Great Mixes to Emulate

Hey all,
 
It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to listen to commercial mixes without cringing...much less seeing their waveforms.  They're just grating.  I've been trying to implement the K System recently, and at the moment, I'm using some tracks from Aaron Neville "Warm Your Heart" from 1991 as a goal that I've been importing into projects.  A little before the loudness wars went insane, it's quiet by today's commercial standards, but happily, I find that I'm using only about 1-2 dB occasional limiting on the master bus, and very little to no track compression on my latest effort, which I think is a great thing.  The goal is that the mix should be right and that "mastering" should not have to rescue anything too much.  The most difficult thing however, is to remind your ears that louder is not better.
 
Donny

There are two different things going on here, great mixes and great mastering. Don't confuse the two. Firstly with great mixes that will always be an inspiration and one should listen to great mixes. It will make you mix better and it gives you something to strive for yourself. (Steely Dan = Great Mixes)
 
Using the K system is separate to mastering. You can use the K system right through a project right up to the final pre mastered mix. eg I might be using a K-14 reference so my tracks and buses and final stereo master are up at K-14. Great.
 
Mastering however is a different story. I then take my K-14 master and push it up through mastering to a higher average rms value eg K-7 for example which is what I know I can get to easily without smashing the master and still sounding great and that is where a lot of commercial CD's seem to be at. This is where a decent limiter comes in and something like the PSP Xenon can do just that. It is still possible to have a loud master and still have nice transients. For example I have been listening to Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous' album in my car. That is LOUD  but yet it is still snappy and very transient. It can be done. (BTW the vocals are mixed too low on that album, period! What was he thinking! It sounds stupid. They obviously must have been going through a lets bury the vocals down in the music phase but there are some killer grooves in there though)
 
Yes it would be nice to just leave the final master alone eg K-14 and stop right there. People would have turn up their Hi Fi's loud in order to hear a loud mix which is obviously the better way to go. So it is at this point that the K system actually steps out of the equation and you either just leave it at K-14 and be done with it or gradually raise that level and then by how much. 
 
Just out of interest the Steel Dan's CD 'Everything Must Go' is sitting at around K-12 which is rather nice and a refreshing change. They obviously decided not to push it too far.

doncolga
It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to listen to commercial mixes without cringing...much less seeing their waveforms.  They're just grating.

 
I agree.  Looking at waveforms of some classic stuff, it seems that maxed-out saturation was something only used sparingly and in short sections of a song, maybe on the first bar of a verse or chorus or during a transition.  The result was far more effective than routinely using it all the way through the song.

You can't really go wrong listening to anything recorded by Al Schmitt. I'm kind of obsessed with that guy. He's a breed of engineer we'll likely never see again - I hope his friends and colleagues hassle him daily to publish books and videos of his techniques and thought patterns, otherwise the world will lose all of that knowledge and experience when he leaves us. Anyway, listen to Al's work - his work with Diana Krall, Natalie Cole, Ray Charles - hell, his work with anyone - is outstanding!

Donald Fagen's latest album is very tasty mix-wise. Was just listening to Miss Marlene...such a balanced frequencies and everything sits so perfectly in the mix. The mid range is beautiful and the kick is just about perfect. 
 
Steely Dan's "Janie Runaway" really impresses me as well. The bottom end is perfect. The whole mix is ear candy. 

One album I like to make constant reference to is Marillion's Misplaced Childhood
 
It also helps that it's a damned fine album!

I just rip whatever off the net. Like in billboard.com.
Sure, the quality sucks but you get the jist of it.