Looking for well mastered albums...Recommendations please :)

Just been getting into Marillion and their huge back catalogue!
 
Happiness Is The Road sounds amazing! Great dynamics, space, depth and clarity. The drums in particular sound life-like. Cymbal sustain all there and the snare has great depth, giving it life and character.
 
One of the rare albums to come out nowadays that isn't clipped to death and/or compressed to hell.
 
Highly recommended, especially since the double disc version is only £3.99 on play.com or amazon.co.uk

i am pretty sure the remaster of "The Lost Trident Sessions" by Mahavishnu Orchestra is HDCD.

Try this.  It's not all that similar to what's been mentioned, but it sounds damn nice. I'd recommend "Percy's Escape" to start.

Sorry if theyve been listed already, but to me, Moving Pictures sounds amazingly good, along with Test for Echo. Also, judging from the title track, Heart's Desire Walks On sounds amazing.

this thread makes me happy with amazing CD's to put on my list to purchase next.
 
Thanks Guys!!!

Big Wreck - In Loving Memory Of...
 
If any of you have not heard this I highly recommend it...not only is it amazingly mixed and a perfect example of mastering while leaving dynamics intact...it is an amazingly quirky and heartfelt record...

Metallica's black album and Armored Saint's Symbol of Salvation are flawlessly mastered metal albums in my opinion.

Brave by Marillion has a huge dynamic range. 
 
I was just listening to Mr Big. Their first two albums are sonic gold!

WilliamMunny


Queensryche - Empire and/or Promised Land...

be sure to track down the original releases and not the re-masters as the remasters clip all over the place...why remaster a perfectly mastered album

I've actually never noticed clipping on those two albums remastered versions. Only on the Operation Mindcrime and the Hear in the Now Frontier remastered versions have I heard the clipping.
 
My suggestion would be damn near anything ever done by Alan Parsons. He just recently remastered all of the Alan Parsons Project albums himself, and they sound so freaking amazing it is incredibly fun to listen to. His Try Anything Once album sounds phenomenal as does On Air.

WilliamMunny

 Big Wreck - In Loving Memory Of...

If any of you have not heard this I highly recommend it...not only is it amazingly mixed and a perfect example of mastering while leaving dynamics intact...it is an amazingly quirky and heartfelt record...

 
Agree with this one, but also their 2nd album "The Pleasure & the Greed", witch blows away the 1st one! 
 
I Mother Earth - Scenery & Fish (one of the best drums sound)
I Mother Earth - The Quicksilver Meat Dream
 
Can't wait to hear the new BW & IME albums coming out soon! 
 

WilliamMunny


Big Wreck - In Loving Memory Of...

If any of you have not heard this I highly recommend it...not only is it amazingly mixed and a perfect example of mastering while leaving dynamics intact...it is an amazingly quirky and heartfelt record...

excuse me? No, this album is beyond loud and compressed to hell.
 
There are in fact no dynamics, but brickwalled sounds to maximize everything that's there, but in extremes.
 
The bass drum goes from a wallop of powerful air, to a pushed back patty pad when the guitars gets distorted heavy, and there are backing/harmonized vocals (the vocals destroys the rear end 3D activity).
 
I say this because I thought a few weeks back:"Hey, I haven't listened to 'In Loving Memory of..." in a long time!", and my heart sank hearing all the compression that was ALL OVER this CD. It's a butchered mess. I couldn't get through the first track, and that made me sad since "That Song" was 2nd, and I couldn't stand to listen to it anymore.

^^^ ya, I just re-listened to "The Oaf", and the bass drum intensity changes between when the singer sings, and when he stops, and it is very frequent.
 
The bass drum doesn't sound consistent between songs because of the mastering.

a CD I've been giving a lot of attention to lately is (and I slammed as being shitty way back in the day), Dokken "Shadow Life".
 
I not only have a profound respect for the amount of conceptual music writing on this album, but the mastering is by far the best I've heard on a LOT of albums. It's not only natural and breathy to every instrument, but some songs surprise you with a luscious dense reverb behind you that isn't present on most other songs. Nothing changes in the front sound stage, just more happens in the back while maintaining constant clarity and track separation.
 
This CD has amazing music, with great sounding mastering preserving the articulation of instrument sounds in each given sound space.

I never thought I'd say this, but DT - A Dramatic Turn Of Events 24/96 HD Tracks release is incredibly well mixed and mastered. The difference between this and the original 16/44.1 CDDA release is just mind-blowing. There are so many new sounds and details in there... A real wow factor. My new benchmark for how a modern rock album should sound like. Tested on HD 650 headphones and a full range speaker system :)
 
Here's a little waveform comparison. Guess which one is which? :)
 

rudib


I never thought I'd say this, but DT - A Dramatic Turn Of Events 24/96 HD Tracks release is incredibly well mixed and mastered. The difference between this and the original 16/44.1 CDDA release is just mind-blowing. There are so many new sounds and details in there... A real wow factor. My new benchmark for how a modern rock album should sound like. Tested on HD 650 headphones and a full range speaker system :)

Here's a little waveform comparison. Guess which one is which? :)

Oohh I was so on the fence about this purchase. Guess I'll go ahead and get it, that waveform is so revealing. Thanks for posting that.

Derek Sherinian's Inertia and Oceana.
Ayreon's Into The Electric Castle and Dream Sequencer.
Eric Clapton's Unplugged
The LP version of Porcupine Tree's In Absentia.
 
