Who's your favorite engineer? Producer? Mastering Engineer?

nbiehl

New member
Do any of you ever buy a recording because of the engineers/producers/mastering engineers that worked on it?

For the past couple of weeks, I've been listening to a recording that Mark Nevers engineered (Bonnie Prince Billy's "Lie Down In The Light") in headphones, and it's spoiled me. I haven't been able to enjoy other recordings since. It's so easy to disappear into, and everything else sounds harsh and careless by comparison. The CD was mastered by Scott Colburn.

I've started to seek out and listen to other recordings Mark Nevers has been involved in, so I can compare the sounds and see what I can learn.

I've also read an interview or two with him that I found really interesting (though he's not great at giving clear quotes.) http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov04/articles/nevers.htm

I would love to listen to more incredibly produced music and read more insight. Who should I be searching for?
 
Eliot Schinier has engineered some of the best stuff Ive ever heard...I think that "Aja' by Steely Dan is a must have CD for anyone who records.
 
While there are engineers and producers whom I greatly admire because of their unique ear and talent (T-Bone Burnett, Jack Renner, Alan Parsons, Quincy Jones, Brian Eno, Leonard Cohen, etc.), I personally *never* buy a recording because of who's behind the glass. Perhaps when I read that so-and-so is working on a particular project, or if I see someone's name in an album credit when browsing what's out there, it might interest me or attract me, but it'll - for me - never be a reason for buying it.

It's about the MUSIC. I buy music for the music, not for who's twiddling the knobs.

G.
 
Eliot Schinier has engineered some of the best stuff Ive ever heard...I think that "Aja' by Steely Dan is a must have CD for anyone who records.

Roger Nichols was the main engineer on Aja...he got the Grammy for it, along with three other Steely Dan albums.

While it is a very well engineered album...it wasn't one of my favorite to listen to. Actually....it got to a point where I hated the thing, since I ended up hearing it about a thousand times on a two-week camping trip wherw one of the chicks in our group had the tape---and played it to death!!! :mad:
:D


Yeah...I'm, with Glen...I don't think I ever purchased an album because of who was the engineer or producer on it, though I would take note of who did what if I really liked some aspect of the engineering/production.
But you know, in many cases, even when there are specific people named...you may not really know who did what...sometimes stuff happens in the studio without a specific plan. ;)
 
Agreed. But I think that Pink Floyd/Alan Parsons (DSOTM) covers both aspects.
True, but I can say with absolute certainty that I did NOT buy DSOTM because it had Alan Parsons' name on it ;) :).

And equally on the other side of the coin, there are a few Alan Parsons Project albums which I did buy because I liked the music on them, but also a few which I did NOT buy specifically because I didn't care for the music on those so much, even though they had AP's name all over them.

G.
 
Brendan O'Brien
Produced: RATM, Incubus, STP, many others
Mixed: RHCP: blood sugar sex magic, Soundgarden: SuperUnknown <-both are top notch quality

Joe Barresi
Produced: QOTSA, Clutch
Engineered: Tool: 10,000 days, Bad Religion

Butch Vig
Produced/Mixed: Smashing Pumpkins: Gish, Siamese Dream, Garbage: Version 2.0 <- sounds amazing, a little record by a little band.....Nirvana: Nevermind

Rick Rubin
Produced: Countless Great Sounding Albums
Slayer, RHCP, Danzig, GLU, SOAD, Audioslave, Slipknot......
 
Well, this falls into a music/producer grey area because they primarily mix their own stuff, but I'll always at least check out something with Steven Wilson or Devin Townsend's name on it.
 
It's about the MUSIC. I buy music for the music, not for who's twiddling the knobs.

So right when that Bonnie Prince Billy album started hypnotizing me, I caught an amazing musician live.

I get home and listen to his record, and the songs that killed me live are practically ruined on the record because of the way they chose to present them and the way they're mixed. I can tell the singer's performances on the CD are just as moving, but the backing music is just not good (on some cuts, not all of them.)

I'm now of the opinion that the knob twiddling can be an extremely important part of the MUSIC.

We've all heard it a million times, but to me personally the cooking/music comparison is really appropriate lately. If the recording is a dish, musicians and songs are the ingredients and tech guys are the cooks. A great cook can create a great meal with poor ingredients and a poor cook can ruin great ingredients.

I'm just looking to experience some of the great "cooks" out there.
 
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We've all heard it a million times, but to me personally the cooking/music comparison is really appropriate lately. If the recording is a dish, musicians and songs are the ingredients and tech guys are the cooks. A great cook can create a great meal with poor ingredients and a poor cook can ruin great ingredients.

