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Which pieces of music are your reference points and why?

• buro9 12y ago
  They should be something you know extremely well, have heard on most equipment you've owned, and reflect your listening. Ideally it will have bits that challenge the equipment. Beck - Paper Tiger (on Sea Change) about 3 minutes 15 seconds in. Because of the combination of rich and deep bass combined with delicate strings. Single speaker systems (headphones) struggle with reproducing bass at the the same as reproducing treble. Charlatans - Page One (on Between 10th and 11th) the first minute It's an example of massive over-production. It's left the sound stripped and clinical, and anything less than a faithful reproduction sounds terrible. This one track exposes compression artifacts really well, the top-end becomes washed out and blurred. Belle and Sebastian - Me and the Major (on If You're Feeling Sinister) the end of the track I've seen them live over 100 times, been in their studio and rehearsal space, worked with them. I know his voice, how it should sound, and I know that this record did not go through great post production (or much of an amateur post production either). The mouth organ bits at the end are not controlled very well and cause systems to clip the peaks, it can be uncomfortable to listen to, and is made worse by a less than great reproduction. I tend to also throw in Nirvana, Led Zep, Beethoven, Chopin, and some dodgy pop music. But what I look for there is mostly whether the equipment isn't killing the thing I love.