Which album actually has the worst production?

naranja

naranja

Ancient Mariner
As in you might be able to appreciate the songs and performances but the sound of the album really holds back your enjoyment. For the most part I find most Maiden albums sound fine to me.

It's not akin to Metallica where they've produced a number of almost unlistenable fuck ups in the studio.

Anyway my pick is The X Factor. The drums and bass are actually produced really well on the album. The guitars are so thin, they sound like they were played through a walkie talkie five miles away and Blaze is left completely exposed with no reverb or backing vocals or much help at all at times.

It's a shame as I really enjoy the songs.

When Sign of the cross first kicks in it's like Blaze is singing over bass and drums and Davey and Janick were late to the studio and didn't show up- the heavy guitar is almost non existent.

What say you?
 
Virtual XI. It doesn't hurt the ears, there's nothing glaringly wrong with it, but the elements don't really gel with eachother well enough, and the guitars are too middy. It just sounds like a parody of how a rock mix should sound.

The debut is rather good considering it was a budget record, because while it's not very smooth or fat sounding, it just works because the production resonates with the music. It mostly needs to have the 2khz region mitigated for it to sound like the result of real consideration, first and foremost in the vocals, because that is rather screechy, which apart from just sounding bad, leaves your ears tired very quickly. The 2015 remaster solves this, and the rough sonics gel with the (rough-ish) music anyway even without the screechy register.
 
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I agree with Yax on this topic. When I bought the CD and started listening to it, I was enormously disappointed with the album's sound. Back then, I described the sound of Virtual XI as "computer-generated." Couple that with the desperation of songs like "Lightning Strikes Twice," "When Two Worlds Collide," etc., and soon you may want not to "jump into the cockpit," but out of it, so to speak.

Futureal and The Clansman are great, The Angel and the Gambler is good, and the polka section of Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger is great, but other than that, Virtual XI is abysmal.
 
Hard to pick just one. Everything mentioned so far is a valid contender.

Let me toss another honorable mention into the ring — the original mastering of Dance Of Death. Incredibly muddy and ugly to listen to in places, especially when all 3 guitars are playing riffs simultaneously. They had to play crazy EQ games to try to clean that up in the remaster, to the point where you can hear the individual guitars having their levels altered via EQ, where really a full remix would be required to actually fix things. Blecch. And yet it’s still better than the original master…
 
Yax said:
Virtual XI. It doesn't hurt the ears, there's nothing glaringly wrong with it, but the elements don't really gel with eachother well enough, and the guitars are too middy. It just sounds like a parody of how a rock mix should sound.

The debut is rather good considering it was a budget record, because while it's not very smooth or fat sounding, it just works because the production resonates with the music. It mostly needs to have the 2khz region mitigated for it to sound like the result of real consideration, first and foremost in the vocals, because that is rather screechy, which apart from just sounding bad, leaves your ears tired very quickly. The 2015 remaster solves this, and the rough sonics gel with the (rough-ish) music anyway even without the screechy register.
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Yeah the guitar riffs on stuff like lightning sound quite of "squeaky" rather than heavy
 
TXF. As stated by OP, the guitars sound like shit and virtually non-existent. It's also not a coincidence that the bass is the best sounding instrument (well done Steve).

VXI is a close second. Same flat production as TXF but at least the guitars have been turned up a bit. It's just a shame that they still sound wank.
 
Dance of death - the albums have alot of great songs, lots of variation and I do enjoy it well. But the production is terrible, it’s rushed like hell. Bruce should have taken some more vocal takes. Janicks guitar creates lots of noise. Poor balance on the guitars. And that annoying one finger synths are all over.

Virtual XI - very flat sound, no punch in the guitars. The same can be said about The X factor, but it sure works better there due to the more sombre mood. Very poor mixing on VXI as well. You can hear they have not spent much budget on the studio/engineer.

Brave new world/the book of souls - again a poor Shirley job. Terrible rythm guitar sound on BNW, also not very balanced guitar recordings. Also miss some more punch on the bass as well. The vocals however is sound warm and good. TBOS sound muddy and raw. From drums to vocals. Not terrible, but could be alot cleaner.
 
Spaldy said:
Interesting. I consider BNW to be one of their best produced albums.
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Yeah, BNW has a "technically" very proficient production. That's not to say that one necessarily must like the production choices, or think it sounds good, obviously.
 
There are some better sounding and some worse sounding albums, but the original mix and master of Dance Of Death are basically a war crime.

The album is brickwalled to death. Little to no dynamics. The fact that masterpiece songs like Dance Of Death and Paschendale have almost the same dynamic range as Wildest Dreams is criminal. Absolutely criminal. I much rather listen to Death On The Road versions than the studio ones. It's incredible that they went from a great sounding album (BNW) to a muddy disaster and again to a great sounding album (AMLOAD). One can only dream about how good those two tracks would sound with the production of the likes of BTATS or FTGGOG. Also some transitions in the longer DOD songs seem forced on the studio versions. But they fixed that live. Senjutsu kinda suffers from the same thing, as does TRATB. But, as I said before, the mixing and mastering of that album is a war crime.
 
Looks like we have these most-mentioned baddies:

Dance of Death — no redeeming qualities. I also don't like this album's sound. Steve, Steve, what have you done...

Virtual XI — not as brickwalled, but it sounds stale to me. Poor man's rock 'n' roll sound?

The X Factor — I agree about the thin-sounding guitars, but to me the album is somewhat saved by its overall mellow mood. Dark, but somehow warm. I don't hate the sound of this album.

The Debut Album — as for me, this album is also saved by its overall attitude. It's raw-sounding, but has enough power and youthful energy.

As for me, Virtual XI and Dance of Death are the most obvious ugly ducklings.
 
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