Reference Quality Rock Music

[BenB]

It's rare to find well recorded rock music. For some sub-genres, spending a ton of money on a studio recording and trying to get a pleasant mix would be rather hypocritical. Still, I like rock music, and I like it to be well recorded. I am mostly interested in what other people will post, but I feel compelled to start the thread off with a few recommendations. I'll start lite and end heavy.

Live: Mental Jewelry. This whole cd is very well recorded. Subsequent releases were a step down in audio quality, to my ears at least.
Here's "You are the World"

Faith No More: The Real Thing. Overall the CD is a bit bass shy, but their "War Pigs" cover managed to have a good balance, and great clarity:

Metallica: Black Album. I have the DVD Audio version of this, though I listen in stereo. The stand out for me is "Sad but True" for how the drums are recorded so prominently (with high dynamics).

Danzig: Lucifuge. This whole CD is very well recorded. Rick Ruben got it right for once (broken clock I guess). Here's "Pain in the World".

Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power (Remastered). The remaster of this disc is pretty good (could have been a little smoother). The stand-out for me is "Regular People (Conceit)"

 

[600_OHM]

Great subject - I consider the studio engineers and the recordings to being just as important as the band members themselves. Unseen artists so to speak.

I'll make a heretical statement about Black Sabbath. Sure to offend most fans who consider "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" their finest work. That was the end for me. I thought I had a bad pressing so I bought the LP twice - but nope - just an ill-defined wall of sound. All sliders pushed to "eleven". Broke my heart.

Some might even claim it was "pre-punk" brilliance. Not for me - it doesn't fit.

Their first 3 releases - just wow! Full of musical range, well defined instruments, and of course Ozzie in your ear. It all fit like a glove. It didn't even *have* to be played loud to sound LoUd. It dug deep, and maybe because I was young, when you heard it, you mentally played it back in your head all day.

I could pick it apart like I was listening to King Crimson. (different genre obviously). Each playing of Sabbath was a slightly new experience. Their 4th release and onto the 5th with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - I was about done after 5 minutes of the wall of sound. All of the drumming, bass, vocals - just a mess covering each other up. It didn't have to be that way.

Despite the obvious excesses at the time being an influence, it just broke my heart to have what I dearly loved taken away. The excellent sound, the spirit, was just gone. It's there, but hidden.

Clearly you raised a passionate subject!

 

[600_OHM]

Here's the irony about Black Sabbath and being a kid. Too young to have a car, go to concerts, all the while your neighborhood friends are listening to pop..

At the time, movies like The Exorcist were popular, drugs were hard and ruining peoples lives, the Vietnam war and most parental warnings and school sponsored classes about satan worship etc were mostly ignored coming down from the top like that...

Ironically, at first I thought Black Sabbath was a cool message to avoid those things - because here is what is sounds like if you dabble in those things. I thought they were pushing a message of anti-drug, anti-war, anti-satan worship and all those things by getting past your ear!

It wasn't until many years later did I learn that they defined their unique sound by seeing people queue up at scary movies. I think I over-intellectualized Black Sabbath as a lad, but the truth is, they DID keep me from dabbling in the hard stuff when offered! It scared me enough not to want to go there.

 

[Doodski]

It's rare to find well recorded rock music. For some sub-genres, spending a ton of money on a studio recording and trying to get a pleasant mix would be rather hypocritical. Still, I like rock music, and I like it to be well recorded. I am mostly interested in what other people will post, but I feel compelled to start the thread off with a few recommendations. I'll start lite and end heavy.

Live: Mental Jewelry. This whole cd is very well recorded. Subsequent releases were a step down in audio quality, to my ears at least.
Here's "You are the World"

Faith No More: The Real Thing. Overall the CD is a bit bass shy, but their "War Pigs" cover managed to have a good balance, and great clarity:

Metallica: Black Album. I have the DVD Audio version of this, though I listen in stereo. The stand out for me is "Sad but True" for how the drums are recorded so prominently (with high dynamics).

Danzig: Lucifuge. This whole CD is very well recorded. Rick Ruben got it right for once (broken clock I guess). Here's "Pain in the World".

Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power (Remastered). The remaster of this disc is pretty good (could have been a little smoother). The stand-out for me is "Regular People (Conceit)"

The Pantera release is very well recorded and a bonus is the band sounds like the album. I went to 1.1 Pantera concerts and the sounds was fantastic.

 

[Vacceo]

Anything Dan Swäno has produced is guaranteed.

 

[LTig]

The Riverside studio albums are well recorded. Even the newest live album sounds good to me.

 

[LTig]

Same is true for Tool. Here is Pneuma from the newest album.

