General
These are some tracks that can be used as a first-check. These tracks are generally well-recorded and mastered, so they give you a first impression of what problems you might be faced with before digging into other tracks to look for details.
Artist: Jennifer Warnes
Album: Famous Blue Raincoat
Track: Bird on a Wire
Label: BMG International
Comments: This has been called the best recording… ever. (Don’t write to tell me that you think that the Beatles are better than Jennifer Warnes – I’m talking about the recording quality here…) Ask people who work in the pro audio industry (recording engineers and studio people…) and no one will not have heard this recording. Personally, I would estimate that I have heard this tune, on average, at least once per day, since about 1990. Of course, some days I don’t hear it at all, other days, I’ll listen to it 20 or 30 times… (No, I’m not exaggerating…) This track has lots going for it – great imaging, good timbre on each of the instruments and voices, nothing is overly compressed. And, on top of it all, the tune and its performance are great. If you don’t have this album, go out any buy it. Now.
Regarding imaging: I actually keep a “map” of where the instruments are placed in this recording (update: I’ve drawn the map, if you’d like to take a look. It’s at this posting.). The first tomtom is about 10 degrees to the left of centre; the backup vocal is about 15 degrees to the right of centre; there are different triangles – one about 15 deg to the left, the other about 25 deg to the right; the choir spreads far left and right, but behind everything else in the mix, and with a hole in the centre to make room for the lead vocal; the bongos are on the far right; the sax is just to the right of centre; the shaker is about 10-15 degrees to the left…. etc etc….
Regarding timbre: there are a couple of things to listen for. The first is the crack of the very first tomtom. It should have a very clean attack, which is immediately followed by the low end of the drum blooming behind it. It shouldn’t sound like a kick drum – it’s got high end on the attack and low end underneath it. The second tomtom, positioned to the right of centre, is similar. Both drums should feel like they’re surrounded by air – not constricted to a small space.
Artist: Robert Shaw, The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Album: Stravinsky: The Firebird
Track: Infernal Dance of King Kastchei
Label: Telarc
Comments: This, like Bird on a Wire, is one of the historically GREAT recordings. This one is from the early days of digital recording, made using a custom-built recording system that had to be tweaked by hand at the recording sessions. It has been re-released on stereo SACD which sounds much better than the original CD release (both on the SACD and CD layer) due to better sampling rate conversion from the original 50 kHz recording. Lots has been written about this recording by the original recording engineer, Jack Renner – a “what to listen for” guide. Unfortunately, although I have a paper copy of this, I haven’t found it online, and I’m certainly not able to re-distribute it due to copyright issues.
Some things to listen for: the first attack of the orchestra. Stravinsky sometimes used the entire orchestra as a single percussion instrument. This piece is a perfect example of this – and it should feel like it – your tweeters should not sound like they’re working hard to reproduce the piccolo. The front desk of violins should sound close, but not grating. Also, the xylophone should sound distant (compared with the front strings) and about 10 – 15 degrees to the left. The brass should also sound distant, but all of the instruments, regardless of distance, sound like they’re in the same room.
Artist: Lyle Lovett
Album: Joshua Judges Ruth
Track: She’s Already Made Up Her Mind
Label: Curb / MCA
Comments: This is a good track for two reasons. The bass, when it comes in, sits underneath the whole recording and holds it up like a foundation of a house. It’s never overpowering, but always present. Also, if you have any problem with ringing or resonances in the upper bass / low midrange region in your speakers or room, the guitar will make them audible… This recording was made by the same guy that mixed “Bird on a Wire.”
