what's your favorite song/songs to test speakers with

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pucho812

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this is a thread about songs you use to test speakers with and maybe why you use these songs.

Here are a few songs I usually use to evaluate speakers and why

1. Calling Elvis by Mark knopfler/dire straits
The low end on this mix is just dialed in so well. Especially when the tom groove kicks in and the oscillator gets triggered. Really good for evaluating low end

2.Sambaduro by Sergio Mendez
This is good for checking stereo Image and is a well balanced mix that has nice upper Frequency shakers and other percussion that on a good system are clear to my ears and not cloudy like on certain powered monitors I have heard it on

3.Aja  By Steely Dan
Over obsessive recording and mixing make this a great song for speaker evaluation in my book

4. A few songs I recorded which I reference.
 
"Tony" by Patti Griffin.  Great songwriting, playing, recording, mixing, and mastering.

Anything off of Al Stewart's Year of the Cat LP.  Alan Parsons and Abbey Road at their finest.  Great guitar sounds, both acoustic and electric.

Pretty much anything by The Beatles because I know all the songs so well and have heard them on a myriad of playback systems.

"Sloop John B" by The Beach Boys and pretty much anything else by them from that period.

August and Everything Else by the Counting Crows.

"When the Levee Breaks" for the sheer enjoyment of the drum sounds.

Glenn Gould for solo classical piano sounds.

Blood on the Tracks by Dylan.

There are a lot more, but these have served me well.

Cheers,
--
Don








 
Missing (Todd Terry Remix) ... by Everything but the Girl
Walking Wounded ... by Everything but the Girl
We Let the Starts Go ... by Prefab Sprout

and

No Tengo Nada Mejor .... by Astrud Gilberto
(because I Haven't Got Anything Better to Do)

and some other by Dave Cleveland, Acoustic Alchemy
 
Jude Cole : Time For Letting Go
great sounding mixes all around. 

Toy Matinee : Toy Matinee
The Ballad of Jenny Ledge - Bass & stereo image & depth imaging (delays, etc)

Jackson Browne : Looking East & I'm Alive
I just know these records a little too well.


 
Well, anything that you know really well is a good start ..... here's a few fav's

Sunny Came Home - Shawn Colvin
You and the Mona Lisa - Shawn Colvin

These are beautiful recordings with great real Kit/Bass and lots of detail and stereo placement
on the acoustic and electric guitars, they show up crap speakers in an instant !

Losing Grip - Avril Levigne

A bit plastic but I record a lot of "girls with guitars" so it's a good test of that gtr/pop sound and I know
it backwards !

The Nightfly - Donald Fagin ..... need I say more ? :)

Smack my bitch up - Prodigy  ... full on and in yer face with great drum track  :mad: :mad:
 
I love playing "Stage fright" by The Band through the PA before a live gig. It's even better when there is a couple of the bands around.  ;D

Rob
 
The Naked City / John Zorn CD with all those movietunes-interpretations is imho a convenient combination
of well-recorded soft clear yet warm tunes on one side & bursts of total mayhem on the other side.
Often even within one song, compact!

Bye,

  Peter
 
Drop the Bass , by DJ MAgic Mike,........just kidding.


Ryan Adams Easy Tiger. both beautiful recording and enjoyable. modern but classic. from the beginning of the cd.


test speakers with pink noise cd I made. the pink noise in protools is actually very poor. how do you mess up pink noise? got burned a few times.
 
Camper Van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie

Laundromat sounds great on good systems, sounds horrible on systems with any sizzle or shrillness.

If the intro to Flowers doesn't kick you in the stomach, then you have a sloppy bottom or the speakers are too polite.

Lot's of artificial sounding percussion (like punchy, compressed samples) happening to test transients too (Jack Ruby, June, Humid Press of Days)

Good overall mixture of genres too, from 80's grunge to mellow country to sparse acoustic.
 
MartyMart said:
Well, anything that you know really well is a good start ....

