Album Rating: 5.0

"Quality" is one thing but whether it serves the music, or enhances vs. detracts from the experience is something else entirely. Still, what's considered good production today may not be considered that 10 years from now. I think cultural differences and changes in production over time dismantle the idea of objectively good production.

“production quality is a subjective thing? even the most kvlt black metal fans acknowledge that BM production is bad on purpose, the overall quality is not a subjective thing”
Shuyin, do me a favour and point me towards the empirical calculations for ‘good productions’, please? To say you’re being ridiculous is an understatement. If someone thinks a ‘bad’ production sounds ‘good’, then it isn’t bad, is it? If the overall quality wasn’t subjective, then we’d have the same ‘good’ production for everything, wouldn’t we? Do you think this applies to instrumentation, too? What about bands being ‘good’ or ‘bad’?
Engineers like Steve Albini, who has a very specific way of recording bands, works in a completely different way to someone like David Bottrill. I think they’re both fantastic at what they do, but it’s a complete nonsense to say that someone is ‘wrong’ for liking one and not the other.

Album Rating: 5.0

If the production sounds good then it isn't bad, and I never said you were wrong for enjoying this and not that... I said you were wrong for claiming their last 2 albums were imitations with bad tones and bad production, that's not a subjective thing, you're wrong, end of story

Album Rating: 4.5

You could still argue the last two albums have bad production though (I wouldn't for WR but hey).

Album Rating: 4.5

Every opinion about production is gonna be subjective by default you can think something is shitty and the person next to you will love it.

Album Rating: 5.0

“If someone thinks a ‘bad’ production sounds ‘good’, then it isn’t bad, is it?”



there is a “modern ‘standard’” to sound production



some bm is by that ‘standard’ done in by shitty production



I think people in general would prefer clarity and space in the things they hear, but that’s where shit gets subjective

Album Rating: 4.0

I love me some Backlit.

“there is a “modern ‘standard’” to sound production”
That ‘modern standard’ is often loathed, though. Look at someone like Andy Sneap; he was very much the ‘standard’ at one point but many people couldn’t stand his production. Who is ‘wrong’ here? Shuyin is still doubling down on music production being objective, which is laughable.

Shuyin: “I said you were wrong for claiming their last 2 albums were imitations with bad tones and bad production, that's not a subjective thing, you're wrong, end of story.”
You can’t be ‘wrong’ about something entirely subjective. End of story. Why didn’t you just say you were hurt by someone criticising a band you’re seemingly obsessed with, instead of digging this ridiculous hole for yourself.

Album Rating: 5.0

lmao sneap aight bad example there



I was thinking more like a Bayles

Why is it a bad example? That just proves my point. You obviously don’t like his production (I don’t either), but he was extremely sought after and could certainly be considered an ‘industry standard’ for that style of metal. I used David Bottrill and Steve Albini as examples earlier (successful engineers who have very different methods and sounds), but Shuyin just ignores everything in favour of “You’re wrong”.

Album Rating: 4.5

Is production a stylish choice? Absolutely. Can the production style chosen be objectively bad? Sure, I think so. Let's take a look at Kayo Dot's "Gamma Knife", which is a pretty damn muddy recording. 3 of the songs were recorded live and mixed with studio recordings. Either as a choice, or because they didn't have enough money. According to what Toby Driver said about the recording, it sounds like a choice for the style of music they were playing. He then wanted to take that a step further, and record that style of music better with the album Hubardo.



"And around 2010 or so it became really boring and I just wanted to say: “Oh, you know, there's so much more that can be done with this aesthetic.” And really I just wanted to use my chorus-based thing [laughs], which I hadn't really heard that combination before. And they kind of kind of jumped off from there. And so that was Gamma Knife. and then with Hubardo…. Gamma Knife was just recorded DIY and it's basically just a live recording, sounds really raw. With Hubardo I was: “Well, let’s do this, but let's record it well and let's see what comes out of that. That just the jumping point."



https://machinemusic.net/2019/09/10/machine-musics-albums-of-the-decade-an-interview-with-kayo-dot/ From the same website that Aaron Turner interview was taken from.

Right, so it was an aesthetic decision. This is my point; production quality, like music quality, is in the eye of the beholder. If you played a load of 70s rock albums to someone who has grown up on brickwalled modern productions, they’d most likely think the former didn’t have any ‘pop’, even though there is more dynamic range. I’m not going to tell them they’re ‘wrong’, whichever they opt for. I genuinely think ITAOT is a big step down from Matt Bayles’ previous work on Oceanic and Panopticon.

Album Rating: 5.0

"You can’t be ‘wrong’ about something entirely subjective"

"their last 2 albums were imitations with bad tones and bad production"



Even if you look at the production as something subjective you would still be wrong about everything else lmao. But I can't even give you the point on production because WR has the best production in the genre, saying its "bad" is just.. wrong, just like calling it an imitation with bad tones. But sure, I'm the one digging a hole for myself, w/e, have a cookie

That doesn’t make a lick of sense. What am I wrong about? You haven’t addressed a single point I’ve made this entire time, you’ve just written childish comments about being ‘wrong’, without anything to back it up.
“because WR has the best production in the genre” - that’s your opinion (which is perfectly fine, but it’s subjective). There is no metric for you to state that as a fact. You can’t even quote me correctly. I said: “I think the distorted tones sound thin on the last two albums (especially ITAOT, which I think his weak production and mixing full stop) and he clearly wasn’t comfortable performing the clean vocals (by his own admission).“
In your mind, it’s perfectly ok for you to make absolute comments about an album like “the guitar tones and vocals are perfect” (not good, perfect), but even the mildest critique of an album/band you enjoy is beyond the pale. Some random person: “I don’t really like this album, here’s why...”, You: “Well, er, actually you’re wrong!” Just an insufferable attitude towards music.

Album Rating: 5.0

welcome to the internet bitch we really really don’t care

You can get plenty of good discussions on the internet which at least start from the baseline of music quality being subjective.

Album Rating: 5.0

if you knew that why did you even join

Album Rating: 5.0

Ahh the good ol days when I was young and knew nothing about the internet (:

Album Rating: 5.0

Production being good or not is very much opinion lol