The best mastered albums

Audio mastering is only the final step in music production. A key step of course, but not the only one. A great album needs different ingredients, from the audio point of view; these are related not only to the audio mastering stage, but overall to the tracking and mixing stages. The main ingredients that shouldn’t be missing in a great sounding album are the following:

1. Coherence between the sound and the perceived volume of the various tracks
2. Limited or, even better, absent background hiss and noises
3. Tonal balance. Frequencies should be balanced, depending however on the instruments placed in use
4. Macro dynamics balance. The loudness differences between the different parts of the tracks should be relevant but not excessive
5. Micro dynamics balance. The loudness differences between transients and regular volume instruments should be relevant but not excessive
6. Variety of deepness. Some instruments should be perceived as “far”, others as “close”
7. Stereo wideness. The sound should come from all the directions, but particularly from the center, in order to be wide without losing the impact

These requirements are only examples of what it takes to create a great sounding album. Moreover, these requisites vary depending on the album musical genre. For example, considering rock and metal music, in order to obtain a more aggressive sound, almost every instruments should be perceived “in the face”, that means very close to the listener. At the same time, transients (kick, snare…) should be very strong, to give impact to the music. Jazz needs kind of the opposite requirements. Instruments should sound a bit “far”, in order to give a strong sense of ambience and space; also, transients should be contained, to obtain a sweeter sound.
Giving these considerations, it’s easy to understand that an ideal sound simply does not exist! Everything depends on genre, artist intentions, listener preferences and tastes. Music is art, not science!
For these reasons and more, the following records list does not want to be “objective”, but simply reflects my tastes.
Here is a list of the albums that I consider the best-recorded, mixed and mastered albums of history.

My list of audio mastering masterpieces

Artist	Album	Year	Mastering
Afterhours	Quello che non c’è	2002	Paul Libson
Alice in Chains	MTV unplugged	1996	Stephen Marcussen
Daft Punk	Random access memories	2013	Bob Ludwig
Deftones	Diamond eyes	2010	Ted Jensen
Dinosaur Jr.	Hand it over	1997	Greg Calbi
Dinosaur Jr.	Where you been	1993	Daniel Hersch
Eagles	The long run	1979	Ted Jensen
Eryka Badu	Live	1997	Tom Coyne
John Coltrane	Africa / brass	1961	NA
Karate	Pockets	2004	Jeff Lipton
Karate	Concerto al barchessone vecchio	2003	NA
Kyuss	…And the circus leaves the town	1995	Eddy Schreyer
Kyuss	Welcome to the sky valley	1994	Eddy Schreyer
Mad Season	Above	1995	Howie Weinberg
Massive Attack	Heligoland	2010	Tim Young
Massive Attack	Mezzanine	1998	Tim Young
Miles Davis	Bitches brew	1970	NA
Monster Magnet	Powertrip	1998	Stephen Marcussen
Neil Young	Are you passionate?	2002	Denny Purcell
Neil Young	Zuma	1975	NA
Nirvana	Nevermind	1991	Howie Weinberg
Paolo Benvegnù	Earth hotel	2014	Giovanni Versari
Pixies	Surfer rosa	1988	NA
PJ Harvey	Stories form the city, stories from the sea	2000	Howie Weinberg
Porno For Pyros	Good god’s urge	1996	Dave Collins
Soft Machine	Seven	1974	Paschal Byrne
Soft Machine	Six	1973	Paschal Byrne
Sonic Youth	Sonic nurse	2004	John Golden
Sonic Youth	A thousand leaves	1998	Greg Calbi
Sonic Youth	Dirty	1992	Howie Weinberg
Stephan Bodzin	Powers of ten	2015	Steffen Müller-Gärtner