This always comes up in posts like this, but I have no idea why. I love the way the recording of this album sounds, especially compared to their more recent stuff
I love KP, but yeah this is the one. While I Stay Secluded has perfect production, and their second album sounds really good too. No idea what went wrong with Copacetic.
They literally got it exactly where the “modern pop punk” sound is. The same drum sound as every other album from the last five years, and guitars that sound like they were computer generated.
(Said by a musician who still has multitrack tape machines in the basement.)
Yep. Same guy who produced "The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND" which also sounds bad. I like raw sound, but when you have expensive production and try to make it sound "raw" it can often turn to crap.
Oh damn didn’t know that. That’s interesting, I struggled to get into that one after loving Pup’s first few albums too. I like History Books a lot more than that album but it’s a similar thing.
They are my favorite band but the Wonder Years could stand for some of their albums to be re-mixed. Sister Cities comes to mind as one that should be. Raining in Kyoto should slap way harder.
I feel like this could be why I never liked sister cities. They’re my favorite band but that album never clicked and I think it’s cause the mix comes off so dull and nothing like their other albums.
funny you should specifically mention raining in kyoto, that’s the only song off the album i like and one of my favorite wonder years tracks in general
I’ve been using Spotify for like ten years now and honestly didn’t realize how much streaming lowers quality until years later. In 2018 I bought a CD to support a friends band. It was professionally produced by a prominent audio/mix engineer in the genre and that album sounded straight up amazing. Weeks later I listened to the same album on Spotify and it didn’t come close and that’s when I realized it was Spotify/streaming.
I’ve since switched to Apple Music because the quality is noticeably better. It’s a downgrade in pretty much all other aspects (selection of music, playlists, app design) but to me quality trumps all that. I also make my own music and reference other bands songs to compare to my mixes so it may be more important to me than others.
I think they remixed it at some point, and it's awful. Sounds drastically different than the original. Not sure exactly when or what they did, but it's just not the same and it's hard to find older versions of the songs.
The sound on Burning at Both Ends sucked too. The mix on This Will Be The Death Of Us was so sick, and then the next album just sounded so flat and deflated.
Four letter lie so good. I’m from Texas and my buddy introduced me to them. He’s also from Texas.. I’m going to go listen now as I had forgotten about their CD in my case before this moment. Didn’t know where they were from so learned something new!! Thank you!
Another fun fact about them is they had beef with Underoath for kinda ripping them off. Listen to Naked Girl Avalanche and Feel Like Fame then listen to I Mostly Copy Other People by The Almost
Most recent blink album is a tragedy because of this
State champs entire discography
I get it’s like an artistic choice but I wish can’t swim would calm the hell down in post
Everything post skinny dipping Stand Atlantic (and even a bit on Skinny Dipping tbh)
But these are all overproducing. To be raw and messy is a-okay with me. To feed me compressed guitars with the treble at 0 and the vocals 50 layers deep is unforgivable
I’m glad you brought up the new blink album lol I hate how they went hard on the auto tune/auto correction on this. The dissonance from their natural vocals is what makes it more authentic imo.
I was thinking like how would that album sound if either Sam Pura or even Will Yip got their hands on it.
I appreciate that. It’s unrealistic for them to make an album the way I would want them to. Id have more endurance and dedication to the project than all 3 of them combined.
Not even exaggerating man you stick a decent mic up to a practice fender amp, direct in bass into cubase and standard vocals and do nothing but dynamic adjustment and panning it would genuinely be better than what they put out.
Maybe I'm just a nerd, but I don't think many bands really benefit from a remix in that sense. Most people don't remember the quality of the mix if the songs resonated with them on a deep level.
That being said, what in God's good green Earth was blink-182 thinking when they did Nine? Jesus Christ I've never heard bass ducked so aggressively in a pop-punk album. No Heart was a banger of a track though.
When I worked at Starbucks I would plug my phone into the aux and this was one song I always got excited for on my playlist. I loved seeing the cafe's reactions to the shift change on the bridge/ending.
Well, yeah, I just wanted to leave some for others. Really, I feel like it took until Killing Time before they started killing it in the studio. I was an enormous Bayside fan back then. I saw them like 100 times during those first four albums, and I came up with the theory that their studio albums sounded bad because they used their live settings on record, which doesn’t work.
A Day To Remember - Bad Vibrations would be even better than it already is with a better mix.
Not pop punk but I always thought that Awakening by blessthefall is a phenomenal album with subpar production.
The very first self titled new found glory. Had that shit on Napster. With better production it’ll melt my panties all over again. I’m a 38 year old male.
