When we talk about the best records, mixing producers etc. we always go to the classics, beatles floyd etc. what are the best producers in terms of sound that you have heard in those modern dark times?

Ill start with the master Tchad Blake

 

I'm sure there are things... but everything that pops into my head is from at least the 90s

 

There are way too many to name them all, but here are some examples. Youtube audio doesn't do them justice so I suggest you listen to the FLAC if you like them.

Oh, and for those of you who feel like the best stuff came out in the past, I got you covered, stick till the end.

First off, some things have to be said : some of the most insane stuff comes from rap artists and producers.

Despite being batshit crazy, Kanye was/is an absolute god when it comes to production. This song is a masterpiece imo, and it's almost 20 years old :

Kendrick's TPAB is insanely good. Listen to the bass, feel the funk in your bones :

A less mainstream artist (although he recently released an excellent album with Danny Brown that has next level production) is JPEGMAFIA :

Finally, Inflo's production on Little Simz' 2021 masterpiece Sometimes I Might Be Introvert brings ambitious orchestral vibes to hip hop, amazing :

In rock music, Radiohead never ceases to amaze.

I really loved the production on Queens of the Stone Age's 2017 release Villains.

And of course a whole plethora of psych rock acts with very interesting production. King Gizzard have done some amazing stuff, but they release like 582 albums per week and they can sound radically different. Nanogon Infinity sounds like someone ran a cassette tape found in an acid vat through 2600 instances of Decapitator, while Paper Mache Dream Balloon sounds like Jethro Tull discovered limiters and maximizers.

The pop world is also full of really good stuff, too many to name. So here are just a few of my recent favs.

Spelling is a uniquely talented genius, and her 2021 album Turning Wheel should be listened by everyone, even the dead :

Melody's Echo Chamber beautifully blends dream pop with psych rock, a crossing of genres more and more common recently. She does it better than everyone else IMO. Having worked with psych gods like Kevin Parker and Dunger helps.

A little more on the experimental side of things, L'Rain still blows my mind since my first listen in December 2021.

And speaking of experimental, this crossing of classical, electronic and jazz is, IMO, among the greatest musical achievements in history.
I've listened to this album on acid, and some things haven't been the same ever since .
An absolute MUST if you consider yourself interested in music in any way.

I won't get into electronic music, because that's where sound design and production really pushes the envelope and it would take me a list to compile just my fav 10 songs of the past week.

So here's my last entry for you "the best production was from the 70's" guys.
The album Daddy's Home by St. Vincent.
Old analog gear was used throughout the recording, and it was specifically conceived for having that 70's sound transposed to modern music.
It's an absolute gem. Every song deserves a listen, but here's a selection :

 

Instead of "Despite" I would say "Thanks to".

Otherwise, thanks for the great post.

 

Nowadays I'm really into FKA Twigs for vocal productions and Finneas for the simplicity and effectiveness of his productions on his sister records.

 

Cheers.

Yeah that's definitely part of it, but AFAIK he never went off the edge like the recent stuff before his mother died. I don't know how serious his bipolar symptoms were as a young man but the way he kept producing constantly and always pushing the envelope shows his mental illness was not something that hindered his discipline, and so it can be assumed that he wasn't as "crazy" back then. At least that's how I console myself as a producer whose productivity has been brutally hindered by mental illness

 

I love everything inflo touches. He produced alot of little simz work and his production really shines with the SAULT project.

After typing this: i scrolled up to see @trifferflipper already mentioned him

 

Are we talking acoustic (or at least recorded) music or music in general? Everything doesn't fit in one comment so I'll make two.

Spoiler: Recorded music

I don't follow a lot of recorded music nowadays, but whoever produced the latest Meshuggah album did a damn good job.

Please bear in mind YouTube normalisation that took place. It's actually noticeably louder.

Does Mick Gordon count? Oh FFS I'm gonna list electronic producers anyways so might as well use him as a segway.

Him and Michael Markie. Also shout-out to Tempest Rising, if you loved C&C you mighw wanna keep an eye out on this one.