Artist: Bette Midler
Album: Some People’s Lives
Track: Miss Otis Regrets
Label: Atlantic
Why: It’s a bright, but clean big-band recording of a great arrangement of this classic Cole Porter tune
Artist: Various
Artist: Minnesota Orchestra, Eiji Oue
Album: Tutti! Orchestral Sampler
Track: Dance of the Tumblers
Label: Reference Recordings
Why: Clean recordings with attention paid to the technical details
Artist: Densil Pinnock and Bill Coon
Album: Mona Lisa
Track: Corcovado
Label: Verve / ERC
Comments: I use this recording a lot because I recorded it, which means that I know what the intentions of the artists were, because I was one of them… This was a great CD to work on, because the producer and the duo gave me complete license to try whatever I wanted in terms of microphone technique, recording style, processing… etc. In the case of this particular track, there were three microphones on the voice (two condenser omni’s and a bidirectional ribbon) which were moved and balanced to get the imaging and timbre (no panning, and no eq!). There were 6 microphones on the guitar (yes, 6…) two on the neck for the squeaky left hand movements, two on the strings near the right hand and two for the body of the guitar. All 6 were condensers of various polar patterns. The feeling you should get with this track is the voice on the left, the guitar on the right (with the guitar neck a little further out than the body and picking), both of them slightly in front of the speakers. Oh, and the speaker locations shouldn’t be easily audible.
Artist: Les Idées heureuses
Album: Christoph Graupner – Musique instrumentale et vocale, vol.1
Track: Concerto pour basson, deux violons, alto et basse continue en si bémol majeur, GWV 340 (vers 1731) : III. Allegro
Label: Analekta
Comments: This is another one of my own recordings. This was done in a church, north of Montreal, with 4 microphones (Sennheiser MKH20’s with a separation of about 2 m as the main pair and B&K (now DPA Microphones) 4006 as the outriggers, each placed about 2 m on either side of the main pair) and no additional processing (no eq, no compression, no reverberation…. nothing) The sound should be spacious and a bit “phasy”, but the bassoon should be reasonably easy to locate in the centre. However, it will move left and right a little bit due to the spaced omni’s technique exaggerating small movements of the performer.
Artist: Claire Martin (no relation)
Album: Too Darn Hot!
Track: Black Coffee
Label: Linn Records
Comments: I use this track almost every day to check loudspeakers. It doesn’t have a huge crest factor, but it’s a good recording nonetheless. Tight, deep electric bass, nice job on the vocals, and generally a good recording. One nice thing about this is that, if you buy the SACD, you also get a multichannel version!
Artist: Helge Lien Trio
Album: Hello Troll
Track: Troozee
Label: Linn Records
Comments: None yet… but BOY is it good!!
Artist: Octarium
Album: Essentials
Track: Sing Me To Heaven
Label: ??
Comments: This is an excellent performance and a great recording of a beautiful piece of music. The interesting thing here is that Octarium is an octet (no surprise there), so you get a recording choral music with the added benefit of imaging, since there are so few voices to identify. The placement of the singers in the stereo sound stage appears to be well-thought out by the engineer with a great perception of distance and therefore depth in the reflections and reverberant tail.
Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter
Album: Songs From The Movie
Track: Mrs. Hemingway
Label: Zoe Records
Comments: This recording was done at Lyndhurst Hall at Air Studios in London, which is a very nice room indeed. The engineer did a great job of the overall presentation of the orchestra without it sounding in-your-face or too distant. There is a lovely breadth to the ensemble that never feels claustrophobic. The vocals are nicely recorded without just enough proximity effect to warm them up, and presented in front of the orchestra. Note that there is an audible noise floor in this recording. Also note that (at least in the Spotify version) there is an occasional weird distortion that sounds a little like aliasing around 7-10 kHz (for example – listen to the high end on the oboe solo at 00:06 – 00:08). I don’t know if that’s in the original recording or just an artefact of the Ogg Vorbis codec fighting with something in the recording (like noise shaping, for example?) because my “real” copy hasn’t arrived yet.
Artist: Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band
Album: Swingin’ For The Fences
Track: Sing Sang Sung
Label: Silverline
Comments:
Artist: Jason Mraz
Album: We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.