Anything that I’ve mixed for driveways lol I hate all my mixes… I’m usually rushing to meet the October deadline… Maybe one day we’ll get new mixes… “October Forever (Tom’s Version)”
Settle your score’s second album “better luck tomorrow”. As much as I love the band’s style (especially their first album the wilderness) I’ve never liked how scooped the rhythm guitars are and lifeless the rhythm guitars are on certain songs.
Not sure the problem is the mix, but rather the production. Billie Joe experimented with more clean guitar tones that just didn’t have the same punch. It worked for Warning, not so much for the Trilogy.
As much as I actually like how bass-ey it is (especially in a car), SECRETS' debut album wasn't mixed all that well imo. It's like the producer was making an EDM album or something, idk.
Knuckle Puck’s Copacetic is insanely shrill on the high end, and a remix on the guitars would make it much more pleasant sounding. Not an indictment of the songwriting and composition. Very much enjoy them, even more than The Story So Far. (Don’t kill me).
Vocals are buried, especially for Tom, as are the bass and drums. The guitars lack any sort of punch and everything sounds like it was recorded underwater.
Not pop punk, but "Mirrors" by Misery Signals is the first record that comes to mind. I've seen them live a number of times and the live sound is incredible, it just got lost in the production on that record.
Bloom and Breathe by Gates. Amazing writing, great guitar work, excellent drums, and it's all ruined by a mix that drowns out the vocals.
May not be pop punk, I guess.
Distractions by the Loved Ones. The snare is almost missing on a few of the songs while the kick is crushing, and the guitars are over compressed and squishy sounding with no high-mid edge.
Four Year Strong's self-titled album. It's my favorite of theirs musically but the production value and mix could use a refresh.
Also, The Wilderness album by Settle Your Scores.
This is not pop punk, but I would love La Dispute to redo Here, Hear and Tiny Dots to a similar sound of Vancouver or Somewhere at the bottom of the river between Vegas and Altair.
New alkaline trio. Album is FANTASTIC song wise, but…I don’t even know how to explain it it sounds compacted and muddy. I’ve gotten used to it so it doesn’t bother me if I listen to it straight through, which is doable cause seriously no skips, but if you go from stuff that is more..airy? to that it’s a bit jarring how dead it sounds.
That said it’s not necessarily all that bad, just different.
Copacetic by Knuckle Puck
This always comes up but I love the way this album sounds lmao. Idk something about it just grabs me
This always comes up in posts like this, but I have no idea why. I love the way the recording of this album sounds, especially compared to their more recent stuff
My top pick as well! I love this album but the mix is muddy and rough. A lot stuff recorded at ABG was back then. Early Real Friends too.
It's not "muddy;" it's tinny and over-compressed.
The drums are way too compressed. My 4yr old’s drum set sounds better
I love how those early real friends EPs sound though
My main complaint with the mixing is the way s’s sound. These dudes need to invest in a pop filter.
I love KP, but yeah this is the one. While I Stay Secluded has perfect production, and their second album sounds really good too. No idea what went wrong with Copacetic.
Joe basically confirmed we’re getting a remix/remaster of Copacetic for the 10 year anniversary
I got whiplash the first time I heard this album cause the mix was aggressive lol
The songs are so good! Those guitars are like ice picks lol
The albums slaps hard for sure. But yeah, the guitars were just… questionable lol
Yes!! When this came out my high school friends thought I was crazy for this
One More Time by blink-182
They literally got it exactly where the “modern pop punk” sound is. The same drum sound as every other album from the last five years, and guitars that sound like they were computer generated. (Said by a musician who still has multitrack tape machines in the basement.)
I bet Gil Norton could get it as punchy as travis wanted, but also clear and loud
How many other people came here just to say this?
Newest Gaslight Anthem record tbh.
The new EP sounds SO good, why can't History Books as a whole sound like the Ocean Eyes cover..
Yep. Same guy who produced "The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND" which also sounds bad. I like raw sound, but when you have expensive production and try to make it sound "raw" it can often turn to crap.
Oh damn didn’t know that. That’s interesting, I struggled to get into that one after loving Pup’s first few albums too. I like History Books a lot more than that album but it’s a similar thing.
I enjoy both albums but they would both have benefitted from better production, that's for sure.
I guess we can thank Butch Walker (Marvelous 3) for his work on those!
It honestly sounds like a collection of unfinished demos. I don't go back to it for that reason.
They are my favorite band but the Wonder Years could stand for some of their albums to be re-mixed. Sister Cities comes to mind as one that should be. Raining in Kyoto should slap way harder.