This live version is a must see for every drummer:

 

[BenB]

The Pantera release is very well recorded and a bonus is the band sounds like the album. I went to 1.1 Pantera concerts and the sounds was fantastic.

That's awesome. I never went to a Pantera concert. I grew up in a state that a lot of tours just skipped. I'm glad you had a nice experience.

 

[Doodski]

That's awesome. I never went to a Pantera concert. I grew up in a state that a lot of tours just skipped. I'm glad you had a nice experience.

Pantera is just how you would imagine it from the album and watching videos. They simply rock hard and do it well.

 

[movehome]

Anything Dan Swäno has produced is guaranteed.

Dan Swano has made some killer music, but I find he's overrated as a producer/mastering engineer. Crimson in particular is highly compressed and really shouldn't be considered "reference quality." Even the records that he mastered more recently have a lot of compression and I've never heard one that "wow'd" me. He does do low-compression vinyl masters, but even then they always feel like they're missing something. Crimson does have a vinyl master that's available online digitally if you can find it.

In that genre, something like the Deliverance Re-Mix (vinyl master), Gorguts Pleiades Dust, or Horrendous Idol would be a better recommendation.

Here's my recommendation for the thread though. Doesn't sound as good on YouTube but all of Big Big Train's recent albums and re-issues have minimal mastering and are very nice recordings.

 

[Vacceo]

Dan Swano has made some killer music, but I find he's overrated as a producer/mastering engineer. Crimson in particular is highly compressed and really shouldn't be considered "reference quality." Even the records that he mastered more recently have a lot of compression and I've never heard one that "wow'd" me. He does do low-compression vinyl masters, but even then they always feel like they're missing something. Crimson does have a vinyl master that's available online digitally if you can find it.

In that genre, something like the Deliverance Re-Mix (vinyl master), Gorguts Pleiades Dust, or Horrendous Idol would be a better recommendation.

Here's my recommendation for the thread though. Doesn't sound as good on YouTube but all of Big Big Train's recent albums and re-issues have minimal mastering and are very nice recordings.

Cryptopsy has some very well produces records. I'm partial to Whisper Supremacy and None So Vile.

 

[FrantzM]

HI

Are Dire Straits, "Rock"? I believe they are, in which case most of their albums...
Is Steely Dan, "Rock"?.. Then several of their albums...

Those were the very first to come to mind.

Peace.

 

[ribonucleic]

Rage Against the Machine is extremely well recorded.

 

[mrbungle]

I’m usually not super picky with the production, spending most of my listening time on Bandcamp, but Collin Richardson, Russ Russell and Kurt Ballou always sound right to my ears.

 

[bevok]

This almost fits into the Electronic category but what a great song for testing soundstage:

Tool - Chocolate Chip Trip

Chocolate Chip Trip by TOOL

Listen now on your favorite streaming service. Powered by Songlink/Odesli, an on-demand, customizable smart link service to help you share songs, albums, podcasts and more.

song.link

 

[uwotm8]

Same is true for Tool. Here is Pneuma

While it's a musical masterpiece, what do you think about the record? All the album and Pneuma especially.
I reached that album a week ago and got kinda frustrated of... not exactly quality, rather mastering.
It sounds dull for lack a better word.
Yes it's Tool and their specific sound but neither 10k Days or Lateralus sound like that.

The funniest part is that live record sounds way freshier, especially hi hat line is far from album dulness.
Overall I barely believe that it was recorded in 2019 when listen to.
I saw people complaining about clicks and other compression artifacts - well, maybe, I don't hear much of that on comfortable SPL.
Strange

 

[Greenman]

One of the best sounding rock albums i have is:

John Mayer : Continuum.
I’m not an especially big Mayer fan, but this is probably his best and sounds fantastic with decent dynamics and well defined individual instruments.


Live Rock albums can frequently be a muddled mess. one exception is:

Porcupine Tree: Coma Devine
Steven Wilson is one of the most sought after producers in the heavy rock field and most of the Porcupine Tree albums sound pretty decent. This live album is well recorded and again has good dynamics and covers some great material from their early/mid period.

 

[Ludovic]

Ac dc Live 92 is incredible

Live Rock albums can frequently be a muddled mess. one exception is:

Porcupine Tree: Coma Devine
Steven Wilson is one of the most sought after producers in the heavy rock field and most of the Porcupine Tree albums sound pretty decent. This live album is well recorded and again has good dynamics and covers some great material from their early/mid period.

 

[danadam]

Paper Motion.

It was available as a download on trptk.com but now it's only offered there as a CD.
Download is available on nativedsd.com but only in ridiculous formats in ridiculous prices.
EDIT: Oh, thankfully it's on bandcamp too.

youtube playlist: