This is basically topic on the worst release you have heard that has utter crappy musical production. Im excluding VHS tapes for this one due to that age of technology being very outdated. This also has to be a full release you have heard on a Lossless rip IE: FLAC, ALAC, WAV etc… CD’s only. If you have more then one thats fine
Kuroyume’s Corkscrew has the dubious honor of being the most loud, compressed album I’ve ever heard. I think it even beats Death Magnetic/The Stooges’ Raw Power remaster, but it’s been a while since I checked. At least it’s around the level of those two.
Luna Sea’s re-recording of their first album is also remarkably shitty sounding.
There are uncountable VK releases that sound absolutely dire, usually because the band doesn’t have access to proper recording equipment, an engineer, and most importantly, a producer.
Since demos aren’t excluded from this, I’m going to go with かまいたち – 百鬼夜行. It’s Kamaitachi’s 1986 demo tape. I received this as a freebie on CD when I ordered some stuff from Japan. Unfortunately I can’t find it on Youtube, so you’ll have to believe me when I say that this thing is utterly unlistenable. It’s recorded so poorly, the songs are barely perceptible.
Since I’m sure that won’t be counted (add demos to the first post?), Dir en grey’s ‘symphonic’ recordings during DUM SPIRO SPERO deserve a mention. The orchestral additions sound so unbelievably fake. The band should be embarrassed these ever made it to CD.
“Production =/= mixing =/= mastering.”
Yes but they interact with each other, for example the effect of bad mastering can be mitigated a bit if the mix is really punchy and balanced.
And we don’t need a separate thread to complain about badly recorded drums or whatever just because production isn’t the same thing as mixing/mastering. OP wrote “/quality” in the title to account for all sound related complaints, anyway. So for the purposes of this thread I don’t really think it’s an important distinction.
I had a feeling this would cause a problem, just as it did when I wrote that in the first place. A lot of hate was sent my way on MH for simply trying to educate people a little in elementary music production jargon. Probably shouldn’t have reposted it. Oh well.
Possibly I misunderstood the thread, which seemed to be about what bad production sounds like in terms of the quality of its musical presentation.
A good example is the one @libertine posted. That song’s the epitome of basic rap, being built using only an 808 drum machine, the guy’s autotuned voice, and a simple ambient synth loop. While the recording quality is fine and the mix and the master sound okay, it’s so creatively bereft of originality that it just has to go on the trash heap.
Pretty ironic that the song’s called ‘Be Yourself’ when it’s aping from so many other better artists.
All art is subjective as to whether it’s good or bad. There’s plenty of great rap and a whole load of bad rap. Satsuki’s song is objectively bad. I have no idea how anyone can listen to music like that and enjoy it.
I mean, I’m sure the rampant bootlegging of Kamaitachi’s demos didn’t help the quality. Who knows how many generations of tapes that particular rip had gone through? It might not be a production issue as much as a “let’s put a low-quality dub of a dub on a CD” issue…?
As for the topic, Kuroageha (黒蝪蝶)'s Kisoukyoku (綺想曲) a.k.a Capriccio is a brickwall mastering classic. It’s nearly as bad on the actual CD. It took a bit of getting used to, I’m not going to lie.
There´s probably worse but, as much as I love D.I.D. I always hated that weird and exaggerated reverb effect they always used on Akane´s vocals, it made his high pitched voice(let alone his screams)almost fking unbearable to listen to. I think this song is the perfect example of that.