Sunny Came Home - Shawn Colvin
You and the Mona Lisa - Shawn Colvin

;D  I played those tracks to death when I was working on my first power amp.  They were good choices for the reasons you mentioned.  I overdid it a bit and drove my 2nd wife nuts!  I don't have the album anymore.
Strangely. it was one of the ones she took when she left?? 



 
amorris@home said:
test speakers with pink noise cd I made. the pink noise in protools is actually very poor. how do you mess up pink noise? got burned a few times.

It's pro tools, they mess up just about everything but good marketing and ease of use have sold it to the masses.


Lately I have been doing a bunch of speaker evaluations at the component level(mainly drivers and other actual speakers). I have found using mono material to be good for that as it checks for constancy between to sets of drivers. Not super scientific but good enough for basic evaluations. After all there should be no change between the drivers on the left or right.
 
I use quite a few. Combinations of the following:

Janet Jackson - Velvet Rope - any track, the mo' crazy the better, some of these are just demanding of loudspeakers for pop mixes. Some of my fav. production of all time, amazing mixes from Steve Hodge. Great to test overall tonality, bottom end, transient punch, vocal sibilance, edginess, imaging, depth etc...really this record has it all...reverb detail - I wish I could mix like him.

Ben Harper - Fight for your Mind - punchy drum room, good to see a speaker deliver transient info between kick and bass.

D'Angelo - How does it feel - another good one for checking stopping power and bottom end tightness. Following everynote of Raphael Saadiqs bassline on small speakers is a great test for me.

Dr. John - Sweet Home New Orleans - stomping brass section, vocal presence, great for testing overall fidelity and vocal presentation.

Kelly Joe Phelps - Slingshot Professionals (any track) - fantastic acoustic recording, a good one for harmonics, imaging and clarity.

Anthony Hamilton - Float - great for vocal detail and imaging, some great BV stacks in this. Awesome RnB mix from Phil Tan (IIRC).

Michael Jackson - Earth Song - OK not everyones fav, but great for testing overall size and bottom end extension, loving the basslines from Guy Pratt.

Maxwell - The Urban Theme, Suite Theme... guaranteed to make any speaker sound good, great speakers just get unbelievable... this is pure hifi...fullrange.

Guns n' Roses - Rocket Queen - my fav rock record. But great tones all round. Crank it as loud as possible to see if the speaker adds anything fatiguing, normally this record can be super loud and not tire me out.

Dre - 2001 - gives me a good impression about how hard a speaker can hit. New Eminem album good for that too. Dre is a beast.

Whatever mix I worked on last...most important of all.

Some things I know are bad but good to hear:

Joshua Redman - Momentum - nice sounding mixes I imagine but has a fair bit of distortion from mastering which isn't always revealed... ATC's make this hard to ignore.

John Mayer - Continuum - love this record but it has pretty sibilant vocals which some speakers can mask, also quite bass heavy. Vultures especially good bottom end reference. Slow Dancing is good at revealing detail, spring reverb tails and also amp buzz.

Pendulum - Slam - the half time intro is great for listening to how quickly the woofer will stop after the sub drops. But I don't like the rest...

There's more, some rock stuff but I can't be bothered to bore you anymore!

-Tom
 
I think Dave Reitzas tracked that. Here is the orchestra session:

Kashmir-orch-setup1998.jpg


Listen to it on his website, top corner skip to kashmir godzilla strings... sounds much better without puffys filtered ramblings over the top!

http://www.reitzas.com

-T
 
Calling Elvis!  That whole record is fantastic.  Not mp3 on my mac.
I use a disk by the Wiyos, a ragtime vaudville band which my friend recorded live straight to 1" 2 track; nothing digital till it hit the CD.
Catch them opening for Dylan this summer- they are a gas!
I also like the tracks George Augspurger uses to tune a room- The Boxer and Lionel Richie's Serves You Right.

Marty is so right that it has to be a constant that you know.
Mike
 
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