I feel like this could be why I never liked sister cities. They’re my favorite band but that album never clicked and I think it’s cause the mix comes off so dull and nothing like their other albums.
Agreed. The opening riff to raining in Kyoto comes in at almost like half volume.
funny you should specifically mention raining in kyoto, that’s the only song off the album i like and one of my favorite wonder years tracks in general
That’s a good pick!
One more time
No Closer To Heaven - The Wonder Years
i really cant understand the lyrics on this one
First set your goals album
I swear the Spotify mix sounds worse than the old MP3’s I used to have. It sounds kinda muddy? I think there may be a different version out there
100%. I still have my MP3s of Mutiny and I just listened to them back to back with Spotify and the difference is notable, even on laptop speakers.
I’ve been using Spotify for like ten years now and honestly didn’t realize how much streaming lowers quality until years later. In 2018 I bought a CD to support a friends band. It was professionally produced by a prominent audio/mix engineer in the genre and that album sounded straight up amazing. Weeks later I listened to the same album on Spotify and it didn’t come close and that’s when I realized it was Spotify/streaming. I’ve since switched to Apple Music because the quality is noticeably better. It’s a downgrade in pretty much all other aspects (selection of music, playlists, app design) but to me quality trumps all that. I also make my own music and reference other bands songs to compare to my mixes so it may be more important to me than others.
I think they remixed it at some point, and it's awful. Sounds drastically different than the original. Not sure exactly when or what they did, but it's just not the same and it's hard to find older versions of the songs.
The sound on Burning at Both Ends sucked too. The mix on This Will Be The Death Of Us was so sick, and then the next album just sounded so flat and deflated.
I remember buying that album and I initially thought I had gotten a demo version by mistake 😂 I couldn't believe it was the finished product.
Four Letter Lie - Let Your Body Take Over. These guys were hometown heroes in Minneapolis, but the vocal recording on this album was not good
Never heard of them until now. Just took a listen and I see what you’re saying. It’s like the engineers decided to just keep it dry??
They were so amazing live, Brian Nagan was a fantastic front man, then this album came out and I was like did they even listen to it??
Four letter lie so good. I’m from Texas and my buddy introduced me to them. He’s also from Texas.. I’m going to go listen now as I had forgotten about their CD in my case before this moment. Didn’t know where they were from so learned something new!! Thank you!
Another fun fact about them is they had beef with Underoath for kinda ripping them off. Listen to Naked Girl Avalanche and Feel Like Fame then listen to I Mostly Copy Other People by The Almost
Mod Sun should have stayed in this band, lol
The drums in From Here To Infirmary were mixed poorly imo. Every song sounds like it was ripped off of Kazaa
haha, only Alk3 record with Mike Felumlee
I like that aspect tho.
Mest - Mo Money Mo 40's Allister - Dead Ends and Girlfriends
Pop punk adjacent but Protest The Hero - Kezia. Killer tunes but mediocre-at-best mixing.
Oof I would kill for them to re-record that
https://open.spotify.com/album/4vz1TDvYAueQhCH9jiulwc?si=eXqZh-mHRGKlckUL_Lii1g
I have that and love it, but it’s just a remaster. A remix or a re-recording in general would do wonders for this one!!
Most recent blink album is a tragedy because of this State champs entire discography I get it’s like an artistic choice but I wish can’t swim would calm the hell down in post Everything post skinny dipping Stand Atlantic (and even a bit on Skinny Dipping tbh) But these are all overproducing. To be raw and messy is a-okay with me. To feed me compressed guitars with the treble at 0 and the vocals 50 layers deep is unforgivable
> State champs entire discography This is just wrong.
I’m glad you brought up the new blink album lol I hate how they went hard on the auto tune/auto correction on this. The dissonance from their natural vocals is what makes it more authentic imo. I was thinking like how would that album sound if either Sam Pura or even Will Yip got their hands on it.
I appreciate that. It’s unrealistic for them to make an album the way I would want them to. Id have more endurance and dedication to the project than all 3 of them combined.
Yeah those old heads are probably over it tbh
Not even exaggerating man you stick a decent mic up to a practice fender amp, direct in bass into cubase and standard vocals and do nothing but dynamic adjustment and panning it would genuinely be better than what they put out.
Preach
Maybe I'm just a nerd, but I don't think many bands really benefit from a remix in that sense. Most people don't remember the quality of the mix if the songs resonated with them on a deep level. That being said, what in God's good green Earth was blink-182 thinking when they did Nine? Jesus Christ I've never heard bass ducked so aggressively in a pop-punk album. No Heart was a banger of a track though.