Track: Butterfly
Label: Atlantic
Comments:
Artist: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Album: Shostakovich: The Jazz Album
Track: Jazz Suite No. 2: 6. Waltz II
Label: Decca
Comments:
Artist: Tower of Power
Album: Great American Soulbook
Track: Me & Mrs. Jones
Label: Top Records
Comments:
Artist: Cassandre McKinley, Stephen Angellis, Marty Ballou, Vincent Pagano
Album: Til Tomorrow (Remembering Marvin Gaye)
Track: I Wish It Would Rain
Label: Maxjazz
Comments:
Artist: Ray Brown, André Previn, Jow Pass
Album:After Hours
Track: All The Things You Are
Label: Telarc International
Comments:
Artist: Quatour Ébène
Album: Debussy, Fauré & Ravel: String Quartets
Track: String Quartet in F Major: II. Assez vif – Très rythmé
Label: EMI Records / Virgin Classics
Comments:
Artist: Hebrides Ensemble
Album: Olivier Messiaen: Chamber Works
Track: Quatuor pour la fin du Temps – I Liturgie de cristal
Label: Linn Records
Comments:
Treble
Artist: Michela Petri
Album: The Ultimate Recorder Collection
Track: Tartini: Sonata in G Minor – “Devil’s Trill”
Label: RCA Red Seal
Why: This is a wonderfully clean recording – it makes bad tweeters sound really bad…
Artist: Phillip Bush
Album: Ben Johnson: Microtonal Piano
Track: Alarum
Label: Koch
Comments: This is a strange-sounding track because it uses a piano that is tuned differently that that which we’re used to hearing. On the other hand, it means that the harmonics are also tuned differently. If you have any “intermodulation distortion” problems in your tweeters (this is distortion – or junk – that is caused by two different tones affecting each other) then this track will probably make things sound really bad… You should be able to listen to this track and hear a buzzing inside your ears – this is good. If you hear the buzzing in your speakers, you have a problem. Note however, that you might hear some very brief clipping at one point in this track… Just ignore it.
High Midrange
Artist: Joss Stone
Album: The Soul Sessions
Track: The Chokin’ Kind
Label: Virgin
Comment: This is a pretty aggressive-sounding vocal recording, although it’s clean. If your loudspeakers are “peaky” in the upper mids, this track is going to be pretty annoying.
Low Midrange
Artist: Elaine Elias
Album: Brazilian Classics
Track: Chega de Saudade
Label: Blue Note
Comment: If your loudspeakers have any kind of a bump in the 100 – 200 Hz territory, this track will sound terrible!
Bass
This is a collection of tracks that can be used to show off (and break…) your woofers and/or subwoofer(s). Beware: when I talk about “bass” I mean REAL bass. Not that silly pretend-bass 80 Hz oomph that you hear coming from a souped-up Honda with tinted windows as it drives down your street. I mean stuff an octave or two lower than that – it should make it feel like a giant is squeezing your listening room from the outside.
Artist: Paula Cole
Album: This Fire
Track: Tiger
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Comments: This is a great track for “testing” (translation: “breaking”) subwoofers. Then again, if you have a good system – or at least, properly protected one – you shouldn’t be able to break the sub – just go deaf trying… (N.B. I will not be held responsible for you causing your own deafness by trying to break your subwoofer… You’ll have no one to blame but yourself.)
Artist: Aaron Neville
Album: Warm Your Heart
Track: I Bid You Goodnight
Label: A&M
Why: Another great recording from George Massenburg – the kick drum is perfect…
Artist: Deadmau5
Track: Ghosts N Stuff
Comments: To be honest, I hate having to recommend that you buy anything by Deadmau5, but this is a good track for testing. The one thing to beware of is that one of the effects in the mix is heavy compressor pumping, so you’ll have to learn to ignore that…
Artist: Nora Jones
Album: Come Away With Me
Track: Turn Me On
Label: Blue Note
Despite the fact that this album has distortion all over the place – particularly on the voice, the low end of the kick drum in this track is worth hearing.
Artist: Pat Methany & Charlie Hayden
Album: Beyond the Missouri Sky
Track: Cinema Paradiso
Label: Verve
Why: This is just a good album – great recording of a great performance…
Artist: Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops
Album: Time Warp
Track: Theme from Battlestar Galactica
Label: Telarc
Comments: Okay, so this isn’t the most challenging piece of music in history, but the low end is nice on this recording.
Artist: The Minnesota Orchestra – Eiji Oue, cond.
Album: Minnesota Orchestra Showcase
Track: The Firebird Suite: Excerpt
Label: Reference Recordings
Comments: The early-80’s 50 kHz Telarc recording of the Firebird (get the SACD version with the better sampling rate conversion if you’re looking for it) is good. But the low end on this recording is better – or at least lower…
Artist: Herbie Hancock, John Legend, P!nk
Album: The Imagine Project
Track: Don’t Give Up
Comments: This whole album is worth buying, if only for the sound. The fact that the performances and the musicians are amazing is a bonus!