Oh well, why not also mention Andrew Hulshult while I'm at it. He's not as good at the acoustic side of this style's production, but his synths are a step above the rest IMO.

Spoiler: EDIT: Some more recorded music

HOW COULD I FORGET DREAM THEATER

IN A CONVERSATION ABOUT PRODUCTION NO LESS
I'M SORRY I'M SORRY

Ayreon somewhere in the same ballpark, but more power-y

I know it's 2008. I'm old enough for it to be "modern"

Don't listen much to Haken, but when I do, it slaps.

And whoever CDPR hired to produce this knew what they're doing damn bloody well. Hats off.

Also this guy.

I tell you all this dirt is a carefully tuned artistic decision. It's not actually easy to achieve, one wrong tweak and you end up like Weeknd's latest single.

 

Last edited: Jun 30, 2023

Continuation.

Spoiler: Electronic music

Gotta admit I'm heavily biased towards this direction.
And speaking of electronic music, the topmost electronic producer nowadays is Current Value, full stop.

Yet again, mind the YouTube normalisation.

These two tracks off his latest work were deleted off YouTube sadly, they are way more abstract and production heavy.
If you know a first thing about production and sound design it feckin blows your mind.

The next ones would be Plaid.

Holy shit.

There are many other electronic producers with incredibly strong production. Others I want to mention is Tipper and his crazy clarity

Amon Tobin and his drunk guitar synths

Machinedrum and his hi-fi lo-fi

Creo who hates reverb apparently

deadmau5 and I'll die on that hill

These are the ones whose production I enjoy the most.

 

Last edited: Jul 1, 2023

Well you posted Floating Points so your lack of dedication can be forgiven
I agree tho. Giving it a bit more thought, there's a lot of really good production both in electronic music and in recorded music. Way more than it makes sense to list, cause it's going to be a total information overload.

The bottom line is, music production improved and evolved drastically compared to the "old ways". Heaps of trash music being sold to people who don't like music in the first place is an unavoidable collateral. Just look past that.

I do believe that you're trolling with all that heep hop tho. A genre so deviod of production a simply professional mix sounds like a miracle.

 

Last edited: Jun 30, 2023

Good call. Any of Tobin's alter egos, but particularly Only Child Tyrant.

 

I'm absolutely serious. It's okay for you to not like hip-hop, but saying "a genre so deviod[sic] of production" is the most ignorant thing I've seen you write on this forum, and I usually find you a very knowledgeable member.

Although I might have to reconsider that, seeing you posted Dream Theater lol.

 

I don't know about productivity, but creativity and craziness have always gone hand in hand quite nicely. There are so many examples, to the point that it seems like you only need to scratch the surface of Creative to uncover Crazy as well.

I have deepest respect for Kanye's work. His case suggests that the two C's follow different curves.

When the peaks of creativity result in fame and fortune, the accompanying pressures rarely improve one's mental health.

 

There is some good modern production and arranging on the new 'Desire, I Want To Turn Into You" album IMO, but I'm a rocker so what do I know!

 

Last edited: Jul 1, 2023

Yeah it's absolutely brilliant.
If you liked it check out her previous album PANG. It's got some high level awesomeness too.

 

I've been working in heep-hup for the majority of my career, and about the most PRODUCTION I ever did was putting a flanger on vocals and a soft clipper on master bus. Most of the time, all the work is fixing beatmaker's mistakes while swearing profusely. And all the different beatmakers whose beats I worked with use the same sounds and make the same mistakes.

Genuinely curious, how on Earth why do you find DT so poorly produced?

 

Last edited: Jul 1, 2023

I don't get it, you worked as an engineer or producer?

Yeah, given the abysmal number of hip hop musicians it's natural that most are at best average. But I wasn't saying "every hip hop artist has god tier production" lol, I said there are god tier producers in hip hop.

TPAB blends trap, jazz, soul, funk, spoken word, psychedelic sound collages etc. in a way that's never been done with such grace, and it's one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time, in all genres.

