What do you think of producers and/or studios that became famous for their quality, prolifically, or whatnot that lead them to define an era/area's sound?

I mean, people/places like Scott Burns at Morrisound or Ross Robinson or Dan Swano at Unisound or Tomas Skogsberg w/ Sunlight Studios or Fredrik Nordstrom or anyone else you care to mention.

What are some of your favs?
Are they generally good for a scene, or does it just cause a lack of freshness in song-writing and too many redundancies in the sound?

I have to say that the Tagtgren brothers' work at the Abyss Studios is always high quality stuff. Be it Marduk, Hypocrisy, Pain, you name it, it sounds excellent production wise (plus I love those bands' music).

Sunlight Studios is famous for the swedish death metal sound.

I was thinking of a different studio. Sorry.

i can not and will never get enough of that AWESOME Sunlight Studios sound!!!!!

nearly every album from that studio rests steadfastly amongst the top of my own DeathMetal mountain. Even the ones with that slightly "different" sound (Comecon, Liers in Wait etc) still kinda had that warped "buzzsaw" sound! and AND noone, NOONE made an electronic kit sound so natural (sometimes -haha) like Skogsberg !!!

The first producer that came to my mind was Georg Hrauda from Tonstudio Hoernix. He did a lot of Abigor albums and I think Abigor's production value on most albums is underrated. There are so many guitars in any given song that you don't hear on the first listen, I am still hearing new riffs after listening to this band for about 4 years.

I think most of the production has great atmosphere for the earlier albums while maintaining a transparent mix in which you can hear every instrument. Sometimes there is so much going on that it can be hard to pick out certain riffs, but I think that says something about Abigor's writing style. Not to mention Abigor has one of my favorite drummers as well as my favorite drum sound ever. Definitely a notable producer, especially in the realm of black metal, where production is often ignored and even praised for being undeniably horrible.

What???

Sonic Pump has had some really good stuff come out of there. Finntroll, Ensiferum, Wintersun and I think Korpiklaani plus a bunch more I can't think of.

Pytten and Grieghallen Studios are definitely worth a mention. Instrumental in creating a lot of the early Norwegian black metal sound as well as producing some of the finest black metal albums to come out of that period.

Kurt Belluo's Godcity studios. That guy is the master of dirty raw aggressive sounds. I may have spelt his name wrong.

I was going to mention this. I agree completely.

Scott Burns was an essential producer for some of the most recognized death metal bands of the late 80's and early 90's. Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Obituary and Sepultura.

When I read the thread title, the first thing to jump into my head was Sunlight Studios. But that's already been mentioned.

It's Kurt Ballou. And yeah, I second this one. The guy can crank out some incredible sounds.

although it's not metal, we have to respect it for it's influence on early rock/metal. sun records! sam philips helped define the sound of rock and roll, countless influential artists recorded at his studio in the mid 50's

I despise that sound, and hated how every black (and even some death) metal band from Sweden in the mid-90s seemed to flock to his studio. Bands like Marduk, Setherial and Dark Funeral, along with a whole host of others, all sounding exactly the same and with identical terrible sharp guitar tones and bad drum sounds.

Edit: Which Sunglight Studios albums used electronic kits? Comecon did, right?

Don't forget Death

Is it true that Scott Burns was a garbage man, and the original producer for Obituary's debut had some personal issues so he appointed Scott Burns instead?

I think Erik Rutan has been doing a very good job producing albums, the new Criminal Element album has a PERFECT sound for a death/grind album

Flame me, but I actually love Adam D's production. Crisp, clear, sonic with heavy lows and soaring highs. He literally has defined "-core" production in most senses, whether you like it or not. Instead of fuzz filled death or raw black production he went and just plain cleaned it all up and pretty much gave metalcore the production that defines it to this day. Some will hate him for it, others will love him for it, but he most certainly has had a huge impact on the sound.

Is it good for the scene...Probably not, when you can just plug in amps and hit the Adam D button it does and did spawn a ridiculous amount of bands using the same production in metalcore. It's always refreshing to see bands in the same genre make an impact by just modifying the general production values. For example, Light This City is pure metalcore but it certainly isn't Adam D style production and I love its more raw qualities as they just work so well with her vocal style in Facing The Thousands.

Well, we got the Necromorbus-studio/production. Sometimes it works, sometimes not... I like it on some CD's though.

Tom Allom with Priest, pretty much defined the metal sound in the 80s.

Most definitely, and I'm a big Sun records fan. It's definitely the most important production house in the history of rock.

I'd like to point out also of the influence Electric Lady Studios/Eddie Kramer had on shaping hard rock in the very late 60's through the 70's. I think Eddie Kramer is a genius of sorts. And let's not forget the genius of Martin Birch who isn't necessarily apart of a production house, but produced so many influencial hard rock and early metal records.

That was my answer. Also Erik Rutan has produced really good albums such as Cannibal Corpse - Kill, Through The Eyes Of The Dead - Malice and Vital Remains - Icons of Evil.

Everything has pretty much been mentioned but anyways...

Scott Burns at Morrisound did a lot of albums in the late 80's early 90's.

Sunlight Studios for the Swedish Death Metal.

Erik Rutan at Mana(Although I don't really enjoy a lot of the stuff he does.)

Also, even though IMO he's overrated, Rick Rubin has done a lot for bands/artists who needed a pick me up.

Matt Bayles has done a great deal for the creation of the "post metal" scene. Isis have done most of their full lengths with him, Giant Squid worked with him for their newest, Buried Inside are going into the studio with him soon, and Russian Circle's worked with him for their latest. He's also worked with Mastodon and Botch.

Comecon straight up used a drum machine/computer

the electronic kit made its rounds to damn near everyone, listen as close as you can... EntombeD, Carnage, Therion-just about everyone recorded with an (/the same) electronic kit. to me DismembeR's early albums stand out as the ones that didn't seem to have the electronic kit in use.
if you know what to listen for its obvious-but also obvious that the man knew how to-and maybe more importantly how to NOT mix it in the final product


as for the Tagtgren brothers... at least FleshCrawl and In Aeternum sounded good!!!

Hm, and "Soulside Journey", no doubt .. yeah, I'll buy that. Some of those drum sounds are a little bit rigid-seeming, but notably, not all of them.

Devin Townsend is known for his dense, multi-tracked ambient wall of sound production. My preferred production job of his is on the Misery Signals album Controller.

Wait what, Peter has a brother?