When a producer ruins everything

[Juho L]

How many of you guys are familiar with music of Ars Nova? If you haven't heard any of it try to get one of their record to your hands and give it a listen. It's a good lesson when album after album is total shit due a totally incompetent producer.

This morning I gave a listen to The Goddess of Darkness. The tracks are basicly very good rough prog-rock songs, but the sounds... I'm speechless. Everything (and I mean everything) on that album sounds like it's made of Korg Triton presets and Triton GM sounds (and I think it's actually made with Korg Triton alone). It's just plain horrible! I wouldn't even dare to release that kind of B-class stuff on a comercial release. The tracks sound like they would be quick demos of the tracks that are going to be recorded in a studio. Heck, even my rough demos sound better!

I usually don't mind much of the sounds but in this case the character of the tracks require punchy sounds. The tracks are rough tracks and they need a good beefy rough soundscape, but what we have here are cheap plastic coated Triton sounds. The tracks are as convincing as a bloke trying to break down a brick wall with a hollow plastic hammer. I never even imagined that I could face something even more horrible than hospital-like ProTools sound, but now it has happened. The producer of Ars Nova should be jailed! Good for him/her that he/she has only a pseudonym "Numero Ueno" written on the album covers so it's a bit hard to find that bastard. Perfectly good (or even brilliant) tracks are totally ruined by an idiotic producer. Aaaargh!

So what we learn from this, kids? If your synth costs about 2000 euros, it doesn't mean you can make whole albums with it and make the albums sound good.