I'm just looking to experience some of the great "cooks" out there.

Amen to that.
 
We've all heard it a million times, but to me personally the cooking/music comparison is really appropriate lately. If the recording is a dish, musicians and songs are the ingredients and tech guys are the cooks. A great cook can create a great meal with poor ingredients and a poor cook can ruin great ingredients.
Oh, baby, you're preaching to the choir there; I'm the King of the Cooking Analogy (just ask Dogbreath :D), and I agree with you.

But at the same time there are some great engineers and producers doing some spectacular work on a lot of Top 200 folks out there that I would never want to listen to, let alone buy. OTOH, there's a lot of great music out there that has gotten only the most minimalist of production or engineering values that not only sends me emotionally, but sends me to the store (or to iTunes) to want to lay my money down for it.

A bad or simply misguided producer or engineer can degrade the quality of an recording and keep it from it's potential, on that I doubt that many will disagree. And a great producer/engineer can make recordings that stand above the rest and that no other engineer/producer can equal.

But as much as I like, respect and admire Bruce Sweiden (sp?) as a great engineer, I never have had the desire to go out and buy a Madonna album just because his name is on it. I also will not throw out my Professor Longhair recordings just because the engineering on them is minimal and done by some uncredited Nawleens engineer.

You get a great cut of meat, fresh veggies from the farm stand, and quality spices from your herb garden, and you'd have to boil or burn the dish awfully bad for it not to wind up tasty on the plate. It may not be a Cordon Bleu recipe, but it'll be the best damn burger you ever had. But if you're buying grey Army surplus meat and canned vegetables, even Rick Bayless ain't going to be able to make it taste four star.

That said, if you do what to know what great cooks can do with great ingredients, I gave you a half-dozen names in the first post that you can look up, that are from a variety of different palates and cooking schools ;). Between them, there's almost nobody and no music style outside of the hard rock branch that they haven't cooked up extremely well.

G.
 
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At the moment, Tom Vicari is numero uno in my book. Really down to earth and does the best job even for those that may not deserve it.
 
David Foster, Quincy Jones and Alan Parsons. The Roger Nichols stuff with the Carpenters is awesome. All the A&M stuff was great. Toni Braxton is recorded great.

What a life Bernie Grundman has had. I read an interview with him once and he had just remastered Eminem's last album and at the same time the latest Disney film. Incredible diversity. He very well might have the best/well respected ears in the industry.

One of my goals is to make a recording mixer like Bernie's... a homemade beast with giant knobs.

A friend of mine flew to L.A. a few years ago and had his CD remastered there for about 2K, which actually isn't much all considered. He asked the engineer what frequency the big knob he was turning was, and the guy didn't know. It's a big specially made desk designed for what songs are supposed to sound like, and it's all tweaked and evolved over decades.

You know another group of music that is incredibly well recorded is the Disney stuff. Even cornball stuff like Mary Poppins was recorded with astounding gear. The budget was nuts I imagine, and a few dozen U67's for the strings wouldn't be a problem if they wanted them.
 
While there are engineers and producers whom I greatly admire because of their unique ear and talent (T-Bone Burnett, Jack Renner, Alan Parsons, Quincy Jones, Brian Eno, Leonard Cohen, etc.), I personally *never* buy a recording because of who's behind the glass. Perhaps when I read that so-and-so is working on a particular project, or if I see someone's name in an album credit when browsing what's out there, it might interest me or attract me, but it'll - for me - never be a reason for buying it.

It's about the MUSIC. I buy music for the music, not for who's twiddling the knobs.

G.

I guess I am guilty of buying a few records because Alan Parsons' name was them...but I dont think he counts because its still about the music to me.
 
Roger Nichols was the main engineer on Aja...he got the Grammy for it, along with three other Steely Dan albums.
;)

I liked Eliots body of work better than Roger's..and you are right, some things do get old on you if you get too much of them...I have a 40gb HD filled with just music...lol.
 
I guess I am guilty of buying a few records because Alan Parsons' name was them...but I dont think he counts because its still about the music to me.
Well, I'll admit that I did buy one of the APP albums unheard. I believe it was "Turn OF A Friendly Card", and it actually turned out to be perhaps my all-around fave album from the Project. But that was because I had already had his earlier albums and liked the music as well as the supreme engineering. I was lucky enough to have a couple of record stores in the area at the time which allowed preview listening. That's hard to find these days, especially for vinyl, which all my original APP purchases were.

(Which make me wonder now about something I totally forgot; My "Edgar Allen Poe" album is the original release artwork version, complete with original lyrics booklet and tissue and all that. I wonder if it's actually worth anything more than two bucks these days...)



G.
 
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