Artist: Tower of Power
Album: Souled Out
Track: Diggin’ on James Brown
Artist: Bill Champlin
Album: Mayday (Live)
Track: Bass Solo
Artist: Lady GaGa & Colby O’Donis
Album: The Fame Monster (Deluxe Version)
Track: Just Dance
Artist: Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band
Album: XXL
Track: High Maintenance
Comments: Tight band, good (if closely-mic’ed) recording. Punchy mid-bass and, if you’ve got real woofers, REAL low-frequency content.
Air and “Openness”
Artist: Tonu Karljuste, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Album: Arvo Pärt: Te Deum
Track: Te Deum
Label: ECM
Comments: This is another recording with a great feeling of the space around the ensemble. It’s also very, very quiet… so if you have noise in your system, you’ll find it annoying with this track.
Artist: Trevor Pinnock & The European Brandenburg Ensemble
Album: Bach: Six Concertos for the Margrave of Brandenburg
Track: Any of them…
Label: Avie
Why: Air, space. This is the best recording of the Brandenburgs that I have ever heard. Just buy it.
Artist: Karina Gauvin, Luc Beausejour
Album: Bach: Little Notebook for Anna-Magdelena
Track: Willst du dein Hertz mir schenken
Label: Analekta
Comments: This was recorded in the same church outside Montreal as the Graupner track mentioned above. I didn’t record this, but I wish that I had… One of my favourite recordings. The voice is clean clean clean – and sounds like it on a great pair of headphones or loudspeakers. The upper end of the harpsichord sparkles, and you can get a real feeling of the size of space that they’re in. It’s not a big church – but it sounds great.
Artist: Scottish Ensemble
Album: Ravel / Shostakovitch
Track: Petite Symphonies a Cordes (Assez vif – tres rythme)
Label: Linn Records
Why: It’s good. :-) It’s also on the SACD layer as a 4.1 recording.
Imaging
Artist: AC/DC
Album: Back in Black
Track: Back in Black
Label: Atlantic
Comments: Okay, so this ISN’T a great recording, but it has some problems that, if you can’t hear them, your system isn’t performing up-to-snuff. One of the things to listen for here is the image location of the high-hat. Listen to the beginning of the tune, close your eyes, and point to the high-hat, but do this before the snare drum comes in. When the snare starts, keep paying attention to the high hat. If your imaging is good, you’ll notice that the high hat pulls towards the centre of your stereo image every time the snare is hit. This is an artifact of the original recording, the result of a technique called “gating” the drums. Normally, the snare drum microphone is “off” and automatically turns “on” when the snare is hit. The problem here is that, when it does turn on, other things (like the high hat) bleed into it, and are pulled to the position of the snare drum microphone.
Spaciousness
Artist: Tonu Karljuste, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Album: Arvo Pärt: Te Deum
Track: Te Deum
Label: ECM
Comments: This a recording with a great feeling of the space around the ensemble. It’s also very, very quiet… so if you have noise in your system, you’ll find it annoying with this track
Artist: L’ensemble des idées heureuses
Album: Instrumental and Vocal Music, Vol. 1 (Graupner)
Track: Cantate “Ach Gott Und Herr”
Label: Analekta
Comments:
Punch
Artist: Shirley Caesar featuring John P. Kee
Album: Stand Still
Track: Stand Still (Album Version)
Label: Sony
Comments:
Artist: Steely Dan
Album: Two Against Nature
Track: Cousin Dupree
Label: Giant Records
Comments:
Artist: Tower of Power
Album:Souled Out
Track: Diggin’ On James Brown
Label: Sony
Comments:
Artist: Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band
Album: That’s How We Roll
Track: Rippin’ n Runnin’
Label: Telarc
Comments:
Artist: Rage Against the Machine
Album: Rage Against the Machine
Track: Take The Power Back
Label: Sony
Comments:
Artist: Simply Red
Album: The Greatest Hits
Track: Money’s Too Tight – To Mention (2008 Remastered Version)
Label: Simplyred.com Ltd.
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