Best (and worst) mixed & mastered tracks

[Altair]

Let's come at it from more of an audiophile and production angle: post trance/dance/electronic tracks that you think are excellently and awfully mixed and mastered, regardless of how you like the music compositionally.

I'll start:

I consider Solar Fields' Random Friday to be one of the best-mixed trance albums I've ever heard to this day

And while I'm not the biggest fan of what Above & Beyond have done over the past eight years, I think their mixing has been top notch - razor sharp, no muddiness, and pleasantly deep and punchy bass:

Meanwhile: this cut off of an old Armada 50 Trance Tunes comp I found, despite its otherwise pleasing progressive vibes, is so badly mixed and mastered that it's nearly unlistenable. A song I want to like, but painfully cannot:

 

[dmgtz96]

The Blizzard - Kalopsia always sounded weird to me. I'm not sure if it's the mastering or something else, but it feels off



Sean Tyas - Drop. The kick is so loud to the point that it overtakes the bass. The waveform for this track looks pretty bad. Due to how loud the low ends are, the melody cannot breathe properly.


For a controversial one, The Age of Love - The Age of Love (Watch out for Stella Mix):

I don't understand why they had to make that acid section so loud. It takes away from the rest of the track. If I listen to it, I shouldn't have to turn down the volume when that acid line appears. The waveform for this is also pretty bad.

 

[unitedtrancedivision]

The Blizzard - Kalopsia always sounded weird to me. I'm not sure if it's the mastering or something else, but it feels off

The mastering is alright, I think it rather is the mixing. Many people try to fix mixes with mastering but it mostly turns bad. This is acctually a great example on why the real work should be put into mixing (not that I am a super proffesional mixing engineer).

 

[trancedanne]

Many of The Digital Blonde's older tracks are unlistenable because of horrid mastering.

 

[Trance4Ever]

Davey asprey - Nibiru (one of the most out of this world / alien/ufo type melody but too grainy and recessed mids and fx wish it was mastered like Anunnaki to complete the ep)

Tiddey - Savage emotions

The hym Activa Remix or The Mind Activa remix or both

Paul Miller - Core 5

Manuel le sucks - Waterfall

Vapour trails - Rozza Remix

Pandora - Daniel Kandi Remix (too grainy / heard he resprayed someone elses remix)

Superlative - (Jo Mickie remix)

Jacks suite - (Paul oakenfold remix)

Airhead - Vortex (A1 remix)

Fast Lane - Robert Nickson remix (but kinda prefer it this way but a remaster would be great)

Sean Truby - 8990 (had such a huge potential, outro piano part is a huge throw back to his Angry man alias, pure Angry man style vibes this part sound GREAT plenty of dunamis but the rest of the track sounds a bit dull/quite due to bad mixing or mastering or a combo of both).

Couple of N20 classic tracks

Most VII releases (too dry and flat no dynamics just hollow thump)

And many more lol ill keep on updating my list.

 

[trancearchives]

Max Gueli - Remember The Silence (on Toronto '09)

Max Gueli - Remember The Silence (released on Coldharbour Selections Part 21)

 

[Quethas]

Many of The Digital Blonde's older tracks are unlistenable because of horrid mastering.

Yep. This for an example, YouTube probably makes it even worse. But I have always found the track itself absolutely top notch, but the mastering is so horrible I just cannot put it as high to the list of best TBD tracks as would otherwise deserve.

 

[Daysleeper]

99% of all modern shit??

 

[TJY001]

Two prime examples of amazing tracks that were mastered atrociously... both on Armada/

The difference between the original & Sebastian Brandt Remix is ridiculous.

Mungo - Under The Sea / Surrounding Me [A State of Trance] | Music & Downloads on Beatport

"Mungo - Under The Sea / Surrounding Me [A State of Trance]" | Find the latest releases here | #1 source for DJ Sets and more

www.beatport.com

This one at least is loud enough but zero high end

 

[Snowknight26]

Some examples of worst:

Half of Soholand. Feels like every other track is half or double the volume of the next.

Antony Waldhorn, Robin Hagglund, Mike Flyer, Der Mystik, Thomas DeColita, Jeremy Rowlett, Hazem Beltagui, Catania, Silver J, Spark7, Myriam Amous, Pablo Artigas, Biotones, Max Farewell, Aiera, Dennis Pedersen, Allam, Craft Integrated, Kiholm, Moonsou

"Antony Waldhorn, Robin Hagglund, Mike Flyer, Der Mystik, Thomas DeColita, Jeremy Rowlett, Hazem Beltagui, Catania, Silver J, Spark7, Myriam Amous, Pablo Artigas, Biotones, Max Farewell, Aiera, Dennis Pedersen, Allam, Craft Integrated, Kiholm, Moonsouls, Sunlab, Yaroslav Kulikov, Puria, The...

www.beatport.com

Entire album of Tom Cloud - A New day:


Most Dan Thompson tracks... so full of white noise. Example:

Dan Thompson - Amnesia [Metamorph Advance] | Music & Downloads on Beatport

"Dan Thompson - Amnesia [Metamorph Advance]" | Find the latest releases here | #1 source for DJ Sets and more

www.beatport.com

 

[ValentinVV]

The "uplifting" noise (starting at 3:30) is way too loud imo, it really destroys this great remix for me.

Also, Solid Sessions - Janeiro (Armin van Buuren Remix) sounds like an old 128 kbps mp3 recording on streaming platforms...