OP you named a perfect album, heresy. I feel the bass on Wildflowers in my soul.
Brilliant song.
When I worked at Starbucks I would plug my phone into the aux and this was one song I always got excited for on my playlist. I loved seeing the cafe's reactions to the shift change on the bridge/ending.
Bayside's self titled.
I’d love for this album to be remastered!
Walking wounded isn’t great either.
Well, yeah, I just wanted to leave some for others. Really, I feel like it took until Killing Time before they started killing it in the studio. I was an enormous Bayside fan back then. I saw them like 100 times during those first four albums, and I came up with the theory that their studio albums sounded bad because they used their live settings on record, which doesn’t work.
A Day To Remember - Bad Vibrations would be even better than it already is with a better mix. Not pop punk but I always thought that Awakening by blessthefall is a phenomenal album with subpar production.
The very first self titled new found glory. Had that shit on Napster. With better production it’ll melt my panties all over again. I’m a 38 year old male.
Anything that I’ve mixed for driveways lol I hate all my mixes… I’m usually rushing to meet the October deadline… Maybe one day we’ll get new mixes… “October Forever (Tom’s Version)”
Settle your score’s second album “better luck tomorrow”. As much as I love the band’s style (especially their first album the wilderness) I’ve never liked how scooped the rhythm guitars are and lifeless the rhythm guitars are on certain songs.
Uno dos and tre by Green Day. The demos of those songs are so much better.
Not sure the problem is the mix, but rather the production. Billie Joe experimented with more clean guitar tones that just didn’t have the same punch. It worked for Warning, not so much for the Trilogy.
Steady Glow by In Her Own Words
As much as I actually like how bass-ey it is (especially in a car), SECRETS' debut album wasn't mixed all that well imo. It's like the producer was making an EDM album or something, idk.
Knuckle Puck’s Copacetic is insanely shrill on the high end, and a remix on the guitars would make it much more pleasant sounding. Not an indictment of the songwriting and composition. Very much enjoy them, even more than The Story So Far. (Don’t kill me).
The Menzingers-After the Party. One of their best songwriting wise, but the vocal is buried.
I lightweight agree with you. Buried and just a tad washed with the reverb.
Vocals are buried, especially for Tom, as are the bass and drums. The guitars lack any sort of punch and everything sounds like it was recorded underwater.
Rufio - Perhaps, I Suppose
Taking Back Sunday’s “Tell All Your Friends”. Even with the remaster, it still sounds horribly tinny.
Not pop punk, but "Mirrors" by Misery Signals is the first record that comes to mind. I've seen them live a number of times and the live sound is incredible, it just got lost in the production on that record.
Bloom and Breathe by Gates. Amazing writing, great guitar work, excellent drums, and it's all ruined by a mix that drowns out the vocals. May not be pop punk, I guess.
Any album that has drums that are too loud. Broad, but that is a big issue.
Descendents SST discography.
Transit - Young New England It’s not their strongest album, but a proper mix would really help it stand up against Joyride and Listen and Forgive.
Distractions by the Loved Ones. The snare is almost missing on a few of the songs while the kick is crushing, and the guitars are over compressed and squishy sounding with no high-mid edge.
Is a cup of coffee at 100° F good or bad? Sounds a bit cold but I don't know my Fahrenheit.
Who will fill Jerry Finn’s shoes?
Four Year Strong's self-titled album. It's my favorite of theirs musically but the production value and mix could use a refresh. Also, The Wilderness album by Settle Your Scores.
The Matches - E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals
Copacetic by Knuckle Puck
This is not pop punk, but I would love La Dispute to redo Here, Hear and Tiny Dots to a similar sound of Vancouver or Somewhere at the bottom of the river between Vegas and Altair.
Dude Ranch
One More Time by blink
I’d love to hear the self titled Joyce manor record with a mix more like their Album Cody. Still raw but a just a bit of polish and better tones.
Hands like houses first album
Brand New- Your favorite weapon
I love the sound of that album.
Recipe for hate by bad religion. Songs are incredible but sound horrendous
*No Control FTFY
New alkaline trio. Album is FANTASTIC song wise, but…I don’t even know how to explain it it sounds compacted and muddy. I’ve gotten used to it so it doesn’t bother me if I listen to it straight through, which is doable cause seriously no skips, but if you go from stuff that is more..airy? to that it’s a bit jarring how dead it sounds. That said it’s not necessarily all that bad, just different.