondering what everybody's favorite songs/mixes are to use for a reference when comparing speakers, doing mixes etc. I've heard in the past that Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon and Peter Gabriel's SO are good balanced references. I guess you might not use these references if you were mixing something like, say, an acoustic bluegrass song....

[Fire Dome]

i don't really have a reference song yet but i do have two that i test all the free plug in's that i download. These are The Burning Red by Machine Head and My immortal by Evanescence. Both are relatively slow and also quite clearly mixed, no digital clipping etc.

I guess i need to find something more rocky , being a metal head and all ah well


Dave

[Garry Sharp]

Steely Dan's Gaucho album

[boingoman]

I like Steely Dan, or others, depending on the style of music. Gives me a standard to shoot for.

[Le Basseur]

Oregon
album "Beyond Words"
track 6 "The Silence Of A Candle"

[brett304]

I guess there are time you may want to pick something in the same basic feeling as the music you're producing, but the truth is that you want to pick something that you know inside out.. This way you can tell if the highs are too high or the lows are too dead on the particular system... This way you can compensate and make a mix that will sound good on any system (minus the old mono tv handed down from your grampa). Its a good idea to check it on a few systems and against multiple references in different "genres"...

[brett304]

Just realized that you asked for our personal favorites so nobody grill me for posting the wrong thing... Guess I'd probably pick a pink floyd song and a boy sets fire song, since mixing the two would give a good reference for most of my music... Maybe every once in a while some Neil Young...

[wilkee]

AC/DC "Back In Black" that proves good raunchy rock can also be a great recording.

[jeffree]

Good idea for a thread. Lately, for my non-acoustic stuff, I've been using a Special EFX album (Butterfly) and Steely Dan's Everything Must Go (although almost anything by Steely Dan works well).

J.

[Garry Sharp]

I thought Everything Must Go was disappointing (sorry, that's OT)