Since you like electronic music as much as I do (it seems lol) how about Captain Murphy? That's the rapping alter ego of Flying Lotus, who, I think you would agree, is a more than competent producer to say the least.

How about all the other experimental hip hop/electronica artists who aren't afraid to take huge risks in their production?

Jeremiah Jae? Daedelus? Nujabes? Ras G? Samiyam? The Gaslamp Killer? Odd Nosdam? Jonwayne? Roots Manuva? Mndsgn? Shigeto? Prefuse 73? Gonjasufi?

Some of these artists are/were on WARP records, and I think you'd agree WARP don't sign artists who can't produce

If I named five albums with top notch production, and each one with a completely different approach on the subject, would you be willing to give them a listen?

That was tongue in cheek, and not necessarily about their production lol.
I like DT's early stuff, from Images to Metropolis 2 (I choose to pretend Falling never existed tho).
Then from Six Degrees to Systematic Chaos there are songs I like here and there, but I think their creativity was in decline, but the instrumental wankery was still tasteful to some extent.
Everything since Black Clouds, I don't care for.

Production-wise, I think Awake-A Change of Seasons-Metropolis 2 are their top three works. I also like the production on Images, although I admit it's extremely cheesy and dated But there's something different about it, it doesn't represent their true sound, but on the other hand it has some of their best songs that sound like they were produced for AOR radio lol.

The song you posted has good production (although I don't think, production wise, that it adds anything new to, say, Metropolis 2) but the composition and arrangement are... ugh... it's like they haven't evolved one iota in the last 20 years.
At this point you could have an AI write DT songs that are indistinguishable from the real thing. They sound like a parody of themselves.

 

FKJ

 

It took about 10 listens and a bit of effort on my part as it's not my genre, but it's an incredible record with so much going on, and I marvel at the brainpower required to produce something like that. The lesson I took away from the album is attention to detail is everything

 

Last edited: Jul 1, 2023

Honestly? Hard to tell. It's a small country and I wear a lot of different hats. I think the artist usually has the closest role to an actual producer (they're calling the shots after all), but they do everything by mine and beatmaker's hands. I do the recording, mixing and what they call "mastering" and usually get to make meaningful creative and technical input one way or the other, given that I have to mostly work with amateur musicians. But then they write "Prod. by XXXMicka99" in the description :shrug:
The relevant thing is, these artists almost always sit me down and run me through the different tracks they liked as a part of casual conversation (Often it's "Look what cool thing I heard!" but every now and then it's "I want this sound in my next song!". And "this sound" is always just one plugin on the vocals, sometimes with automation). And everything I hear during these mandatory socialization sessions is recorded poorly, mixed poorly, artistically bankrupt. It just sound like shit, man. You brought up the most tolerable examples, perhaps missing earlier Weeknd and ASAP Rocky, and even then I just don't like how it sounds. Especially JPEGMAFIA with this autotewn and that girl with her voice overly sharpened. And they're still head and shoulders above the rest of the genre, which just isn't produced.

You said it yourself - it's another story altogether. WARP are Alt Hip-Hop/IDM, and "Alt" Hip-Hop is called "alternative" for a reason, while IDM is notoriously production-heavy. I don't consider them a part of Hip-Hop culture, they're closer to Jazz/Electronic.
And yeah sometimes actual electronic music producers collab with MC/rappers. The very same Machinedrum I mentioned has a third of the entire discography consisting of such collabs. Jungle started off this way and never dropped it. Does that do anything to the actual Hip-Hop genre? No it doesn't. It's experiencing an influx of shit that doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon precisely because this is what consumers of the genre want to hear. Similar phenomena is what killed mass popularity of rock music a few decades back, but heep hup only seems to get stronger the more shit it digests.

I like their staff since Mangini (Portnoy is like Lars Ulrich to my ears, coming from Jazz drumming background). That being said, after Dream Theater I listen more to how well sounds go together rather than the music itself. This speaks both of production and arrangement, I guess.