Those off the top of my head :)

I think Storm Corrosion (when it comes out), should be well mastered. Oh, wait, it's not going to be mastered ;).
 
From Steven Wilson's official facebook page: "... All editions feature flat transfers of the mixes - to keep the music as natural and dynamic as possible the mastering stage has been completely bypassed, so please exercise your volume control for 'loudness'. (-:"

GlassDream


^^^ ya, I just re-listened to "The Oaf", and the bass drum intensity changes between when the singer sings, and when he stops, and it is very frequent.

The bass drum doesn't sound consistent between songs because of the mastering.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree.  The mixes are all different because the album was recorded over various sessions.  To my ears, this record sounds amazing.  I get what you are saying but I do not agree that that equals bad mastering.  The record is dynamic as hell and not nearly as loud as it's follow up from four years later in 2001.

Hengest


I think Storm Corrosion (when it comes out), should be well mastered. Oh, wait, it's not going to be mastered ;).

From Steven Wilson's official facebook page: "... All editions feature flat transfers of the mixes - to keep the music as natural and dynamic as possible the mastering stage has been completely bypassed, so please exercise your volume control for 'loudness'. (-:"

Heh... you beat me to it. LOL! Can't wait for this to come out. Gonna be 'interesting' to say the least. 

Hengest


I think Storm Corrosion (when it comes out), should be well mastered. Oh, wait, it's not going to be mastered ;).

From Steven Wilson's official facebook page: "... All editions feature flat transfers of the mixes - to keep the music as natural and dynamic as possible the mastering stage has been completely bypassed, so please exercise your volume control for 'loudness'. (-:"

 
That's a good thing. Mastering is not really needed if the album is mixed well and balanced to begin with. The main point of mastering is to level match and EQ match the tracks, get everything in the right sequence and with the right timings between tracks. This can all be done by the mixer if he/she knows what they're doing (which of course SW will know).
 
 

Liquid Drum Theater

Hengest


I think Storm Corrosion (when it comes out), should be well mastered. Oh, wait, it's not going to be mastered ;).

From Steven Wilson's official facebook page: "... All editions feature flat transfers of the mixes - to keep the music as natural and dynamic as possible the mastering stage has been completely bypassed, so please exercise your volume control for 'loudness'. (-:"

That's a good thing. Mastering is not really needed if the album is mixed well and balanced to begin with. The main point of mastering is to level match and EQ match the tracks, get everything in the right sequence and with the right timings between tracks. This can all be done by the mixer if he/she knows what they're doing (which of course SW will know).

But isn't some mastering compulsory when transferring the tracks to different mediums? Aren't CD and vinyl different from each other in this case for instance? 

I for one like Tool's latest two albums in terms of mastering. SW's Insurgentes comes to mind too (well, basically anything mastered by SW really).
 
 

liquidrsr

Liquid Drum Theater

Hengest


I think Storm Corrosion (when it comes out), should be well mastered. Oh, wait, it's not going to be mastered ;).

From Steven Wilson's official facebook page: "... All editions feature flat transfers of the mixes - to keep the music as natural and dynamic as possible the mastering stage has been completely bypassed, so please exercise your volume control for 'loudness'. (-:"

That's a good thing. Mastering is not really needed if the album is mixed well and balanced to begin with. The main point of mastering is to level match and EQ match the tracks, get everything in the right sequence and with the right timings between tracks. This can all be done by the mixer if he/she knows what they're doing (which of course SW will know).

But isn't some mastering compulsory when transferring the tracks to different mediums? Aren't CD and vinyl different from each other in this case for instance? 

I've never worked with vinyl but isn't bit/sample rate conversion (or lack of?) all that's required if even? I get the feeling that most vinyl releases are identical masters to the cds anyways including the probably unnecessary  'downsizing' to 16/44.1 but that may be down to laziness above all else.
 

Awake is GOAT record production

rafavarium


I for one like Tool's latest two albums in terms of mastering. SW's Insurgentes comes to mind too (well, basically anything mastered by SW really).

Shh...don't let GD hear you. 

Jason Gillespie

I've never worked with vinyl but isn't bit/sample rate conversion (or lack of?) all that's required if even? I get the feeling that most vinyl releases are identical masters to the cds anyways including the probably unnecessary  'downsizing' to 16/44.1 but that may be down to laziness above all else.

Well considering for most mix engineers their final output is a high quality digital file it needs to be converted back to analogue. Then for vinyl you have to be careful about the low end eq as too much can cause the needle to jump out the groove of the vinyl.

the new DT at hdtracks sounds better than CD version...
http://www.dr.loudness-wa..fo/details.php?id=17997

rudib


I never thought I'd say this, but DT - A Dramatic Turn Of Events 24/96 HD Tracks release is incredibly well mixed and mastered. The difference between this and the original 16/44.1 CDDA release is just mind-blowing. There are so many new sounds and details in there... A real wow factor. My new benchmark for how a modern rock album should sound like. Tested on HD 650 headphones and a full range speaker system :)

Here's a little waveform comparison. Guess which one is which? :)

im intrigued.  to me, the new DT sounds like the music is coming out of speakers that are covered with blankets.  will this sound better?

@colin007: I thought the same exact.thing. It feels like a blanket.or if someones standing in front of the speakers.

Katatonia - Night is the New Day
 
It was mentioned once already, but it deserves repeating.  From your initial list of artists, this one is 100% what you're looking for.  Amazing production and the songs are brilliant.